First Meeting Deck
A First Meeting Deck is not slides. It is the talk track as blocks of text — what prompted the conversation, what is hard for them today in their own words, what standing still costs them, and the one thing you ask for at the end. You say it out loud, or you paste it into whatever your company makes you present in.
Updated
When you reach for it
Tuesday, when somebody who has never heard any of this appears on Thursday’s invite.
How do I put a number on the cost of doing nothing?
Use theirs. Ask what the problem has cost them so far, and write the figure down against the problem and the period they gave it for.
A number you worked out for them is your number, and it won't survive their finance team. Where they haven't given one, the line in your talk track is the question, not an estimate.
In SalesWolf, the cost block is drafted from the consequences and figures recorded on the deal, and where a problem has none, the draft asks them what it has cost so far. It's a draft: check each figure against what they told you before it goes on a slide.
First sales meeting talk track template
A first sales meeting talk track runs in the order the meeting does. Their situation, what it costs them and what fixed looks like come first, in their words; where you fit comes after, and it ends on one ask. The template below has a line for each of its nine blocks.
Download the blank template: Markdown.
These are the sections SalesWolf's First Meeting Deck is built from. In the product each one is written from the facts you've accepted on the deal and the meeting you tell it about, except “Where we fit” and “Where we've done this before”, which come from your company knowledge base. A block with nothing to stand on asks them for it, or tells you what to capture first.
One of them is written out in full below, on the sample deal.
What prompted this conversation
Who is in the room, and what prompted the conversation, in their words. Nothing about you yet.
Compelling Event: stated · dated · consequenced
What's hard for them today
Two to four things that are hard for them today, one per line, the way they said them.
Identify Pain: stated · contextualized · quantified
What standing still costs them
What each of those costs them if nothing changes, with their figure and the period they gave it for. Where they haven't given one, the line is the question.
How do I put a number on the cost of doing nothing?What it looks like when it's fixed
What their day looks like once the problem is gone. Leave your product out of it.
How they'd measure it
What they'd measure it by: where each measure stands now, and where it needs to get to.
Metrics: named · quantified · tied to value
What any solution has to do
What any solution has to do for them, in their language. They hold every option to it, yours included.
Required Capabilities: named · tied to value · evidenced
Where we fit
How you approach a problem like theirs, and what's different about the way you do it.
Where we've done this before
Up to three times you've done this before, each with its customer and its result, stated no stronger than you have it.
The one thing you're asking for
The one thing you're asking them to agree to next, who needs to be in it, and what it gets them.
Current State
DraftTwo staff on the night desk only chase carrier exceptions manually. They phone carriers when updates arrive late or not at all since Halden Freight took on new carriers.
This is what comes out.
What goes in is the call you already had.
14 days free, no card, no call.