We Powerpoint-ify much too soon

We look at many, many, many presentation decks. Most of them, pitch decks. Some of them, product decks.

Because we are generally very early in the process, most of them that we see are still terrible. (Fortunately, they eventually become better.)

Whoops, I mean, “need work” rather than “terrible.”

Presentation decks can need several different types of improvements, each of which is worthy of a separate discussion.

All too often, people put great effort into the graphics arts before they have the right message.

As reviewers, we often get distracted by the graphic arts (whether they are wonderful or terrible), so we don’t give sufficient attention to the more fundamental issues.

At the very least, I’d like to believe that the words are right before you spend time picking (or we spend time arguing about) fonts and colors.

But the further down this stack, the more valuable the corrections.

In the most recent set of presentation decks, each and every one had the wrong ideas. They described product offerings and neglected to include any of the things that made the product valuable to the users.

The best choices of fonts and colors can’t fix that. Use your and your advisors’ time well by perfecting the ideas first.

#powerpoint #presentation #pitches #pitchdeck #graphicarts #fonts #colors