I completely suck at both sides of this vendor/buyer equation. I have had little experience with either, but more is coming in waves and I much appreciate the life experience sharing. Many helpful things to consider.

I will add these 2 things ::

1) I have a colleague who routinely has to give similar buyer/seller types of preso's, but they are internal… granted that is a different environment entirely… and he has increasingly tried not just to use fewer slides, but also use only slides with pictures. no words or numbers of any kind. just memorable illustrations. no idea if it's been impactful, but I figure among the brains and practitioners on this blog, someone might find the suggestion intriguing.

2) I have spent far more time in these last few years on the "techo" side of things, consulting, etc, and just listening to the stories coming in from the sales field. It's appalling. They don't know the product, they don't follow up on relationships – they do what's mentioned above – sell a product, hand it off to the inhouse team, and never look back. And they (& the company) are wondering why they're losing market share and clients rapidly. It's absolutely baffling.

Thanks again, Avinash, as well as all commenters.

My stress though was a lot more on the messages. So presented a few focused messages.

If it takes 40 slides in 45 mins to do that then that is ok. Mostly though the person has done zero research and proceeds to "slide puke" on the client and that is always a disaster! :)

-Avinash.

What I would really like to see is more elaborate success stories and principles that makes vendors tick !

Kudos to the article and Avinash

I guess it comes down to just highlighting the 5-6 most important points of our service offering and let the talking do the rest.

Thank again for the great post Avinash. Always a pleasure to read your blogs!