The biggest mistake in presentations isn’t ugly slides—it’s assuming your audience cares about what you’re saying.

Clear, Concise Decks Communicate on an Unspoken Level

Implicitly, they communicate respect for your audience.

Your audience is busy. They’re tired 🥱. They’re still thinking about that movie they watched last night. Or that last presentation they saw. Or that other one. Or that other one. This is not the first presentation your client will have presented to them today, especially if they’re C-suite.

According to the Harvard Business Review, execs spend an average of nearly 23 hours a week in meetings. [1]

Most likely, every other presentation they’ve seen today was bad, disorganized, confusing, and forced them to do all the work of making mental connections between ideas, conclusions, and recommendations.

The good news for you is, it takes so little to stand out. Just care.

 

The Myth that Only the C-Suite Deserves a Great Presentation

“We’ve got a really important presentation coming up. Those other ones? Meh, we can just crank those out.”

🗨️ If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard this….

 

I would have a lot of nickels.

Typically, we’re most worried about presenting to the C-Suite and other really important audiences, but [warning: soapbox] we should treat all of our audiences as human beings worthy of our respect and consideration, with real-world needs who need your help to understand and learn from what you’re telling them.

Clarity isn’t reserved just for important audiences— because your reputation isn't just what you say, it's made up of the things you actually do, it should be your standard every time you present new information. And as covered previously, clarity is key for presenting to someone who isn’t you and doesn’t share your mind and the way you think.

Which is to say, everyone.

If that doesn't convince you, think of every presentation as an opportunity to practice the skills you need for those Really Important Presentations.

And if that doesn’t convince you, know someone is inevitably going to share your deck with people who don’t speak your language—especially if you speak Research. They might not speak it as a first (or even second) language.

And if that still doesn't convince you, know that sometimes that someone is a gatekeeper who would show your deck to an exec if they deemed it worthy, but they think it ain't so they won't.

When I was on the Client side, I had to spend many hours translating our Supplier’s data-dump decks into slides with a visual language I could show anyone from Engineers to Marketers to Division Directors and Execs.

We'll get into how to do exactly that. But first,

 

What Do You Already Know About Your Audience?

The Context

Typically from your initial conversation, the RFP, or from some quick online searching, you know your client’s current business situation, where they were and where they are today.

 

What Can We Find Out About Your Audience?

However, usually something happened in between—a complication—and that is what prompted them to seek out your help in getting answers to their business questions.

And they plan to act on that complication once they have those answers and some guidance on what to do next. You will need to understand more about what they have already tried, and what they possibly will do, and what they possibly could do in order to write good recommendations, help them make good decisions, or explain why they should invest.

This is why they're paying attention to your deck.

 

I Don’t Mean The List of Objectives

They probably tasked you with doing [tasks] and finding answers to many questions— this isn’t what I mean. To understand the audience’s complication, we’re looking for the answer to a few key questions.

Rarely will they lay it out so clearly for you though—more often than not, the List of Objectives doesn’t address this. Remember the doctor metaphor? As the Expert, your client may come to you with symptoms (objectives), but you will need to go deeper than that to properly diagnose their problem.

When you’re on a mission to help your clients, your deck supports the conversation and makes it all about them. During the sales conversation or before you start working on slides, ask your client, direct contact, or others on the inside these questions.

If you’ve already started the project, frame them as follow-up questions. And if you have experience interviewing or moderating, you’re streets ahead—think of it like a mini IDI or small group. Put them in your own words. Dig in by asking “why”, and other relevant follow-up questions.

 

The Eight Questions

1 Relevant to this project, what’s one non-controversial thing about your business that everybody in the company knows?

ASK YOURSELF: WHERE DO THEY THINK THEY ARE CURRENTLY?

A Barbara Minto question. This is The Context from their perspective. It’s something everybody already knows, or at least will not question.

The answer will help you get on the same page with the organization. See the world through their eyes. On your deck, contrast this relatively "boring" statement with your summary of the business problem to highlight the seriousness, severity, or urgency of the problem, to help the audience understand the potential delta from their current state.

e.g., “Everyone knows that we’re a leading brand for Millennial new homeowners.”

 

2 What’s the one thing that prompted you to do this project with us?

ASK YOURSELF: WHAT OUTCOMES DO THEY WANT TO AVOID?

