Sales Training Series #16

Insights from recent trainings

Welcome back to another Sales Training series!

These posts are intended to give you access to some of the same golden nuggets I give clients during our training sessions.

Note: I intentionally keep the descriptions of my clients vague for privacy reasons.

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What we’re covering today

- Nailing the mock pitch structure step by step (the assignment hiring managers give you)

- The right and wrong way to do question stacking

- Framing the alternatives puts you in the high status position

- Subtle, but powerful language changes to a founders website and calls

- Avoid being the Rescuer for a Status Boost

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Nailing a mock pitch

A client reached out for help creating a mock pitch (standard part of the interview process for SaaS sales these days)

He had to create a mock pitch/presentation based on a scenario given to him and then present it to the hypothetical executive at the target company (i.e the hiring manager of the sales team)

This is a tough exercise but a necessary one because hiring the wrong person is expensive. It is also tough because you as the candidate have no idea of the technical knowledge of what they’re asking you to sell. But the point of this exercise is to see how you think and how you handle yourself live on the spot.

His deck wasn’t bad. He also dug deep to find old pitch decks online presented by the hiring companies CEO. This is a smart tactic.

However, it doesn’t mean it’s what the hiring manager wants to see.

Plus, a pitch deck found online that is created and presented by the CEO is often for investors .. not marketing leaders at retail companies! Totally different context requiring different approaches.

His structure / table of contents for the deck was initially:

1. Introductions

2. Proposed Agenda

3. About us

   1. Company logos (Clients they work with)

   2. Date founded

   3. Office locations / Headcount, etc

4. What we know so far

   1. 2-3 lines of the prospects current situation

5. The problem/opportunity

   1. A basic “You’re trying to achieve these 3 things. Here’s how our platform can help you do it ‘faster’ and more ‘efficiently’”

   2. 1-2 major trends i.e search volume for this type of product is on the rise The platform

6. Platform screenshots

7. Recommendations

8. Thank you

This isn’t bad.. it’s just not great in my opinion.

We needed to change a few major things..

The Structure

The new structure for the pitch was this: