How to close your biggest deal with just one slide

It's remarkable how a single slide can be the key to closing a significant deal. This realization dawned on me four years ago. As a former Gartner analyst and Product Manager, I had been through countless sales calls, assuming that breezing through 30+ slides and a rapid full-feature demo was the most effective approach.

While this method might have seemed efficient from my perspective, it often felt like whiplash to the customer.

However, since this was the standard practice, I never thought to question it and didn’t know that doing this was a death sentence for the call and nearly all of those dreaded “just following up emails” too.

In 2020, I started a Digital Marketing Agency and set my sights on closing the biggest client I could imagine. I had been part of a Sales Mastermind and met a high-performing sales closer who said she wanted to get to the $1 million mark in commissions for the year, but had stopped because she felt the thermostat level of her sales performance couldn’t go any higher.

I invited her to join me on a call, but I didn't have the typical slide deck, case studies, or photos of my corporate office, all of which were customary in B2B sales. It was then that I had an epiphany, inspired by an experience from 30 years earlier when I worked as a paperboy.

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My first job as a paperboy, at the age of 9, unknowingly taught me about sales. Thinking I was merely a delivery boy, I was surprised when my brother, who had his own paper route, encouraged me to write a thoughtful note to each customer at Christmas.

To my amazement, my customers responded with their own Christmas cards and generous tips of $5, $10, and even $15, which was a significant sum in 1987. I realized the impact of personal connection when one customer took my card, crossed out my name, wrote hers, and handed it back to me with a jar of coins, asking me to count out my tip and decide what I wanted it to be.

Fast forward to 2020, when meeting with my big prospect, I showed just one slide with a question, with a slight modification. It said, “What’s the 1 year legacy that you want to have happen?” From that one question, I learned what she wanted genuine help with. I offered her a path to get there and she said "YES".

It wasn’t as much about closing, as it was listening. That’s how 1 slide starts it all.