It's the Thing That Happened, Thing That Will Happen, or Thing That Could Happen that the business is facing. It’s the moment they realized they didn’t know what decision to make, or how to answer a serious question. People will understand the problem through the lens of their roles and responsibilities, which will help you tailor the deck to directly address their unique challenges. Do this on the first slide to snap the audience into focus and give this presentation their full attention: you have some relevant and useful answers for them.

e.g., “A new competitor has entered the market and we’re worried that their [offerings that are different from ours] might attract our target customer and steal share from us.”

 

3 What’s the big question that keeps you all up at night?

ASK YOURSELF: WHAT DO THEY REALLY NEED?

Your client, whether they're internal or external, probably asked you to do [tasks] and find answers to many questions.

We'll need to summarize all of that into one clearly articulated question which will give your deck sharp clarity and focus.

Rarely will they lay it out so clearly for you though! Pretend you're a surgeon. As the Expert, your client may come to you with symptoms (objectives), but you will need to go deeper than that to properly diagnose their problem so it can be effectively targeted and treated.

e.g. “Does our target customer find [competitor offerings] compelling?”

 

 

With the answers to these three questions we’ll write our deck's powerful, attention-grabbing 90 Second Introduction, which we’ll cover in the next module.

 

4 If we were sitting down 3 years from now, and you were really happy, what’s happened in those three years to make you so happy?

ASK YOURSELF: WHAT’S THEIR DESIRED FUTURE STATE?

The Dan Sullivan Question. This powerful question projects them into the future, gives you a realistic timeframe, and can help them discover deeper answers they probably weren’t consciously aware of—so you can add more value than they ever thought possible.

e.g. “Hopefully, we’ve been able to get a Series B investor and commercialize…and honestly, I’d really like to be able to keep our team employed.”

 

5 What have you already tried?

ASK YOURSELF: WHAT SHOULDN’T I RECOMMEND?

And what was the result?

This should absolutely have been a sales question, and it also gives you a clear boundary for when you’re writing recommendations. Something substantial would have to be different now in order for you to recommend perhaps a new way to give this [set of things] another go—otherwise, it might sound out-of-touch to recommend that they do this stuff all over again.

e.g., “We tried launching content on TikTok with this audience already, and it fell flat."

 

6 What aren’t you willing or able to try?

ASK YOURSELF: WHAT BARRIERS EXIST?

Another powerful sales question that also gives you another boundary for writing recommendations.

They may have financial constraints, manufacturing constraints, political challenges, actions that fall outside their company values, or other actions they can’t or aren’t willing to take. Do not recommend this stuff—it will sound like you don’t understand their business, and put you in vendor/order-taker territory.

e.g., “We can't manufacture the packaging for [product] using both colors of plastic because of supply chain issues, so we have to choose just one."

 

With these two questions we’ll write our deck's Recommendations, which we’ll also cover another time.

 

7 Once the company goals are met, what could be different or helpful for you personally, when it comes to this project?

ASK YOURSELF: HOW CAN I ADD MORE VALUE?

What’s in it for them? This question helps me create one-pagers and other value-adds that help arm my clients with the visual tools they need to compete and communicate powerfully.

A few paths to explore: Are they in a new role, and need to make a splash? Will it help their chances of a promotion? Make them look good to a certain boss or stakeholder? Help them secure resources for a new initiative? Something else?

When we’re aligned with our client’s interests, we all win.

e.g., “There would be a lot a stress off my back if I had something I could use in this workshop I’m leading with execs…and one of them is my new boss.”

 

8 Is there anything you would change about the results you’ve gotten from other partners in the past, if you could?

ASK YOURSELF: HOW CAN I ADD EVEN MORE VALUE?

Perhaps they used to work with another agency or partner on this stuff—why aren’t they working with them on this engagement? Did something happen? Were they hard to work with in some way? These are all opportunities for you to exceed their expectations, reduce risk, and add even more value.

e.g., “Yeah, I feel like we were getting good data, but they weren’t synthesizing it into something stakeholders could actually use.”

As an outside consultant, or if you’re new to your organization, it can sometimes be difficult to get the insider view on how things work internally. Don't guess, or base your work on hearsay.

Asking these eight questions can give you the insight you'll need to be able to create a deck that will have an impact on the group of people you're presenting to, while writing powerful recommendations for everyone from execs to marketers, to engineers, finance folks, and more that they'll find personally useful and actionable.

 

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