This episode of the Revenue Harvest Podcast with Nigel Green features Nancy Duarte and Koula Callahan. Today's guests break down the different facets f sales presentations and share their expertise in becoming better communicators. Nancy is the Principal at Duarte, Inc. and she shares the persuasive power of Slidedocs, while Koula is the Senior Director of Content at StoryBrand and she teaches a communication framework that positions customers as the hero. Nancy explains how empathy plays a big role in connecting with clients and how sales leaders can take the mentorship role for effective communication. Nancy has published several books like Data Story and Illuminate and she goes through some golden nuggets found here to apply to your sales presentations today. Koula shares the importance of creating a larger overarching story, which includes data and statistics as support, to connect with the pain points of your client. She explains how to create a winning sales presentation using a simple step-by-step process, and creating calls to action which gets the customer's skin in the game. HIGHLIGHTS 03:45 Empathy and storytelling are powerful tools in sales presentations 10:36 Slidedocs are persuasive for their modality 14:15 Data Story: Explaining the 3-act executive summary 24:33 Illuminate: Become the mentor to effectively communicate change 29:25 How to connect with Nancy 32:38 Getting comfortable is the first step to a successful presentation 36:43 Frame data into a larger more relatable narrative for effective sales 43:43 Speak directly to your customer's objections and present a solution 47:09 A step-by-step guide to creating successful sales presentations 52:28 Create a call to action that gets commitment 56:36 Ask questions to gain insight but let the customer do the talking 1:00:17 How to connect with Koula QUOTES 05:07 "You can't make it all about your sale, you can't make it all about your agenda, you can't make it all about you. You should show up and enrich your customer's life or your prospect's life in some way." 28:52 "Your sole purpose and your sole role is to help someone else get unstuck. That's your job is I'm going to bring a magical gift, a special tool, and help them get unstuck. Those are the three things a mentor does." 37:40 "In this digital world, when you just add to that noise of statistics and data and things that somebody has to remember and this is what you need to know to think that I'm interesting enough to give me your money, it just gets lost in the noise." 41:52 "When you start with the problem, it then frames all of those data points and statistics as important to them because it helps them solve their problem." 44:44 "If you know the top 3 objections that the person on the other side of the screen has, then I would speak very clearly and directly to those objections and then come up with some sort of statement or case study or testimonial." 52:58 "You want your customer to, as they get closer to the buying decision, you want them to have had put skin in the game so that they are more likely to chase down that investment so that they see a return." 59:55 "It's your job to guide that conversation in such a way that you pull out what it is your customer is struggling with, what future they really long for, and then once you know those things, it allows you to enter into the narrative with that relief."