01-05 | Additional Techniques for Presentation Excellence
Series: Personalization in Practice, Presentations
In the previous installment of this series, I explored why purpose and flow are essential for delivering impactful presentations. Using the principles of hierarchy, reductionism, and sequentialism, I discussed how to decompose a vision (the “concept prototype”) into a cohesive narrative that resonates with stakeholders.
The focus was on fostering understanding, building alignment, and creating momentum toward a shared vision. Through approaches like lifecycle stage separation or the ‘90s kid approach, I highlighted how to illustrate the integration of technology with processes to inspire confidence and credibility. These principles are the foundation for engaging, results-driven conversations that position us as trusted advisors.
In this fifth and final article of the series, I will provide a few tips and techniques for enhancing the optics, clarity, and professionalism of your slides for important internal and external presentations. This installment will be more concise and illustrative than the past few. I will return to this series at some point in the future.
If you sell something internally (an idea, request for investment, etc.) or to another organization, you are selling. For that reason, I hold the view that the techniques covered in this series apply to any corporate discipline, not just sales.
The 4 topics by Order of Appearance:
Visual Progression Indicators
Orientation Legends
Product, Service, Financial Architecture Legends
Geographic Legends for Multi-National or Global Accounts
Effective Visualizations for Demonstrating Unity of Effort (Teaming)
Your Extended Team
Multi-National or Global Account Teams
Content Storyboarding: Orchestrating Multiple Presenters, Effectively
The summary section includes a link to download the slides for anyone interested.
Visual Progression Indicators
About a year ago, I was preparing for an important presentation to an executive audience. I developed two techniques that I refer to as visual progression indicators. Although these might appear as simple and somewhat trivial slide elements, they elevate the clarity of the presentation for the audience. I use them routinely, both internally and externally, and consistently receive positive feedback.
Slide Progression Indicators
The first type of Visual Progression Indicator is designed to provide the audience slide by slide feedback on where we are relative to the full presentation.
For the purposes of illustration, let’s presume I am doing this for the same meeting I was preparing for in Part 2 with Wayne Enterprises.
This is what the sequence would look like with the Visual Progression Indicators.
Tip here: If you do this, make it the final thing you do. Once your slides are set in stone, it should only take about 5 - 10 minutes (tops) to complete. It’s essentially just copy and pasting on each slide.
Orientation Legends
I like to use legends for product architecture and regional slides. Like the legend on a cartographic map, they serve as a guide to ensure clarity for the audience. Remember no one knows our content. They’ve probably forgotten the previous slide before we are even off of it. So this content helps keep continuity over the course of our presentation.
I will cover financial orientation legends when I cover business proposal presentations that touch on topics like TCO, ROI Analysis etc.
Product or Service Architecture Orientation Legends
A well-crafted legend allows the audience to keep rooted in the big picture without getting lost while you dive deeper into components and connections. I participate in multiple product roadmap sessions a month and none do this and it is tough. I wish they did. And this from someone who knows the product portfolio. Anytime I am responsible for translating content to a customer that is architecture related, I always use this technique.
Regional Orientation Legends
This is the legend concept explained above applied to Global Accounts. Whenever I need to drill down from the global level to a specific region, I carve out the right third of the slide and use the regional legend to keep the audience grounded where the information under discussion is relevant.
Losing 1/3 of the real estate on the slide should not impact your ability to illustrate whatever you need.
Areas this Concept can be Applied:
For any type of presentation where it will add value.
Internally with various teams to shift focus from global account strategy to regional strategy, conducting internal business reviews. This is an excellent way to discuss each region and visually keep your audience grounded.
This same principle can apply to companies with purely domestic footprints; the map would be one of the United States, for example, and each slide might highlight a region (northeast, southeast, etc.) or the state that requires specific discussion.
Effective Visualizations for Demonstrating Unity of Effort (Teaming)
Here are two presentation recommendations for any sales folks managing complex Global Accounts.
Your Extended Team
My Preferred Extended Account Team Slide
Multi-National or Global Account Teams
Unity of Effort, Unity of Vision, and Singularity of Focus is what is important working on large complex accounts. When I am working on a large global account, here is how I illustrate the team at a high level and then reduce it down into regional teams.
Content Storyboarding: Orchestrating Multiple Presenters, Effectively
Prior to an important presentation in which we facilitate multiple presenters’ participation, we often have multiple calls to prepare everyone to create a positive impression on the day of the presentation. We are choreographers. How do we play choreographer effectively?
Creating a storyboard as a collaborative planning tool ensures the presentation flows logically and cohesively, reflecting a polished, well-coordinated team effort.
I would only use this technique to prepare a presentation with high executive exposure and complexity, ensuring each presenter understands the entire presentation and the specific outcomes for which they are responsible.
At the outset, we consider the presentation's outcomes and align resources for each section that support driving 2-3 key outcomes. I then use this information on an initial internal call to guide the individual stakeholders into a collaborative discussion about the type of content we are looking for. Once their respective sections and the broader slide deck are assembled, I screenshot the slides and create a final cut of the storyboard to run through prior to the final presentation. This is what good choreography looks and feels like. It provides an ability to create an artifact that elevates the discussion to a level of abstraction that makes sense for more effective discussion.
The alternative I see most people following is coaching presenters from slide to slide or purely in a conversational way. The drawback of this approach is that it involves too much detail, causing people to forget. It’s easier to abstractly show them a sequence of slides (their section) and coach from that level. This gives them the freedom to decide how to deliver on facilitating the outcome you are looking for without falling into the trap of feeling like you need to challenge their specific content, which tends to lead to unnecessary conflict.
This is my preferred option for how storyboarding with PowerPoint looks:
Summary
This series covered a lot of ground. I outlined my preferred techniques for creating highly personalized, professional presentations, from a first meeting to more complex thought leadership-driven presentations. And believe it or not, there is still a lot to cover. I’ll do that in the future.
If you don’t have the time or interest to implement these techniques, you can still incorporate the overarching principles into your narrative through the content you present. Those principles are disciplined in logic, sequential in nature, and reductionistic in ideas (big ideas down to supportive reasons).
If you take away one thing from this series, let it be this: The work products we produce (often slides, but it is everything from emails to written proposals) to differentiate ourselves and our organization should be commensurate with the seriousness of the problems we seek to address. The impressions our work products leave on our stakeholders influence their final decisions based on the content AND their level of professionalism (the level of effort we put into them). Moreover, if you need more conviction, countless studies have established a positive correlation between how people communicate and their career progression. People who communicate more clearly and professionally are promoted sooner and more often than their peers.
These techniques do not need to be adopted at once. Try one or two and build from there. You can return to this article at any time.
Link to download the slides HERE
Disclosures:
This content is intended in the spirit of experiential knowledge sharing. I do my best to accurately describe strategies and techniques I use in the field for creating great customer interactions but I am not responsible for their use or misuse nor the outcomes that result from either.
I use GrammerlyAI to: 1) proofread for spelling & correctness 2) make changes/updates to grammar, sentence structure, etc. to improve clarity and readability and 3) ensure my writing is absent of any plagiarism
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