Presentation Partners Developed charity work for Dammad Organization. This organization is all about dads and moms against drug dealers. Check out their site www.dammad.org

Its always fun when Presentation Partners gets to develop a presentation for a product that is beneficial in some way to our lives. We developed a global training presentation for Amway NUTRILTE Vitamin C Plus. The project just made us feel healthy!  Amway has a very well established brand identity that had to be maintained throughout the presentation which will be distributed to over 80 countries. This new Vitamin C tablet allows you take one pill and have the valued plant-based nutrients release for maximum gentle effectiveness in your body over an eight hour period.  The design was a total collaboration between existing corporate assets from Amway and the skill set of our creative staff.  In addition we also had to develop a 25 second animation embedded in the presentation to depict the concept of time release nutrients in the body.  We incorporated 3D modeling to morph from the image of a still photographed female into live breathing scientific model. Take a look at our animation capabilities at http://www.presentationpartners.com/viewsample/Nutrilite.html

Presentation Partners is giving you 17 Big Tips to help you make sure your next PowerPoint Presentation hits the mark.  Click the links below and follow us on Twitter or Facebook to get updates as to when our the next “Big Tip” is posted.

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TIP #1

Deliver your PowerPoint presentation in 12 slides or less.

Have you ever sat in the audience of a presentation that went on too long? Chances are you have, and it was viewed as a complete waste of time. You even thought about telling the presenter to stop and get to the point…but you didn’t.  You were polite and let the presenter go on and on about the countless virtues of their solution, service or product benefits. What is to keep you from becoming that presenter?  From being paralyzed by all the incredible information that you have to share with your audience?

A presentation should be used when you the presenter have something to sell: an idea, a service, a product, a dream. Make yourself familiar with the phrase “Sell the sizzle and not the steak.” The sizzle helps you keep the presentation as short as possible and here’s the secret sauce: If there is sincere interest, a presentation that covers only the sizzle forces the audience to engage, to ask questions so they can have a better understanding, will provide you the opportunity to answer in greater detail (i.e. the “steak”). Thus your PowerPoint presentation has not become the entire meeting, but rather a successful tool designed to engage the audience.

Since presentations take a long time to put together, why waste your time developing a longer presentation that forces information onto your audience that they might not be interested in plus creates no engagement. Just to clarify asking your audience a question and getting a collective nod or yes does not constitute engagement. Keep your presentation to 12 slides or less and you’ll discover what engagement is all about.

For cost conscience customers, we offer the do-it-yourself platform.  This is our most economical approach to a custom look and feel in your PowerPoint presentation. You know that you need a great presentation and you are willing to do some of the work yourself.  You just don’t have a designers skill set or application knowledge.

Similar to our knock-em dead platform, we create for you a complete custom PowerPoint presentation template design.  This design emulates the brand you desire with high level professional graphics, a great starting point for your mind-blowing presentation.

Once approved, we treat your project as if one of our designers was going to create the presentation for you.  The designer evaluates your existing presentation deck to determine what-if they were going to develop your presentation. What graphics would the designer develop for your material?  The designer proceeds down this path and actually develops a set of custom graphics elements (usually about 6-8 elements) and then provides those elements as separate graphics that you can copy, paste and re-size on your own.

With this approach you now have the tools that our designers would have to help design and lay out your presentation material. With your effort and your eye, you can create a professional looking presentation by simply doing it yourself!

For customers that already have a compelling message established in their presentation, we offer services that provide a graphical make-over to your existing presentation.  Our team of designers is able to utilize their experience building presentations to re-make your presentation in a very attractive way.

The first re-creating effort for graphics involves using existing graphic elements to create a semi-custom template that embodies your colors and brand elements.  To help control your cost we offer a one level revision change to what will become your new semi-custom template.

The second re-creation element will become your compelling message graphics.  Without altering any of your content, we can build graphics to help support your message and then blend harmoniously with the semi-custom template design that we have already created.

The result is a presentation that has consistent theme color and brand designed throughout plus your original text/compelling message.

Hired originally to develop an investor presentation for a capital raise, our client saw an opportunity for an immediate sales development presentation and had us knock out a custom presentation in less than four days.  Fast Model Technologies sells revolutionary sports software to the basketball industry at all levels from the NBA,  the collegiate level, and AAU.

Our skill set at Presentation Partners understands the nature of presentation development work so we can respond fast when needed in a pinch.  The customer never had a face to face visit; we shared time on the telephone and sometime via web collaboration platforms to make our discovery. We were able to create a clean modern design that was customizable so they could provide a high level of collegiate recognition depending on who they were meeting with. Thier product is fascinating. Check them out at www.fastmodeltechnologies.com

Our most popular presentation package is the package that will “Knock-em Dead”. The reasoning behind this is that our clients want success with their presentations. The presentation must work. They must sell, engage, convince investors, and create a definite call to action.

