Editor's Note: Claudyne offers Point, Click & Wow! free when you purchase her CD: Slides That Win showing over 200 before and after PowerPoint slide examples (put in promotional code: pmaster). You can copy and use these designs. Find out more at wilderpresentations.com.
Many presentations today don't look professional, nor do they always convey the appropriate messages. Yet people have spent hours, even days, creating them. For the amount of time spent, the return is just not there. Unfortunately, people do not receive the tools or appropriate training in order to create professional, audience-centered slides. Someone may say, "We send our employees to PowerPoint training." That is only training in the features of the software. Most software courses do not teach how to use the features to create effective slides. Although most people realize the need for improvement, they aren't sure what to do.
The underlying problem is that companies don't give their employees the files, that is, PowerPoint or other software program files, that they need in order to create effective presentation slides. Typically, a company will create one slide background look and send it out, telling employees that this is the background they all have to use. The company typically believes that this one background is enough for all the presentations the company delivers. Unfortunately, that's not true. First, it's boring for an audience to see just one slide look. Usually that slide look consists of bulleted phrases. Customer and vendor conferences can be one or two days in length. No one wants to sit looking at the same blue background with the seven bulleted phrases on each slide for twelve hours. Frequently, the background doesn't really work for every slide. For example, a dark blue patterned background isn't the best to use when showing many charts and intricate diagrams.
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Why do companies operate in this manner? Companies do this because they are functionally organized. Here's one scenario that occurs in many companies: One person in a designated graphics department creates the background look. This look may or may not work for the type of information that has to be put on the slides. Someone else in the marketing department creates the slides for the new product launch. And then a salesperson actually gives the presentation to the customer. These people don't work together. They operate in a vacuum. They are not concerned about the customer's reaction to the presentation's length, design, or information. Their performance ratings have nothing to do with the customer's reaction. Even more upsetting, they think they know better than the salesperson and try to demand that the salesperson give the presentation exactly as it was created. Since presentation slides are able to be redone, this is good news for most salespeople, as they frequently have to redo the slides sent to them.
We have one simple solution. Companies need corporate blueprints. What is a corporate blueprint? A corporate blueprint includes presentation formats and ten to twenty different slide designs companies need in order to present a unique, branded image externally to their customers and internally to their employees. In this chapter you will see some design slides.
Every company needs to design a special look and feel that gives the world an impression of its strength, talents, and focus. Many companies do that very well with printed materials, such as their annual report or brochures. Most do not do it well with presentations delivered electronically.
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