I Spoke with the WORLD'S Best Presentation Designers

Could you move that hairlight just back and a little bit more out? 'cause I'm getting a And what happens is, is it reflects back into the, mm, I thought you were gonna say, you're like getting lost in my eyes or something. And there's, it's like I knew context was the right.

You know what? I could listen to you all day, Cameron. [00:02:00] And then Cameron said, this is me at dinner tonight with my wife. And then Cameron said again, honey Digital Nomad.
Welcome to the marketing team of one podcast where we have conversations about the issues one person marketing teams face when trying to meet their goals with limited time and budgets. Now here's your host, Eric and Mike. Well, we are super fortunate today to have two amazing guests on the show. Um, so appreciative to have them here.

If you've never heard of Duarte, look 'em up. duate.com, they are, and I'm not being no hyperbole here. They are the greatest presentation designer firm in the world. They have done all of the great presentations, keynotes for some of the most largest companies in the world. We've got Cameron Flett, who's a senior designer at Duarte, [00:03:00] and we've got Ryan Orcutt, who's the creative director at Duarte.

Thanks a lot guys. We appreciate you being here on the show. We cannot wait to hear what's inside your head. The stories. The backgrounds, the where, what got you to Duate, what you do at Duate, and then some tips for some of our marketing team of one people that are out there listening. Thank you for the invite.

We're excited to be here. A little, a little bit nervous. This is quite the podcast. A little bit nervous, but very excited to get into anything that you'd like, so thanks for having us. Awesome. Well, let me just give a quick little background on Duarte to just let people know at the level of what you two are working at on a daily here.

Duarte started in 1988 in Silicon Valley. As we know, all of the big tech companies are based there, and they soon found that they wanted to niche down and become the presentation company for all of these tech companies. You got a lot of Nancy Duarte, who still works at the [00:04:00] company, runs the company. Yeah.

Uh, she was the, uh, fearless leader who. Got a lot of those accounts. Right? Very, very early. And is since you folks have worked for companies, and I'm just gonna list them, apple, Microsoft, Qualcomm, visa, HubSpot, Salesforce, and there's even a thing on your website that talks about. You guys helped formulate the frameworks for Ted Talks is Walk Me, is that right?
Or what? Explain that whole, I'm sure. I don't know if we can make that particular claim, but certainly the influence that we've had on TED Talks or maybe that, um, we take inspiration from TED Talks and weave it into our process certainly exists. You know, TED is a powerful stage. Yeah. They always encourage the one idea per slide, which is something that we're really, um, that we stand behind firmly.

Simple visuals or visual aids that help a speaker deliver a PS presentation though. So we think [00:05:00] similarly. Yeah. Duarte, we might have taken inspiration from each other. I mean, just so close that. Yeah. Maybe there was some cross pollination or something that happens. There could been. Yeah. Ryan, why don't you start us off and tell us a little bit about your journey.
What brought you to Duarte? Well, my journey starts a long time ago. I've been at Duarte for 21 years. Oh my gosh. Long time. You look young, you're only in your twenties from what I could tells. Hard to believe, but it's been 21 awesome years actually. Yeah. I have loved my time at Duate. Feel very fortunate.

Uh, I tell people all the time though, that I was not excited about getting into presentation as I went to Chico State. I graduated from Chico State. Um, loved my time at college. Had a pretty successful time in college. Um, and at the time, Chico State Professors and Duarte had a relationship and professors would make recommendations to the people at Duarte about, oh, folks that they thought might make a good employment.

Nice. Okay. And so I got connected to Duarte through that [00:06:00] recommendation. Um, went on a couple interviews, learned about Duarte, learned that they make. PowerPoint presentations for tech companies. Mm-hmm. And, uh, if I'm being honest, I will be throughout this entire podcast. Uh, that was not the most exciting avenue.

I was not looking forward to it, but I was broke. I was back living at home with my parents, and I needed a job. And, uh, so when Duarte offered me the position, I accepted it. Um, and that I was back in 2004. I was 24 years old. I was a junior designer, and I moved myself, uh, into a tiny apartment in Mountain View.

And that was the best decision that I've ever made. Choosing presentation design, or the fact that presentation design chose me mm-hmm. Has made all the difference. Um, the incredible opportunities that I've had by working at Duarte is something that, um, I feel very fortunate for and fully recognized that.

It's not something that I [00:07:00] was really excited about at the beginning. Yeah. And now I can't imagine any other career. Um, I really feel so fortunate. Well, it's amazing. I mean, your fingerprints are probably over, all, over some of the most famous presentations we can imagine in our heads that are out there from some of these giant companies.
If you've ever been to any of their conferences, the, some of the companies that I listed. Yeah. There's a whole ton of other ones on there. Cameron Flood. Why don't you tell us a little bit about your background, what you brought, what brought you to Duate? I applied to work with Duarte just over three years ago, and Ryan was one of the people who, uh, interviewed me, Uhhuh.

And right when I got into the room, I thought I was sitting at like this High Jedi council of just masters and I had a little bit of imposter syndrome, like, okay, let's, let's, you know, put my best foot forward and uh, show off my portfolio. And, uh, I got a call very quickly. So that was nice, you know, um, a really good sign.

I've been a designer for nearly a decade now. Okay. [00:08:00] Um, it started pretty much self-taught actually, you know, in, in high school I took all the advanced placement studio art courses, and when I went into college, I chose architecture as my profession. Huh. And one thing I Lear loved about architecture is the presentation of the projects.

Hmm. Right. Interesting. It's a huge part of the industry having to do decks and, uh, presenting these conceptual. Buildings to either peers, classmates in my case or like, you know, council members and stuff. So that was when I first got exposed to presentation design. Mm-hmm. After that, I did a ton of freelance.

I, uh, mentioned to you earlier, I was, my first job was an art director for a skateboard company, which only one of the most fun jobs in the world. Crazy. As a young person, I would imagine much cooler than presentations for tech companies. Yeah. But now I, I kind of think, uh, presentations for tech is pretty cool, so Me too.

It's pretty high level. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, just being exposed to, um, the [00:09:00] application of graphic design was great. 'cause you know, as a kid you go to a skate shop for example, and you don't realize that people are using the Adobe programs to make these skateboards, you know? So it was really cool to learn that software.

And then as I accelerated into my. Career I found, you know, groups of, you know, leadership, entrepreneur, just people who were, uh, really, you know, doing business, uh, in, in the right way. And I loved the startup environment. So I was, um, finding myself doing a lot of pitch decks, helping companies raise money, and I was getting a lot of compliments on the decks and presentations.

And that started, I started listening to those comments and thinking, wow, maybe there's a career path here. Hmm. And, uh, yeah, I worked for a couple large companies. One of Larry Ellison's companies a couple years ago was a ag tech company. And, uh, when I got there, they didn't even have a presentation template, you know, so it was kind [00:10:00] of eye-opening going into a large company and not seeing, uh, a presence for presentation design.

So that was one of the first. Things I took initiative on. I built a template for the company. And then after that, um, I was on LinkedIn. Just fast forward year and a half, I was on LinkedIn and I saw an, uh, listing for presentation designer and I thought, what if? Mm-hmm. What if I just press apply? Love that.

And, uh, it was one of the best things that happened to me. Wow. And here you are now on our podcast. I mean, this is the peak of your career, I would imagine. Yeah. This, so congratulations. You made it. Thank you. Now, were you in the Bay Area at the time, or were you all over the, you were a digital nomad it sounds like.

A little bit, yeah. I was a digital nomad. I, I still consider myself nomadic, although I do have roots in Santa Cruz at the moment. Uh, when I applied for Duarte, I was, uh, transitioning out of living in England and I was coming over here, uh, you know, [00:11:00] to get back into my West Coast roots. Um, but in that whole journey, working with startups and, you know, everything I mentioned before, I was living in Southeast Asia for nearly three years.

Wow. Just, I was wanting to see as much of the world as possible, and I felt like I was in a position where, um, I, I could go for it. So I did. Yeah. That's awesome. That is one of those things that you wonder if I was only born 30 years later, you know, I wondered if I would've been, that seems like such a cool lifestyle choice to go that way.

I had a lot of resistance. I had people in my life. I was, uh, just in my early twenties when I decided to go out that way. And my, my, my parents especially were telling me like, Hey, you need to, you know, go back to school. You need to get a, a real job. And, um, you know, I, you hear a lot of that in this industry, I think.

