
The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016) - grey-area
https://medium.com/the-mission/the-greatest-sales-deck-ive-ever-seen-4f4ef3391ba0
======
chank
>Zuora came up with the phrase “subscription economy” to name the trend in
which buyers increasingly choose recurring service payments over outright
purchases.

It's not a trend where buyers choose recurring payments, but where companies
only offer services through recurring payments.

~~~
Illniyar
A trend rarely happens on only one side of the demand-supply axis. There is
definitely a trend towards subscriptions, especially for SMBs, but enterprise
and individuals as well.

It's so much easier to pay a monthly or yearly fee then up front, especially
for companies - both in terms of cashflow , accounting practices and
stability.

Some companies has gone that route that have customers on both sides of the
aisle - adobe is one of them. Their choice alienated some part of their
customers, but be sure that many others were glad for the change - probably
big companies with shifting employee roster, or those who upgraded frequently.

~~~
tjoff
Sure they do. 3D TVs and bent TVs are two glaring examples of something people
never wanted. The only way companies could uphold that view was by ensuring
that no manufacturer had sensible alternatives - effectively forcing people
that wanted a TV to buy it. And then pretending that the sales were proof that
people wanted it.

It is the exact same with the majority of subscription services.

For a company I get that it is easier. But easier for an individual?

I walk twice around the earth before even considering a subscription service.
It cannot be simpler than pay once and you are done for life. The reason as to
why so few companies offer both is because it then becomes apparent how bad
the subscription value is.

~~~
Illniyar
err... are you implying that there are no alternatives in the market to 3D TVs
and bent TVs? As far as I know 3D TVs have basically gone out of market[1]
because no one bought them. It is actually the exact opposite of what you
suggested - they could not start a trend, even thought they tried to force it
on people, because there was no demand for it.

[1]-[https://www.cnet.com/news/shambling-corpse-of-3d-tv-
finally-...](https://www.cnet.com/news/shambling-corpse-of-3d-tv-finally-
falls-down-dead/)

~~~
setr
For about 5 years, any tv you found in an electronic store was 3D, and I have
yet to find a single person who claims to like them.

Today, every tv is a Smart TV, and yet again, I haven’t found anyone who
thought they weren’t awful

In cars theres the same issue with GPS systems: even luxury cars have awful
interfaces. Presumably tesla’s is decent (never tried), but otherwise the only
interface I’ve encountered yet that met the minimum requirement of a sensible
response time (let alone everything else) is a luxury jeep. Mercedes, priuses,
bmws, etc are all horrendous.

In phones, the aux ports and phablets

On the web, heavy js

In games, complex 3D graphics (this is very slowly changing, as indie devs
begin to realize games existed between 1980 and 2000)

This type of event, where the producers collectively decide what the consumers
want, and only produce it, and miss the mark by a mile, definetely exist
(these are just things I’m irrated by recently), though I assume incompetence
and babdwaggoning over any kind of real thinking going into this. (They didn’t
try to force a trend, they just all thought it _was_ the trend, due to
whatever terrible research they all do; hell, I’d bet there was one or two
marketing firms that were the root cause of most of these messes)

~~~
ghaff
>I have yet to find a single person who claims to like them

I like 3D well enough at least for the occasional novelty and film that uses
it well, e.g. Gravity. There is just about zero content available however. My
impression when I bought my TV was that there were certainly non-3D options
available. But I got a pre-Christmas deal and I paid about the same as for an
equivalent TV that didn't have 3D.

It's the same with Smart TVs. It doesn't really add to the cost of the TV. I
just never use the features.

I guess the latest trend is whatever resolution that's an additional increment
beyond the limits of human vision. Or maybe OLED.

I do understand that the TV manufacturers are really desperate to drive TV
upgrade cycles. The good news is that the new features are mostly harmless if
you need a new TV anyway.

