Your First Week: The Three Decks to Build First
A first-week test for catalog-built presentations: create a dealer deck, trade show deck and new-range deck, then compare them with the old process.
The quickest way to lose a sales team's interest in a new tool is to ask them to change how they work before it's proved anything. The quickest way to keep it is to build three decks they'd have had to build anyway, in the first week, and let them compare. Here's the order.
Day one: set the brand, once
Before any deck, open the agent and ask it to import your brand from your website, or attach your brand guidelines. It fills the logo (including a reversed version for dark backgrounds), colors, fonts, cover image, about copy, contacts, footer line and trading terms, and tells you what it couldn't find so you can add it [1]. Check it in Settings, Branding.
Furniture Connect uses saved branding in presentations and exported quotes [1][2]. Review it before the first deck so the team is judging the workflow with the right logo, colors and fonts in place.
Also check the catalog on the range you'll present first: are the prices in the price fields you'll show, are the finishes linked, do the products have the images you'd want on a slide? A deck is a snapshot of the record. Thin record, thin deck.
Deck one: a named dealer meeting this week
Pick the next real meeting. Ask the agent for a presentation for that dealer: name the range, the finishes they stock and the price field they should see. The agent knows your catalog, not your account terms, so those come from you. Review the slides, ask for two or three changes, export the PowerPoint [2].
Then do the thing that matters: put it next to the deck the rep would have built. Not for polish, for correctness. Are the prices current? Are the discontinued finishes gone? Are the images the current colorways? That comparison is the argument.
Deck two: the trade show
A show deck is a different shape: broader selection, less pricing, more lifestyle, built for people you haven't met. Ask for one for the show by name, covering the ranges you're taking. This one tests the lifestyle imagery in the catalog; the show deck can use the available fabric-specific imagery when requested.
If it comes out thin on imagery, check the product records. The missing room scenes or variant shots need to be created or added upstream, not patched into every deck.
Deck three: the new range
The range that's just launched or is about to. This is the deck every rep needs on the same day, and the one that's usually built by one person and emailed round. Build it from the catalog; every rep can ask for a version for their accounts, using the same maintained price fields and the appropriate basis for each account.
This deck tests whether the new range is represented properly: variants grouped, finishes linked, prices filled. If the deck shows gaps, check whether the information is missing from the catalog or was omitted from the presentation. Correct the source record where needed, then review the rebuilt deck. Better source data can also improve other outputs that draw on it.
What to do with the comparisons
Keep the three pairs: the catalog-built deck and the hand-built equivalent. Note the time each took and the errors in each. That's your internal case, and it's honest because it's your own decks.
What to leave alone in week one
Don't rebuild your template library in the tool on day one. If you already have a PowerPoint template, upload it under Settings, Branding and new decks will use it. Then see how far that, the branding settings and the catalog get you.
Don't try to make a deck do a quote's job. When a dealer wants line-by-line pricing for an order, that is the agent's quote workflow, which builds a priced PDF and an Excel working file from a brief, a cost sheet or a floorplan [3]. See from deck to quote.
Don't edit product facts in the exported slides. Fix the record, rebuild the deck. The rule is in editing the deck after export.
Start with the meeting in the diary
Whichever dealer you're seeing next is deck one. For the mechanics, see how to build a dealer deck from Furniture Connect. For the whole picture, see selling from the catalog.