In order to have a truly successful presentation, they must have a compelling message. We have a process that transitions the client’s information into a compelling message. While this is our secret sauce, the outcome is amazing. Imagine having a message that flows from beginning to end and connects with the right audience? We understand that different audience demographics require different flow and construction of your message. We apply these principles to help collaborate and construct a compelling message.

After we create and have an approved compelling message, we move the process into the design phase where a creative director establishes the feel of the graphics for the content with a sense of theme and consistency. From there, our graphic designers roll into graphic creation offering unlimited changes to create the graphics that are just right for the client. This willingness to make unlimited changes at Presentation Partners is the one element that guarantees your level of satisfaction and produces a truly “Knock-em Dead” presentation.

The “Knock-em Dead” presentation is our top level presentation that offers the best chance in the marketplace for the client to have a successful outcome.

Why video presentations? To leverage your time from delivering live PowerPoint® presentations to the entire marketplace, video presentations allow you to leverage your exposure through your web site or access through others, such as YouTube®

Presentation videos require similar elements as a mind-blowing PowerPoint® presentation, a compelling message and strong visual support.  Much like a television commercial with a much lower budget; you need to keep the video length to a maximum of 90 seconds. 30 – 60 seconds could work fine as well, plus minimize your cost.   If your story is more complicated than 90 seconds, you might want to consider buying network time for an infomercial or using a source such as Impact Movie.

Most videos require professional voice narration to guide the viewer; however, if developed creatively, this can be avoided but voice narration can add value. Graphics in the video presentation must be applied in similar fashion in the PowerPoint® presentation; think about the audience and not so much your personal design preference.

If your video presentation is selling a product or service, we suggest utilizing on-screen talent. On-screen talent will add credibility to the product, plus create a sense of ease about the user interface of the product. On-screen talent must be professionals with acting or television experience to add credibility to your message.

It is imperative that all video presentations use a balance of on-screen talent, voice, still images, graphics and stock video footage to keep the viewer engaged with elements on the screen that consistently and periodically change. Consistent visual change lets the viewer know that they must pay attention to the message on-screen.

Reams of Data in Your Presentation?  Road to Failure Just Ahead…

The GreenBook Research Industry Trends Study – Summer 2010 focused on “Respect For Research” and probed perceptions of market research and researchers both within the profession and among other marketers.

In late 2009 the collaboration was formalized by the formation of the GreenBook Research Industry Trends Study under the leadership of the GreenBook Marketing Research Directory.  Partners include: Anderson Analytics, Brand3Sixty, iCharts, iModerate, Interviewing Service of America, The MRGA, NextGen Market Research, The Foundation for Transparency in Offshoring, one point Mobile Surveys, Peanut Labs, Pioneer Marketing Research, RFL Communications, Rockhopper Research and Strategy One.

A brief e-mail invitation was sent to individuals randomly selected from co-sponsors’ internal lists of research providers and clients. From these invitations, a total of 875 usable responses were included in our analysis.

Looking at the report, I noted below how important it was for market research firms to present a compelling strategic insight message in their client presentation.

Value of Presenting Strategic Insight versus mounds of Data

• Buyers reported that they increasingly seek out suppliers who understand the intricacies of their particular business, and who deliver strategic insight rather than boring 100-page decks full of data.

• Suppliers, in turn, are recognizing the power of differentiating themselves by serving as confident and vital advisers who offer actionable ideas and recommendations.

• When corporate research suppliers deliver such insight, esteem rises; when they fall short, clients question the value they provide.

• “I think there’s been a shift in the type of research that’s expect­ed. It’s really no longer enough to send off a deck with a bunch of figures – clients are looking for analysis of not only what this information means, but also what they should do with it. The pressure is on the MR supplier to come up with answers… “

• “We are not providing enough strategic insight. There is little imagination in our conventional methods… We see decks from other companies with 80 to 100 pages of data and no summaries – we get focus group reports from competitors with 50 pages of rambling narrative, no conclusions but lots of out of context clip art…. As a result, consulting companies, design firms, branding consultants and other professional service providers are doing their own research.”

• “I see in my consulting business an increased ability to im­pact organizations. Clients are looking for somebody to come in and give strong direction, not just report informa­tion. It seems the more I’m willing to go in terms of mak­ing marketing-focused recommendations, the more respect I have — even if I’m not an expert in the business/field of my client.”

Speed of Market Research Important

• “I think [researchers] need to be more responsive and speed of deliverables is a key factor today. The quicker they can deliver helpful info to the business the more role they play.”

Market Research and Social Media are key hot topics

• Social Media, Mobile, and Online Research are the top of the technology list that the next edition of this study in 2010 will be addressing.

This is a great trends study from leading market research firms.  We look forward to reading the next installment and insights from Greenbook, in particular, the value of presentation excellence for both the market research supplier and buyer of market research.

-          Dennis Muscato, Presentation Partners [DMuscato@PresentationPartners.com]

Weblinks to this report:

http://eepurl.com/bfqtQ
http://www.greenbook.org/PDFs/GRIT_Report_Summer2010.pdf