~~~
OkGoDoIt
And the better news is that if you don’t actually care about these silly new
features you can get amazingly great TVs for next to nothing. I saw a 46 inch
4K LED smart TV at Costco for around $300. It didn’t have HDR (the current
trendy hotness in the top of the line TVs), so I guess it’s considered
substandard, but holy crap that’s a great deal.

~~~
abakker
I have one of the Visio ones. Yes, good screen, but never let one of those
things on your WiFi. Jeez.

------
Persuadem
I disagree with two things in the article.

1\. I disagree with the underlying premise of the article - the deck is
unimportant.

2\. I disagree with the reasoning given as to why it works.

Firstly the deck is unimportant because - as the ex-employee quoted at the end
said: the prospect is already sold thanks to the marketing and branding
campaigns run by Zuora. The deck is superfluous.

Secondly, the reasoning that Raskin often gives as to why this works is based
on the fact it follows the "storytelling" formula that Hollywood uses. He
liberally uses examples of Star Wars and other films in his articles.

But we aren't characters in a movie.

Rather than looking to what motivates characters in a movie to act as a model
for persuasive messaging, we are better looking at what persuades people to
act in real life.

Arguably religion and politics are the most persuasive forces on the planet.

And the real reason Zuora's message works is that it follows the same formula
(and has the same elements) as religious and political ideologies.

1\. There's a heaven and hell (for Zuora, heaven is thriving and getting more
customers and hell is losing one's business)

2\. There's a devil which is stopping us getting to heaven and sending us to
hell (for Zuora this is the traditional business model of single non-recurring
purchases)

3\. There's a doctrine that needs to be followed to get to heaven & avoid hell
(for Zuora that's the subscription business model)

4\. There's a leader that provides the tools and solutions necessary to
implement the doctrine and get to heaven (for Zuora this is their solution)

Viewing Zuora's success through this model, through this lense, makes more
sense than Raskin's model.

There are plenty of other examples. Hubspot is a great example - they used
(unconsciously) this model to sell the concept of inbound marketing. Check out
this article on the subject - [https://bit.ly/2Ov3NCT](https://bit.ly/2Ov3NCT)

~~~
PopeDotNinja
Speaking only for myself, when I'm an investor, I wanna know stuff like:

\- cost of customer acquisition

\- gross margins

\- revenue growth

\- size of market

\- yada yada

That being said, a slick pitch deck is nice to see. It makes me feel good,
which never hurts.

I only invest on the fundamentals of the business. If a startup had great
numbers AND their pitch deck sucked, I'd stikk give them the money. If I had
specific thoughts on how their pitch deck sucked, I might offer suggestions on
how they could improve.

~~~
beatgammit
From what I've read, that kind of stuff belongs at the end of the
presentation. Get them on board with the vision and the problem, then justify
it with figures they can use to justify buying in to your solution.

In short, appeal to emotion, support with reason.

------
martokus
The actual Zuora sales deck was uploaded to SlideShare after the article was
written in 2016.

Here it is [https://www.slideshare.net/ryangum/zuora-sales-
deck?qid=f249...](https://www.slideshare.net/ryangum/zuora-sales-
deck?qid=f2495ef7-92bd-4d7b-aed1-dbfaadbe0d73&v=&b=&from_search=9)

------
devonkim
So basically anyone that can understand the basics of a good salesman from
Wolf of Wallstreet can land deals better than the “moderate” personality types
that have been shown to statistically deliver better sales results for most
companies? Am I missing something about how those studies were conducted that
this emotionally based rather than fact-based approach is better at conversion
rates than a mix of approaches? On the flip side, is this why more successful
people have a habit of defaulting to “no”?

~~~
GiuseppaAcciaio
I wouldn't think this as an "either / or" approach: in my experience, a sales
pitch and a deck are very rarely the deciding factor in closing a sale,
however they can help tremendously.

The key aspect here is that a pitch like the one described is usually made to
very senior people in an organization, who have little time and mental
bandwidth to endure through a list of facts and figures and _shudder_ product
features: getting them invested in the result that would come from adopting
the product/service is the ultimate goal, not closing the sale at that stage.
You still need to do all of the good (i.e. fact-based) salesman work, but that
is done at a different time: either ahead of the executive presentation (in
which if you did things right you may have the buyer on your side in making a
case for using your product/service), or as a consequence of it.

