How to make a sales deck

A buyer says "Can you send me some more info?", or wants to show your offer to a partner before they decide. If you have nothing to send, or a long deck about your company that only makes sense when you talk over it, the deal goes quiet. Here is how to make a sales deck in one afternoon that a buyer can read alone in 3 minutes, and how to send it so it leads to a next step.

Do these three things

About 4 hours to build it today, then about 10 minutes for each deck you send. Aim for 1 next step from every 3 decks.

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1. 1Today: write a 10-slide deck from your buyers' own words, with AI drafting each slide, and save it as a PDF that makes sense without you in the room.
2. 2Every day: send the deck within 1 hour to everyone who asks for more info or had a discovery call with you, with one next step and a date. Keep sending 100 personal messages a day, so there is always someone new to send it to.
3. 3Every Sunday: count decks sent and next steps booked, and rewrite the one slide buyers asked about most. Judge the deck after 40 sends, not after 2.

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1. Collect 30 phrases your buyers use before you write a slide

Before you open Google Slides, collect 30 short phrases your buyers have used about the problem, in one sheet. A sales deck in your words sounds like every other supplier. A deck in their words sounds like it was written for them.

Look in four places: replies to your messages, notes from your calls, emails from your first clients, and anything a buyer wrote in a form or a review. If you have done customer interviews, start there. If you already wrote your value proposition, its phrase sheet is half of this job.

Copy each phrase word for word into one of five columns:

The problem | What it costs them | What they use today | What worries them about switching | What they want instead
"[their words]" | "[their words, with a number if they gave one]" | "[the tool, supplier or workaround they named]" | "[their worry]" | "[their words]"

Paste your raw notes into ChatGPT or Claude and ask it to pull out every phrase a buyer said about the problem and sort them into the five columns. Then check each one against the notes. Delete any phrase the AI wrote itself.

If you have fewer than 10 phrases, you need more conversations, not more slides. Book 5 calls this week from your lead list and ask the three questions on each: how do you deal with this today, what did it cost you last time, and what have you tried?

• Tool: Google Sheets, and ChatGPT or Claude to sort. Both free to start.
• Time: 45 minutes.
• You will have: a sheet with 30 phrases in your buyers' words.
• It worked if: every column has at least 3 phrases, and the phrases come from at least 2 different people.
• Common mistake: writing the phrases yourself, like "streamlined workflow" or "end-to-end solution". No buyer says those. If you cannot point to who said it, delete it.

2. Write 10 slides in the order your buyer decides

Write 10 slides, one idea each, in the order a buyer makes up their mind: who it is for, what changed, the problem, what they do today, the result, how it works, proof, price, answers and one next step. Your logo, history and team do not get their own slides.

The order starts with a change in the buyer's world, then the problem it causes, then what life looks like with you, then the proof. Andy Raskin made this order well known in 2016, from a software company's deck, and it works for a print shop or a consultancy just as well. Buyers decide on the problem first. They only care about how you do it once they believe you understand it.

Slides 1 and 5 come straight from your value proposition. Make every headline a full sentence that says the point of the slide. A buyer who reads only the 10 headlines should get the whole story. Under each headline, put one picture, one number or three short lines, never a paragraph.

1 · Who it is for: [What they get] for [kind of company], [what makes you different]. Your name, email and phone.
2 · What changed: [Something that changed in your buyer's world], so [what they now need].
3 · The problem: "[The problem, in a buyer's words]." It costs them [number, from your sheet].
4 · What they do today: Most [kind of company] [option A] or [option B]. Both [what goes wrong].
5 · The result: With [your product or service], [before] becomes [after].
6 · How it works: [Step 1], [step 2], [step 3]. The first step for you is [small step].
7 · Proof: [Client] went from [before] to [after] in [time]. Or, with no clients yet: [your track record] and [a sample, a pilot or a check] before you pay.
8 · Price: Most [orders / projects] like yours cost $[low] to $[high]. [2–3 options, one line each.]
9 · Answers: The 3 questions buyers ask us first: [question] [answer]. [question] [answer]. [question] [answer].
10 · Next step: [One small next step] by [date]. Reply "[word]" or call [phone].

Let AI write the first draft. Paste the template, your phrase sheet and one paragraph about what you sell into ChatGPT or Claude. Ask for one headline and up to three short lines per slide, using only the buyers' phrases and the numbers you gave it. Then check every number and every promise yourself. The draft takes 10 minutes. Checking it and building it in Google Slides takes the rest.

Slide 7, if you have no case study yet. With 1 or 2 clients, write the result one of them got, in one line, with a number, and ask them if you may name them. Collect a testimonial from each one, and turn the best into a full case study later. With no clients, use your own social proof: the years you spent doing this job somewhere else, and a small way to try you first, such as a free sample, a paid pilot or a fixed-price first project. Never invent a logo or a result.

Slide 8, the price. Put a range on it. A buyer reading your deck without you needs to know if you fit their budget before they pass it on. Use the range and the options from your B2B pricing, and say the same range on every call. If you sell through distributors, send them a one-page sheet with your price list and their margin instead of this deck. The exact price for their order goes in the quote or proposal, after they agree to a next step.

