Why You Need A Pitch Deck
We have a long list of questions that we almost always hear from potential clients, and one of our least favorites is “Do we really need a pitch deck?"
What we really hear is, “Do I really need to take the time to think about insights, the problem, the solution who our customers are, and most importantly, who's paying for this?" Insert blank stare here.
A pitch deck requires you to do the work that you may have been avoiding for too long. Do not expect someone to understand the complexities of your business without a visual storytelling aid. This tool should improve the big picture framework of how you're approaching the problem, exactly what you're trying to accomplish and what makes you special. Once you've got your bases covered you should be more than well equipped to silver tongue your way into securing investment, but good luck doing that off of an elevator pitch.
After many years in this space, we know that this just isn’t true-- your product will not speak for itself, and a demo just isn’t going to cut it. Truthfully, no one cares about your demo until they know what you’re trying to do, for who, and why.
Having an easy-to-share vision is a must so that when the time comes, investors will look at your demo with interest and attention. We’ve done testing here with clients across verticals, and the amount of remembered facts from a pitch that included a visual deck before the demo was up to 7X more than a demo with no visual context. There are likely multiple reasons for this: but above all, we’d guess that the combination of visual and verbal data being presented to the recipient (i.e. investor / sales target) engages all types of learning styles.
Use of infographics, visualized timelines, infrastructures and schematics bring abstract concepts into concrete into helpful ways. As different as we all may be, our brains are always trying to reject new information and fill any cognitive gaps with what we already know -- which essentially leads to what’s known as confirmation bias. As a result, when you show someone a demo directly or even just chat without any visual aid or backup, their brains fill in the gaps and automatically start considering competitive products or why your solution seems unnecessary.
Whereas, with a deck, they are more likely forced to learn about an aspect of your market they may not be up-to-date on which forces them to stay open, take in new facts, and not outright reject the real value you offer.
And we are here to create a beautiful one for you, if you would like to work with us, set up some time for a chat. But whether we build it or you do, we promise that having a pitch deck will make the rest of your journey a much easier one.