Comments on: Don’t Print Your PowerPoint Slides

By: Craig

Craig — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 18:11:31 +0000

Nick,

First, I just refound this article on your blog and realized I never responded. My apologies.

My freelance business is a presentation business – specifically addressing a parallel method of presenting to what many in my field (engineering software) are trained on: solution selling. I focus on 3 areas: design, training, and coaching. I have also worked with some other presentation designers to help them strategically devise a message (you and I have similar ideas on how the presentation should be formatted). As someone who has presented hundreds (if not thousands) of times in front of prospects, employees, supervisors, customers, and vendors…I got frustrated with the same old presentation as usual philosophy that just seemed to waste everyone’s time. A few years ago, I started doing this on a freelance business, and now will also be incorporating sales training (if they don’t understand how procedurally to sell a solution, then they won’t know if their presentation runs parallel to it ;-), marketing, leadership, and personal branding.

Anyway, thanks for the great posts. Sometimes I feel as if you are my mind that has taken leave of my body and ventured out on it’s own

By: Nicholas Oulton

Nicholas Oulton — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 23:25:57 +0000

Craig, thanks for the comment. What’s the Side Line? I assume it’s sales related!

By: Nicholas Oulton

Nicholas Oulton — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 23:23:45 +0000

I have to say, sometimes I think people do the handout thing out of habit, “it’s what everyone does” mentality, that and it feels like a tangible deliverable. “I haven’t really prepared but its OK I have a set of handouts for you!” both of which ultimately indicate a lack of preparation or thought behind the presentation.

Glad we all agree it’s stupid.. thanks for commenting!

By: Laura Foley

Laura Foley — Wed, 27 Apr 2011 20:01:55 +0000

You are right on the mark. People have asked me for handouts of my presentations, and I always tell them that with the amount of animation, builds, and other transitions I incorporate into my decks the handouts would make no sense to them.

Besides being a huge waste of paper and a needless expense, I agree that handouts disrupt the carefully crafted flow of information that every speaker should create for his or her presentation.

By: Craig

Craig — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 21:48:29 +0000

Nick,

Again, you are right on the mark. As a 21 year sales & marketing executive (although I’m a degreed design engineer), I can vouch for the consistent requirement for people wanting to leave slides, see presentations, etc. I truly believe you are one of the few who understand the “sales” side of presenting (addressing the painj), and I am always interested in hearing how you can debate the traditional presentation mindset (as I continue my own freelance business on the side of my Director of Sales functions).

Kudos…and keep up the good work!

By: Ronan Kinahan

Ronan Kinahan — Sun, 03 Apr 2011 19:40:24 +0000

Nick
Case well made. The challenge, is to end these well embedded bad habits. It can be like trying to turn a tanker. However, with enough tugs……

By: Yuriy

Yuriy — Tue, 29 Mar 2011 12:05:41 +0000

Thanks, NIck.
I think it makes sense, as my experience shows that whenever salesperson leaves or sends out such stuff, it is never used by client (excluding the case when it’s handed out to competition:) ).
The salespeople just have to learn how to respond to such request from clients (they are definitely a lot of such requests). Everyone should think of his own approach to turning down such requests intelligently.

Yuriy