I see client PowerPoints from time to time and they often have two primary characteristics:  one, they’ve managed to squeeze more words, charts and images in a slide than I would have thought humanly possible (think college students of the 1950s squeezing into a Volkswagen) and two, they reprise a lot of the content contained in their websites and sales collateral.

Big mistakes.

Guy Kawasaki, a venture capitalist and entrepreneur, posted The 10/20/30 Rule of PowerPoint a few years ago…  and if his rule isn’t as immutable as the laws of thermodynamics, it does offer three useful guidelines:

10 slides: The slides are the backbone of a presentation, not a transcript.

20 minutes: Generally speaking, prospects have a schedule and they’ve probably budgeted an hour to talk to you.  If you’re spending time rehashing the points you make in your marketing, then you’re not talking about the prospect’s specific opportunities and challenges (I saw this ten years ago in an agency review, when a former partner went off-script and spoke enthusiastically for twenty minutes about all of our agency’s strengths–the CEO finally cut him off, noting that all of this had been covered in their process of narrowing the field of potential agencies, and by the way, we’d just burned twenty minutes of our hour.  We didn’t get the business).

30-point type: OK, I think there’s a little bit of flex in this last part, but going with larger type forces you to keep your slides simple.  One main point, one or two ancillary points, a chart or an image and you’re done.  Move on.  You can always squeeze more data into a slide, but if you try to emphasize everything, you end up emphasizing nothing.

My point is to take “yes” for an answer.  Once you’ve secured the meeting, don’t waste your time and your prospect’s talking about all of the reasons you should meet.  Talk about specifics–forget laundry lists of services.  Ask questions and listen.  If your prospect’s talking more than you are, then that’s a good sign.

Next time: design considerations, plus a look at Keynote versus PowerPoint.

Tags: Business Development, Jay, powerpoint

Posted Wednesday, January 13th, 2010 at 12:49 pm under: Business Development.
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