Deck advice

It's the language of business and yet everybody hates PowerPoint decks.

Consider these tips I recently shared with a client:

Structure: 

     The first thing I look for in a deck is the structure (table of contents). Without that I know it's going to be work trying to figure out what it's all about, so start with the structure. I want to know as quickly as possible Why I want to invest more time with this deck, I weigh the work/reward ratio with this deck. If it looks like Much Work, Little Reward, then it goes in the Later file, and sadly may never be seen again.

The basic structure:

1. Tell 'em what you're gonna tell 'em. 
2. Tell 'em. 
3. Tell 'em what you told 'em.

Make it easy

     Make it easy for your audience. Keep it short. People are busy. Life is short. The longer it is, the more work you assign to someone. Short slides with short phrases, big print. You want your audience to look forward to each slide and feel refreshed with each one, not burdened with dense blocks of text.
     Page numbers on all slides except first.

Get to the point

     Powerful opening: move quickly from big picture, big idea, to big conclusion.

     Get to the bottom line message fast.

     Call to action.