TELEVUTION

Typically, a powerpoint deck ends up being the focal point of a pitch. The following are some of my personal opinions on how they should be structured, and how much (or little) they should say.

1. Don’t use agenda slides: Agendas are for meetings when people can refer to them all the time. Noone’s going to remember what order you’re going to present your information in, so you’re wasting time anyway. If you *must* use an agenda, print out an agenda, and hand it to your audience members.

2. Don’t use people’s titles when introducing team members: Your title doesn’t mean jack to a prospective client. Your *role* does. Instead of using “John Smith: VP, Program Management & Delivery”, try “John Smith: Your Account Lead”.

3. NEVER start a pitch talking about yourself. They know who you are, or else you wouldn’t be in the room. In some cases, there may be attendees who don’t know the company—for those, find out beforehand how many plan to attend, and send some information up-front about your agency. A minute talking about ourselves is a minute we’re not talking about the client. It’s a minute wasted.

4. Decks that have “Our philosophy on…” sections are deadly. Seriously. Don’t get me wrong. Its important to have a viewpoint on a subject. The deadly part is to NOT personalize that viewpoint for a client. For example, in a pitch about CRM, please don’t start with “Our viewpoint on CRM”, using a boilerplate diagram. Instead, find out what CRM means for the client and her industry, and create a viewpoint for it. Take a stand, even if you’re making assumptions. If you think they have no business doing CRM, stay that. If you think they should be focusing on channels instead, say that—customize your viewpoint.

5. Give them all your ideas. Think hard about the client’s industry, come up with great ideas as if we were late for a 3 million dollar deadline, and give it all to them in the pitch. No kidding. We’re often too afraid to do that, because we think clients might steal the ideas and use them with someone else. Yeah? So what? Let ‘em. A client that does that is a client not worth having. So dig up those ideas, get them crystal clear, and make a statement.

6. Don’t be afraid to be creative. The people who are listening to you are just that—people. They enjoy the same jokes that you do, and have similar motivations. Tap into that human element, and create something that can break the ice, if necessary.

7. Don’t be verbose. I can’t stress this enough. It is our tendency to put as much information on a slide as possible. The motivation behind this is simple: You want to show that you’ve done a lot of research, and have a lot to say. DON’T! Put just enough information to have a discussion point, memorize the information (better yet, LEARN it), and then talk about it. It’s much more impressive to see someone who knows information about your business than someone who’s been able to format it neatly into a PowerPoint slide.