Far too often a single presentation does the work of attracting, introducing and closing a prospective customer. This can result in presenting your features too early and you end up sounding like a commercial, or serving up a prospecting deck too late in the sales cycle and your solution looks light.

You must present information that’s relevant to your prospect’s stage in the sales cycle.

5 Types of Sales Presentations For Your Quiver

SlideRocket best practices call for a quiver of specialized sales decks. The reward for taking this approach is more sales leads, a higher lead-to-customer conversion rate and shorter sales cycles.

Here are the types of sales presentations we recommend:

1. Lead Generation Presentation

What?! Presentations aren’t for lead generation!

Sure they are! You just need to stop thinking of your presentation as a boring PowerPoint packed with bullets and text. Create presentations that are entertaining, informative, and self-service and you’ll find they generate leads much more effectively than sales cold calling.

A lead generation presentation should be brief (i.e., fewer than 10 slides), with a sharp design and compelling call-to-action that is a benefit to your prospect regardless of whether they ever buy your solution. You’re going to ask them to complete a short form, so no boring marketing content please!

2. Business Overview Presentation

For your first sales meeting with a prospect you’ll want to address their challenges, set your solution apart from the competition and provide the right amount of detail to get them excited that you may have the solution for them.

There are two natural points of tension with this presentation. You want to talk about your business, but not in too much detail. You also don’t want to talk only about your solution – balance that with context about the high-level challenge faced by your prospect.

3. Customized Presentation

This presentation is similar to the Business Overview Presentation, but is tailored to a specific customer segment. Only you know exactly how many customized presentations you will need to effectively speak to each of your target markets. These sales decks can also be inserted into your Solution Presentation and in some cases can double as your Business Overview Presentation.

4. Solution Presentation

This is your core presentation. Most companies do not need advice on what to cover in theses sales slides. Rather, they must remember to only use this deck after the prospect has seen the Business Overview Presentation, or has otherwise acquired an understanding of your business. In addition, you should know enough about their needs and constraints such that you can verbally connect that to your presentation.

5. Leave Behind

The sales slides that you “leave behind” for your prospect to share internally should be similar to your Solution or Business Overview Presentation. The key difference is that this presentation should be as “self-service” as possible since you won’t be there to provide context. Your slides will need to provide a little more detail and perhaps a navigation so viewers can choose topics relevant to them. Better yet, record voice-over on these slides and you’ll be sure your message is delivered.