The 3 Presentation Formats Every Marketer Needs to Know

Listening and watching I see where I am in the pecking order against all these awesome guests we've had, so that's, that's cool. Yeah, it's the default. I just gotta work harder. Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Well, we don't have anything else to talk about. I'll just call you in.

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 hosts, Eric and Mike. No, we do have an important topic to talk about. Yeah. And this kind of riffs off of a former, a, a, a previous episode of the podcast where we had, uh, Cam and Ryan from Duarte in here to talk about presentations, and it was interesting.

I would recommend highly to go back and watch that episode. It was really insightful to hear from, uh, as we've branded them, the greatest presentation designers in the world. Yeah. I think that was the thumbnail. Yes. Um, wonderful guests. We, we really appreciated having them on. Um, but it's interesting.

Presentations are something, or decks, or however you wanna name them, are something that we've seen, we constantly see coming in the studio, and what's interesting is starting a couple of months ago, we actually had decks, designs come into the studio, and Kurt, a guy on our staff, did one I did one, and you, you're doing one.

Yeah. And what was interesting is we observed that there are really three different types of decks, and it got us to thinking and doing a little bit of research around, like, okay, well, you read some of the books that Duarte gave us. Well- Thank you- Yes ... the team at Duarte. Our friends, our friends gave us a lot of books, and thank you.

But yeah, I was doing a deep dive on a lot of those things, 'cause I just wanted to lear- learn a little bit more about the structure and how they, how they go about pres- presenting ideas, and, um, yeah. So it was, uh, insightful to hear your interpretation of some of the ways that Duarte talks about, um, different formats of their- Mm-hmm

presentations. And it, it... You know, when we started to look at what we were working on, we realized there was at least three different types of decks. There's probably... I don't know. As I did- There's- ... a little bit of research, there's more, right? Many more probably, yeah. Yeah. Like, different... People will call them different things too, for sure.

Um, I th- But I think what we w- Everybody just says, "Oh, that's a PowerPoint." Right. That's the way I, uh, you know- Yeah ... um, think about it, and that kinda, that, that idea that this is the PowerPoint, and the PowerPoint's a thing- It's just a thing ... that gets delivered- Yeah ... it's a thing, is very present, and it has been for a long, long time.

Um, but yeah, I think we've seen so many different PowerPoints over the years and the different types. I mean, the three most recent examples, yeah. But even before that, we see, I mean, some awful crimes committed inside of PowerPoints too. Well, yeah. But- It's one of those tools that's ubiquitous, and it's... Uh, you know, tiny children are- Yeah

trained in on slides or PowerPoint from an early age. Yeah. I think my kids had to do it in third grade. They had to start putting things in- ... in, you know, PowerPoint things to- Did they train them thought leadership techniques? No, I think it was more just, you know, like, put a picture on here, and put some type here, and then-

move on. So- That kind of checks out with a lot of the- Yeah. ... PowerPoints we see today too. Yep. Yeah. Sounds like stuff we've seen too, yeah. Yeah. Interesting. But, um, yeah. I think instead of, like, thinking what's the container for our information and what we're trying to share, I think today we wanted to unpack what we see as, like, three big- Um, different formats that, that could be utilized for different things, um, to better effect than- Yeah

than the ones we see a lot. Yeah, I mean, there's, the, it's, it's interesting 'cause a deck or a pr- or a PowerPoint or a presentation, there's a couple of different elements to it. There's a performative side of it, there's a data side of it, and there's just kind of this whole kind of, you know, package. You know, it's the dance between those two things and how that's presented that is the lever that shows the effectiveness of what we're doing.

Mm-hmm. And so we wanted to do a little bit of a deeper dive and just kind of go over w- how we decide how we're going to be doing decks when we're presented with some piles of data. I have all this stuff, I need to do a presentation, or I need to put together a webinar or something like that. Just to refer back to our friends at Duarte again, um, the book that Nancy wrote on that is called Resonate. Yep. She talks- Very good ... yeah ... very good about. And really, it's, it's all about the arc, cr- crafting that arc that you're gonna, for the presentation. And, um, how to, how to, how to structure your presentation for impact.

All right. You worked on a presentation. Let's talk about the second kind, 'cause this was kind of new to me. I- you kind of had to teach me this a little bit. And this, again, comes from our friends at Duarte. I- Thank you ... I think what, uh... Yeah. So what they, they created this idea or, t- you know, trademarked this idea of something called a slide doc.

