The pitch doctor: Death by PowerPoint

The pitch doctor, PETER RUSH, discusses the perfect PowerPoint presentation.

P owerPoint is dead. Long live PowerPoint. Let me explain this paradox. It will add several years to your life, save so many others from catatonic delirium and turn your carbon footprint positively Jimmy Choo. The scene will be very familiar dear reader and fill you with dread. The laptops are primed, the latest plasma resplendent and the room buzzing with expectation as the top suits and suitettes ready themselves for the presentation.
The corporate branded cover slide deliciously seduces with its designer colour scheme and carefully crafted logo. Then here it comes. Forty PowerPoint slides crammed with more words than a politician looking for votes. Slide one: fifty words. Slide two: sixty with the font especially reduced to boost his Vision Express shares. And it’s worse still if you read it. Because you can read about eight times faster than those presenting can talk you now know what is going to be said and you have the aural delight of listening to what you already comprehend. Drifting off yet? You should be. You will.
Worse is yet to come. Slide three is a cracker. The presenter has found a totally naff cartoon that really zaps the point home in glorious primary colour with a sound and entrance effect to show Zen-like mastery of the templates. Then he takes you through twenty minutes of PowerPoint hell as slide after slide drills your brain with bullet after bullet. Sniper alley is more appealing – at least you get an adrenalin buzz before dying. Ah, but you have another forty minutes of this with two more maestros eager to share their slide ration too.
Then you could have my fate. Advising some ego-driven cheese meister that sixty slides aren’t a good idea for winning the new account and “no they don’t want to know about our amazing internal procedures for opening and closing a file and see that JPEG that IT did showing workflow with a video link from the website”.
How on earth did we let this happen? A wonderful tool that should turn us all into mini Speilbergs has us all creating the corporate version of holiday videos. The answer lies in that great truism ‘a little knowledge is a dangerous thing’, coupled to our hidden ambitions to be movie producers. Admirably, the makers of PowerPoint tried to let us have it all. Pictures, sound, text and templates so we could instantly release our hidden movie mogul on an unsuspecting public. Now add the natural nerves that are present when we are asked to step into the spotlight and I’m reaching for any safety blanket you throw me. And if you are the type that likes structure, order and, perhaps, key points up there where you can see them then PowerPoint is a saviour is it not? More words please. It will help me remember my lines. Another slide please. And another.
But what have you forgotten? How’s about your audience, who happen to be the most sophisticated eidetic generation in history and communication rule number one. No attention means no communication. We have seen the outer fringes of space and shortly in Cerne, Switzerland we may see time itself unravel in front of our eyes. Certainly our consumption of visual media makes us want pictures, metaphors and imagery that is striking. So what’s the answer?
Simple. Five slides only. Slide one the branding with snappy title and the cast beautifully fonted. Slide two concept, context and structure. Why you are doing it this way and your credibility and competence in spades, a few key words and a stunning image. Slide three what success looks like with a picture or a pithy quote that proves it. Slide four: the cornerstone, of course. This is the money shot and is the slide you linger on and contains all your key points in 12 words or fewer again supported visually. Slide five: financials. Get the designers in. The rest is what it should have been in the first place. A handout. Yours is printed in larger type and may have just keys words. See I have let you keep your comfort blanket after all.
Einstein was so famous his picture didn’t even need a caption when it appeared in the press. He thought in pictures before he did the math. To understand and explain relativity he used the imagery of a large Town Hall clock and an observer on a tram traveling away from it at the speed of light. What would happen to the time shown on the clock face he thought? Your sat nav system works because of what he discovered. So if you want your audience to get to your intended destination show them pictures. Let the words come out of your mouth not the screen. Now you are the star or soon will be. Break a leg darling. I can see your name in lights already.

Peter Rush is a freelance pitch doctor and tenders consultant. He can be contacted at thepitchdoctor@gmail.com.