To me what's interesting is not the deck itself, but the focus shown by the
company on sticking to their marketing points and on enabling their
salespeople to do their job more effectively (you have no idea how many times
I have had to figure out on my own what to answer to a prospect that was
asking "what makes your company/product/service different from any of your
competitors?"...).

------
njudah
I learned much of what I know about product marketing from Tien (CEO of
Zuora); as this thread demonstrates its hard for a lot of product / developer
folks to understand why its such an important part of any non-consumer
offering, as so much of customer development culture is focused exclusively on
metrics and optimization.

Immodestly I did a presentation on the topic at Heavybit a few years ago for
those that are interested in the topic:
[https://www.heavybit.com/library/video/platform-marketing-
wi...](https://www.heavybit.com/library/video/platform-marketing-with-dropbox-
and-salesforce/)

~~~
jerrre
Any pointers where to start, if I haven't read/seen anything (nor even heard
about) Tien, but I find it interesting to see what he has to say?

------
michaelt

      #1. Name a Big, Relevant Change in the World
      #2. Show There’ll Be Winners and Losers
    

Is it common someone will invite a Zuora sales rep to give them a
presentation, if they don't _already_ think they want to launch a subscription
product?

I would have guessed most people attending sales presentations would be
looking to fulfil a need they had already identified.

~~~
ww520
Enterprise sales typically involves some "champions" inside the customer's
companies looking for solutions to problems they currently have. They do have
the need already and vaguely know what the
needs/goals/benefits/challenges/costs are but not in crystal clear terms. They
are looking for "experts" i.e. you to come in to spell those out and educate
them. They are evaluating a bunch of companies and technologies. You have to
make your sales pitch stand out of the pack to get the deal.

Part of the sales process is to identify those internal "champions" and supply
whatever materials/ideas/education to them to make their jobs convincing the
others inside the organization easier.

A good sales deck like the one in OP makes a huge difference. I remember going
in with a sales guy to a big bank customer meeting once to pitch our pre-alpha
product (yes, we were still building it). My God, his sales deck was amazing.
I was convinced myself after listening to his presentation and wanted to buy
our product. We got the multi-million deal at the end, admittedly with lots of
help from engineering during the sales. :)

------
amjaeger
Amusing note, The "what is the common thread" slide literally shows the
promised land. It's a picture of Ben Gurion Airport in Israel.

------
drieddust
Can someone explain why this is so much noteworthy?

All I see is random messages pasted onto random backgrounds. I am not from
sales or marketing though.

~~~
floatrock
My first freshman physics class consisted of random symbols scribbled onto a
random blackboard. I was not from a physics background though.

The learning new stuff you're not familiar with is why it's noteworthy.

~~~
drieddust
Understand but the article fails to do that for me. I do want to learn this
stuff. Do you have any book/blog suggestions?

~~~
floatrock
The topic comes up relatively often on HN. Here's a thread from last month:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18241160](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18241160)

You may or may not resonate with this particular article's theory, but I like
seeing things like this posted here because you can collect more and more
examples. The textbooks will take you only so far though... ultimately you
need to go take the in-person exam.

------
manigandham
Sales is a complex art, and a story that resonates is extremely important.
People don't remember details, and they don't buy numbers or features. They
buy solutions, and sometimes that's an answer to a problem that they didn't
know they had.

Marketing to create customers requires that your audience agrees with your
premise in the first place, otherwise you'll never get to step 2. However, of
course everything is contextual and this approach is more about opening deals,
especially at large enterprise organizations. This is not something you would
send to a prospect's IT department, and is not meant to compete with a price-
features matrix, but rather it forms your company's brand and creates trust
and familiarity in your market.

I met the author Andy Raskin a few years back. He's a great guy and definitely
understands marketing, and I highly recommend taking his course in SF if you
get the chance.

------
mgamache
This strikes me as similar to a lot of investor pitch decks. It's not a bad
approach, but the 'visionary' parts might be difficult for some sales people.

------
jccalhoun
They just reinvented Monroe's Motivated Sequence.