And it's- Slide doc ... slide doc. Okay. And, um, I think it's brilliant on an, a number of ways. Um, one, they're acknowledging that people, people's natural incle- inclination is to throw everything into a PowerPoint, throw all the details into- Hmm ... a PowerPoint. Okay. Right? So, um- It, which people do, which is really where a lot of PowerPoints or presentations fail, is that people are trying to put all their information on every slide.

Yeah, yeah. And then they're trying to present it, and there's too many words in there that distract people from the talking and everything. So I think the slide doc is the perfect thing to work on if you can't be in the room, if you're not in the room- Hm. Hm ... and you're trying to communicate an idea or s- um, or provide information, like background information to somebody.

So it could be a great complement to your keynote. Um, or it could be something that could be great to hand to somebody before- Mm-hmm ... to get them to understand what's going on. So it's data rich. It's very full. You showed me the one you were working on, and it's a lot of text on each slide. Yeah. It's really in a s- in, in one way you explained to me it's think of it as a publication almost.

It is, it is very much like a publication in my mind. Oh. Like, um, but I think a lot of the key principles of like good, good presentation design are baked into this, right? Okay. Like, um, don't just like go willy-nilly and start throwing stuff onto slides and everything like that. Really like have one idea you're trying to get across with every, every slide you're creating.

Okay. And, and provide the detail you can, but also break it up. Make it so people do wanna read. It's a lot of, it's a lot of graphic design principles applied to this, um, that you wanna make it engaging. You wanna make the, um, what you're, what you're writing, the writing in it to be concise and easy to read.

Um- Structure a lot of things in there, t- knowing that a lot of people aren't gonna read the whole thing. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So a lot of the stuff that, that, um, that Duarte talks about in this, in this format is having, letting a title and, like, a takeaway, um, line that's on every slide reward those who are just trying to get a quick glance at everything.

Scan through it. They can just scan everything. Just let me just boom, boom, boom. Okay. Then having images, charts, visuals to help draw people in to read deeper details- Okay ... into the, each one of those helps, helps reward those who want a deeper information about it. So, um, there's a perfect thing if you...

It's a perfect format, I think, for when you're not presenting. Like, you're not- Mm ... in the room. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. And y- you don't, you know you can't be for whatever reason. It's almost designed, from what I saw, what you were designing to me, I don't know how I would present that piece, that presentation. No, you would...

People, there's so much... It's so visually rich in- Yeah ... in copy and visuals that no one would be listening to... A lot of people would not be listening to you if you were trying to present this and project this. In, in fact, I would never project a slide doc. Never. But you, the way you laid out your slide doc was interesting.

Like, and, um, just to go back to what you said, there's basically a headline, a controlling idea for each slide. Yep. Then there's almost, like, a subhead that helps just fill in the blanks on, in, like, one sentence. Yep. Here's what this slide's about, a little bit deeper detail. Then it, it's almost like layered pieces of information on one slide.

If you go to Duarte's website and sign up, um- Yeah ... look this up. They have a really, another thing that I just thought was brilliant is they created a slide doc to describe slide docs. Love that. It was like- Very meta ... so you can download this PowerPoint and see how they created this slide doc, and it teaches you how all the things to create a slide doc.

Nice. I mean, it's, it's, it's deep. It's, it's dense. It's free. Like, sign up, and then you get the emails every week that are all really good. They've really done a great job of- Shout out. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. But, um, I think it's a great format. It's probably not one that people would think of a lot. Um, it does border on- Like almost like a magazine design to a certain extent.

Yeah Like the way you would, you would do editorial design. Um, but it's, a lot of it comes down to thinking about having one, like you said, one controlling idea per slide, but also make sure that all those fit into a sensible kind of arc, and that, that you are kind of unveiling a story so it all, it all feels like it's all heading towards- Kind of-

a conclusion ... that story structure that we're talking about with Keynote even, where you might wanna start with a hook or the main idea, then you kind of get into the data a little bit, or what's the goal of this presentation. Yeah. And then you start to build in like the supporting story, and then you finish with, and here's how call to action-ish.

Yeah. Is, I mean- Yeah ... is that kind of how you would structure it? Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Um, no, a- and it's been a fun format. I keep trying to think of other, other i- places where I can play with this idea- Mm ... and this format, um, to help- Give a little bit deeper context to some of these ideas, the, some of the things that are hard to convey- Mm-hmm

um, when you're not in the room. Yeah, 'cause I think some pow- you know, some presentations when you get into them, there's the performative version of it, and then there's like, okay, well give me the white paper, or give me the details after the fact, or give me the 45-page research thing that you did so that I can kind of really dive in now that I'm hooked and I'm interested and I wanna learn more.

This is a, this is a product that does both, in my mind. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it really seemed to... It's a lot, you know? Yeah. You can really learn a lot about everything in that. And they, there's... Seems like depending on what you're trying to tell, you could build ones, I think the one that, that did from Duarte is over 100 slides or something.

Is that right? It's really lo- It's big. Yeah. I mean, the sample one? Yeah. I wouldn't be surprised it's over 65 pages. Yeah. Might be a little bit more. But this, I mean, it's covering how to go about writing it- Yeah ... how to, how to go about editing existing PowerPoint slides that are the bad ones that we're talking about.

Right, right. Like how to, how to design things. Here's where, you know, here's why... There's like s- very good, very solid graphic design concepts in, in there as well. It's- Which is a huge part of it, 'cause you have to drive the visuals to drive people's eyes to- Yep ... follow the storyline and not distract them and not send them off on...

So that's why design is really important. And I think a lot of people when they begin the process, uh, you know, they just dump information into a slide. So this is the information rich version of one. Mm-hmm. It makes me think pitch deck immediately. Mm-hmm. Uh, I make the equation to that. And it reminds me of another guest on the show, Mr.

Guy Kawasaki. Thank you for being. Uh, he wrote a book on, uh, called The Art of the Start. I talked about it on the interview podcast that I did with him. Go back into our previous episodes to go listen to him. Thought leader, genius, wonderful human being. Um, he- kind of revolutionized. I don't know if that's the point, but back in 2005, 2006, Silicon Valley, he was a VC.

He was very entrenched in the VC world, and I think to this day, the VC world still runs on what they call a pitch deck. And there's a standard format for this, which is very, very prescriptive in how you build a pitch deck, and it's kind of an abbreviated version of what you're talking about. It's meant more for quick review, go through, show me every element of it in, like, one concise little data point.

It's a very prescribed structure to how to do it that is really isolating your idea that you want to make a business case for for potential investors to, to show more interest around. Yeah. It's nothing that they're gonna look at and start signing contracts or anything like that. All it is is really kind of a fishing exercise in a sense, where you're trying to gain interest in, uh, your idea, whether it's a startup or an app or a product or something like that.

There's only 10 slides, so you only have 10 slides to tell the story, and each slide is exactly do this on slide three, do this on slide four. There's no deviation from it. Interesting. It is very, very structured. Uh, but it, it, he pioneered the idea of the 10, 20, 30 rule. 10 slides. Again, go back, look at the show notes.

You can see what they are. 20 minutes. That's all you have to talk it through. So again, there's a performative side to this that- Mm-hmm ... you know, it should live on its own, but it's also you have 20 minutes to tell the story of this pitch deck, go through all the details. And an interesting design decision, the 30 stands for nothing smaller than 30 point type- Hmm

so that you're very limited- Yeah ... as to how much information you can put on that slide. You know, when we've seen people try to do decks before, it's really interesting to see how different people and different, um, experts think of how people wanna consume their deck. Mm-hmm. And having that 30 point type rule is great because that's really what most human beings can kind of digest when looking at a slide as it's being presented maybe in a room- Yeah

or, or, or on a webinar or on a Zoom. So it's kinda in the middle of what we were talking about- Mm-hmm ... like the keynote and everything. So is this meant to, with this pitch deck, are, are you always present when this is given? A lot of pitch decks are printed out and sent. Okay. And they're meant to be flipped through first.

Interesting. And, and what they'll do is that will indicate, um, enough information so that an investor or a business partner or somebody who's gonna come in and help you with this project, uh, gets them interested enough, and then, you know. It's designed around the VC world. VCs are presented with hundreds of ideas a week- Yeah

uh, from wherever because they have all the money and they, you know, have some insights and expertise that they wanna help- You know, make the world a better place through, uh, technology or whatever their focus is. And so they have to review things very quickly, and that's why Guy Kawasaki came up with this format, was he s- he was a VC and spent a lot of time reviewing deck.

I think there's room to play in that space a little bit if you're not presenting to a VC or something like that. It's still a very compelling format. You can add slides, take some out, stick to some of the general rules around that. Mm-hmm. But that, I think, is still a really helpful way to think about how to create your presentation.

Yeah. Um, it d- it is a cross between a keynote and a slide doc. You know, those, I think, are the two ends of the spectrum- Absolutely ... in my mind. Yep. This is a good way to structure it. And I think that goes back to kind of the fourth format, which would be just the default. You know, here's a cover slide, here's my four or five chapters that I'm gonna talk about.

