Pitch deck or capability presentation: which one the meeting needs

A pitch deck asks someone to put money or backing into your business. A capability presentation asks someone to put an order, a trial run or a place on their vendor list with you. If the person across the table is deciding about your company, use a pitch deck. If they are deciding about your work, use a capability presentation. Both get called "the company ppt". The file that goes out is whichever was edited last.

How do you tell which one the meeting needs?

Ask who will sign after the meeting, and what they sign.

• They sign a cheque, a term sheet or a loan sanction: pitch deck.
• They sign a purchase order, a vendor registration form or a sample approval: capability presentation.
• They sign neither, but will recommend you to someone who does: a short capability presentation, kept to what that person can repeat.
• You cannot tell: ask, "What will you need to see to take this forward?" The answer tells you which deck to open.

What sits in each, side by side?

What should the first three slides say?

They decide how the rest is read.

Pitch deck. Slide one states what the business does in a plain sentence and who buys it. Slide two names the problem the buyer has today and what they do about it now. Slide three shows what has already happened: orders, customers, repeat rate, whatever you can prove from records.

Capability presentation. Slide one gives your name, location and products in a line, plus the two or three industries you supply. Slide two shows a customer you may name, the part or job you do for them and how long you have done it. Slide three shows the floor: machines, people and quality gates, in photographs rather than lists.

Neither opens with company history or a vision line. Those go further in, if at all.

An invented example: a sheet-metal fabricator in Faridabad

Imagine an owner in Faridabad who makes enclosures and brackets for electrical panel builders. The owner needs working capital for a second laser cutter, and also wants approval at a large panel maker. One fifteen-slide deck went to the banker and to the buyer.

The banker found no figures until slide twelve. The buyer's engineer found no photographs of the bending section and nothing on how first-piece inspection works. Both asked for another meeting.

So the owner split it. The banker's deck ran to ten slides: what the firm makes, who buys, the order book in hand, a table of what the machine adds, and the amount asked for with what it buys. The engineer got sixteen. They held parts by category, a floor walk in photographs, inspection at first piece and at dispatch, capacity per shift in plain units, and two customers that could be named.

Both decks took their facts from one shared sheet, so they matched. The split cost a week nobody had planned, and the bank still wanted the capacity figures restated in its own format. The original deck had been asked to settle two decisions, and it served neither reader.

What goes on the fact sheet behind both decks?

Before you open slide software, write one page that both decks copy from. The number of machines and what each does. Staff count. Customers you may name, with the products you supply them. Certificates held, with dates. Capacity in plain units. The order book, if you will show it. When a figure changes, change it on the sheet and in both decks the same day. A banker and a buyer who compare notes should find one answer.

What about a deck that must do both?

A firm bidding for a large contract may need to show capability and also reassure the customer that it will still be around in three years. Put the capability presentation first, and add a short slide on financial standing near the back, only where the customer asks for it. Do not send turnover figures to people who did not ask.

What belongs in the appendix?

Keep it behind a divider so you can skip it in the room and send it later. Put in the full machine list, certificates, customers who have agreed to be named, and one-page process charts. Keep anything a competitor would love to read, such as rates, margins and customer drawings, out of the emailed file.

When should you not build a deck at all?

If the meeting is an hour with one person who has your quotation open, a deck gets in the way. Bring three printed pages and a sample. For a small renewal with a banker, a one-page note and the documents may serve better than slides. Build the deck when several people must see the same thing, or when it will be forwarded.

What to do this week

Write down your next meeting, who signs after it and what they sign, and pick the deck that fits. Then fill the one-page fact sheet before touching a slide. For a buyer deck, our post on a manufacturer's capability deck goes slide by slide, and the marketing hub has the rest of this material. If you want a hand with the deck, GullySales offers capability presentations, and the first step is to tell us what you need.