~~~
yodon
Thanks for this - the writeups on Monroe's Motivated Sequence help me
understand why this deck works, and this deck helps me understand Monroe's
sequence (without this deck, it I came across most of the writeups on the the
sequence, I would have ignored them because they illustrate it so poorly)

------
jaxtellerSoA
Fantastic post! But can we please, please stop calling power point
presentations "decks".

~~~
SkyMarshal
Honest question, what’s the difference?

~~~
icelancer
He is just grumpy and doesn't like the term, for whatever reason.

~~~
asdff
No one knows what the hell you are talking about with the word "deck."

~~~
ralmeida
It comes from "slide decks", because not too far long ago, presentations were
made with actual 35mm transparencies which were _slid_ into a projector, and
were carried in decks.

------
sfilargi
Do you have any proof that the subscription economy trend is driven by the
consumers?

You totally jump the gun there!

~~~
gowld
It's a narrative flourish irrelevant whose accuracy is irrelevant to the
pitch, except that it sounds attractive to say "customers want this" vs
"customers are powerless to reject this". For a business, it matters that the
trend exists; the cause doesn't matter.

~~~
pbhjpbhj
Hmm, the cause does matter. If customers want it and you're not giving it the
risk is they'll go elsewhere to find it; that's why it is sold in that way, to
apply pressure: "if you don't do this you'll lose customers" hits the
businesses who are already succeeding.

If it's "other companies are selling the idea to customers that they should
move to a subscription model" then the company you're pitching your
subscription service assistance to can decide to promote the purchase model
instead of going along with convincing customers to buy in a different way.

------
gnicholas
There's a lot of griping about the "subscription economy" here. In light of
this, the fact that their sales deck is (apparently) successful indicates that
it is indeed highly effective.

That is, it sounds like they have an uphill battle, and apparently this deck
has helped them gain ground. I'll give these techniques a try and see if they
work for me (even though the clickbait title irks me).

------
astrostl
[https://medium.com/firm-narrative/want-a-better-pitch-
watch-...](https://medium.com/firm-narrative/want-a-better-pitch-watch-
this-328b95c2fd0b)

Year earlier, same author, same story, different source claimed. It’s like
this guy is plagiarizing himself?

------
retube
interesting. but slightly off topic - do sales guys construct their own decks?
surely decks need approval / sanctioning before distribution to prospects?
don't firms have their own decks for sales people to leverage?

~~~
GiuseppaAcciaio
It really depends on the organization: the Holy Grail is to have a well
developed Sales Support function that prepares decks for sales people from a
data source which is pre-approved (some investment banks have that, it's
awesome) so that the Sales people can focus 100% on doing their thing.

In smaller, scrappier companies or just in less "sexy" industries, sales
people are known to prepare their own decks and whether prior approval is
sought is really to the mercy of the individual's integrity and savvy.

~~~
thrav
Even in the biggest companies, Sales people make the choices about which
resources to pull into their pitch deck, but yes, there is a corporate
template with a typical flow.

------
sj3k
neat deck. unrelated but Zuora is a piece of junk. Im glad I dont have to deal
with it anymore.

------
contingencies
The author misses the significant issue that this ultra-simplistic approach
works only with the simplest USP businesses: established markets with a single
environmental factor driving change and a single paradigm shift in response.

More complex businesses, blue ocean (new market) businesses, businesses
combining insights from multiple trends or with multiple layers of innovation
will find this approach completely infeasible.

~~~
andyraskin
Could it be that your description of Zuora as a simple USP/single driving
change business is actually a testament to the simple way they tell their
story? I'm the author of the post, and every business I consult with is, as
you say, "complex...addressing multiple trends or with multiple layers of
innovation..." That hasn't stopped any of them from crafting a similarly
simple story -- starting with a single change. Usually that means either (a)
focusing on the most important one; or (b) naming a change that subsumes many
of the others. Getting leadership teams to align around one change isn't easy,
but I'm getting better at it :)

~~~
contingencies
It could be, but it isn't.

