How to Make a Sales Enablement Deck [A Guide]
- Ink Narrates | The Presentation Design Agency
- Feb 5, 2024
- 6 min read
Updated: 3 days ago
Last month, our client Kenneth asked us a question while we were building his sales enablement deck:
"How do I get salespeople to actually use the deck?"
Our Creative Director replied without missing a beat:
“By designing it for their brain, not yours.”
That one sentence sums up what most teams get wrong. As a presentation design agency, we work on many sales enablement decks throughout the year, and in the process we’ve observed one common challenge — most decks are built for the product, not for the person selling it.
So, in this blog, we’ll walk you through how to create a sales enablement deck that actually helps your sales team sell.
In case you didn't know, we specialize in only one thing: making presentations. We can help you by designing your slides and writing your content too.
Why Most Sales Enablement Decks Fail
Let’s be brutally honest for a second.
Most sales enablement decks are made in boardrooms by people who don’t sell. They’re filled with buzzwords, bullet points, and product glory slides that make the leadership team feel smart but leave the sales rep stranded mid-call.
We’ve seen it play out too many times. Marketing puts together a deck that explains the product roadmap, the brand story, and the mission statement. Sales takes one look, smiles politely, then quietly goes back to their sticky notes and verbal pitches.
Why? Because these decks don’t do the job they were meant to do — enable.
A good sales enablement deck is a tool, not a trophy. It should help sales reps do three things really well:
Start the conversation with clarity.
Navigate objections with confidence.
Close the deal without calling a manager for backup.
If your deck isn’t built with those real-world moments in mind, it won’t be used. Plain and simple. We’re not saying your messaging is wrong. We’re saying it’s aimed at the wrong moment. Your sales team isn’t pitching to a panel of marketers. They’re selling to busy, distracted, skeptical humans.
The goal isn’t to educate your prospects to death. The goal is to move the conversation forward.
Every slide in that deck needs to earn its place by doing just that.
How to Make a Sales Enablement Deck
Let’s get into the actual build. If you want your sales enablement deck to be used — not just approved — you need to stop building decks for internal applause and start building them for real sales conversations.
There’s no one-template-fits-all, but there are five principles we swear by when we make these decks for clients like Kenneth. Skip any of these, and your reps will skip the deck.
1. Build the Deck for Sales Conversations, Not Keynotes
The first mistake? Making it look like a polished product launch presentation. That’s not the job.
The job of a sales enablement deck is to act like a conversation map. It needs to be modular, skimmable, and designed to move where the sales conversation moves. That means:
Fewer linear story arcs.
More decision trees.
Slides that can stand alone if needed.
Your rep might not present all 20 slides in sequence. Sometimes they’ll start from slide 7 because that’s where the prospect’s pain is. Sometimes they’ll skip half the deck to jump into pricing. That’s real life. Your deck needs to keep up.
So here’s the golden rule: Don’t design for the perfect pitch. Design for the unpredictable one.
2. Start With the Prospect’s World, Not Yours
Most decks begin with “Who we are.” That’s a mistake. Your prospect doesn’t care yet.
The first few slides should reflect the world your buyer lives in. Not the world your product exists in. There’s a big difference.
Let’s say you’re selling HR software. Don’t start with your company timeline. Start with the hiring chaos your buyer is facing — overworked HR teams, candidate drop-offs, compliance headaches. Speak their language. Surface their pain.
Then, and only then, show how your solution fits into that picture.
Here’s a structure we often use:
The world they live in (industry shifts, challenges, broken status quo)
The cost of doing nothing (why this matters now)
Where you come in (positioned as the antidote, not the hero)
Proof (logos, stats, short case stories)
Options to move forward (custom pathways, not one-size-fits-all)
By the time you introduce your product, the prospect should already be nodding.
3. Make It Modular, Like a Toolkit
A good sales enablement deck is like a Swiss Army knife. Your reps should be able to use different blades for different situations.
That means breaking the deck into digestible modules. Think:
Problem Slides: That frame the issue in the prospect’s context
Product Slides: That highlight solutions without overwhelming
Proof Slides: That answer the silent “Will this work for me?”
