Dump the deck

The slide deck seems to be omnipresent in everything we do in business in America. We present slides for corporate updates, sales pitches, project updates, and the analysis on the selection of the new coffee machine. As with any tool, slide decks are not in themselves an issue, but how I see so many people use them can be. Here are a few reasons why I would suggest not using them.

People read ahead

You can obviously control this to some extent by not giving out forward or paper copies of decks, but the simple reality is people do read ahead. If I construct a deck most often it has a narrative and a cadence. I emphasize certain slides, I blow past others, in some cases I may choose to skip a slide on the fly. I can’t tell you the number of times that I am sitting on page 4 trying to make a really important point, while the project sponsor has jumped straight to slide 12 which is the budget slide and is looking at the bottom line. At a minimum I would suggest you try share the deck in real time and send a copy later.

Decks can dictate the content

This is particularly true with sales decks. A lot of organizations train their sales folks to define up front the value proposition, market differentiators, and solutions and go into a call with that all laid out. The problem, as I have all too often seen, is when you go into an audience who is not interested your message, and the presenter is not aware enough to read the body language, or only knows how to doggedly plod through their slides. I have seen someone lay their head down on the desk at a final presentation and go to sleep, and watched the presenter plow on through their slides as though it never happened.

A subset of this, which I have discussed in other blogs, is that folks feel obligated to include all the fluff slides, the obligatory technical slide that no one can read a word on that look like everyone else’s technical slide, the slide with lots of logos on it (that gives no insight into how big a client each of those companies is), the company history even if the audience knows everything about your company.

Decks can take up all your time

So you have finally after 6 months months landed the sixty minute meeting you have wanted more than anything, and you feel you need to take in some slides to drive the meeting. How about taking in 5 instead of 60 for a one hour meeting? Better still treat them as an ala carte menu and have them available if you need them. I went into a final presentation for a state deal in Louisiana with a large partner company, and we worked late the previous night on rationalizing the deck. The deck went from 134 slides to 118, for a two hour meeting. That meant we had to go through the slides at an average of 1 per minute. That is pretty much a guarantee you will not get through the material and most likely will not get the deal.

Equally importantly is that people fill up 90% of their time covering the deck and leave 10% for discovery and discussion. I have seen someone present a 40 slide deck, and then begin a discussion with a prospective client only to realize the client was interested in one of their other products.

Decks tend to all blend together

How many presentations have you sat through in the last 10 years? While working for a large healthcare provider in Nashville I probably sat through a few thousand vendor presentations over an 8 year period. I can remember with any clarity maybe 10 of them. Now don’t get me wrong, structured presentations have their role. We do weekly architecture reviews and we have an architecture review template we ask presenters to fill out. In the case of a review meeting you likely want to use a standard format, so the material is presented in a consistent and assessable manner.

On the other hand if you are ”selling” something, be that as a vendor presenting to prospect or internally to your organization, the risk of feeling obligated to using a deck is that you become another faceless presentation in a sea of meetings.

Some decks are just plain nasty

Gotta say it - some of you should not be creating decks! I have no idea why anyone would think that throwing a dog's breakfast of clashing colors on a large bright screen is a good way to persuade folks about anything, but I see it every week.

Low res cartoons that pixelate, ridiculously complex technical slides you can’t read a word on, decks with 12 different typefaces, folks you use script fonts for large blocks of text, and a palette of colors that look like a paint set ruptured on the slide do nothing to sell a concept or provide information. It’s OK to not be good at designing slides, ask for help. Or if you can’t get the help, be self-aware enough to know not to use the slides.

Or there is the alternative…

Ever considered just dumping the deck and just having a conversation? Or (if you are good at it) initiating a conversation on a white board (yes, some of you should never get on a white board either).

You may be surprised at the results.