------
dajohnson89
Good write-up -- is there a link to the actual deck?

~~~
michaelmcdonald
The author literally says directly in the article that the person he received
the deck from asked him to not publicly share the deck.

~~~
emilfihlman
Irrelevant. If the deck is available and discussed, we might as well take a
look.

~~~
welly
I saw at least five slides from this deck.

~~~
softawre
As it says in the article, those are not slides from THE DECK, but rather
similar slides he found publicly available.

------
anime_forever
LOL this comment thread, what is everyone even talking about? people fighting
over different vr headsets and whatever size phone they prefer in the context
of a powerpoint presentation hah

------
ackfoo
That this works is evidence that people are stupid and they suck.

~~~
gk1
Everyone likes to think that sales and marketing doesn't work on them. More
often than not, I find this attitude in people who have no decision-making
authority anyway.

~~~
fabricexpert
I see the point made here though. The actual sales pitch isn't for a moment
talking about the actual solution, like in this deck what is being sold here?
is it a SaaS product? Consulting services? Business Advice? How long will it
take? What's the ROI? Who does the work? Does it work with our current
systems? How much does it cost? What does the ongoing model look like?

Of course you will go on to answer all of these in detail, but the deal is
practically won by the time those questions are asked. And that's how you end
up with poor software or massive enterprise consulting contracts that aren't
helpful to anyone. Meanwhile the sales team goes off and hunts down a fresh
client.

------
anoncoward111
"Name a big, relevant change in the world".

Example given from Zuora, "We now live in a subscription economy".

Except one problem: Instead of a nice solid color on the background of the
slide, or a city skyline...

... it's a full shot of a skinny young blonde girl's legs.

Like, can you sales guys be any more predictable and sexist? I'm sorry, this
frat house behavior really needs to stop.

There are so many better ways to make a visual impression without ever relying
on sexual themes.

~~~
dantillberg
In defense of the parent comment:

It's absolutely a deliberate choice to include an attractive woman in that
slide's background photo, just as it was a deliberate choice for the doors to
be gold.

I'd guess that people looking at the slide most consciously notice the
conspicuous gold doors.

But we all also notice that there's some sort of person standing there. That
person is greeting us with a smile.

We may not process it consciously, but many viewers of the slide are
definitely also attuned to the attractiveness of the person. We might notice
the bare legs, the skirt, the shoes, the braid of hair casually laying on the
shoulder. The bit of midriff showing.

Many readers will think "sexy" even if we're not aware of the thought.

This choice is intentional, because sex sells.

The majority of the intended audience is straight men, so this is probably an
effective sales practice, but at the same time it strikes some of us as cheap.
The body of the woman in this photo is being used as an object and simply as a
means to an end. And the audience is being appealed to on a basis unrelated to
the value of the product for sale.

Try these ideas:

\- Imagine the same photo, but where the woman is dressed in [more modest]
business casual attire, holding a binder with notes for an important meeting.

\- Imagine the same photo, but with an attractive sexy man smiling at us.
Maybe he's showing some toned biceps or perhaps even a glimpse of abs.

\- Imagine the same photo, but with a middle-aged white man dressed in a suit
and tie.

\- Imagine the same photo, but with a large black woman beaming confidence in
formal business attire.

In all of these cases (except maybe the abs), you probably wouldn't
consciously notice the details, but they would definitely all color your
subconscious impression differently.

~~~
chasingthewind
I agree. That particular slide really struck me as being "attention grabbing"
in a way that had nothing to do with the actual point they were making on the
slide.

It's a cool photo and visually appealing but I cannot think of a single thing
about the image that has anything to do with the idea that "we are all living
in a subscription economy."

I can think of some slides that _would_ evoke that. Like a slide with an
animation of money flowing out of my pocket incessantly as calendar pages are
torn off a calendar. :)

I am feeling a bit biased against the "subscription economy" right now after
only narrowly avoiding the "router as a subscription" that my internet
provider wanted to saddle me with this weekend when I upgraded my plan.

