Making powerful business presentations — back to basics

You’ll find value in this article if you do slides regularly, and especially if you present them to a senior audience in a meeting — with a voice over.

Why speak about slides ?

I did an unreasonable amount of slides and presentations as a consultant. I was heavily trained to do them efficiently.

Today at BlaBlaCar or in conferences, I see some good presentations, but also a lot of bad presentations !

Slides are still probably THE most used tool to communicate in a structured way in the corporate world today.

So good slides are an essential tool to master to have an effective communication.

Same info… different impact !

In this article, I will show you concrete approaches and tips to make powerful presentations. Follow them and not only will you increase your impact through better slides preparation and design, but also you will save a tremendous amount of time by removing useless iterations.

Starting point : what is your audience ? and what is your objective ?

To make a good presentation, you must create a story that will resonate with your audience, and match their expectations.

So first, take some time to analyze your audience, and be clear about your objective.

1.Your objective

At BlaBlaCar, we have 6 principles. One of them is “Dream, Decide, Deliver”. This principle is today used as a framework : each Steering Committee must have a clear agenda, shared in advance, and every topic covered must absolutely be in one of those 3 categories. This allows you to define the specific objective for every topic you cover :

• Do you want to get some input on a long-term vision ? Brainstorm on a strategic direction to take ? => DREAM
• Do you want to foster an arbitration ? Align your audience on a recommendation ? => DECIDE
• Do you want to share results of a test ? Present insights following a user test ? Or give an update on the delivery of your projects ? => DELIVER

2.Your audience

Then, take some time and review who will participate in the meeting. I usually separate my audience in 2 categories : either context-poor, or context-rich.

• Context-poor people are colleagues standing usually far from my topics. In most cases, these are senior people, who have broad scope : my topics are one of many in their eyes. They only know the outlines of my projects, not the details. And their time is usually particularly valuable.
• Context-rich people, on the other hand, are a lot closer to my projects : regular stakeholders, they know the history of the project, detail about it, data. They are very hands-on, and quite up-to-date already.

Here are a few guidelines on how to address those audiences, depending on your objective.

• For context-rich audience :

Advice for a context-rich / hands-on audience, by objective

• For context-poor audience :

Advice for a context-poor / senior audience, by objective

Other key dimensions can influence how you prepare and set up the meeting :

As a reminder -or a discovery for some-, answer-first is an approach where you’ll answer the key question as early as possible in the deck. Answer last, is the opposite, where you build up the answer step by step and present it clearly only at the end.

My 4 secrets to tell a powerful story in slides

1.Start by closing your laptop and taking a pen

The objective of this is to clarify your thoughts and build a story.

You’ll need to write down 3 elements :

• ONE STORY : a sentence that should convey your key message, and articulations if you have more than 1 key message. You must find the logical sequence to create a clear storyline.
• FEW KEY FACTS : a few bullet points describing the best evidence for each message : look for “killer data”
• STRIKING ILLUSTRATIONS : a graph that will best convey your evidence. Be sure to select the right chart.

2.Always be MECE and never leave space for blindspots

MECE is a grouping principle for separating a set of items into subsets that are mutually exclusive (ME) and collectively exhaustive (CE).

MECE structures will allow you to be rigorous and defuse potential unsettling questions, overlaps and blind spots.

At BlaBlaCar, MECE structures we commonly use to segment data include :

• Platform used for an action (you need to use one, and one only)
• Axis type : Top 1–50 axes, 51–100, 101–500, and long-tail (500+)
• Country of publication

Non-MECE structure would for instance be drivers vs. passengers… because in carpool, a/ for new users we don’t know if they are driver or passenger yet, and b/ some experienced users go on BlaBlaCar sometimes as drivers, sometimes as passengers !

3.Tell a story : frame, state, conclude

Your story will need a beginning, a middle and an end.

In the beginning, frame your story : provide some context on the ecosystem, the history, the dependencies. It’s the right time to share an anecdote or a “hook” to get your audience attention.

Relevant (or is it ?) advice from xkcd on the frame part

In the middle, you should state your points. Bring clear information, and always derive an insight serving your answer from it. The key question you must ask yourself on EACH slide is “so what?”. And don’t forget or neglect articulations.

In the end, you should clearly conclude. Remind key takeaways. If it is a DECIDE topic, reformulate the decision taken to validate alignments. In case you had taken an answer-first approach, it’s time to repeat yourself ! That will avoid misunderstandings. Clarify the next steps… always !

4.Recycle tried-and-tested frameworks

There are some very interesting and proven frameworks to help you get better at telling stories. I won’t go into the detail, but 2 examples include SUCCESs (from ‘Made to Stick’ by the Heath brothers? See summary below), or the 8 Speaker’s blocks by Rémi Guyot !

“Made to Stick” model summary

Bonus ! Tips & tricks

This article is more about structuring a presentation, but here are as a bonus some tips & tricks to make better slides, one by one.

• Plan for shorter presentations — always. Make the appendices bigger, and your core slides slimmer. I LOVE meetings relying on 1 slide only (yes it’s possible !)
• Take extra care for your slides’ title — they should convey a message, not be a flat description of what’s on the slide. Titles are strengthened by 1 active Verb, 1 key Insight, 1 killer Figure (mnemotechnic : VIF)
• Test key presentations. Colleagues or family are great for a Grandma test. It will make sure you explain your story in a way that makes sense
• Stay extremely consistent — always the same font, always the same color code
• Use a ghost — it helps the audience follow your story
• Avoid animations — keep them for complex topics only !
• Reuse designs — slide libraries or presentations you liked are your friends — 👏clap👏 this article if you’d like to know more about designing a slide and selecting the right graph for your data

To wrap things up…

If you have to remember one thing… respect these 7 key steps for simple, memorable presentations that will inspire your audience to take action !
On top of that, you’ll save a tremendous amount of time by doing it right the first time.

1. Understand your audience
2. Clarify your objective
3. Define your messages
4. Identify the best evidence
5. Design the slides
6. Realize the slides
7. Proofread and test your presentation

Again, 👏 clap 👏 this article if you liked it or would like to know more about slide designing, and selecting the right graph for your data : I would be happy to make another article specifically on that !

Extra special thanks to Louise Aubert, Laura Veuillez and Robert Morel for taking the time to proofread drafts of this article.

This article is based on an informal training I provided to 2 teams at BlaBlaCar — thank to all other colleagues & friends who gave me feedback on it !