7 Mistakes You Make When Hiring PowerPoint Designers

As I’ve said before, for researchers, being able to present your insights visually isn’t just a desirable skill—it's a necessity.

And for a variety of reasons, sometimes it makes sense to bring in a designer to help with that.

By doing so strategically in alignment with the design, execution, and analysis phases of research, you can create impactful deliverables together in a workflow that fuels a positive feedback loop of creativity and insight.

Unfortunately, what I see far more often is the opposite of that: going over budget due to endless round of revisions with a designer who just isn’t getting it, or finding out that the designer you typically work with suddenly isn’t available.

Smash cut to you staying up late doing it yourself.

Avoid these 7 common mistakes when hiring PowerPoint Designers.

 

1 Reviewing portfolios for aesthetics, not information design.

Style is so contextual as to be meaningless in the context of information design for consumer insights. Style is subordinate to your brand identity. Therefore, it’s subordinate to the appropriate tone and personality, for both your brand and the client. And most importantly, it’s subordinate to solving the problem of clearly communicating the content on the page.

So what worked aesthetically for that (most likely not consumer insights) project in their portfolio might not work for any of your projects for a variety of reasons.

Further, everyone loves those Apple slides that have like two words on them and an image. Because, they have like two words on them, and an image.

Is their portfolio full of those kinds of slides? Delete.

Consumer insights slides have work to do, communicating insights and synthesizing and acting as a reference for datasets. Our decks are often such that just about every slide is an infographic. Have they demonstrated that they could make dense qual and quant slides clear and easy to understand?

 

QUESTION TO ASK YOURSELF

Do they have work in their portfolio demonstrating a mastery of laying out lots of information clearly, making it easy to read even if you’re unfamiliar with the content?

 

 

2 Hiring graphic designers instead of PowerPoint Designers (big difference!)

PowerPoint is quirky. Seriously. It’s got some weirdness baked into it that can cause all sorts of frustrating problems (that you’ve probably been on the business end of) that designers wouldn’t know how to avoid unless they know. It requires time and experience and trial and error, and most graphic designers just don’t put in the reps.

While they may be highly skilled experts in the Adobe suite, beyond their design acumen, very few of their skills with the software itself translate to PowerPoint. It’s its own thing.

QUESTION TO ASK YOURSELF

Does their resume list PowerPoint as their primary design capability? Or is it just another thing in a long list of software they’re familiar with?

 

 

🙌 I’ve already vetted PowerPoint designers who know insights. Scroll to the end to learn more about this always-on deck design resource, or book a call now to discuss.

 

3 No process for clearly handing off analysis to a designer.

Handing off slides full of bullet points to a designer is a great way to save time and work efficiently if you’re partnered with a designer who knows research. But often, you’re working with a freelancer who wasn’t close to the research, and sometimes—they don’t understand research. This leaves them to figure out how to interpret the meaning, nuance, and context behind what you’ve written, and then represent all of that visually.

And if they get it wrong, you either have to write lots of emails managing that, wait long hours hoping they can reliably fix what needs to be fixed, or like most, just jump in at the 11th hour and fix the slides yourself. And you still have to pay them, by the way. But what value did you get for your money?

I call this the broken left brain to right brain bridge.

You can help start to build the bridge by sketching out how insights should be visualized using sketches or mockups. Use a marker and paper, a whiteboard, an iPad, or mock it up PowerPoint (set a timer for 5 minutes—any more than that, and you’ll waste time worrying about formatting)—whatever you’re most comfortable with. Annotate the sketch with clear notes and guidance on whatever is most important for them to know. Time spent here will save you from spending hours down the road requesting revisions.

 

QUESTION TO ASK YOURSELF

Can I communicate how my insights should be visualized using sketches or mockups? It’s counterintuitive, but this is especially important on slides you might think are simple.

4 Not delegating slides to them properly.

You bring in a designer, and then tell them what to do. And then, for some reason, they never stop needing your input on everything.

You’re The Decider.

Mark Michalowicz puts it best in Clockwork [1]:

“Whether they are full- or part-time employees, or freelancers, or contractors, they are really only task rabbits. This is because you are doing the work of making decisions. They try to do the one task you gave them and then come back to you to ask questions, get your approval, have you solve problems, and help them come up with ideas. If there is any unexpected hiccup with the task at hand, the person seeks your decision. When they finish a task, they either sit idle or ask you, ‘What should I do now?’ Most entrepreneurs confuse Deciding with Delegating. If you assign a task to someone else but need to answer questions to get the task done, you are not Delegating—you are Deciding for them. Business owners who have two or three employees often get stuck spending most of their time on this activity. Your employees do the work, but the business owner’s “job” becomes answering a constant and distracting stream of questions from them. It eventually gets so bad that you may even throw your hands up in frustration and make the decision to “go back to how it was before” in an attempt to return to the “easier times” when you did all the work yourself.”

Designing for insights is more problem-solving than aesthetics; therefore, there are many, many decisions that must be made in the course of developing an insights deck. Which should you be on the hook for, and which should be left up to your designer so you can focus on doing your best work? If you find yourself spending loads of time giving feedback, answering basic questions (that you've answered before…), writing explainer emails…

 

QUESTION TO ASK YOURSELF

What tools can I give designers to help them make good decisions on my behalf/on behalf of my company while they’re working on my deck?

 

 

5 Writing/ analyzing/ working on content while having them design slides.

Imagine a film crew, out on location—actors, lighting crew, camera operators, sound guys, and all the rest. They’re…just kind of milling about. Why?

Because the writers are back in the writers room figuring out what the actors should say, or even be doing.

Sure, they kind of know what the movie is about, and the director could just make up some stuff for the actors to do that might be in the ballpark and the cinematographer could guess at the right look and feel and they might get it right….

Or, most likely, they’ll just waste days, weeks, and millions of dollars until there’s a script.

Working on slides without finalized content is like shooting a movie without a script.

And Michael Bay would never dream of it.

Whether you’re working on the next blockbuster summer film, or the next blockbuster insights deck, hiring people to create good things costs time and money.

Most designers expect to be able to copy and paste your writing and design it exactly as you have it written, without editing it.

(For good reason. Because retyping or editing your copy can invite liability if there are any errors.)

It’s understandable that some of your content will change throughout the process due to complications, client conversations, and all the rest.

So it doesn’t have to be perfect. But the more time you spend getting it as close as you can to finished, the fewer rounds of revisions you’ll have, and therefore the lower your design costs will be.

And the end result will be a better deck than the alternative. Cheaper and better, the best combination.

My clients know that if they don’t have time, they can jot down a quick brain dump and get back expertly-designed slides with deep insights, analysis and recommendations written for them.

QUESTION TO ASK YOURSELF

Are edits and revisions in scope? How many? Is copyediting or copywriting in scope? How far along do I need to get my content before handing it off to a designer?

 

 

6 Not giving designers enough lead time.

Though it's in short supply, it can’t be overstated that time is one of THE key ingredients of a high-quality, impactful deliverable.

That clients are demanding tighter deadlines is not a surprise. We know it’s going to happen, so let’s plan for it accordingly.

Just like the research engagement can be far more effective when clients bring you in early, bringing in designers early makes for a much more impactful deliverable, and enables you both to do your best work together in the short time you have.

And it’ll keep your budget far more predictable.

 

QUESTION TO ASK YOURSELF

Am I going to need a designer for this project? Could I have someone lined up as soon as we win the project?

 

7 Relying on very few (sometimes just one!) designer, and then being shocked when they leave/go on vacation/get sick/go get another job.

 

 

This one again is due to poor, inefficient process, and it’s a sign that it’s coming to a head.

When they’re slammed with one deck, researchers can usually manage (by sacrificing sleep, important life stuff, their general well-being, etc.), but when there are multiple decks, or a “really important deck” to get out the door, their lack of process quickly falls apart for want of a reliable resource.

 

QUESTION TO ASK YOURSELF

What’s my plan for when [designer] isn’t available?

 

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If you don’t have a plan—I’ve got your back.

Slidedesignr is your always-available resource for whenever you need a leveled up qual or quant report in Powerpoint at a predictable budget.

Get access to an always-on, highly vetted stable of designers who know insights and can help you get qual and quant reports designed, whenever you need it, so you can focus on analysis & reporting, without worrying about design.

And that team is vetted and led by me. I’ve been designing insights decks with impact for big brands for nearly two decades.

 

Just Do 3 Things

1. Write your completed qual/quant report outline in Word or PowerPoint and drop in your data.
2. Send it at least 10 business days before your deadline.
3. Explain the story during a brief conversation with me.

 

You’ll get:

• Low flat rate pricing
• Help with copyediting and copywriting adjustments
• Your deck delivered in .PPTX and .PDF format
• Every slide is editable
• Regular check-ins
• Unlimited batched revisions
• Design delivered 24-48 hours before you need to hit send or present
• Stock photos and icons included
• A full 2 weeks of support after final delivery for anything else you might need adjusted, and for any questions you or your client might have.

 

Book a call if you’re ready to explore how you can get leveled-up decks, done in less time, at a lower cost.

 

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🦶🗒️

1 Michalowicz, Mike. Clockwork: Design Your Business to Run Itself