Save The Best For Last In Your Presentation Narrative

Forbes

7 days ago

Businesswoman giving a presentation in front of a bored distracted colleagues, EPS 8 vector ... More illustration getty
McKinsey is a prestigious management consulting companies with a well-deserved sterling reputation for helping corporations deal with complex business problems. They also offer their clients advice on presentations, which is where they fall short, particularly with their recommendations for the composition of slide titles.
'Most McKinsey slides follow this simple but effective format: Action title: The title is written as a sentence that tells the viewer the conclusion of the slide,' explains PlusAI, a U.S. company offering to 'Supercharge your slides.' And Slideworks, a Danish-U.S. presentation design company started and run by former employees of McKinsey and other management consulting companies, recommends that 'the title of a slide should always be an 'action title' that articulates the key takeaway or 'so-what' of the slide.'
Inexperienced boxers, in an effort to create momentum and force, wind up or rear back before throwing a punch. This is known as 'telegraphing.' The phrase, meaning a premature revelation of intentions, has taken on wider application in other sports and even in other contexts such as business, politics, and even writing. In all cases, the impact of the revelation is diffused or lost—an unwise strategy. Instead, as in boxing, the best advice is to withhold rather than signal intentions.
This advice is also a perfect metaphor for the title of a slide. If a company called Acme Widget were to show a bar or a pie chart of their competitive landscape with their figures being the greatest, an action title would be 'Acme Widget Leads the Market.'
If instead, the title were to be 'Acme Widget Competitive Landscape' with all the same information, the presenter could discuss the landscape, comparing and contrasting all the players and their offerings, and then conclude, 'Acme Widget's superior solution makes it the market leader' either verbally or as an animated text box—at the bottom of the slide.
Furthermore, if the presentation were to be given to a customer, using the identical chart, the presenter could go beyond the conclusion to add, 'That's why the Acme Widget is the perfect solution for you.' And if the presentation were to be given to an investor, still with the identical chart, the presenter could go on to add, 'Acme Widget's superior performance makes it an attractive investment opportunity.'
There are four important benefits of the above approach: Benefit One
Logic: 'Action titles' jump to a conclusion before presenting the evidence. Only when the evidence is presented has the presenter earned to right to make a conclusion.
Efficiency: No need to reinvent the wheel. Slides can be repurposed and used for diverse audiences, delegating the message to the presenter's narrative. Benefit Three
Customization: Every audience has its unique requirements and benefits. One size does not fit all. Tailor every presentation to every audience. Benefit Four
Focus: The presenter—and not the slide—delivers the message and provides the value. It can be no other way. 'Action titles' are actually quite passive. They assume that the audience will read the message and get the point on their own. Instead, the presenter actively leads the audience to a conclusion. That's called persuasion.
To conclude, we turn to another metaphor: comedians save the punch line until the end of the joke.