In this video, sales trainer Ryan Dohrn shares practical advice for building high‑impact sales slide decks. Drawing on 30 years of experience and coaching 75‑80 reps each month, he stresses that great sales materials are essential. He warns against overly long decks (e.g., 75 slides in a 60‑minute meeting) and advises keeping decks focused and directly relevant to the prospect. His recommended structure includes opening with “logo soup” – a slide of client logos and success stories – followed by a concise agenda, then feature/option slides each paired with a testimonial or case study. He urges presenters to discard generic “About Us” or company‑history slides, as prospects already know that information. A clear, step‑by‑step follow‑up plan should be built into the deck, even if the prospect says yes immediately. Visuals are crucial for virtual meetings, but he suggests frequently un‑sharing the screen to prevent Zoom/Teams fatigue and to re‑engage the audience with questions. Throughout, Dohrn emphasizes preparation, the value of tangible sales collateral, and invites viewers to contact him via ryandohrn.com for coaching or speaking engagements.
Chapters
Hey friends and fans, Ryan Dohrn here, and this week we're talking about the importance of slide decks, putting together great presentation materials. Now, I'm one of those people, I absorb all kinds of content as it relates to sales training. So I attend webinars and read all the books that are out there, good and bad. Read all the, you know, attend all the webinars, good and bad. Get all the newsletters, good and bad. You know, listen and try to absorb a lot of information. And I can tell you there is one universal truth in the sales business, and that is great sales materials. They are priceless, friends. Now, I recently was working with one of my coaching clients, and I coach 75 to 80 salespeople a month, and it's a lot of fun. But one of my reps, they had 75 slides in one of their slide decks. They said, now, do you think that's too many? 75 slides? They said, well, I'm going to go through them really quickly. I said, well, just think about what you're saying to me. 75 slides that you're gonna roll through quickly. I mean, that's 75 slides. That's, that's in a 60-minute meeting. That's more than 2 slides a minute. I mean, you're really gonna be hauling through that slide deck. So people ask me all the time, Ryan, how important is a slide deck? Well, I don't know if it's as much about a slide deck or a keynote or whatever the circumstances as it is about having great sales materials that are directly related to the people that you're talking to. See, I'm one of those people, I fall back on good old Zig Ziglar strategies where I like to draw things out on paper when I'm in front of people. I like to reference materials. I mean, I think that's great. I'm not a big fan of the sales strategies out there that are like, I show up with nothing because I want to have a conversation with the person. Well, you know, good for you. You do you. And if that works, that's awesome. I've been doing this 30 years and I always show up with something. I really feel like it's expected for you to show up with things. Now, let's dig in a little bit on the slide decks and what I like to see in them. I'm a big fan. I know a lot of you aren't. I'm going to get some comments down below. I'm a big fan of logo soup. And what I mean by that is I love to start all presentations with success stories. I like to put up the logos of the companies that we're working with, the advertisers that I've already sold to, the sponsors of events, because I want people to feel like they are the only ones that aren't working with me. All right, now the next thing that most of you do is About Us, a history of the company. Get rid of it, throw it out. Nobody really cares about the history of your company. Now, if you're a CEO or an owner, you're like, what, Ryan Dohrn? I can't believe you just gave that advice. Everyone wants to know about our history. No, they don't, I promise. Because every time I see a salesperson start getting into the About Us and history of the company, and guess what I see? I see people just glaze over because quite honestly, they probably already know it. And in all reality, I don't know that they necessarily care. Well, Ryan, it's a part of our story. Okay, well, good for you. It's a part of your story. Maybe it's a story you can tell later on at the bar with a cocktail in your hand or something like that. But on most sales calls, most people don't necessarily care. So I pretty much always start out with some type of logo soup. Then I talk about the agenda that we're going to work through that day, ask them if they agree upon that agenda, and then I'm going to get into a lot more success stories. Now, if you know me, my slide decks are dripping with success stories. So if I'm showing an option for a piece of software that I'm selling, I'm going to give a success story on a client that uses it and how much they love it. If I'm selling an advertising or marketing solution, I'm gonna pair that with a success story of an advertiser or company that's using it. Every time I give an option, a feature, a service, an event sponsorship, you name it, I always marry it with a successful company that's already used it and how they are loving it. See, friends, what I find is that others wanna be surrounded by others that are successful. Very rarely does someone say, could you give me an example of somebody that used that service and then they failed. Okay, now it's not that we can't learn from failure, but really, is that the direction that we really want to go? All right, so after I talk about features, advantages, benefits, marry those up with success stories, then in my slide deck I've got my sales follow-up procedure really laid out step by step. See, one of the hardest parts of the sales process, at least in my opinion, is the follow-up stage. Like, you go with ideas ready to go, you present some recommendations, And then there's really not a solid follow-up plan that's laid out. So I love as a part of all of my slide decks to lay out what I would propose as the follow-up plan. Now you might say, follow-up plan? Well, what if they say yes right on the spot? Okay, most don't, but if they do, if they do, then skip the slide. Okay, go on to another slide about getting started. That's fine. But what I find is the majority of the time people are like, you know what, I like this. I really need to think about it. No problem. Let's set a follow-up plan in place. So to bring this conversation to a conclusion, I love slide decks. I love videos. We've talked about that. I love testimonials. I love success stories. I just believe that most people learn most effectively through their eyes. And so anytime you can do a Zoom call, a Teams call, show visuals. Now, if you're doing Zoom and Teams, make sure you unshare your screen a lot. So I'm going to put up a slide deck and then I'm going to unshare my screen. Because I don't want people to get Zoom fatigue, or I don't want them to get Teams haze where they just start looking and they start staring and then they just get a haze in their eyes and you're like, hello, are you still there? When I unshare the screen, then I ask them if they have any questions. I ask for follow-up. I try to dig a little bit deeper with them. So to wrap this up, I love slide decks, I love visuals, and I love presentation materials. Never forget, friends, If this job was easy, I mean, everybody'd be doing it, and they're not. We're not crazy. I used to say that a lot. We're the crazy ones out there. We're not crazy. It's a great job, friends. It's going to feed your family for a lifetime. Love to come to your office. Love to come to your special event, to your national sales meeting, and get your team all pumped up. Reach out to me over at ryandohrn.com. All right, we'll see you next week.