Yeah. And, you know, I think being a designer is, is, uh, oftentimes you know about being an entrepreneur as well, and I think like most designers have entrepreneurial. [00:12:00] Characteristics. Yeah. And traits. And I think, you know, believing in myself at an early age allowed me to kind of push through those resistance lines and, you know, forge my own path.
It is one of those valuable skills to be able to understand the structure of how business works. Why am I doing this art project? I remember I didn't even think about that stuff until I was in my twenties, thirties, maybe late, you know, mid thirties. It's like, what's motivating people to like give me this project, you know?

Yeah. And to get behind that is business acumen is something that we preach in the design department specifically. Mm-hmm. And we certainly have people that are responsible for our financials and profit numbers and stuff like that. Um, but in our design department, we want our designers to know, you know, what the financials are, what our goals are.

And having some business acumen is a real part of our foundation at Duarte. So I agree with you being an entrepreneur. It goes alongside with being a designer. Yeah. Yeah. You can get in the room 'cause you're talking to, and we'll get into some of the stories of [00:13:00] the rooms you've been in, talking to some of those people, uh, which is mind boggling.

Um, but it is good to be able to speak to not just how things look or how does, how does this affect your audience kind of a thing. It's thinking, having that global perspective, global perspective, whatever that means. But speaking of global, one of the things that we really value Duarte to is like diverse perspectives.

Hmm. We don't want to hire just one type of person from one place, and that's it. Um, we really do value the diverse perspectives, the different backgrounds, bringing people together. 'cause we think that leads to the best solutions. Mm. Um, if we're all thinking the same way, if we're all living in the same place, um, we're not gonna come up with as good a solutions as we would if we were more spread out, having different experiences.

So that's intentional. So when you're at Duarte, just when you're recruiting, do you specifically say, I only am gonna look at resumes of people who just do presentation design? No. And in fact, for a long time we couldn't find anybody with presentation [00:14:00] design on the resume. Interesting presentation designer as a role, as a relatively new role.

We didn't see that in the industry. That wasn't a niche of design until, I don't know. 10 years ago maybe, or something like that. And, and, um, for a long time we were looking for, you know, print designers, web designers, things like that. Okay. And you'd have to look for transferable skills into our space.

Like how did they do book design or layout design? Can I see a slide on that website that they made? Wow. You know, like thinking that way. Um, and so no, that, well, fortunately now there are a lot of people with presentation design specific experience, which is great, but that doesn't limit who we look at when we're hiring.

We want those diverse backgrounds. Illustrators, cam's a great illustrator, cool. We need that for a lot of our clients. Um, and so different niches, different backgrounds, different strengths, really important. Why presentations though? I mean, come on. It's just a PowerPoint. It's not that big of a deal, right?

[00:15:00] No, no kidding. Um, listen here, here's my stance and belief on that is that some of the world's most, I. Messages and ideas are baked into PowerPoint decks, keynote slides, Google Slides, presentations. The world communicates through the craft that we specialize in. So many important things, messages, um, are being communicated through presentations, and not enough attention or care is put into those, not just the visuals, but the, the content, the, the written word behind it or the delivery of those presentations.

So if we're gonna be communicating through this platform of presentations, we need a, a niche of design, a niche of writing, a niche for delivery coaching to help those messages reach the audiences that they. Need to. So, and that's the perspective I didn't have. Yeah, yeah. Before I joined Duarte. That's a perspective that I learned over time.

Well, I think in the Silicon [00:16:00] Valley, especially the land of, you know, Sandhill Road and and mm-hmm and VCs, that whole universe lives around pitch decks. Yeah. I mean, they don't wanna see a proposal or an executive summary. First thing you send them is a pitch deck. Right. So that, I think was the genesis maybe of that, 'cause that kind of started back in.

Well, I mean, they've been around forever, but you know, that pitch deck. Dynamic wasn't a popular thing maybe until the turn of the century or something. Yeah. Cameron, did you wanna talk a little bit more about presentation stuff? I'm, this is, I would love to, yeah. I can add to some of the stuff I've learned since being at Duarte.

The importance of presentations. Yeah. I also used to believe that presentations were just in the VC world. Like, Hey, send me the deck. Or, uh, my company's my idea is raising money. You know, we're gonna make it into a company. You know, I think that I, that concept of turning an idea into something real uses a presentation deck as like the vehicle [00:17:00] for the message.

It's like the currency of that whole, yeah. It's like it's a currency that a lot of people speak as well. Hmm. So that's really interesting. Um, but when after joining Duarte, I was, you know, just elevated into a new arena of clients. Mm-hmm. Like it went from, you know, small startups before Duarte to working here and then, you know, working with the top 50 companies.

So the, um, purpose of presentation started to change, at least in my perspective. And what I started to see was a lot of companies pitching to it, like internally, for example. Mm-hmm. So let's say one executive is trying to get millions of dollars for their strategy. Mm-hmm. They want to do a big campaign or they wanna, you know, do something.

So that's something that we've helped with. And if their presentation lands and their story is good, they get the resources they need to do their job. Mm-hmm. If a story falls flat, they [00:18:00] don't. And or it might not get as much, you know? Yeah. That's a make or break on some level, isn't it? Yeah. And, and then externally, or like public facing presentations, these are huge, the stakes are really high.

Uh, you have an executive wanting to craft an idea and put it into a product, and then it goes out to the world to hundreds and thousands of people. Yeah. So, yeah, it's just been amazing to see the impact of what presentations can bring. Speaking of the biggest companies in the, literally the biggest companies in the world, the most valuable companies in the world, I can't even imagine the rooms you have been in.

Um, I do know. Ryan, you've got an incredible story. Uh, the picture of you and Al Gore is on the website for heaven's sake. Uh, you had an incredible beginning at Duarte when, and if people haven't seen this check out, there's a movie, it was nominated for an Academy Award. No, it won An Academy Award Didn't called An Inconvenient Truth.

It came out, I believe in [00:19:00] 2009 or 2010. That's about right. Something back a while ago. Yeah. Al Gore, the, basically the movie is a power PowerPoint presentation that Duarte designed. Ryan, you. Were the head of that project. Is that I was for a while. Yeah, I was for a while. I took over, um, for someone that started the project Wow.

With Mr. Gore. Um, but yeah, it was actually, so it wasn't a PowerPoint presentation? It was a keynote. Oh, sorry. Used, okay. I'm glad to hear it was, I just wanna make sure that, clarify that for all of the Apple. Well, that's right. Because he was on the board of Apple for a while. That's, that's correct. Okay.

That's correct. So it was a keynote, not a PowerPoint, sorry. But, uh, it was a presentation nonetheless. Yeah. And a really influential one. And it was fairly early in my career where I took the lead as a senior designer working with Al Gore on that talk. And it, what an incredible experience that was. I can't imagine we started by taking actual, literal glass slides, you know, that he had Yeah.

His [00:20:00] presentation on and converting those into the digital format in Keynote, like that's where the pre the, the work started. That was before I joined. We were already in Keynote when I joined. Okay. Um, but. It's a really good example of a presentation being a living, breathing organism. When Mr. Gord delivered that presentation, it was never the same twice.
Huh? He was always adapting that presentation to the audience that he was speaking to, making it relevant to the audience that he was speaking to. Hmm. Mostly in the form of localizing the data. So he is trying to raise awareness about climate change, and the best way to do that is to make it relatable to the audience that he's speaking to, no matter what country he's in, what city he's in.

And that took constant work to research what the data was, um, to find the long white papers and the data and the research on climate change to identify the moments that we thought would be. Most convincing, most persuasive to help people understand what we were going [00:21:00] through and then turn it into a slide that he could stand behind and deliver or get up on a ladder.
And that's the part of the movie I remember was y or Get up on a ladder. Yeah. That was crazy. So we spent a long time digging through the research that was handed to us from their team, finding what we thought would be great moments or slides in the presentation and making those digital. And that went on for years and years and years.

Lots of collaboration with him and his team. Sometimes they would come to us, other times we would go to them and, uh, we would help them, uh, create this, this organism. That was, that was, I mean, you literally lived with a guy almost. I mean, I mean, I never lived, I've never lived with him. But I You did his dishes.

You were doing laundry and his Now I told you I was gonna be honest the whole time. Okay. I've never done no, none of that. Uh, I've been in some close quarters with him, um, in a few different places. One of my most and vivid experiences was when he was invited to the Oprah Show. Oh, he did a stint on, or he did one show on the Oprah.

Yeah. Where [00:22:00] he was delivering some of the slides that I had made. And, uh, the team, the production team there was having some trouble making sure that the slides were gonna project the way that we wanted to, uh, behind him when he was doing it. And last minute I got a call, uh, when I was living in the Bay saying, how quickly can you get to Chicago?
And um, I didn't even have time to go and buy a winter jacket, you know. Wow. Oh no. That fast. Oh man. I had to get on a plane to get out there. There. Poor there. Yeah. I, I froze my tush off out there. But, um, I worked with their production team to make sure that the slides and Mr. Gore, everything looked great on the Oprah stage.

So that was unbelievable. That was a pretty incredible moment. Okay. Wow. That's, that's peak right there. That is very peak, no being here on this podcast. Thank you. Okay. Yeah. Oprah, Al Gore, this is it. This is the peak right here. This room that we've been invited to is the room. Okay, now I'm sweating. I'm like.

Cameron, you've been in some rooms as well. I know that you, one of your big clients is Salesforce, [00:23:00] correct? Yeah. Yeah. Right. When I joined Duate, they were like, all right, cam, Salesforce, let's go. Wow. You know, is, uh, joining that account was pretty intimidating at first because of its global reputation and the, I I think the amount of creative that they have is a lot.

Like, I, I feel like there was a textbook that I had to read when I joined. Well, their creative team internally is hundreds, would we say? Yes or more for sure. I mean, it's, yeah, it, they're very, you know, well off on the creative front for sure. Um, however. We're their partner. Yeah. And we've, you know, found time and time again to give them value.

And, uh, it's been an amazing experience to work with them on their biggest moments. Yeah. Which would be Dreamforce, that's their annual flagship event held in San Francisco. And then all of the big events throughout the year, whether that be TDX or Connections or World Tour, all those big moments that are public [00:24:00] facing, we're helping support and giving that Duarte fit and finish.

That's amazing. And they own other companies. I mean, they own Tableau, they own Slack and MuleSoft. They actually, uh, went, they, we have a pretty famous chart, which shows all of their acquisitions over time. Uh, and it's just, you know, up into the right of just, you know, stacking all those companies. Yeah. And what's been great is, uh, learning a lot of those companies, brands as well.

So when I joined, I was versed in Tableau, MuleSoft, and Slack. Okay. I've actually got to do illustration for Slack. Highlight as well. Awesome. Yeah. And now there is an initiative internally to really bring them all into the one Salesforce look. Huh. So that's also an initiative that we get to Steward as well.

And just like helping the teams that aren't in the know look like they're, you know, totally getting it. Because you work, I mean you, your team is a creative force. Mm. Their team is [00:25:00] a creative force and there's a strong, it sounds like there's a really strong collaboration between the two, respect between the two teams.

You help them a little bit, they help inform you on things. Is it kind of that kind of a relationship with 'em? Absolutely. Yeah. It really starts with the story. Like every presentation, um, every good presentation I should say starts with a story. Yeah. And we work with their corporate messaging team. So they'll give us a script, which is actually the ideal scenario.

They just give us a script and we get to, similar to what Ryan said, like pick out the moments that are gonna be impactful. Or they'll take a pass and they'll give us sort of like a wire frame presentation. Mm-hmm. And we'll go through internally and identify where the opportunities to uplevel, where the opportunities to just like clean up, maybe put into template and then where the opportunities that we need to think big, like we call it blue sky thinking, where we imagine or get the specs for the room that the presentation's gonna be in.[00:26:00]

And we think about how are the lights getting affected, is there gonna be music? Oh wow. Is there some kind of guidance that we can work with the speaker on to really drive that product release announcement. Things like that, that's really all encompassing. Yeah. A presentation is more than just the slides.

Um, it's an experience, it's an environment. Yeah. And, um, we understand that we take into consideration everything that goes into play, um, and see if we can have some influence on that. Well, let's talk a little bit about that. 'cause Duarte has their own framework called the Duarte Way Yeah. Of doing a presentation and it's very go on their website.

You can see it's very explicit on that. But maybe you folks can tell us a little bit about how that works. Yeah, I'll, I'll explain a little bit of that. Yeah. The, the Duarte method is what we call it, and it, it has a few different components. A great presentation we believe has an incredible story to tell.

Cam just said that. Mm-hmm. So it starts with your content. Okay. That's one leg of the stool. Okay. [00:27:00] Um, there's also the visuals, so the design that's a part of that. So the written words, your content, and then the design. And then the third leg of the stool is delivery. So those three things make up this three legged stool, but at the center of that is empathy for your audience.

Mm-hmm. That's the place that we always start. Who are we speaking to? Um, what is the transformation that we're hoping that this audience makes? So at the very center of our method is always empathy for the audience. Um, there's a, there's an overlay of strategy that goes on top of the content design and delivery, which is a component to it.

But those four or five things put together is what makes up the Duarte method. And a great presentation touches on all of those things. Clients hire us to just do the design. Some clients hire us just to do the delivery coaching, but when a presentation really sings, when a presentation really moves people, all of those [00:28:00] legs of the stool with empathy for your audience have been touched and addressed and thought of.

And so if you apply the Duarte method, you're thinking about all legs of the stool. Um, when you're making it, when you're making a great deck, I would love to dive in. You know, I think we've all made PowerPoint presentation or keynote presentations, Google Slides, PowerPoint, keynote. I think we've all made presentations before, but the part that we always struggle with is something you brought up, which I want to hear a lot more about, which is the training and the actual delivery of it.

Because you can have the coolest looking slide. You can write the coolest script or whatever, or have the coolest lights and music and everything going on. But I, Cameron, what is it like to, do you have to train them personally or is do they come into a, how do you convince maybe a CEO who's. Uh, you know, can we wrap this up?

I'm, I'm, you know, I can imagine this is what we've heard on occasion is [00:29:00] like, I, yeah. I, I read it over in the car. We're good. You know, like, okay, good luck. You know, rehearsal is everything and it's really a treat to be in the room. Uh, pre-show. We've already done all the work and the executives, uh, or speakers are doing the rehearsals, and we get to really look at the slides with a fine tooth comb and, uh, listen to how they're speaking and choose opportunities for.

It's like, oh, wow. They really landed that message, but this slide is emphasizing something else. Hmm. Let's just change maybe the, the words that are highlighted or something just to really kind of bring the, the story and the speaker and the slide together. Yeah. Like that, the three S's. That was good.

That's good. I like that. Yeah. But I, I've also been in situations where an executive, like two days before show, they're like, I prefer. PowerPoint and the whole thing was built in keynote. Oh God. And I was the, uh, senior designer in the room. Like, everyone's looking at me and I had to make a [00:30:00] call, like, actually the resolution of this is gonna look better on the screen.

And he's like, oh yeah, okay. Alright. Come up. And it was just like the sweat coming down my neck was like, oh my God. Um, if I had to rebuild this whole thing in PowerPoint, you know, it's just, it's, it's unneeded stress. Yeah. But also it's, you know, client, it's serving the client as well. I think that delivery is often overlooked.

Yeah. On that, on the Duarte method, I think that people are willing to invest time and budget into the content and into the design because those are the things that people think. Most about maybe. Yeah. Um, and then the delivery is almost an afterthought. Yeah. Because I gotta get all these other things done.

First. I gotta write my presentation, I gotta design my presentation. And then in the last couple of days I'll start thinking about the delivery. Hmm. Um, but that's where you can make some of the biggest impact is, is how you deliver the content. How you stand in front of your visuals.
[00:31:00] And, um, the best speakers are ones that want to invest in their delivery as well.
It can be humbling 'cause some of the best executives aren't the best speakers. Sure. Uh, but the ones that wanna become better speakers are the ones that will make the most difference, that will move the most audiences. And, um, it's most of the time. We have content writers that are all sort of speaker coaches at Duate.

I wondered about that. Okay. So they get, they're in the head already. They're in most, sometimes we like to have the same writer be the coach. Yeah. And other times we think it's beneficial for there to be a separate coach, a speaker coach, than the writer. Mm-hmm. They come in fresh, they have a different perspective.

Um, but we pair up a speaker coach with an executive. In an ideal situation, it's somebody that wants to be coach. Oftentimes it's a team around the executive that says, we think you need some coaching. Good. And then we're brought in. But I would say 9.9 times out of 10 after an executive has gone through the coaching, they love [00:32:00] it.

They want more of it. Um, because it really does make a difference when you're on stage, it makes you feel more confident. Um, it helps you control your pacing. It helps you control your volume. When you get loud, when you get quiet. Um, and all of those things help with impact while you're on stage. How long, uh, an executive.

Buys in on the idea. 'cause I think you're right. That is, like you said, sometimes they just buy the design and the deliverable, but they don't buy the coaching part of it. Sometimes when they do, they're more bought in. Right. And they understand it. Maybe it's the team that bought them in on it and said, Hey Steve Balmer, you're gonna need to, you know, not jump around so much or something, but yeah.

Um, is there, how long does that coaching usually take? Do they just run through it 10 times and we're done? Or is it like month or what's that look like? It can vary depending on the project. Um, I think the, the best scenario we are starting that rehearsal or the practice or the coaching, when we [00:33:00] have a script that's on version 1.5, version two.

Mm. You can start practicing as early as that. Okay. We don't even have to have slides yet created for you to start practicing. Um, and then. You know, you can rehearse up until the moment that you have the talk. Um, but we like to send our speaker coaches on site. Okay. So actually join our executives in a green room, day of event, day before the event.

Have them see the stage, coach them on how to use the stage, walk back and forth. Yeah. Um, so that coaching can happen. That confidence building can happen almost until moments before they walk onto the stage. Interesting. Is there somebody that you've worked with in the past that has just been like, boom, they know exactly they were raised to be a keynote speaker?

Uh, do some people have that kind of innate skill already or is it something that everybody kind of needs? A little bit. I have an interesting story about this. I worked with, uh, a client where it was two speakers, the CEO, [00:34:00] and then the other was the chief design officer. Mm-hmm. And the CEO did the coaching.

He was like, he was reading the script, it was on stage. He was really into it. And the chief design officer had a lot of, I mean, previous confidence built up pitching in the classroom or in sort of behind doors. Mm-hmm. So he was, uh, very, you know, stern about, I don't need the coaching. In fact, I don't want the coaching.

I just wanna. Improv and we did the rehearsal, and my coworker, uh, Jess looked at me and was like, uhoh, like we need to have a word with them because they are like, their, their pace is off. You can tell they're nervous, they're stuttering and things like that. And, um, it was actually pretty amazing because the day of the show, uh, they delivered it.

Excellent. So I don't know if that was pressure. Um, but I do think that, you know. Practice doesn't hurt for sure. Regardless. It is one of those funny things. I [00:35:00] know. Just recording my own videos sometimes, even if with my camera, it's like you press record, you're like, uh, you know, I don't know what to say now.

You know, you just, it's a weird dynamic that just when the lights are on and all of a sudden everything's going, you're like frozen. The camera is a strange thing to interact with. Yeah. You know, it kind of sucks all the life outta me sometimes. Not today though. Not well, not well because you're here and Cam's here.

Oh God. If I was just speaking to the camera, you, something would change. Yeah. And I do think in this virtual world, uh, remote work especially, uh, creating a relationship with the camera, being able to have that kind of chemistry just with the glass lens is really important. Yeah. Um, and some is a skill that you have to build over time.

It's easier. I find it easier at least to build that chemistry with someone sitting across from me. But many times we're having to do that just with the camera and speak to that. And that's a skill you have to build. It's not something I've mastered yet. A person that's great at [00:36:00] that is Nancy Duarte. Hmm.

Unbelievable chemistry with the camera. Lots of times when she's recording video, she's not with anybody in the room. Really? Wow. But that's a skill that she's developed over time. Yeah. One of the techniques that she did really early on, which she, she would cut out, um, pictures of loved ones, people, family members, and put it like around the camera so that she was pretending to talk to Mark her husband or one of her kids or something.

I love that. Pro tip. That's awesome. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So speaking to a live audience, um, in some ways I think can be easier. 'cause you have Audi real time audience feedback. Yeah. You can make eye connection with people. A lot of times our presentation, especially during COVID, you were delivering it to a camera.

You had to try to make that same connection and that that takes work. Yeah, it's so artificial sometimes when you're just like, I'm just looking at this black dot. I guess, you know, it's a weird thing. One of your questions is, do we prefer one presentation platform or over [00:37:00] another? And the answer to that is no.

Um, we prefer the platform that's gonna be easiest for the person interacting with it or collaborating in it, or where you can have the most effect. So, um, if a, if a presentation is gonna be distributed to thousands of people, the sales team, for example, we wanna know, well, what's your company use? What, what platform, what software do you use?

We'll build in that. So we say that we're technology agnostic, we don't care. We wanna use the one that's gonna be most effective for you and your team. Um, there are some benefits to one platform or another, or one software or another. Um, you know, the animation in this, this tool is better, or the user interface in this tool is more simple or something like that.

Um, but one of the things that we, we pride ourselves on is that we can work in whatever application or whatever piece of software your company wants to use. If you ask us for a recommendation, we can make one, but only ask after we ask you some questions, you know about your company, say, and no changes.

[00:38:00] No, no, no. Go backs as they say, you can't change to. Yeah. Yeah. Often though, we are converting finished presentations that were made in PowerPoint or in Keynote and then converting it to Google Slides, so that, that happens a lot. Okay. I actually, that last week, yeah. Yeah. For Dreamforce, we took the final, um, deck that went to show, which was built on keynote, and then they wanted to distribute.

That presentation to the company, but they got 70,000 employees. So Google Slides was a much better vehicle to distribute that creative. Yeah, that makes, and which helps because if other people in the company are using G Slides or glides, I've heard it be referred to Glide. Exactly. I like that. Heard.

That's kind of catchy. Right. Okay. I'm using that forever. Yeah. So, um, their sales teams or, you know, other teams, if they want to add, you know, a couple slides from that main stage into their presentation, they have a format that can, you know. Weave nicely together. Perfect. And I love the fact that you're answering Mike's question [00:39:00] by talking to me, because that's a great question.

And if, if, uh, we prefer you answer, we'll give you credit for, for asking, it'll show up in the credits later. Yeah, that's, yeah. But I, I'm the focus, I would say if, if I could be a little nerdy about preference. Absolutely. Um, it also depends on the machine that you're using to build. So for example, Mac users keynote all day, right?

Mm-hmm. Keno is great for Mac, and I don't think keynote's available on pc. No. However, PowerPoint is available on both PC and Mac, but this is the nerdy part. The animation pain for PowerPoint is really clunky on Mac. Like you can't do any timing for like specific, like there's just a different delay user experience.

If you wanna really kind of time a whole moment mm-hmm. It, you gotta bust out the PC to get it just right. So you're not only. Platform agnostic. You're machine agnostic and all that. You, you, a lot of our designers [00:40:00] have both machines. Yeah. We have a Mac and a PC at home so that we can choose whichever machine's gonna work best for the project.

I was very excited when I earned my Mac or my pc actually. I joined with the, with the Mac for Salesforce. Uh, 'cause we're on Keynote and then I started, uh, helping out some of our, uh, you know, smaller accounts, uh, when we did Liquid iv. Mm-hmm. That was when they were like, Hey, you know, maybe Cam needs a pc.

And I was like, maybe I do. Yeah. So it was, it was, you know, it was a nice little moment for me. Liquid iv. There's another brand just throwing it out there. Wow. I, I remember that project really well, actually. Uh, it was, um, a pitch that they were doing to Unilever when they were, uh, I think they'd gotten acquired and they were, uh, the resources, they wanted like 80 million or something.

You're nailing the story. You're getting all the details correct. Yeah. They wanted 80 million and it's like we. Helps them with that goal. Their, their story, you know, kicked butt, they delivered and I believe they got the resources they were looking for, basically an internal presentation to the budget [00:41:00] holders, you know?

Yeah. At Unilever. And, um, lots of brands underneath that umbrella. Ooh. And Liquid IV coming in as a newly acquired brand into that, wanting some more. That's right. They were fresh. They're like, we're brand new to the portfolio. We wanna stand out like Duarte, can you help us, you know, evolve with our current brand guidelines.

We're helping push the envelope of their brand. Yeah. Uh, and kind of adapting it to the presentation space. They have great brand assets, by the way. Amazing toolkit, great brand. Uh, but it needed to be adapted for the presentation space modified. And we had a great team of people working on that presentation and it, and it did its job.

Yeah. It won them the funding that they were looking for and then they could continue to scale their business. And we've worked with them ever since. There's one of those wonderful ROI examples that actually has a dollar bill attached to it, which is hard find. And it's very hard. Yes. It's very hard to find those, um, especially in our world.

Um, you know, what's the impact, what's the ROI on investing in design or in your presentation? It [00:42:00] can be really hard. Audience emotion. Yeah. Right. Are you gonna mention that? I liked it. Okay. I liked it. Yeah. How do you measure transformation of your audience? It's hard to do. Well, we've mentioned a lot of huge brands, but you also, Duarte is wonderful because they do try to help out smaller brands as well.

Um, talk a little bit about the philosophy behind that. I mean, what are. We, we've mentioned the largest companies in the world. Uh, do you work, what, what I mean is that all you work for or, well, we certainly have an ideal customer profile and the, the, the larger companies that hire revenue generating companies tend to be better matches for us.

They have bigger budgets and the, those are better for us when we're working with them. Um, but we wanna help people who need to have their messages be heard and seen by audiences. And so we certainly don't turn people away. And we have products and services for folks, businesses that, um, aren't, you know, billion dollar companies.

Mm-hmm. We certainly have offerings and services for [00:43:00] them, and we can scale our method and our process down to help with those folks. Things that are less bespoke and a little bit more off the shelf products mm-hmm. That we mm-hmm. That we have for them. Uh, we have a, or like an area of our agency and it's called Accelerator Labs, and we have several different products inside of that.

That's built for smaller companies or smaller budgets, still delivering the same amount of impact, the same amount of value just on a, on a smaller budget and smaller scale. Um, so that's important to us. We wanna work with, you know, we obviously need to seek out that ideal customer profile. Yeah. So that our business stays healthy, but we wanna have an avenue to reach as many people as we can.

We wanna change the world. We really do. We wanna do that through the power of communication. And if we're only helping a handful of big, big businesses, yeah. We're not, we're not reaching our goal. So we wanna train people, individuals, through our academy. And we also wanna be able to work with the smaller [00:44:00] companies too, small, medium sized businesses.

Yeah, I love that. And that's what's, I could spend hours and have spent hours on the duarte.com website, just looking at the resource section because it just, you could just keep scrolling and scrolling and scrolling. It's all free, it's all downloadable. Just so give an email, I think, for some of 'em, but I mean, yeah, that's about it.

One of the things that I'm really proud of that has been something that Nancy has talked about since I walked in the door, is that the persona that we want to be, that we wanna personify is the generous expert. Yeah. And, um, giving away our insights, our knowledge is something that Nancy has done from the beginning.

Hmm. We don't keep any of the secret sauce away from folks, at least, you know, not very much of it. Yeah. We give it away because we think it's gonna make the world a better place, and we think that that's gonna come back to us in karma, you know? Yeah. So being generous with our expertise is a persona that we try to [00:45:00] embody, and it's also shows up in places like our website, and you've got that model figured out where it's done for you, done with you, and you've got the.

We'll here, empower you with some tools. You've got the academy also. That is a really interesting, um, and I don't mean for this to be a plug for Duarte, but I'm just, it's just great to see how you can scale your services out to a lot of different people. And that's really, that's a great way to talk about it, is we are trying to scale our services.

We're trying to make everyone better at communication. Yeah. That's really the goal, right? Yeah. And we can't always do that. Like I said, by working with the biggest tech companies, we gotta do that through other avenues. So Cam and I work in the agency. Okay. But we also have an academy where you can come and learn, you know, some of our methodologies.

Yeah. Um. Uh, yeah. Workshops that include our ip and that's a much more accessible route mm-hmm. Than maybe hiring Cam and I to do [00:46:00] your presentation. Well, yeah. You guys are top of the food chain way up there at the top of the mountain. So the academy is a fascinating thing to have a firm that also has that feature or that aspect to its business.

Give us a little history on that. Was it something that was inspired by something particular? Has it been around a long time? I, I don't know the history of that myself. I do think it came about because we wanted to reach more people. Okay. And we knew that we were only gonna have, um, a certain scale or a certain scale of effect with the agency.

Mm-hmm. Agencies, as you know, are hard to scale. Difficult to scale. And we wanted a another section of our business that would be able to scale larger and reach more people. Help more people. Mm-hmm. And I think it all stemmed from when Nancy wrote her first book. As she realized that the book to could turn into a course that we could teach people.

Mm-hmm. And then, so for every book that Nancy wrote or co-wrote, or every piece of ip, large or small, [00:47:00] we figured out a way to turn that into a course and, and slowly that became officially known as our academy. Okay. The collection of all of these courses and workshops, which is a way that we get our IP out into the world.

A lot of that our IP kind of is born inside of the agency. Yeah. We take up a new process or a methodology, we kind of codify it, um, and then put it into a book or turn it into a workshop, and then we get it out to a bunch of people. Smart. I think it really came from a desire to reach, reach more people, have more impact, turn more people into great communicators.

The first book was S Slideology. Yes. Yeah. That book blew up. I think when that came out, it really did transform a lot of people. Yes. S slideology and then resonate. Was the second book That's right. That Nancy wrote, which then um, corresponded with the TED Talk that she gave. Yeah. And so that kind of in combination with our work with Al Gore was a time duate where we just [00:48:00] took off.

Yeah. Yeah. That's a good combination, magical combination. It was. You guys have dreams of doing a TED Talk? I do. Yeah, absolutely. Awesome. Yeah, and actually I've wanted to do a TED Talk for a long time, and when I joined Duarte that. Vision became a lot more real. Yeah. I'm gonna be honest. Yeah. And when I first joined, I also, uh, my, through my onboarding, I did wanna mention that through the designer onboarding, uh, we get to go through a lot of the academy, so it was great.

Nice to Yeah. You know, like fresh into the company and getting a chance to work with the facilitators and go through Data Story or Captivate. Those are the other books. Okay. That turned into courses. And I really enjoyed being a fly on the wall in those sessions. 'cause it's not like they were hosting a session just for me.

Mm-hmm. I would join a preexisting session with, you know, a company like Deloitte. They'd come in, they're training their, you know, cloud software team on how to, you know, talk about data [00:49:00] and uh, it'd be like 20 people and then Cam and I'm just like listening and I was absolutely loving it. It, it's so interesting and it's so cool to see people who aren't in the presentation space.

Actually, you know, learn something and, and enjoy learning how to be better communicators. Well, that's why I ask. 'cause it, I would imagine it's kind of, you know, when you work in it so much, you've gotta have your own thoughts about like, oh, if I could do one like that, I would do it this way. You know, you kind of build your own ideas around how you would do it.

Right. I don't think I've ever had aspirations to give a Ted Talk. Um, one of the communities I, I wish that I reached more is young people. Mm. Mm-hmm. So high school students, college students that are looking for direction in their career. I, I want them to know how important communication and presentation design in particular are.

And if they're looking for an avenue at the intersection of, of data and design and storytelling mm-hmm. Presentation design is a [00:50:00] great place to be. And I, like I said before, I think the world is communicating through this niche of presentation design and we need more talented folks in that industry.

Mm-hmm. So if I could reach them through a TED Talk, maybe that's the platform, uh, but maybe just go and speaking at college nights or something accessible. One, you are a TikTok guy. I'm just gonna say put it out there. I think you need to be on TikTok daily about that. I think streaming on Twitch. Maybe just to build on that as well, when, you know, I started out in my career, you know, it takes belief as a designer to be like, I'm gonna go for this next job, or I'm gonna raise my hourly rate.

Mm-hmm. You know, you get that imposter syndromes good. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And. Finding Duarte, learning about presentation design, and then looking at my own resume and not really seeing the words presentation design, but my resume being a match to the job description. Yeah, that was an aha moment that I had.

And I'd love to also share that with designers. Like, Hey, look at [00:51:00] your resume and look at what it takes to be presentation designer. You're probably already one. Okay. And you, you would have an opportunity to, you know, actually dive into that and get into the industry and then accelerate, you know, your exposure to world-class talent and, and other companies.

Yeah. Well here's your chance. Ted's listening. I'm sure Ted wants to know. Yeah, give us a call. Yeah, we'd love to join you. Yeah, call Cam. He wants to do a talk. We're in. That'd be great. How does a project start with these big clients? Because I would imagine, I know that we've done events stuff before and it begins six months sometimes in advance.

I mean, is is that a typ typical timeline or what does a timeline look like for the those kind of projects? It could for sure. Yeah. I think it, you know, larger events have a lot more stakeholders and they have a lot more application of the creative. Mm-hmm. So if it's a large event, you're gonna have in-room signage as well as a deck, as well as [00:52:00] lanyards and as well as, you know, stage design.

So there's all these different aspects of the creative that all have different timelines. And typically the deck is the last one. Yes. To like actually get approved. However, we do have access to all that other creative, so sort of our, like mo is to get the deck to be, you know, part of the environment that the mm-hmm.

You know, conference is designed to be, and uh, every project starts with that toolkit. So it'll be looking at the toolkit of the event, and then our team will go in and translate those assets into the presentation space. Okay. So we'll pick like. Maybe 10% of that given toolkit and say, this is all applicable to the keynote or the PowerPoint.

Okay. And then from there, that toolkit is something that empowers all of us to work collaboratively so then we can, you know, make more progress together while retaining consistency. And [00:53:00] that's really essential. I just wanna stress the power of a toolkit, because when working with a large brand like Salesforce, they have all those subsidiaries.

Yeah. Which have different brand identities. So having a toolkit per brand as well as the parent brand, allows us to flex within that spectrum and really deliver something that's bespoke to each of the clients. Got it. And you know, even in Salesforce. As a parent, there's different industries within that.

Yeah. So their sales team's gonna look different than their service team, but it's kind of the same, you know? So, yeah. Yeah. There's, there's this spectrum and I think a toolkit empowers us to do a great job and, uh, yeah. As well just work collaboratively. And so timeline could be, I mean, what's the shortest timeline that you've, I mean, shortest timeline just ever like, record?
I, well, like, like three hours or, we have a model, we have a model that we call a sprint model where, um, we deploy it sometimes on really big things and also really small things. But a sprint [00:54:00] model about, as, about as least amount of time that we can do something really effective in is two weeks. Okay. And, um, we, that's a, everyone needs to be focused.

Everyone needs to be willing to have lots of conversations. Um, we need feedback really quickly. Yep. We need participation from the speaker. A lot of times the executives or the speakers. Don't get involved until the end on a sprint. We need everyone at the table making decisions real time. Interesting.

Okay. And so that is a model, it's a, it's a formal model that we run with clients that need to, to go fast and still produce at a really high level. I'd say typically our projects last between six and eight weeks. But on the bigger ones, like the things that Cam has worked on in the past, as soon as the event's over the planning starts for next year.

Oh wow. And that may or may not include us, but pretty quickly it does. Yeah. When we start doing that blue sky brainstorming, what's new technology out [00:55:00] there? How do we wanna deploy that on the stage? What's the new story that we're gonna start telling? What do we wanna road test with audiences leading up to the big event?

So those big events that people invest millions of dollars in. Yeah. Not necessarily with us, but millions of dollars on this huge event. That planning starts right away, especially in the tech industry because that's what a lot of your presentations are for that industry. You're taking very complicated sets of information, data, things like that, and you need to distill it down to sometimes five words in a picture on a slide, something like that.

What's, yeah. How do you, is it just a constant back and forth, back and forth, or is it, talk me through some of that process a little bit. A lot of the things that end up in the presentations that we build are invisible technologies that we then have to explain to an audience how it works. Yeah. And then the value of it.

And we work with a lot of engineers. Like we've talked a lot about executives and [00:56:00] working with executives, but we also work with engineers Yeah. That are having to make the invisible visible. And um, that is something that I think our design team has gotten really good at over the years. Okay. And I think it's also what makes.

Us good at telling other stories is that we've learned how to tell the hardest stories. Yeah. Which is making invisible technology understandable to a lay person. Right. Um, and so it does take a lot of back and forth. Cam and I are not expert engineers in the technology, but we have to be willing to ask the silly questions.

We have to be willing to put the wrong diagram up on the board so that we can have them back and forth with the expert, with the engineer so that we can create a visual that works for everyone, not just for the engineer that's on stage, giving the presentation, but also for the lay person that needs to understand why should be investing in this technology or the company.
And I would imagine those are interesting conversations because you're like, so it's like a bird in a tree and they're like, [00:57:00] no, it's this electron and all these pipes. And you know, I mean it's, it's probably a very interesting conversation at the beginning, right? It is. And what's interesting is that I think.

One of the reasons that Duate gets brought in is that we get permission to ask the dumb questions. Mm. Love that. Because we're an outsider. Yeah. And if you're just building a presentation internally, everyone internally is supposed to know what this technology does. Right. And there may be misalignment, and there may be people that understand it that differently.

But as an outsider, cam and I get to come into those conversations and say, wait, wait, wait. Back up. Hold on. You know? Explain that to me again and let me clarify something. And by doing that, by, by being given that permission. Yeah. And help people tell their story with more clarity. Yeah. And we challenge things that are too complex, too messy, something that we don't understand.

That challenging can come from us and it [00:58:00] doesn't work as well. When the challenge comes internally, it doesn't always work as well that way. Yeah. Uh, so that's a bonus position that we get to be in. I think that's one of the advantages of looking outside for somebody to help with that kind of communication is they're, they represent that avatar of the general public and they get that permission to ask those and come from that standpoint.

Yeah. It's also been great to learn so much about the engineering side. I really love that you brought that perspective because I've learned about composable architecture through having to be in a situation where I was asked to give an infographic or provide an infographic on composed architecture, and I thought, oh, I don't know what this looks like.

I never learned about this in school. However, through asking questions and being with really great clients, we're able to, you know, create something that. Makes sense and then allows the audience to get it, which is, which is really fulfilling. Um, when I first joined, I didn't think I would do so many architecture [00:59:00] diagrams, but there's been quite a bit of, you know, business operations, business functions, you know, creating it in a simple diagram.

Um, that tech, a technology stack, like visualizing that. That's it. Tech stack. Yeah, there's tech stack, your platform, you know, like making that. A visual that people understand, a visual that people are willing to invest in. Mm-hmm. You know, like that's, that's a big part. And then being asked to, you know, uplevel a, a platform diagram, like I'm actually doing that at the moment.
Okay. Like, you know, there's a diagram that represents the entire breadth of a business. So if you look at Salesforce, they're valued at I think like 43.6 billion, you know, dollars somewhere around there. Yeah. Just give or take. I I, I actually might be bloating. It might be 42 billion, but please get it right, Cameron.

Yeah, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll check. We'll put a footnote in the show notes. So, but, um, we do these diagrams and I, I had a moment at this Dreamforce where I looked at the, the platform of [01:00:00] Salesforce in, in its whole, and I thought this is the diagram that's worth. That much money. Mm. I was like, this is the manifestation, the, the, the visual of the 40 plus billion dollars.
Interesting. Yeah. And that made me so stoked. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, it's, it's not that exciting on the outside to be like tweaking corners on shapes and like actually making it all nice, but when you realize the gravity of this Yeah. And how it gets shipped across an entire company as, as like an like, almost like a flagpole or a stake to, you know, align people.

It's, it's a pretty big deal. Yeah. Imagine the engineer's like, no, it's like this thing and then there's this stuff and just pull up a picture. No, it's this. And they're like, oh, yeah, yeah. I see you. I wanna capture something that Cam said there. One of the things that we ask our designers to do Duarte, or really any tion, is fall in love with something about the work that you're doing.
Yeah. And what Cam just highlighted, there is a recognition of how important that diagram [01:01:00] is. Yeah. On the surface, it's a collection of rounded, cornered rectangles with some logos inside of it or whatever. It's kinda like a chore as well. It's like, ah, another diagram. But Cam has changed his mentality about that.

Yeah. He's fallen in love with that because he recognizes the impact of it, like the extreme value of it, and because he's made that connection. He does better work. Yeah. And you gotta find something. And that's, that's on cam. It's on me. It's on you to find something that you love about this maybe boring presentation.

Yeah. Fall in love with something and make it great and then it's gonna have an impact on the audience. That's really good advice. How do you inspire yourself to do this? Company wants a tech stack. This company also wants a tech stack. This company also wants you to illustrate a tech stack too. You're in the same industries that probably have a lot of the same, not technology, but the structures of the technologies in their organizations might be similar, but it's not like, Hey wait, I saw that at Dreamforce.

This is a [01:02:00] Microsoft presentation. You know? Yeah. I think it all has to do with, um, everything has a different skin, even though the structure behind other framework or the wire frame behind it might be similar. Yeah. Every company that we work with, every speaker that we work with has a different flavor.

It has a different look. And so how do we apply that particular visual style, that mood, that that character, uh, to that diagram to make it unique and special? Mm-hmm. I mean. You, you can only do so many rounded corner boxes. A lot of companies do that, but it's, it's the colors that you use, the typography that you use, the the characters or mascots that you put on the slide to bring it to life.

Mm-hmm. Yeah. That makes all the difference. Interesting. How does a project begin, let's say marketing team of one is we're now a, you know, $45 billion company at this point. We're putting together marketing team of one conference next year. Yep. How do we start working with Duarte to put together our keynote That I will be giving.

I [01:03:00] love that for you, and we'd be happy to help. So, uh, all you have to do is, uh, you know, shoot me a text, gimme an email. That's how we'll start it. Right? Check. If you need some speakers for the event, I'd love to be on the panel. That'd be great. Absolutely. You're both invited, of course. I mean, yeah. The, the advice that I would give to anybody starting a, you know, a presentation project is have a clear idea of who your audience is.

Who's your audience. We just did a. An episode called that. Yeah. Who's your audience? That is the most important question to answer when you go into planning a presentation. Mm-hmm. And it can also be a complicated one because when we ask our clients, they, they start to say, well, there's this type of person in the room and there's that type of person in the room, and that pretty soon we're at four or five different audiences, which is probably true.

There might be four or five different audiences in there, but which one do you need to have the most impact with? Hmm. Let's choose the one, the two different audience types that this presentation really has to speak to. Mm-hmm. And then we have to base every [01:04:00] decision off of that, and we have to keep testing it, you know?

Mm-hmm. Will that message, will that component, will that data point, will that emotional story resonate with that audience or not? And if it does, it stays in. If it doesn't, it's outta here. Hmm. 'cause you have to be brutal with the things that you allow and do a presentation, the slides that you use, um, you don't want a bunch of noise.

Yeah. You want, you want things that will make an impact. And that comes from clearly defining the audience for this presentation. I think another thing that I could add to that is a, is a little bit of duate IP around the spark line. And, uh, that is the cadence of content that Nancy spoke about at her TED talk where, uh, it basically is an up and down oscillation of where.

The problem is, and then where the solution could be and then kind of oscillating back and forth, and then ending the presentation on here's where we're gonna go, the, the new Bliss. Yeah. [01:05:00] Yeah. So one way to get that framework is to, and I did this actually, I haven't done it in a while, but I I, I want to try it again on my next project would be taking the headlines for each slide.

So let's say I have 20 slides in a deck. I'm gonna write every single headline on a sticky note and then take a step back and see if I reorder the sticky notes, how that impacts the story. Oh, interesting. And I think that's something that when I joined, I was really zoomed way far, like too far into each slide design.

I was tweaking little tangents, you know, if there was like a certain asset or element touching another, I was really zoomed in. And my art director at the time would be like, cam, just take a step back. This slide is probably in the wrong spot. The presentation. And that vantage point allowed me to really kind of pri reprioritize the story.

And I think doing that earlier in the process will really enable the designers to do the best job possible. 'cause then we can start looking at sequences [01:06:00] of slides and then designing those larger moments through clicks. So each slide is moving into the next, and it actually feels like a motion picture.

Yeah. Instead of just, you know, dissolved, dissolve, dissolve. As a graphic designer, we all understand the importance of contrast. You know, using scale or color or proximity to create contrast. What I think people think less about is what Cam is talking about it. And that's the contrast inside of their storytelling.

Mm-hmm. Moving people from what their current situation is to what it could be, what your current situation is and what it could be. Building that back and forth, that contrast in your storytelling is a really powerful tool. Interesting. Yeah. That's wonderful to hear that. 'cause you're right, it's so easy to get down into the nitty gritty and like, no, that doesn't look right.
It's a little too easy. Yeah. Just like slip into that. Uh, yeah. And then, you know, on, on my team, we, we call it spinning out. We're just like, you know, and, and you know, we're, we're, we have such a good internal culture at Duarte where I [01:07:00] feel like I can raise my hand and be like, I'm spinning out on this slide.

Can someone else take a pass on it? Nice. And then they'll, you know, in a couple clicks do something I couldn't even see. And they, you know, brought it to where it needed to go. Power collaboration. Super valuable. Yeah. I, I read a book, I think it was a long, long time ago. It was the Steve Jobs formula for putting together a presentation.

It was like, no more than 10 slides, no more than 20 points. You guys don't have any kind of that formalities around things as far as like, no more than, no smaller than 20 point type or something like that, or 30 point type. I mean, I would say yeah, we have a quite a few of those formalities. You've got some ground rules that you stick to.

Yeah, for sure. I, I could talk about accessibility real quick. Uh, accessibility is huge. It's a, it's a part of our, you know, top mind approach when we're looking at slides and, uh, something that, um. The Salesforce team is really good at, when we go on site, one of the team members will sit at the, in the [01:08:00] worst seat in the house.
Oh, that's good. They'll go all the way to the back of the room, and then during the click through they'll call out. I couldn't read that Subpoint because it's too small. Perfect. So we'll set those minimum point sizes and then as well as color contrast as well, just to make sure everyone can, you know, experience the content.

Yeah. It's really hard to put like a number to anything. Yeah. Like don't use anything smaller than 24 point font or whatever, because resolutions are so different. The scale of the stages are so different, and so having a hard line rule, like never use anything lower than 24 point font is. Not realistic to have those guidelines, but what CAM is talking about go into the actual real life situation.

Yeah. And test it. And then if it's too small, make it bigger. If the color contrast ratio for accessibility isn't meeting AA or AAA accessibility requirements, change it. You know, like that's important. Another higher level rule that isn't quite into those technical details is one idea per slide. Ah. And [01:09:00] um, I think density is the number one enemy in presentation design.
Too much stuff. Too many words, too many ideas, too many data points, density. And one of the things that I will get on a soapbox about is the rule that maybe VCs have or pitch decks have or whatever, where it's like, no more than five slides. No more than 10 slides. Yeah. How can you put a slide count limit on anything?

If you're gonna gimme a limit, gimme a time limit. But I might be able to get through 30 slides interesting in 10 minutes if it's a single point, if it's quick. If I'm telling a story, slide counts are ridiculous, and that that is the thing that I, that's one of the few soapboxy things that I feel really strongly about.

Because I think it adds to density, which is one of the number one things that will make your presentations bad if it's too dense. Um, so no, I don't believe in the, you can only have 10, 10 slides or it [01:10:00] has to only be 10 minutes. Um, but one idea per slide. Pretty passionate. Yeah. And I, I've seen presentations where it's been 10 slides and it's great, but I've also seen presentations where it's 150 slides and they're just constantly Yeah.

And I'm even more engaged 'cause it's almost like a movie being just played out for me, frame by frame. And the audience is not counting the slides. Right. I think that's something that speakers fear is like, oh my God, they're gonna judge me for having all these slides, but no one's counting. In fact, they're actually more engaged, like you said, when it's one idea per slide.
Yeah. And when we're doing our best job. It actually doesn't look like a slide. Yeah. It looks like a sequence of flow. It it, you can't tell when one slide ends and the next slide begins. Mm. You know, it's much more cinematic. Yeah. Like a flow than, than like dominoes falling or something. It's, it's those, those presentations don't work as well.

Yeah. I always wonder if these VCs get a, something emailed to 'em and it's a PDF and it's [01:11:00] 12, God forbid it's 12 pages instead of 10. You know? You know what? I think that you're probably right. It's probably be because they're using presentation software to make a document. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And they want an executive summary that's short enough to read in X number of minutes.

Yeah. Um, and that's a fair request. Like I want something to be short. It's an overview. Give it to me in five slides. I get it. But then we're talking about a document, we're not talking about a presentation. Those are two different things. Yeah. And if you try to have a presentation, become a document or vice versa.

You're gonna fail on both sides, like make one over the other. Um, hybrid versions of those things rare are rarely as effective as if you choose. And one of the differentiating factors is the fact that a presentation brings you into a story and there's a beginning, middle, and an end to it, as opposed to a here's all this fact data on a PDF document, a presentation has a speaker.

Yeah. A document doesn't need one. Yeah. You can read it yourself, you know, like that's a self-led journey. It may still be good [01:12:00] storytelling on the document. Yeah. But a presentation needs a speaker and that's, that's a choreography that you have to remember, is that you have the visuals and you have the speaker, the spoken word, and that's a dance.
Yeah. You know, and it, it takes both people dancing in beautiful choreography or both elements. Yeah. Dancing in beautiful choreography. You don't want one or the other to steal the show and you don't want the person up there reading the slides back to you. Yeah. It's, the slides should. Give a succinct idea.

Single idea. And the presenter is actually verbalizing and performing that. Yeah. One shouldn't be able to exist without the other. Yeah. You know, the slides can't work without you, the speaker, otherwise it's document. Yeah. And the slide behind you should act as a, an enhancement to your message. Nice. You know?

And it makes you more powerful as a speaker. Pro tip, don't just send. Deck. Yeah. That's a different thing. A different thing. I was gonna say, you know, something that [01:13:00] I've been doing more and more is sending recordings, like record yourself. Oh, nice. If you're gonna do a leap behind, yeah. Send a video. You know, you can use Zoom to record something.

Upload to the cloud. Like you can, yeah. Generate videos of yourself from your computer with the tools you're already using at work. Even on Slack, you can record videos and just click through your slides and your words are gonna really help guide that story and get you what you need. Yeah. It's like a TED Talk, you know, it's just a visual behind you as you're standing out there giving this story in a way.

