Why Pitch Decks Should be Created by Sales, Not Marketing

An article by our own Katie Martz was recently published in FundFire on why sales decks should be created by sales and not marketing. 

Recently, a salesperson told us about a deal where he went “rogue.” He got an opportunity to present to a major institutional client but didn’t have an up-to-date deck from marketing. So he cobbled together a deck using slides from previous presentations. He knew he was pushing the compliance boundaries, but he needed to land this deal.

His was the first presentation to the client, and he secured their agreement before leaving. As he walked out, three competitors sat in the lobby, waiting for their turn to present. “If I had waited for marketing to send me an updated deck,” he said, “we would have lost that deal because the first sales guy to show them what they needed got the business.”

Sales-created decks are marketing’s worst nightmare. Will they use the right slides? Will the deck be compliant? Will it be on-brand and consistent on every slide? It’s a common practice for marketing to be responsible for the presentation creation and distribution process. Marketing, in collaboration with compliance, places tight controls around customizing sales decks for clients and prospects. This ensures that decks are accurate, compliance approved and on-brand. The problem is, they might not meet the deadlines placed on sales by both clients and competitors. And the decks marketing creates are rarely developed for a specific client, making it difficult for sales to be truly client-centric. And frankly, that can cost the organization substantially in lost deals.

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