- In this video, I'll be talking about
what sets consulting style presentations
apart from most other types of presentations.
I'll cover four key differences
and I'll show you some real consulting slide
examples to help highlight these differences.
Plus I'll explain in detail some of the tricks
these consulting firms use to build presentations,
how they're able to take large amounts of information
and package it up in slides that are clear
engaging and persuasive, all that and more coming right up.
(upbeat music)
Hi everyone Paul here with The Analyst Academy
where we teach people
how to build high quality presentations
like what you might find at a top consulting firm.
We've taught thousands of people all around the world
at places ranging from small startups
to large multinational organizations.
So if that's something you're interested in
or something you think would benefit your organization
be sure to visit us at theanalystacademy.com.
Over my career I've seen thousands of presentations
as a consultant, as a client
and now as a PowerPoint instructor,
and while I've seen high quality slides come from people
at all different companies and in all different roles,
In my experience, the best presentations
tend to come from the consulting industry,
which makes sense if you think about it.
A consulting firms main deliverable
is most often a PowerPoint deck.
So it's in their best interest to make these decks
as high quality as possible.
Generally speaking, these consulting firms tend to focus
on four things that set their presentations apart
from most other typical business presentations.
The first is structure.
The biggest challenge any consulting firm faces
in their presentations is having a large amount of data
that they need to show in a small amount of space
and the way they can do this so effectively
is by putting proper structure to their slides.
More specifically consulting firms
follow the pyramid principle.
The idea behind the pyramid principle
is that when communicating
you wanna start by saying your main point first
before providing any details.
In a normal conversation this is easy to do,
here's my main point followed by reasons A, B and C.
But doing that same thing visually
can be a little more tricky.
Essentially, you're trying
to help people look at the main point of your slide first
and then look at the details.
Well, it might not be obvious right away
but this is something consulting firms do extremely well.
Take a look at this slide from BCG, for example.
It's from a presentation
that's trying to assess the relevance of Melbourne
as a cultural destination.
Now, can you spot the main message of this slide?
It's right here at the top.
Melbourne has some leading education institutions.
Instead of telling you the main point verbally
they have to draw attention to the main point visually
so that you look at it first.
And the way they do that here
is by making the title a very eye catching green
but also putting it right at the top
with this line underneath
and making it the largest font on the slide.
but then the way they structure the rest of the slide
is also really important.
Again going back to the pyramid principle
they want you to see the second layer of detail next
which in this case is the subtitles.
So they've made them bold
and put lines underneath so that they grab your attention.
Then lastly, the bottom layer
of our pyramid comes in the form of this text,
and then also this chart.
This is the supporting detail and data.
So it might not be something you notice consciously
but this is something that consulting firms care about
quite a bit.
They want you to process the levels of the slide
one layer at a time and structuring it according
to the pyramid principle is how they can trick your brain
into doing it naturally.
The second difference I see most often
is the amount of visualizations.
And typically these visualizations
come in the form of charts.
Charts work well for consulting firms
because they provide a couple of really important benefits.
The first is that they allow the audience
to process a large amount of information quickly,
and the second is that they provide instant credibility.
Consulting firms are hired
to provide really expensive advice,
so it's important for them to show
how they reach their conclusions
and why those conclusions are credible.
And from my experience clients and executives
like to see data because it provides them evidence
that they need to make informed decisions.
Let's take a look at another slide
from the BCG presentation.
This one is all about how fewer students
are choosing to study creative subjects.
And notice how prominent the chart is on the slide,
it still follows the pyramid principle structure
by starting with the main message,
the title then going into the details with the chart,
but really there's not much else on the slide,
the chart does most of the talking.
Now, can you imagine how much harder this slide would be
to understand if instead of a nice chart like this
they decided to put a table with all the exact same numbers.
It would take a lot longer for the audience
to process the slide and the connections with the main point
in the title wouldn't be quite as obvious.
In most consulting style presentations
charts play a really significant role.
They help the audience understand the information quickly
and they're a great way to provide support
for the key message.
So if you can find ways to include relevant
and insightful charts in your own presentations
you'll be much better off.
The next difference is the emphasis on insights,
and this is a big one.
As a junior consultant I remember all the time people saying
what's the so what,
which is really just a way of saying
what should the client take away from this slide.
And if you think about it, this is incredibly important.
When a client looks at a slide
they're gonna be overloaded with information.
So it's important to help them understand quickly
and easily what they need to know
and how they can act on it.
Consulting firms do this in a number of ways.
One that we've already talked about
is with the title rather than just putting a topic
for the slide the titles are a full sentence
that clearly spell out the key takeaway of the slide.
This is a hallmark of any consulting style presentation.
But notice how they clearly draw attention
to the insights on other places of the slide.
With the subtitles here, they've done the same thing.
Instead of saying something like creative schools
they've spelled out in clear and plain english
what they want you to know,
which is that Melbourne
has some of the world's most creative schools.
And on the right they've done the same thing.
Student tertiary participation in art
and design is relatively strong.
Here's another example of showing insights.
Notice how they have a call-out for this chart
to show that Melbourne has 800 venues equivalent
to the fifth highest per capita.
That's something I can already get just
by looking at the chart and the numbers at the bottom
but they've called it out because it's an important insight
that they want me to understand.
Then finally notice how on this next slide,
once again, the insights are made clear.
Above each chart is a line that tells the audience
exactly what they should take away from the chart.
It's simple, direct, and very clear.
Then the final difference I tend to see often
is a focus on formatting, maybe focus isn't the right word,
maybe obsession is a better word.
I can remember being on consulting teams
where we would gather together
before sending a final presentation to the client
we'd all print out our own copy
and we'd go through every single slide,
every word, every picture, every graphic,
every box to make sure there's absolutely no mistakes.
And at the time it felt ridiculous.
But over time I came to realize
just how important these sorts of things are
in representing the name of your firm.
For these consulting firms
their product is typically a PowerPoint deck
and they charge a lot of money for that information.
So packaging it in a way that brings credibility
and prestige to the firm is really important.
Let's look at a quick example.
In this slide there's a good variety of different elements,
a chart, a call-out, quote boxes and footnotes,
but notice how everything is so well-placed.
For example, despite this quote on the right
being a bit smaller than the one on the left
they kept the boxes the same size
so it looks more visually consistent.
Or see how these numbers are all perfectly aligned
in a straight line and all evenly spaced apart.
You might have also noticed the formatting consistency
from slide to slide.
When you compare this slide with one of the previous slides
it's easy to tell just how visually consistent BCG is.
Even for little things like the color and design
of this call-out box.
This sort of stuff probably feels really small
and insignificant but when you put it all together
it really makes a difference
in improving the overall look of a presentation.
That's gonna do it for today's video,
if you're interested in advanced PowerPoint
and presentation training for you or for your team
make sure you check out our full courses
at theanalystacademy.com.
Thanks for watching.
If you liked this video,
make sure you check out the next video,
all about the best PowerPoint hacks
used at different consulting firms.
It's one of my favorite videos that we've put out
just because of how practical and useful it is,
so be sure to it check.
(soft upbeat music)