Presentations are a fact of organizational life. Sales meetings, investor pitches and press relations are all planned and built around slides. When modern organizations demand polish and sophistication, why do so many presentations fall flat?
Visual storytelling is a skill most people are never taught, yet are expected to know at work. When it's bad, it's usually really bad. We've all had to endure the tedium of a terrible presentation. But when a visual story is done well, it can take your ideas to the next level.
A well crafted presentation supports you on stage. It frees your ideas to resonate deeper with your audience.
Every presentation is made up of three parts: 1) your message; 2) your visuals; and 3) your delivery. When the stakes are high, the quality of each of these parts can mean the difference between a "yes" or "no" with a customer.
When you compare presentations to the other marketing tools organizations use, the quality difference is staggering. Businesses spend billions of dollars to ensure their websites and print materials are top notch. Presentations, on the other hand, are often homemade by the engineers and sales people who deliver them.
It's a common mistake to think there is a way slides are supposed to look — a title up top, bullet points below, the occasional clip art. This style is often rigidly enforced in the corporate world, despite growing mountains of evidence suggesting it's an ineffective way to share information.
There are hundreds of alternatives to the usual bullet point slides. Which makes the most sense for your message?
Information overload is the presenter's nemesis. Presenters want to thoroughly cover every detail of their message, but too often this confuses the audience. It's important to strike a balance between being thorough and memorable, and there's no better way to be memorable than with a story.
Story makes meaning. The human brain is wired for it. In the same way a song is easier to remember than a series of music notes, a story is easier to remember than individual chunks of information.
Visuals can kick it up another notch. By engaging more senses, visuals are like super glue for your ideas. A great presentation in the hands of a trained storyteller becomes something more than the sum of its parts — it becomes something magical.
Great presenters aren't born, they're trained. We see the transformation happen with our clients all the time. This is just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to presentation design theory. If you're interested in learning more, we recommend these resources:
