“Slide Tips” or “How I learned to stop worrying and love PowerPoint”

1. “Slide Tips”or“HowI learned tostop worryingandlovePowerPoint”

2. My agenda today... Why doing good slides is important The 5 Main Things Some Examples Examples revisited Summary

3. You are probably asking yourself…“Why on earth is he doing this presentation?” “Can’t I learn everything I need from PowerPoint class?” “Why define all these rules for doing slides?” “Why is one way any better than another? “Can’t he just get treatment for that obsessive-compulsive thing?

4. My answer starts with the fact that our job involves spending lots of money…. • Marketing involves spending a lot of money... • for example, the $60MM US Holiday Inn marketing budget is more than all the other money we spend on the Holiday Inn US business put together • …and so we have to persuade the Senior Management of the company to give us their approval to spend it…

5. …and to spend money you need to persuade other people that it’s a good idea to do what you’re thinking... • Developing our marketing plan is not about doing slides • it’s about thinking through the business, asking and answering questions about what really moves the needle, and coming up with new innovative ideas • However, once you’ve done all the work of developing your plan, you still have to do 2 things: • Explain it to other people • Persuade other people that it is the best thing to do • To do that, you need to be able to lay out... • what you intend to do • why you intend to do it

6. Unfortunately, persuading other people isn’t just a matter of telling them what you’re going to do... Other people don’t automatically agree with everything you say ...in fact... Other people already have preconceived ideas of their own ...and... Other people naturally like their own ideas better than yours!

7. ...Or, put another way... “If it’s my gut instinct vs. your gut instinct... ...my gut wins.” John Sweetwood

8. A slide pack is often the most convenient way to organize, document, present and share your ideas • There are a lot of different ways to document and share your ideas: • Memo • Text intensive. Able to spell out exactly the thoughts. • Can be hard to integrate visuals, data in a clear way (though possible if done well) • Hard to convey emotion and conviction • Speech • Hard to share without being physically present (except videos, transcripts, etc.) • Can incorporate visuals, but not too much detail • Can convey emotion and conviction very well • Slide pack • If done right, can be read or presented, enabling easy sharing in a text form and conveying emotion/conviction when spoken • can combine visuals at many levels of detail • easy to make structure of thinking clear

9. People often use slide packs and presentations for objectives of informing or educating. This is fundamentally different from the objective of persuading. Education Information Persuasion “How to do…” “What is happening...” “Why you should…” Selling… - a product - an idea - a course of action

10. My objective is to help you save time and effort. • Our Marketing Plan document needs to be clear and persuasive. • We’re going to do it in the form of a slide pack. • Everyone in this room will need to be part of putting it together… • …which means everyone in this room will be creating slides. • Getting proficient at creating good slides is a learned skill, not an instinct... • ...but I hope to give you some tips that will save you time and help you produce better slides

11. What are the main things to keep in mind Why some apparently trivial chart details are actually very important How to use PowerPoint attend a class, buy a book How to select a specific chart (and why pie charts are seldom useful…!) BUY “Say it with Charts” - the single best resource on how to do effective visuals(Author: Gene Zelazny) How to structure a presentation BUY “The Pyramid Principle” - an excellent resource for how to organize what you want to say in a logical and clear way (Author: Barbara Minto) How to give a presentation BUY “Say it with Presentations” - a great collection of practical, experience-driven tips (Author: Gene Zelazny) I am only going to cover some tips What I won’t ... What I will cover today...

12. My agenda today... Why doing good slides is important The 5 Main Things Some Examples Examples revisited Summary

13. Plan revenue First Quarter $33,000 Second Quarter $56000 3rd Quarter $75K

14. SALES TRENDS East Q1 Q2 Q3 South Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 West Q4 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4

15. Each media vehicle is dominated by one or two brands with Comfort leading the top two media, Network TV and OOH. 1997 Media Spending - % By Brand Source: StraDEgy/CMR

16. Fifty percent of the industry’s business nights come from 20% of travelers who stay 20+ nights per year, thus making the FBT a very efficient target Share of total Business Nights by Frequency of Travel 100% 200 90% 180 Percentage of nights accounted for by what percentage of travelers 80% 160 70% 140 60% 120 Number of Nights Percentage of Nights 50% 100 40% 80 30% 60 Number of nights spent in hotels by the group of travelers shown above 20% 40 10% 20 0% 0 % 0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45% 50% 55% 60% 65% 70% 75% 80% 85% 90% 95% 100 Percentage of Travelers Source: DK Shifflet ’97

17. Comfort, Hampton, La Quinta, Fairfield Cereal Variety Bread Variety Comfort, Hampton Fruit Variety Beverage Variety Attendants Comfort Hours of Operation Comfort Express has a far better breakfast offer than key competitors In these categories..... Express outperforms these brands:: Comfort, Hampton, La Quinta, Fairfield Comfort, Hampton, La Quinta Source: Competitive Operating Manuals ‘97

18. My agenda today... Why doing good slides is important The 5 Main Things Some Examples Examples revisited Summary

19. “The Main Thing is to keep the Main Thing, the Main Thing” Jim Barksdale, founder Netscape, et al

20. There are five “Main Things” to keep in mind when developing slides for persuading people. Why doing good slides is important The 5 Main Things Some Examples Examples revisited Summary 1) Time is of the essence 2) Everything communicates 3) Slides are made to be shared 4) Leave the office on time 5) Shelf-life

21. Main Thing #1: “Time is of the essence” • Other people, particularly Senior Management, have strong opinions! • They are also usually very busy... • …so you never have long to persuade them. • But since their opinions are usually based on a lot of their own, valid experiences, you can usually only persuade them if you can show the facts, logic and passion behind your recommendations • Which means that you often need to convey a lot of information and thinking in a very short amount of time. • So you need to do slides that make it easy for the audience to quickly understand your point

22. The header should state the main point of the slide By having a clear header that states the point of the slide you make it easy for the audience to quickly understand what point you are making, rather than making them try to figure it out. This is especially important when you are sharing the deck to be read, rather than presenting it. This is also useful when presenting, though, as it reminds you what to say when you put the slide up. People should be able to understand your story just by reading the headers. It also helps you choose the information shown on the slide, since you only need to present the information necessary to make the point in the header.

23. Take care when picking visual metaphors to use something that quickly reinforces the point you’re making... Example Visual reinforces Visual doesn’t reinforce There are 4 directions we can go... There are 4 steps to the cycle... Grow Plan Execute Maintain Strategize Divest Shrink Measure

24. …a visual that is appropriate for one purpose may not be appropriate for another... Example Visual doesn’t reinforce Visual reinforces There are 4 directions we can go... There are 4 steps to the cycle... Grow Maintain Plan Execute Strategize Measure Divest Shrink

25. It is often easier to not waste time trying to find a compelling and appropriate visual, but to just use a list. Example There are 4 directions we can go... There are 4 steps to the cycle... 1) Grow 2) Maintain 3) Shrink 4) Divest 1) Strategize 2) Plan 3) Execute 4) Measure

26. One special case is showing the structure of a presentation. A block arrow chart is often a good choice to help show how the presentation will flow and where you are. Example Can bold the current section Issues and Objectives New Learning Budget Allocation Results Strategies Tactics Can call out subsections Marketplace performance Plan requirements Program Performance

27. If your font size is too small, people will have a hard time reading the slide, which will take them longer A good rule of thumb is to use 16 point where possible If you use 14 point, it is still pretty legible It starts to become hard to read 12 point And you shouldn’t really assume anyone except you can read 10 pt

28. That leads to the following ‘rules’ for font sizes on your text slides. The slide header is in 20pt bold. • Make the main bullet points appear in 16 point • the indented points below should be in 14 point • This makes it fairly easy to read and follow Notes and sources should be in 10 pt Note: (1) This is a note, that’s really for the presenters benefit Source: This tells me where the information came from

29. It also leads to rules for chart slides Comparison of 5-Year plan RevPAR growth for US Holiday Inn vs. Midscale w/F&B (segment data excludes BHR brand) Axis label and numbers (if used) are in 14 pt 7% Chart title (if used) is in 14 pt 6% 5% Holiday Inn Line labels are in 16 pt - labels next to lines are better than legend boxes Projected RevPAR growth 4% 3% Segment 2% 1% 0% Source/notes are in 10 pt 98/9 99/00 00/01 01/02 02/03 03/04 Axis numbers are in 14 pt Source: PwC Hospitality Directions Feb 99, RK data in HI2000plan.xls; analysis in PlanvInd.xls

30. Notes are for your benefit, to help you quickly answer clarifying questions There are often points of clarification that you want to have on the slide to answer likely questions, but that aren’t relevant to the main thrust of the argument. In that case it’s good to put a note on the slide… …when presenting, it helps you remember …when someone is reading, they can refer to it if necessary Note: (1) This is a note, that’s really for the presenters benefit

31. Shading can be very useful to quickly draw attention to the most relevant part of the slide. This is especially true if you reserve it just for that purpose. Example: Selling is only a small part of the time spent... HR Admin The eye is drawn to the gray section and can immediately see it is a small part of the total Training Selling

32. Bold-face type and arrows can also be used for the same purpose. Again, this is most effective if used just for that. Example We are currently in the tactical planning phase 1) Total business review 2) Blue sky brainstorming 3) Refinement of business analysis 4) Strategy Development 5) Tactical Planning 6) Execution of programs 7) Measurement of results

33. You should try to right-justify columns of numbers, and make them all to the same number of decimal places, to make it easy to read and see which are larger/smaller A column of numbers that is like this makes it hard to see at a glance which are the largest or smallest… …but reformatted like this, it becomes obvious... A B C D E F 12.3 13 234 1.34 7 8.9 A B C D E F 12.30 13.00 234.00 1.34 7.00 8.90

