- [Instructor] Hello everyone.
And welcome to another free video from the Analyst Academy.
In this video, I'll be showing you how to build
a standard consulting slide
using a basic five step framework.
For more great stuff just like this, including a free PDF
of the top 50 PowerPoint shortcuts for consultants
ranked and organized according to their usefulness.
Check us out @TheAnalystAcademy.com.
(upbeat music)
Let's say for the purposes of this exercise,
we're gonna build a slide for our client
in the household furniture industry.
The project as a whole is to help them grow revenue
in the premium European household furniture market.
And the section we're focused on in particular
is about how they can improve their marketing
to more effectively compete with other established players.
For this slide, we need to help them understand
what other companies are doing to effectively market
to the premium segment.
And how they can improve their own efforts.
The first step in building your slide is to decide
on the key message you are going to convey.
A common mistake inside building is to design
your slide first and then determine the message.
But this is actually the opposite of what you wanna do.
Decide first what you want your slide to say,
then you're ready to design it.
The reason for this is you want to convey your message
as clearly as possible.
And determining what you want your slide to say first
can help in keeping your slide clear and impactful.
Practically speaking,
this means you should write the title of the slide first
if it hasn't been written for you already.
This step is a little bit difficult to replicate
without having all the project details.
But, let's just say that this slide is gonna show
how our clients should focus more on B2B marketing.
Since it's more effective in this particular industry.
So I'll put a basic title in place,
which I can update later.
The next step in building my slide is to organize
my main supporting points.
And for this we're gonna rely on the pyramid principle.
Without going into too much detail,
the pyramid principle is basically a method
for communicating information that involves
providing the answer first,
then providing the component parts of that answer
one step at a time.
So, in this case our answer is gonna be
the title of our slide.
And so we need to find a way to break it down
into its different parts.
A good way to do this is to write out your subtitles.
I know the main message of my slide is gonna be that,
successful companies in this industry
focus on B2B marketing.
So, I'll break that out into two different
parts on my slide.
One part of that message can be that,
B2B marketing is associated with higher sales.
And the second part can be that,
it's important for influencing customers.
Neither one of these by itself really gives me
that strong of an argument.
But, together they provide reasonable support
for my main message.
Then I can follow the same process
as I work my way down the levels.
I have my top level,
my second level.
Now I just need to go one level deeper to use whatever
information I have to support my arguments.
For this section on the left to support my point,
I wanna show how those companies that focus on B2B marketing
tend to have higher sales.
So maybe I can show some sales data
for those that do B2B marketing versus
those that do B2C marketing to show the difference.
For now I'll just put a placeholder and come back to it.
Then for the right side.
I'll put what I know about
influencing customers to provide support for the point that,
B2B marketing is important for influencing customers.
Maybe I can also include some quotes
I have from the retailers I talked to
during some of our store visits.
A very important aspect of any consulting slide
is its ability to clearly communicate information.
And a key way to accomplish this,
is through logical structure.
As a reader it's clear to me what you're trying to say
and with the way you've broken it down on the slide,
it's clear to me how you got to your answer.
So, notice how this third level provides support
for the second level.
And then the second level together provide support
for the first level.
Which is our main message.
The next step is to visualize your information.
To help my reader,
I want to visualize my message as much as possible.
So that means adding charts,
graphics, icons or pictures.
But it's important to remember that visualization
is only good so long as it supports the main message.
A random picture will do nothing for the slide
if it's not helping your reader understand
what you're trying to communicate.
For this section on the left, I have data.
So, I'm gonna add a chart to show my message.
With this chart, I can show sales for each company
and the primary marketing tactic used by that company.
It's not a perfect setup.
There are some issues with correlation
versus causation here.
But, it definitely supports my main message
that B2B marketing is associated with higher sales.
Then on the right I can probably leave
these first couple of bullets.
But for the quotes, I wanna make those a bit more visual.
So, I'm gonna box them up and add a picture.
In this case, adding a picture helps
draw the reader's attention to these as quotes,
rather than just supporting texts
that I've decided to put in a box.
In other words, I'm making the fact that they're quotes
immediately clear to the reader.
So now I have some basic visualizations in place
to bring some life to my content.
Obviously, this isn't the only way you can do this.
We have a lot of different options.
And, your skill at this step will really depend
on your experience and to some extent your creativity.
But, if you're ever stuck on how to visualize
your information the best thing to do
is just to look at other examples.
Either from your firm,
online or really anywhere you can find it.
Step four is to draw attention to important points.
And this step is what is gonna make the difference between
a good slide and a great slide.
Take a look for a second at this slide.
How would you use color,
arrows,
boxes
or text call-outs to draw attention
to what you're trying to communicate.
A good place to start is always with your charts.
There's so much to learn around how to build better charts.
But one thing you can do instantly to improve them,
is to highlight the most important data for your message.
But this one in particular, the most important parts
are the companies that use B2B marketing.
So, to make them stand out a little bit more,
I can add these highlighting bars.
Which I'll then put in the background.
So this just kind of has a highlighting effect
on each of these companies.
Now as a reader, I can clearly distinguish between
which companies use B2B in which use B2C.
Now it's so much more obvious to me that the companies
that use B2B marketing tend to have higher sales.
Which is exactly what we're trying to communicate.
For this section on the right
I can do a couple of different things.
But the one I'm gonna focus on is bolding my texts.
And that's gonna make my message stand out
a little bit more clearly.
So I'll find some words in these two different quotes
to call out.
And as I'm doing this,
I wanna think back to the message of this section.
I wanna show that the retailers themselves are important
for influencing customers.
Which rolls up to my broader point,
which is that we should market to them.
So, I'm gonna highlight the words
that best drive that point home.
Then the last step is to clean and format your slide.
The first part of this is to add sources, footnotes
and any other slide details that might be important.
It's important to add these parts of the slide
even if you think they're obvious or not that relevant.
Because it's easy to forget that although you've been living
and breathing this stuff for weeks.
Some of the people who see this slide
might not understand all these acronyms
or data points quite as easily.
And I'm also gonna update my title to provide
a better picture of the message I'm trying to communicate.
Then the second part of this step is to make sure each part
of your slide is aligned and formatted correctly.
Ideally, you'll be doing this as you go along.
But, it's important to do a final check at the end
to make sure everything looks crisp.
It really is an important part of slime making
especially in the consulting industry.
So make sure you check and double check
that everything is properly placed.
And then lastly, you make sure you run through a checklist
before sending this slide to a manager or to the client.
This is a really easy and foolproof way
to make sure you've covered all your bases
and really made sure your slide is ready to go.
All right, so let's recap.
The first step is to decide on a key message.
Step two, is to organize your supporting points.
Step three, is to visualize your information.
Step four, is to draw attention to important points.
And step five, is to clean and format your slide.
If you found this video useful
be sure to visit us @TheAnalystAcademy.com.
For lots of really great downloads,
articles and courses.
Such as our free advanced PowerPoint
for consultants mini course.
Where you'll learn exactly how experienced consultants
use PowerPoint to save time,
work efficiently and build beautiful slides.
Check us out, TheAnalystAcademy.com.
(upbeat music)