Investment banking presentations

A question that came in yesterday:

Jan, I have a question about presentations to investment bankers/analysts. One of my clients getting ready to go on a road show says their investment banking consultants have told them to present what I would…

Business English

I left the Netherlands in 1994 and have since then worked in international environments where English is the business language. And business English is different from regular English: it has a very small vocabulary. Why? Many non-native speakers have to speak it, and you actually do not need a very…

A good PowerPoint template

I just gave a client some feedback on new PowerPoint template options, I might as well share my thoughts with all of you:

• Flat: no drop shadows behind fints, no gradients, no reflections. These look dirty in a world of razor sharp retina displays

Market sizing

Forecasting the size of a market that does not exist is tricky and nobody will have the right answer. Googling will result in endless research agencies or investment banks or consulting firms throwing in yet another inconsistent number.



With new markets, it is often as important to convince/teach an…

The learning pyramid

I came across this image the other day, showing retention rates of students by delivery form. A lecture is the worst, teaching others is the best. I am not sure about the accuracy of the exact percentages, but there is something to the overall hierarchy presented here. And presentations are…

Presentation template recipe

Here is an almost sure recipe to get a good look and feel for a presentation template, even with an Arial font:

• One nice accent colour, but used sparsely for only that: provide an accent
• The other objects in shades of grey…

Presentation design phases

Every presentation design effort goes through a similar process flow:

1. Brainstorm of the content, sketching, scribbling
2. Designing the big idea
3. Creating the bulk of the content