Escaping PowerPoint Jail: Why Your 45-Slide Customer Deck Is Costing You Deals

Are your sales presentations working against you? In this Quick Fix episode of Under the Hood: Automotive Storytelling, host Stéphane Lagresle reveals why automotive suppliers and technology companies are losing millions in opportunities, not despite their preparation, but because of it.

THE PROBLEM: You've seen it happen. A customer blocks out 60 minutes. Your team spends weeks preparing a comprehensive 45-slide deck covering every technical specification, every capability, every certification. But 15 minutes in, you watch engagement evaporate: phone checking, email responding, eyes glazing over. Yet you keep clicking forward because ”we spent three weeks building this deck.”

This is PowerPoint Jail—when preparation time becomes a psychological prison that prevents you from actually connecting with customers.

THE FRAMEWORK: Drawing on neuroscience research from John Medina and TED curator Chris Anderson, Stéphane introduces The 18-Minute Rule: a discipline that forces brutal prioritization and transforms customer presentations from monologues into meaningful dialogues.

YOU'LL LEARN: 

→ Why the sunk cost fallacy destroys B2B sales conversations
→ The Stopwatch Challenge: A practical test for your next customer deck
→ Why shorter presentations lead to longer, richer customer conversations
→ How to prioritize what customers need to hear vs. what you want to tell them

TACTICAL TAKEAWAY: 

Stop measuring success by deck completion rate. Start measuring it by customer engagement and business outcomes. Learn exactly how to build narrative-driven presentations where every slide earns its place—and nothing can be skipped.

Perfect for:

• Automotive sales and business development professionals
• B2B technology sales teams
• Supplier account managers
• Product marketing and sales enablement leaders
• Anyone who presents complex technical solutions to customers

Under the Hood: Automotive Storytelling is the premier podcast for automotive innovation leaders, revealing the human stories behind technological breakthroughs. Hosted by Stéphane Lagresle, Founder of The Storytelling Tribe and creator of the Automotive-Grade Storytelling™ methodology.

🎧 Subscribe for monthly episodes featuring industry visionaries and bi-weekly Quick Fixes tackling specific storytelling challenges.

”Under the Hood: Automotive Storytelling” uncovers the human narratives driving innovation in an industry that impacts lives worldwide. Hosted by Stéphane Lagresle, this podcast explores how the power of storytelling ultimately connects technology to humans.