Here's how I'm gonna present a data slide. Here's how I'm gonna do a bullet point slide. You know, I think if you use this pitch deck model when creating your default deck, it will help you to simplify and refine, 'cause everybody's instinct is to put everything into- Yeah ... the slide. Yeah. I think you still need to simplify the ideas down and keep it very concise, um, going back to that pitch deck model, but maybe it is 30 slides or- Yeah

40 slides that will be, you know, consumed over the course of maybe an hour-long webinar. You're hitting all the main points. You're still talking through a lot of the main points, but the supporting data is there on a slide itself. It's supporting your presentation, it's not leading it. Yeah. Yeah. And please, practice, practice, practice.

And don't read me your deck. Oh, gosh. Yeah. How many times- Yeah ... have we sat there and watched somebody read through the bullet points on their PowerPoint? Yeah. I th- I think, I hope we're moved beyond that at this point in society, but- Who knows? Ma- It's... No? Yeah. I don't know. They've- I don't know. But I, I think, I think the, the hardest part of everything we've talked about is the consolidating information and conc- and being concise, and that's a hard thing to do, is to- How, how do you go about doing that as one who's just built a deck?

What, what process helped you? I really, I, I mean, I do kind of go back to the beginning of like, okay, who's this for and what are we trying to communicate? Mm-hmm. Right? And so really lock in on what is that, what is the lead behind it? When this is all done, when they're done, what do, what do we want them to be left with?

Is it a, do, do we want them to take action? Do we want them to be better informed about something? Mm-hmm. Like, really that is the That's exactly what you need to follow. That it's every, all your decisions for the rest of the- Mm-hmm ... thing have to run through that. Is this helping support it? Um, and if it's not, it's a instant drop, right?

Then I try and thinking about like, okay, as we're ta- Yes, there's a whole bunch of things we need to convey within that controlling idea. Like, what, what do they need to know first? What do they need to know second? Trying to provide some order for those types of things. Yeah. Um, but then also scrutinize, like, um, what can be dropped or what can, you know, what, what felt important but maybe isn't as important.

Mm-hmm. Like one I recently did, we, we kinda, we did a draft and we did a, an outline of all these things, and there was, there was two or three slides in there, and then what we realized was that we had, we had seen that as an important thing as we went through things, but as we read it from the beginning and we looked at the controlling thing of what we're trying to, trying to get across, that that was actually...

It ca- it, it could be seen as coming out of left field. We're like, "Whoa, wait." Distracting. "What does that have to do with anything," right? Yeah. Distracting, yeah. So, like, being really critical about, like, and very choosy and editing out things that just don't serve that- Yeah ... higher narrative is, is essential.

Um, and don't get rid of it completely. I'm sure some of those ideas do have a time and a place- Mm-hmm ... but they might not be for that thing that you're trying to, um- Yeah, I mean- ... put together ... there's this leave behind element that- Absolutely ... makes sense. You know, whether the deck is the leave behind or having a separate piece that's a leave behind that- Yeah

you know, that could be a white paper. That could be a gigantic document. But- Yeah ... if they wanna dive into it, great. Here's everything. That way we've not left anything out, you know? Yeah. You're interested, great, or you've, you've got questions or you wanna dive deeper, perfect. Here's a piece for that. Yeah, I mean, like, for, like you talked about pitch decks, right?

Like, I think the main thing is to, like, whet people's appetite for what you're trying to sell, right? Mm-hmm. And then no one's gonna buy it based on the deck alone. I mean- Right ... I know, I know when you watch Shark Tank and they, they make a deal- ... everybody thinks that the deal's, like, done, but no, there's so many other things that, you know, that need to, need to be checked out.

So, like, the idea that your pitch deck is really, like, the door. Yeah. Get them on that. They open the door to maybe reading your full business plan or- Yeah ... or some of the other important details, those leave behinds, right? But, like, it's about- Assessing what is, what is the goal we have for this thing? And a lot of- A lot of what I've seen happen too, uh, which I saw you d- going through this, and I've done this as well, um, little sticky notes.

Yeah. Not the big ones, the little, tiny ones- Yeah ... really are helpful because that helps you limit. Think of each of those sticky notes as a, as a slide. Yeah. And- This is what we're gonna talk about. Yep. This is what we need to talk about here. This, and- And what it does- You might wanna reorganize them. You might- Exactly

yeah. It helps you design the flow of your presentation- Yeah ... a lot better. Yeah. And it gives you flexibility. And don't get too stuck in it too as you're, even if after you write all the stuff that's on there- Yeah ... or, or the, as little is on there. Yeah. Just kinda think about it. Okay, yeah, does that make sense?

