Market research presentations are usually long. Your agency has interviewed 200 consumers and have asked 50 questions to the consumer. They have spent 2 weeks collecting the data and another 2 weeks in analyzing it. At the end of it all, the final output is in the form of a PowerPoint. Usually running into 100+ slides. How do you present such information and ensure the client understands it and can take action on it?  A pretty difficult job. I have sat through many such hour or two-hour long presentations and have found few things which are common. Here are the 6 things which are wrong: 1. Information overload 2. Lack of a story (across the presentation) 3. Data inaccuracy / mismatch 4. Inadequate preparation to face audience questions 5. Highly complicated 6. Solid Actionable Summary Let me devote a paragraph to each of these. 1) Information overload is pretty obvious. You have 100 slides which also have more than 50 charts/tables. To digest so much in 2 hours is n...

I came across this pyramid at Jan Schultink's blog . Ignore the percentages and just look at it as a hierarchy (an order of effective to less effective). We (and that includes our audience) learns most by teaching others. This is followed by practice, then discussion and finally lecture. What does this mean for presenters like us? If we lecture in our next presentation our audience will not remember much. If we add a bit of demonstration, the learning will become better. Demonstration reminds me of Steve Jobs. In most of his presentations we find a demo. There is something else we can do; Discussion. When we discuss a topic with our audience, they learn more than when we give a one-way lecture. I feel this is a significant point.  If we can move from one-way communication to a two-way discussion, our presentations will become more effective.

The CEO of a company is making a presentation to prospective investors. He calls me to his desk saying 'its important'. His doubt: "All my slides have my company logo except 3 slides. What is the problem with these 3 slides?"  My response to this question was... "3 of your slides do not have your company logo, what is wrong with the balance 17 slides?" Why do we fuss so much about a logo? You are presenting to another CEO and seeking millions of dollars of investment and all that bothers you is your missing logo on 3 slides. Much ado about nothing.