Are your pitch decks too long? Yes. Yes they are …

The ideal sales pitch is zero pages long. In a perfect world you would connect with your prospect, explain your offer and close. Which means that you would not need any collateral to support your sales pitch.

With that in mind, the bar for the perfect pitch deck is set at zero slides, and you add more content as needed, with a diminishing chance of success as more slides are added. 

Think about it like this. Ideally you would like to sell your product/service using only an “elevator pitch”. Anything else added to that short sales statement is treated as rambling and the attention of your prospect quickly begins to diminish or disappear altogether as those elevator doors open.

You might be thinking that what you are offering cannot be stated in a quick elevator pitch and that could very well be true. But your end goal would still be the same; to use the minimal amount of time/slides to convey your offer. 

To do this, you have to have a better understanding of what you hope to achieve with your deck. Is it to : secure a followup meeting? Make the shortlist? Draw attention to a project? Toss your name in the hat? Gain brand exposure? Something else?

The more you add to your pitch, the less likely it is to be read in full

The problem is that we start with one of the goals listed above, but then quickly digress into a “Win All” mentality causing us to stuff our proposals with more than is needed. The more you add to your pitch, the less likely it is to be read in full. Note that I am not talking about making sure that the proposal requirements are included; I am specifically referring to the volume of content needed to address those requirements.

Succinctly answer to requirements and weave them into your story of why you are the best option for your prospect. There is absolutely no need to offer beyond requirements, unless you are demonstrating scalability. Even then, be mindful to not go overboard to lose your reader past the requirements.

Your reader came to the table with a series of checkboxes that need to be checked. If you veer too far off from those requirements then you take the risk of losing the focus of your reader. If it can be left off for a future conversation then it should be left out of your proposal. 

I hear sales reps groaning already. This is the part where you’ll tell me that, often ‘the prospect doesn’t know what they want.’ or ‘the requirements are not realistic’. Believe me when I say that while what you say might be true; it isn’t absolutely true. Conglomerates go through extensive self assessment to determine requirements prior to publishing an RFP. Yes, they may be reaching beyond their grasp, but that’s to be expected when soliciting for the best vendor. Your job, as a responder however, isn’t to undermine that process. When faced with situations like this, you should still continue to provide solutions for the challenges outlined in the RFP and offer discovery solutions to further refine requirements. Alternatively you can spear through and offer solutions contingent on a list of dependencies that you provide for review. But never presume to tell your prospect what they want as your proposal response, without addressing their requirements directly.

If an RFP identifies the next steps after submission, which is usually a short list, then your only goal is to provide enough salient information in the deck to secure a spot on the shortlist, where you can then present and flesh out the details of your initial pitch. 

The more you respect your reader’s time, the more they will respect your offer

It’s easy to mistake thinking that “more content means a better and fuller proposal”. In my experience, I’ve learned the opposite to be true. 

I came across this image a couple of years ago and I can only assume that these numbers are even tighter now with a shorter attention economy.

From the image you can determine that your proposal deck has a diminishing return on investment, the longer it runs. You want your reader to finish reading your proposal with marked memorable moments that stick with them long after the read. More on that here.

The data outlined in the image above should be enough to make you reassess the length for your pitch decks. Consider how much time, effort and money you invest in these decks. The thought that they are not fully read should be cause for concern. 

Slide count shouldn’t be your only focus. That same attention economy deficit applies to the number of words and graphics on your slides as well. We’ll explore this topic later. 

You have to constantly remind yourself that your reader cannot dedicate the same amount of attention to your proposal deck, as it took you and your team to put it together. Your team will read and comb through your proposal over and over again; based on everything we explored so far, you would be lucky if your prospect reads your proposal completely, let alone give it a second read. The first reading of your presentation should address the key requirements requested and be memorable enough to secure you a meeting where you can then explore the deeper offering of your proposal. 

This is going to be a recurring theme on this site, so let this be the first time you read it – ‘The more you respect your reader’s time, the more they will respect your offer’ 

Remind yourself of that the next time you conduct a slide count of your presentation.