What are they gonna need to know next to get to that conclusion of where we're, our goal is, of what our goal is? Then you move up to the next size Post-It, and there's, you, you put your two or three bullet points on there. Yeah. And then that's, yeah, how you finish building that. Yeah. But I think that's the hardest part for a lot of our...

And that's why they come, uh, to he- to us, to help them, like- Yeah ... understand what is important. 'Cause a lot of people think everything's important. Yep. And when you're inside the jar, as I like to always say, it's really hard, because maybe you've worked really hard on figuring out one part of this story- Yeah

and you're really married to it, and it's important, and it's got a time and a place, but maybe it's not in the pitch deck. Yeah. And that's hard for people to give up that after the, the, you know, the pain of birthing that concept or that idea or that part of your plan, uh, to put that aside and maybe reserve that for a different time.

That might be really difficult- Yeah ... for people to. And I think a lot of it is just know that, like, the reason we're putting these things together is 'cause we are trying to sell an idea- Yeah ... or we're trying to sell a thing, right? And that in order to do that effectively, you need to, you need to leave an impact one way or another.

Yeah. Right? Like you need to, you need that to, the idea to take root in people's heads or for them to be inspired by the idea or something, right? And the, the other part to that puzzle is g- really understanding, and again, we'll go back to know your audience. What is, what do they care about? Yeah. Like some of the times they're super busy people that only care about these two or three things, and if you don't talk about those two or three things or one thing- Mm

it, it's irrelevant, you know? Yeah. They, they, you're just distracting them and wasting their time, and they might even- Get mad. Yeah. So I think that, that keeping... Making sure, like, that's where having an outside eye, it doesn't have to be necessarily a designer, but having other people, like, look at it from the outside perspective- Yeah

get you out of the jar, and kind of question some of the things that are in there, will help it make, help make your presentation stronger, whatever format you've, you've chosen to, um- And, and it may take three, four, five different types of decks depending on what that audience is. Yeah. And if it's very specific, then be as specific as you can to what they care about- Yep

and then that will be a much more relevant, effective tool for what you're doing. Exactly. All right, we've said a lot of things here, Mike. A lot. Yeah, we do that. Yeah. Yeah. We like to talk. Um, let's do a recap then- Yeah ... and get back to it. So what, what did we talk about? I- so don't do what most people do.

Don't open up PowerPoint and just dump your ideas in there- Yeah ... and then, um, present all those. Don't read from the slides, all that stuff. Yeah, yeah. Right? Before you do that, take a step back, think about how is this being delivered? Are you giving it to a big group of people in a keynote? Are you giving it to a smaller group of people that are, that you're trying to sell, uh, an idea or a project to?

Um, are you not even in the room? Is this something you're sending over an email to somebody? Yeah. Like, think about that, who that delivery is. Okay. W- the delivery device. And then also think about, like, the goals of what you're trying to get across. Like, are you just trying to communicate an idea? Are you trying to sell something with, that needs more data, more backup, you know?

Um, think about those things. Start outlining those things, and those should make your decisions for the delivery format that works best. So don't use a text-heavy slide if you're giving a keynote, and don't give a keynote if people are expecting a lot of details in something that you sent to them- Nice.

Yeah ... um, through an email. That sounds like a really good, concise... And there is levers in between. There's, there's- Absolutely. Absolutely ... the pitch deck could be that, or it could be very specific to that pitch deck model that was outlined by Guy Kawasaki, or it could be a little bit more expanded version of that, a hybrid- Yeah

potentially- Yeah ... keynote plus pitch deck-type thing. I think the, the main thing, too, is understand that if you are in the room and you are performing it, there should be some element of inspiration behind this. Mm-hmm. There should be the idea that you're not convincing or trying to convince people, but that you're inspiring something behind this- Yeah

whether that's change or a new way of thinking or a new way of doing something. I think that's what has, has really helped bring the presentation itself as, uh, an important piece of a cultural impact- Yes ... at this point. Yeah. Right? Um, we've seen so many amazing, wonderful things, and our friends at Duarte, we just wanna say again, thank you so much for- Yeah

helping us and helping the world understand what presentations can do for business and for society in general. But, uh- Yeah. Absolutely ... if you've been inspired, we appreciated having them on there. And most of what we've talked about, you can find on their website. We'll put it in the show notes. Yeah. It's been fanta- yeah, fantastic.

So- Yeah ... yeah. All right. Present. Present. Present. Right on. Yeah. Okay. Thanks, Mike. This sounds like a good spot- Yeah ... to stop. Sounds perfect. Thanks, Eric. Thank you.

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