Top 10 Qualities of An Über Presentation Specialist

"Every presenter has the potential to be great; every presentation is high stakes, and every audience deserves the absolute best.”
Nancy Duarte

In 1997, I was working at the UBS Swiss Bank Presentation Center as a Mac designer. Part of my job was to assist the presentation artists in recreating logos, plotting graphs and charts in Illustrator and creating background images in Photoshop. The center was divided in 2 departments, the PC artists who worked exclusively on MS Word, Excel and PowerPoint; and the Mac designers working with Quark, Photoshop and Illustrator.

I decided to learn the PC applications to become a cross-platform operator and a more valuable asset to my employer (flagrantly looking for a promotion). To make the story short, I wound up hating PowerPoint because my learning approach to this application was based on my graphic background (totally wrong), and not as a presentation software. It was so frustrating that I even joined the band wagon echoing "PowerPoint sucks!" Needless to say it took me a while to figure out why it doesn't have a visible kerning and tracking feature like the rest of the applications I used to work with.

And the answer is simple, PowerPoint is not for typesetting. It's a Presentation software. And please stop blaming the software for your badly designed slides.
I wanted to share my story with you because this particularly wrong approach kind of summarizes the history behind why there are so many bad, terribly-designed presentations in this world.

In the quest to find the über presentation artist, I used LinkedIn, Behance, Indeed, Monster, and some other job sites and I was able to gather a considerable amount of CVs with the tittles 'Presentation Artist' and 'Presentation Specialist', so I gave priority to the best-designed and well-written ones. It's a no brainer, if you are in the presentation and design business you must show it off in your resume. However, a good-looking resume does not guarantee the owner to have what it takes to be an 'uber presentation specialist.' With that said, we're going to move to the next step: the interview process. You can see below a list of the qualities I was looking for in the interviewees. I classified them into 3 different categories: Technical Knowledge, Design Sense, and Communication.

TECHNICAL KNOWLEDGE
1.-Before start working on a deck the presentation specialist must know if it's going to be a 4:3 or 16:9 aspect ratio. (you better get this one down if you don't want to work twice).
2.-Identify what computer platform is going to be used and make sure there won't be any issues with fonts or movie files. Testing is required to ensure presentation will go smoothly.
3.-Anticipate if any of the slides from the presentation will be re-purposed as a board to make sure resolution is not an issue.
4.-The specialist should be proficient in all the major slide ware applications (PowerPoint, Keynote, SlideShare and Prezi); and the Adobe Creative Suite to process and create custom artwork to avoid falling in the trap of using those cheesy native graphics.

DESIGN SENSE
5.-Design with simplicity in mind. Put meaning and purpose as the main focus of your design. Even when the requester wants to stuff a slide with lots of copy, charts, and/or graphics, you should suggest a better way to represent the information. Either by using a provocative and powerful image that tells a story (remember the old saying "a picture is worth a thousand words") or by creating more slides or builds, etc. Your input is greatly appreciated, specially when you're adding value to the presentation.
6.-Color should flow consistently across the deck (graphics, charts, photos, solid backgrounds, etc.,) following your selected color scheme. Make type visible by creating contrast with color.
7.-Creation of templates on demand. The uber presentation specialist should be able to create a few templates (at least 5 slides per template) at the beginning of a project, so the presenter can have options to choose from and determine a final look and feel. He/she must also be able to create a full-fledged template that covers all the possible slide situations if requested to do so. These templates usually have over 30 slides.
8.-Thorough knowledge of diagrams, graphs, maps, charts and infographics structure. You should be able to represent data and to bring abstract information to life via visual graphics.
9.-Attention to detail is paramount. An uber presentation specialist will make sure graphics and specifically logos are not out of proportion. Even when you didn't do it, the minute you start working on a presentation, you own it.

COMMUNICATION
10.-The uber presentation specialist recognizes the importance of getting involve with the presentation. When in doubt will ask questions. Understanding and feeling the message embedded in the presenter's sketches is absolutely necessary to deliver a top performance. The more you understand the story behind those slides, the better you'll communicate with the team.The presentation specialist must be assertive and at the same time respectful when suggesting an idea or issuing an opinion. Don't ever try to impose your graphic 'genius' to the presenter. As long as they feel comfortable delivering their message in a particular way, it's always good to remember they are the ones facing the audience, not you.

A New Business Pitch: Put The Bubbly On Ice, This One Is A Win!!

By Ernie Arias

Of all activities, New Business pitches are the most exhausting, demanding and strenuous projects in any advertising studio. They can also be the most satisfying and rewarding, especially when the 'cherry on top' is a big WIN. It feels as if you're putting your hands on the most coveted of all trophies after a fierce and long competition.

What a win Represents

Winning a new account or getting more business out of an existing client, it's essentially what our business is about. You don't have to be a genius to realize that a new account will bring financial gains to your company and eventually this translates into securing job spots, the possibility of hiring more talent, new creative challenge that comes with a new product, brand or market and it also opens the door to expand the clientele because of all the good PR that comes with a new business win. It's not a coincidence when an agency wins an account, several others come right after. Simply put, every new business acquisition adds equity to an agency's brand.

Team effort and studio's role

You can certainly compare a new business pitch with a competition because that's exactly what it is. Several agencies competing against each other in a showdown of creativity, marketing and business strategies. The studio is an integral team member in this 'competition' and plays two very important and distinctive roles. The one prior to a presentation and what we do after the agency wins an account.

Let's use this analogy from ancient times to represent the studio roles: Hunters would go out into the wild for days and come back to 'put the meat on the table.' Then you have the people who'd cook and grill this meat to perfection in order to feed the whole tribe. Prior to the hunting campaign there was a team preparing those hunters with proper weapons and some food and water to survive several days out of their shelter. In this analogy the group of people preparing the hunters represent the studios.

Every creative execution, regardless the media in which is going to be presented, goes to the studios for an exhaustive clean-up and meticulous scrutiny before it's produced either as a printed and mounted board or as a video presentation. After a win, the studios are in charge of delivering ads (print and digital), web sites, direct mail, in-store and OOH pieces to vendors and publications. Some people usually call it the 'dirty work,' while I call it the 'Final Touch.' And the quality of this 'final touch' in combination with an excellent creative output and a stellar Account team performance is what allows an agency to get more business from an existing client.

Don't you want to be part of this?

So after knowing all of these interesting facts, don't you want to be part of the team working on the next new business pitch? Well, I do. And I believe every employee should embrace new business as one of the most (or maybe the most) important projects in an agency. New business efforts bring cohesion, strengthen our culture, raise the morale and promote high employee engagement, not to mention of all the good things that come after a win. 

I can hear the Commodore shouting, with his powerful and commanding voice, "Bring the champagne! This is a win! Let's celebrate!!"

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If you've made it to this point it means you read this article. Awesome!! Your opinion is greatly appreciated and if you like it, please use the share buttons to spread the word.
Thanks,
Ernie Arias