I’ve been in the computer-driven publishing industry my entire working life. For better or worse, that’s going on 30 years and six firms worth of experience building and selling systems to support the print (or print-like) communications needs of large businesses selling or supporting high-value goods and services. I’ve worked with Airlines, Pharmaceuticals, Auto Parts, Reference Publishers, Military, and Financial business. All have significant data-and-rules driven content publishing needs, including well-designed print artifacts. Supporting publishing in the financial services world makes up a majority of this experience, but we gain wisdom by understanding similarities and differences between multiple business sectors and markets.

For 87.3% of my long and illustrious career in supporting print communications, people have taken the position that Print is Dead… or soon will be. While there are specific examples and versions of this narrative that are true, I’m here to talk today about where and why it is not true!

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This article, “Why Pitch Decks Should be Created by Sales, Not Marketing,” first appeared in Fundfire.

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.”

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Why do sales departments fight presentation automation? Over the years, I’ve spent a lot of time talking to asset management marketers about pitchbooks. The typical sentiment is that these sales tools are a pain to update and manage. Also, they are a point of contention between the marketing and sales teams. Marketers spend a lot of time keeping their slide library up-to-date and organized. But often times, these beautiful and compliant pitch materials become compromised once they get into the hands of the sales force. “It’s total piracy!” said one Product Management Executive we spoke to.

It’s true though. Salespeople are notorious for going rogue. They like customizing their own decks or using old versions saved on their desktop without thinking twice about branding or compliance. (more…)

Creating and maintaining pitchbooks can be the bane of a marketing team’s existence. Product managers are always finding new ways to spin or illustrate their products. Sales teams and firm partners are always insisting that one more chart or illustration is absolutely critical to their pitch. And of course, there is the simple drudgery of making sure the standard data, disclosures, and charts are up-to-date and refreshed on time.

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