Making a Consistent Pitch Deck: All Hands on Deck

The pitch deck is the best way to impress interested prospects and help you to look buttoned up. As we face the headwinds of the current economy, it is necessary to get “all hands on deck”. Your team must be brought onboard to understand and align with your vision if you want it to succeed.

Professionals devote countless hours to seeking out new opportunities. Seeing their projects through to completion, they tend to spend less time preparing pitch decks to clients and investors. The pitch deck is typically a PowerPoint presentation that tells your story and clarifies your process and value to your potential stakeholder.
 

Brand Schizophrenia:

Many team members can be involved in developing a successful pitch deck. The purpose and recipient may vary; however, these presentations act as ambassadors for your brand. The task of putting the presentation together can’t be left until the last minute. You need to handle this with care. Reinventing various iterations of your Brand Story is a waste of precious time and you miss out on building brand equity. Presenting a consistent narrative that speaks to your value and company values will help build your clients trust.
 

A Branded Template:

Consider providing your team with a template, which is a toolbox of visual assets, and then training them to use it. Creating a well-designed presentation template involves careful research, thought, and feedback from the marketing team which will become the physical embodiment of the brand. This template should be designed to incorporate your content and be consistent in look and tone. It will highlight your businesses core values that will help your audience better understand who you are and what you represent. Companies may also consider adding a photo library as part of the branded visual assets that will help to define your company.
 

Take a Deeper Look:

Our businesses have multiple audiences looking at us for different purposes.

Personas are fictional characters that represent the different user types who engage with your brands or products. Those characters prove useful in framing the goals, desires, and even the limitations faced by the users. Your pitch should be agile in consideration of these personas allowing the presenters to pivot as needed while remaining true to the brand.
 

Scenarios:

Describe how different users (personas) engage with your product or service. Seeing things from the user’s perspective will allow you to map the journey so that you can best understand how to meet their needs and expectations.
 

The Critical Step:

Bring your team together to socialize your presentation internally. Train everyone to use the new template. This will empower your team by giving them the tools to act as one. The key to smooth sailing in the recovering marketplace is alignment. What does your current deck say about you?

Article by Janet Odgis, Odgis + Company

Read this article on LinkedIn. See also Secrets to a Perfect Pitch Deck and Cure for the Common Presentation.

Odgis + Co is an award-winning certified woman-owned brand design studio based in New York City. We Make Business Beautiful.