Slide 4, what they do today. Name the kinds of option, not your rivals' names: "a big print firm", "a freelancer", "a spreadsheet". Your competitor analysis tells you what buyers compare you with.

Slide 10, one next step. Offer the same small step your first messages offer: a sample, a 15-minute check or a second call. "Contact us" is not a next step.

• Tool: ChatGPT or Claude to draft, and Google Slides to build. Both free. If your Google account includes Gemini in Slides, it can build the slides from the same prompt; check every word it adds.
• Time: 2 hours.
• You will have: 10 slides, each with a full-sentence headline.
• It worked if: reading only the 10 headlines, out loud, tells the whole story in under a minute, and slide 8 has a price range.
• Common mistake: starting with your logo, your story and your team, then 15 slides of features. A buyer reading alone gets through three slides about you before one word about them. The other mistake is a 25-slide deck "to cover everything". Put the extra detail in a follow-up email, if someone asks.

3. Turn the deck into a PDF that sells without you

Save a second version of the deck that a buyer can read alone in 3 minutes, and export it as a PDF. Most of the time you will not be in the room when your deck is read.

In a Gartner survey of 646 B2B buyers in August and September 2025, 67% said they prefer to do at least part of their buying without a salesperson, and 45% had used AI during a recent purchase. Expect your buyer to read the deck alone, often on a phone, and to forward it to a partner or a boss you have never met. That person has never heard you talk.

So make the read-alone version. In Google Slides, click File, then Make a copy, and name it "[Company] deck to send". On each slide, keep the full-sentence headline and add one or two short lines under it with the detail you would say out loud. Keep the text as real text, not a picture of text, so it can be read on a phone, searched and copied.

Then click File, then Download, then PDF. Name the file so it makes sense in someone else's downloads folder: "[Your company] – [what you do] for [their company].pdf". Keep it under 5 MB, so it opens fast on a phone. Gmail's limit is 25 MB for a personal account. Over that, Gmail turns the attachment into a Google Drive link instead.

Test it on 3 people who have never heard your pitch, such as a friend who runs a business. Give them the PDF and 3 minutes, then ask: who is this for, roughly what does it cost, and what would you do next? If they cannot answer all three, the slide that should have told them needs a clearer headline.

• Tool: Google Slides. Free.
• Time: 45 minutes, plus 15 minutes for the 3 tests.
• You will have: one PDF of 10 pages, under 5 MB, and the slides you present from.
• It worked if: 3 of 3 people can say who it is for, the price range and the next step after 3 minutes.
• Common mistake: sending the slides you present from, with three words on each. They only work while you are talking. The other mistake is pasting your whole website into the slides. Two short lines under each headline is enough.

4. Send the deck within an hour to everyone who asks for more info

Send the PDF within 1 hour to every buyer who asks for more information and to everyone you had a call with, in a short email that asks for one next step by a date. Send it while the buyer still remembers the call or the question they asked.

Send it in three situations:

1. A buyer replies to your outreach with "send me more info". Send the deck and offer your small next step in the same email. Keep the first cold email itself plain, with no attachment. The deck goes out once they ask.
2. After every call. Send it within the hour, with two lines on what they told you. It gives your contact something to forward to the decision-maker.
3. After a meeting at a trade show or a networking event. Send it the same day, while they still remember your face.

Before you send, change slide 3 so it uses this buyer's own words from the call or the reply, and put their company name on slide 1. Paste your call notes and the two slides into ChatGPT or Claude and ask it to change only those two slides. Check them, export the PDF and send. That is about 10 minutes a deck.

Subject: [Their company] + [what you do]: the detailsHi [first name],Thanks for [asking / the call]. [One line on what they told you, in their words.]Here is everything in one PDF: 10 pages, about 3 minutes to read. Page 8 has prices: most [orders / projects] like yours cost $[low] to $[high].Next step: [one small step, like a free sample, a 15-minute check or a second call]. Could we do that by [day and date]? Reply "yes" and I'll [what you will do].[Your name]
[Company], [phone][Attached: Your company – what you do for their company.pdf]

Follow up on day 3, day 7 and day 14, in the same email thread, with one new line each time: an answer to a question they asked, a photo of a recent job, or a slot for the next step. Stop the moment they say no. A buyer who is still quiet after day 14 can get an occasional useful email instead. Log every deck you send in the same Google Sheet as your quotes, so your sales pipeline is in one place, and move to a CRM when the sheet gets slow.

Decks only go out when there are conversations. Keep up 100 personal messages a day, by email and LinkedIn, to named buyers whose email address you have found, and add cold calls if your buyers pick up the phone. LinkedIn limits how many connection invitations you can send each week, so message people you are already connected to there and send the rest by email. If you email more than about 50 strangers a day, set up a second domain first, so your main address stays safe. At about 2 conversations per 100 messages, that is about 2 decks a day. Book every call you can.