Pricing/Packaging: With enough flexibility to tailor to the buyer
Objection Handlers: Not buried in FAQs, but built into the flow
Each of these modules should work independently, so a rep can build a custom flow depending on who they’re talking to — whether it’s a technical buyer, a budget holder, or a skeptical end-user.
We’ve worked with sales teams who literally drag and drop slides from a master deck into mini decks for each call. That’s what you want — a deck that’s actually used, not admired.
4. Use Visuals That Speak for Themselves
Here’s the truth: if your slide needs a voice-over to make sense, it’s not a good slide.
Sales reps are not designers. They don’t want to decipher your aesthetic choices in the middle of a pitch. What they want is clarity. So:
Use diagrams instead of paragraphs.
Replace blocks of text with icon-based callouts.
Don’t be afraid of white space — it’s a signal of confidence, not laziness.
For example, when explaining a complex workflow, don’t write four bullet points. Show a simplified visual of the workflow. Add labels. Highlight the before/after. That’s the kind of slide a rep can point at and say, “This is how it changes things for you.”
Another trick? Every visual should answer a real question a prospect might ask. If it doesn’t, it’s decoration.
And please — no generic stock photos of handshakes and laptops. That’s filler. Be specific or stay visual-free.
5. Write for the Sales Rep, Not the Brand Book
We’ve worked with enterprise clients whose decks sound like press releases. The language is polished, vague, and completely unusable in an actual conversation.
Sales reps don’t talk like that. Your deck shouldn’t either.
Use simple, direct, human language. A slide that says “Automate onboarding with one click” is a lot more useful than “Enable seamless human capital transition via scalable infrastructure.”
This isn’t dumbing it down. This is about respect. You’re respecting your audience’s time and your sales rep’s voice. The best decks feel like they were written by the rep — not legal, not marketing, not branding.
And if you're worried about tone, here's the rule: friendly > formal. Informative > impressive.
6. Bring in Real Proof, Not Just Logos
You know what doesn’t convince a prospect? A wall of logos with no story behind them.
Instead of showing a slide with 30 clients, pick 3. Tell the mini-story behind each. Here’s what we used before. Here’s what they struggled with. Here’s what changed after using the solution. Keep it tight and relatable.
You don’t need to write out a full case study either. Just 2-3 bullet lines that paint a clear before/after. Reps love this. Prospects remember it. That’s the whole point.
Pro tip: Match your proof slides to the industry of the buyer. If you’re talking to a healthcare client, show them how you helped another healthcare company. Proximity builds trust faster than prestige.
7. End With Options, Not an Ask
The final slides are where most decks fall flat.
They either end with a generic thank-you slide or jump into “Next steps” like every prospect is ready to sign a deal. Neither works.
Instead, close with a menu of choices.
For example:
Want a technical deep dive?
Want to try a pilot?
Want to meet a customer who’s used it?
This approach does two things. First, it puts control in the buyer’s hands. Second, it gives your sales rep multiple ways to keep the conversation going.
Remember, closing isn’t always about “sign the contract.” It’s about what’s the next easiest yes.
8. Train Your Reps to Use It Right
Even the best-designed deck is useless if your reps don’t know how to use it.
When we deliver a sales enablement deck to a client, we also deliver a walkthrough. We show the team how the deck is structured, which parts to use for what type of buyer, and what stories pair best with which slides.
If you’re not doing this, start. Your deck isn’t self-explanatory. Your reps shouldn’t have to guess what slide 14 is for. Give them a cheat sheet. Even better — sit with them for a session, walk through live use cases, and watch what resonates.
This is how your deck moves from “nice to have” to “must have.”
Why Hire Us to Build your Presentation?
If you're reading this, you're probably working on a presentation right now. You could do it all yourself. But the reality is - that’s not going to give you the high-impact presentation you need. It’s a lot of guesswork, a lot of trial and error. And at the end of the day, you’ll be left with a presentation that’s “good enough,” not one that gets results. On the other hand, we’ve spent years crafting thousands of presentations, mastering both storytelling and design. Let us handle this for you, so you can focus on what you do best.