The greatest sales deck I've ever seen (2016)
I disagree with two things in the article.<p>1. I disagree with the underlying premise of the article - the deck is unimportant.<p>2. I disagree with the reasoning given as to why it works.<p>Firstly the deck is unimportant because - as the ex-employee quoted at the end said: the prospect is already sold thanks to the marketing and branding campaigns run by Zuora. The deck is superfluous.<p>Secondly, the reasoning that Raskin often gives as to why this works is based on the fact it follows the &quot;storytelling&quot; formula that Hollywood uses. He liberally uses examples of Star Wars and other films in his articles.<p>But we aren&#x27;t characters in a movie.<p>Rather than looking to what motivates characters in a movie to act as a model for persuasive messaging, we are better looking at what persuades people to act in real life.<p>Arguably religion and politics are the most persuasive forces on the planet.<p>And the real reason Zuora&#x27;s message works is that it follows the same formula (and has the same elements) as religious and political ideologies.<p>1. There&#x27;s a heaven and hell (for Zuora, heaven is thriving and getting more customers and hell is losing one&#x27;s business)<p>2. There&#x27;s a devil which is stopping us getting to heaven and sending us to hell (for Zuora this is the traditional business model of single non-recurring purchases)<p>3. There&#x27;s a doctrine that needs to be followed to get to heaven &amp; avoid hell (for Zuora that&#x27;s the subscription business model)<p>4. There&#x27;s a leader that provides the tools and solutions necessary to implement the doctrine and get to heaven (for Zuora this is their solution)<p>Viewing Zuora&#x27;s success through this model, through this lense, makes more sense than Raskin&#x27;s model.<p>There are plenty of other examples. Hubspot is a great example - they used (unconsciously) this model to sell the concept of inbound marketing. Check out this article on the subject - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bit.ly&#x2F;2Ov3NCT" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;bit.ly&#x2F;2Ov3NCT</a>