• Tool: Gmail, ChatGPT or Claude to change two slides, and your Google Sheet.
• Time: about 10 minutes a deck, plus 5 minutes a day for follow-ups.
• You will have: every deck sent within an hour and logged, with its follow-up dates.
• It worked if: every deck went out within 1 hour, and at least 1 in 3 decks leads to a next step: a sample, a second call or a quote.
• Common mistake: sending the deck with "Let me know if you have any questions" and nothing else. That asks the buyer to do the work. Ask for one small step with a date. The other mistake is waiting a few days "to make the deck perfect" for this buyer.

5. Show the deck on the second call, not the first

On the first call, ask questions and do not share your screen. On the second call, show slides 2 to 5 for about 5 minutes, check you have the problem right, then go to slides 8 and 10 and book the next step before the call ends.

The first call is for listening. In a 2021 Gong study of 803,402 recorded sales meetings, first calls where the seller showed slides were 17% less likely to succeed, sellers asked 21% fewer questions, and they talked for 25% longer at a time. In later meetings, slides helped. So run your discovery call with questions only, then send the PDF within the hour.

On the second call, share your screen and use the slides like this:

1. Slides 2 to 5, about 5 minutes. Then stop and ask: "Is that what it's like for you?" Let them correct you. Their answer is the best line for your next deck.
2. Skip what they already know. If they have read the PDF, ask "What questions did it leave you with?" and go straight to those slides.
3. Slide 8, the price range, then the option you would pick for them, and why.
4. Slide 10. Book the next step while you are both on the call: put the date in both calendars, or take the address for the sample.

Keep slides to 10 minutes of a 30-minute call. The rest is their questions. If many buyers ask the same questions, show the same slides to a group in a live webinar.

If you sell software, use slides 2 to 5 to open your product demo, then close the slides and show the product itself. In enterprise deals, several people decide, so offer to run this call for each of them. If a buyer sends you a formal tender, the deck is not your answer: respond to the RFP in their format.

• Tool: Google Meet or Zoom, and the slides you present from.
• Time: 10 minutes of slides in a 30-minute call.
• You will have: a next step booked, with a date, at the end of the call.
• It worked if: at least 1 in 2 second calls ends with a next step booked before you hang up.
• Common mistake: sharing your screen in the first 5 minutes of a first call and talking through all 10 slides. You learn nothing about the buyer, and they leave with nothing to say yes to.

6. Count decks and next steps every Sunday and rewrite one slide

Every Sunday, count how many decks you sent, how many led to a next step, and which slide buyers asked about. After 40 decks, use the rules below to rewrite one slide. Two silent buyers tell you nothing.

Add these columns to the sheet you already keep for quotes and where each deal came from:

Week | Decks sent | Next steps booked (sample / second call / quote) | No answer after day 14 | Questions asked, and which slide they were about | Slide changed

After 40 decks, which is about 3 weeks at 2 decks a day, use these rules:

1. 1 in 3 or more decks led to a next step: keep the deck. Put your hours into more conversations: more messages, more calls, more introductions from referral partners.
2. Fewer than 1 in 3, and buyers asked questions: find the slide most questions were about. Rewrite only that slide, using the words buyers used in their questions. Then send the next 40.
3. Most buyers never answered by day 14: the deck did not get read. Rewrite slide 1 and the first line of your email, so a buyer sees in 5 seconds that it is about their problem, the same test you use for a homepage headline.
4. Fewer than 1 in 10 after 80 decks: the deck is not the problem. Go back to why nobody is buying, and check you are talking to the right buyers with your ideal customer profile.

When slide 7 changes, because you have a new client result, a new case study or a new Google review, update it the same day. Once a month, look at decks, next steps and orders together in your monthly review.

• Tool: Google Sheets.
• Time: 20 minutes each Sunday, plus 30 minutes when a slide needs rewriting.
• You will have: one row a week, and every slide change written down with the rule that caused it.
• It worked if: every deck has a result by day 14, and every change points to one of the four rules.
• Common mistake: redesigning the whole deck after two buyers go quiet. Change one slide, then send 40 more, so you know which change worked.

Your sales deck checklist

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Work through this list with an AI assistant

It drafts the work and keeps track of what is done.

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Step 1 · Collect 30 phrases your buyers use

• Copy 30 phrases buyers used about the problem into the five-column sheet.

Step 2 · Write 10 slides in the order your buyer decides

• Write the 10 slides from the template, with AI drafting and you checking every number.
• Read only the 10 headlines out loud and fix any that do not tell the story.

Step 3 · Turn the deck into a PDF that sells without you

• Make the read-alone copy and download it as a PDF.
• Give the PDF to 3 people for 3 minutes and ask the three questions.

Step 4 · Send the deck within an hour to everyone who asks

• Every daySend the deck, with slides 1 and 3 changed for the buyer, to everyone who asked or had a call.
• Every dayFollow up on day 3, day 7 and day 14 with one new line each time.
• Every daySend 100 personal messages to named buyers so new conversations keep coming.

Step 5 · Show the deck on the second call

• Every dayOn every second call, show slides 2 to 5, check the problem, then book the next step from slide 10.

Step 6 · Count every Sunday and rewrite one slide

• Every SundayFill in one row of the Sunday sheet.
• After 40 decksApply the four rules and rewrite the one slide they point to.

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