Right? Yep. It's one of those models that'd be in, that'd be an interesting start to a TED Talk. It's like a TED Talk that has no speaker. And then it just is like this blank. It's like a couple slides and people are like, what's going on? And then you walk out like, that's the power of a speaker. That's the power of a speaker.

Interesting. I like that. Yeah. Let's talk a little bit about our audience. Speaking of who's your audience? Uh, our marketing team of one audience. They're in the trenches. They're living with chaos. They've got a lot of things that they've gotta handle. [01:14:00] I think the last few minutes we've been talking have been super valuable as far as some of those formalities that you folks are always paying attention to at Duarte.

It's really important. What's the fastest way a team can upgrade or get their presentation up to speed when they're in the trenches? Just like I explained, is there, is there a few techniques or how would you approach that? I gotta go on in two days or whatever. Here's my deck. What could they do to, yeah.

Um, I would just start with like finding the elements that are gonna be congruent through the whole presentation. Mm-hmm. So headlines, if they're jumping a little bit, it's totally gonna devalue your presentation. Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah, it's just like, even if it's a little, a couple points. So I would say, you know, I know that's a little, you know.

Technical, uh, in the weeds, but if your headline is in the same spot, every single slide, that's gonna really help the feel of the deck feel more professional. Yeah. I would say, uh, looking [01:15:00] at the one idea per slide, if you have a bullet, if you have five bullet points on a slide, just break it up into four or five slides and, you know, two days given the constraint, there is some time for design, but that sounds more like putting the energy into, like editing the content Okay.

And making sure everything is dialed in with a very simplified template. And then if there's moments to have a bigger splash, maybe have like a contractor work on that, you know, like pull someone external in and be like, Hey, we have a big moment, we have the internal team of one working on this. And then, you know, we wanna have a, a, a cool moment, you know, at the beginning, middle or end, uh, you know, and then out outsource that if you can.

Interesting. Yeah. If I have, if I have very limited time. I would, I would come back to those things, density and noise on a slide. Okay. Is there too much happening on this slide? Is it too dense? How can I reduce that noise to be more impactful? And the other thing that I would [01:16:00] do, I tell people all the time, don't beat default.

You know, like, huh? If it looks like you just opened up PowerPoint and there's the title at the top left hand corner, and then five bullets underneath it, your logo's in the bottom right hand, and it's using like a standard PowerPoint template that everyone has seen a million times before. You don't look specialized, you don't look professional, you don't, you don't seem special.

Yeah. Yeah. So like density, like avoid density. Don't be default. Mm-hmm. See what you can do to make it not that way. Because you can, you can go in and make a template and then apply that template across the whole Yeah. Slide deck cam's. Talking about really important things too, like layout, consistency, use a grid, don't have things jumping around 'cause you won't look as professional.

Yeah. Like, and all that can be driven by your template if you have it. What presentation workflows work best for teams with limited time or limited design help? Is it kind of the same answer? I mean, the only other way that I would, that I would offer to teams like this is that with limited time or [01:17:00] resources, what you're really tempted to do is look for shortcuts.
Okay. And a lot of times shortcuts come by way of eliminating steps in the process. Yeah. Even teams of one. Have developed amazing process for their creative work. Hmm. And my suggestion to you in those moments is don't cut anything outta your process. Don't remove steps. Learn how to scale it for the time that you have.

Interesting. Um, don't remove your mood boarding process 'cause you've only got two weeks. Do it, but give yourself a time limit, you know? Hmm. Um, don't eliminate sketching or storyboarding because you're feeling pressed for time. Do those sketches and have them be more loose. You know, like, yeah. So scale your process in, in time crunches or with limited resources or people, or don't remove steps.

Don't delete steps that you know are valuable to your process. Well, that's good. That's a snapper for, for sure. That's really good leadership. Loves to get [01:18:00] involved in these things right at the last minute. How do you avoid that death spiral of constant revisions and, no, no, I have no, let's see it like this and let's go back and try something different.
Maybe I'm not feeling, you know, like all that kind of feedback. You might get two different perspectives from me and Kim. I'm not sure we haven't talked about this, but, um, the way the world of work is going is that everything is becoming more iterative. Mm-hmm. Everything is becoming more collaborative.

There's going to be, um, less of round one, round two, round three, we're done. And instead it's gonna be this, what I'm calling the quantum state of, of a file where there, there are no more black and white, like on and off states. Is this going to be a gradient from the moment you start to the moment you end?

It's just an iterative process the whole way. Okay. And I get that executives tend to be that way. They wanna change things up until the very last minute and my advice to [01:19:00] people that's built on very real, very recent experiences, don't try to stop that. Figure out a way to adjust the process where you can be there for that executive while they are iterating.
Correct. Because that is the way the world is going. We, we aren't round one, round two waterfall. I get that. There's a time and a place for that process. Yeah. But we are moving to a place where iteration collaboration is going to happen in a gradient like state and um, get used to it and find a way in a method, a way of.

Getting that feedback, collecting it and responding to it, where you're enabling the person to iterate like that. That's interesting answer. That's, I love that though. That was a really good answer. Yeah. Yeah. I, I would just piggyback on that and just stress the importance of partnership. Yeah. And treating your stakeholder or an executive, like a partner instead of like just a client.

Yeah. For example. 'cause I think when partnership is [01:20:00] on the table, showing a sketch or something that might be like on the back of a napkin, it's maybe not client facing, but if it's, uh, a reflection of everything the executive said and you're listening to them and you show them, and it helps them feel like they're heard and then they can build on it with you.

That's amazing. And I, I've found that some of the best slides have come out of those sloppy sketches of just like, Hey. I'm listening. Is this what I'm hearing? Yeah. And then is this also what you wanna say? And if that's the energy in the room, it can be really fruitful. I'm a little surprised, but I do think that, yeah, I think listen, like the, the death spiral of iteration is something that we've all felt and we've all worked kind of hard to eliminate it from the process by putting like guardrails in place or things like that.

Yeah. And I think now I'm at a point in my career where I'm like, you know what? I'm gonna try a different approach. I'm gonna try to embrace it. I'm [01:21:00] gonna see it as a good thing. I'm gonna see it as a executive or a speaker that's invested into this. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And as a part of the process. So how can I use that to my advantage?

And you may have to adjust other things. I have a one particular client I just finished a presentation for who works like this. And one of the compromise compromises I have to make on my end is the production quality of the slides I make. Like how much production value. Is lowered. Yeah. By the amount of iteration that, that I can do for the speaker.

This speaker values the iteration. It doesn't value the like perfectly Photoshopped 3D. Like he doesn't value that. Yeah. In the design, what he values is getting to. The best story possible through iteration on lots and lots of slides. So I've let go of some of that production value. I do work quicker on the slides, um, in order to, to embrace that iterative nature of the client.

Yeah. And it's, it's really [01:22:00] resulted in a great partnership. So don't push back so much and try to be a little bit more like, this is actually what we're signed on for this, and it's not gonna be every day of your life. It's for the lifetime of this presentation project that we're working on. And there's boundaries, you know?

Sure. Like, we don't wanna work all night, every night, you know, that sort of a thing. We do know that there's gonna be spikes leading right up until the, the big day or whatever that certainly happens. Um, so you gotta have some boundaries in there. Um, you gotta have some breaks. If you don't have those, then your work quality will go down.

Sure. Um, I'm just saying the, the, the waterfall process, I think is. Maybe come a thing of the past. Interesting. Wow. Heard it here first. Maybe. I don't know. I mean, let see, you guys do represent the greatest presentation design company in the world. So I mean, you said it, we didn't say, I'm just gonna put it out there.

I mean, from, from all of my research, that's what I've, it's been amazing having you both on [01:23:00] the show. Likewise. Thank you. We totally appreciate it. And thank you so much for making the journey and sitting on the couch. I mean, a lot of people you didn't cry. I was, I was kind of expecting and I felt a couple of times, a little bit of emotions.

Well up. I thought I saw like, you know, just in the corner there, but you held it together. Good job. Same with you. Yeah, I'm cool as a cucumber. That's good. Yeah. This felt really important to do. Thank you for having us here. Um, we wanna help as many people as we can and your audience is a great one. And, and so if we can be of assistance, we wanna be that generous expert.

Please have us back again. Reach out to us. We're we're here for you. Wow. Don't threaten that because I'm gonna be calling you just about every month, so thank you. Yeah. No, this has been awesome. Thanks for joining us on the show. We'll see you next time. Thanks for tuning in. For more information and other episodes, subscribe to the marketing team of one podcast on YouTube, apple, or Spotify podcast networks.

You can also chat with us on the r slash marketing team of one subreddit or [01:24:00] visit marketing team of one.com to learn more.