34. This is a typical chart that you’ll see in a presentation. Because of the way it’s set up, it is harder to read than it should be. Holiday Inn RevPAR leads the market 8.00% 7.00% 6.00% 5.00% 4.00% 3.00% 2.00% 1.00% 0.00% Best Western Ramada Courtyard Holiday Inn Comfort Inn

35. The first thing to do is rotate the chart to make it easier to read the labels and show that it is not a time comparison. Holiday Inn RevPAR leads the market Comfort Inn Best Western Courtyard Holiday Inn Ramada 0.00% 1.00% 2.00% 3.00% 4.00% 5.00% 6.00% 7.00% 8.00%

36. Now we can sort the bars to make Holiday Inn more prominent and show the ranking of the different brands. We’ll return to this chart later... Holiday Inn RevPAR leads the market Holiday Inn Courtyard Comfort Inn Ramada 0.00% 1.00% 2.00% 3.00% 4.00% 5.00% 6.00% 7.00% 8.00%

37. There are five “Main Things” to keep in mind when developing slides for persuading people. Why doing good slides is important The 5 Main Things Some Examples Examples revisited Summary 1) Time is of the essence 2) Everything communicates 3) Slides are made to be shared 4) Leave the office on time 5) Shelf-life

38. Main Thing #2: “Everything communicates” • Other people won’t have spent as long thinking about things as you (since it’s your full-time job and not theirs), so they can never really know independently whether what you are planning to do is right. • However, your success is probably necessary for their success... • …so while they are asking themselves, “Is this the right thing to do”... • ...they are really trying to decide, “Do I trust this person to have figured out the right thing to do” • This kind of judgment call relies as much on subconscious impressions as • So you need to make sure that you communicate in a way that establishes trust in you and credibility in your ideas, both consciously and sub-consciously

39. How your slides look, communicates • You build credibility throughout the presentation by the clarity and persuasiveness of your arguments • Clear, fact-based thinking and innovative ideas help convince people that you can be trusted to be making the right decisions • If your slides look clean and uncluttered, they help to reinforce this impression. • ‘Beautiful’ slides are not a substitute for good logic and thought, and if you had to choose one, you’d want the good logic and thought… • ...but it certainly helps to have both!

40. It’s hard to describe what makes a slide ‘ugly’, but you know it when you see it... HR Admin Training is a large part of our budget Training Selling

41. …and while ‘beauty is in the eye of the beholder’, you can tell the difference when something is made cleaner... Admin Selling HR Training is a large part of our budget Training

42. A useful ‘rule of thumb’ to make things look ‘clean’ is to try to maximize the share of ‘data-ink’ • A simple way to try and think about making a graphic look better, is to look at it and say “How much of the ink on the page is actually showing information”? • This is the ‘data-ink’ • The higher share of the ink on the page that is showing information, the better This usually means removing unnecessary ink, not adding extra ink! Source: The concept of ‘data ink’ was developed by Edward R. Tufte in “The Visual Display of Quantitative Information”.

43. Going back to our ‘typical chart’... Holiday Inn RevPAR leads the market Holiday Inn Courtyard Comfort Inn Ramada Best Western 0.00% 1.00% 2.00% 3.00% 4.00% 5.00% 6.00% 7.00% 8.00%

44. …we can start to apply the ‘data-ink maximization’ principle to make it ‘cleaner’. The first step is to remove the background. Holiday Inn RevPAR leads the market Holiday Inn Courtyard Comfort Inn Ramada Best Western 0.00% 1.00% 2.00% 3.00% 4.00% 5.00% 6.00% 7.00% 8.00%

45. We don’t need 2 decimal places on the percentages... Holiday Inn RevPAR leads the market Holiday Inn Courtyard Comfort Inn Ramada Best Western 0% 1% 2% 3% 4% 5% 6% 7% 8%

46. In fact, if we put labels on the bars to show the values, we can remove the axes and gridlines, making it much cleaner and at the same time communicating the exact percentages by brand. Holiday Inn RevPAR leads the market Holiday Inn 6.7% Courtyard 4.2% Comfort Inn 3.2% Ramada 2.1% Best Western 1.1%

47. Finally, we can use shading and bolding to immediately draw the eye to the most important comparison. This chart is now cleaner and quicker to understand. Holiday Inn RevPAR leads the market Holiday Inn 6.7% Courtyard 4.2% Comfort Inn 3.2% Ramada 2.1% Best Western 1.1%

48. Numbers that don’t add up will immediately destroy your credibility in a presentation, despite all your other work. Example The total profit from this program will be $24.6MM $MM 10.2 3.8 4.7 3.2 24.6 Direct mail responses Direct TV responses Print ad responses Coupon responses Total (1) Adds up to 21.9 If someone in the audience spots the arithmetic error (and they will), your credibility is shot, because experience teaches you... “There’s never just one cockroach” Note: (1) The 3rd item, ‘Print ad responses’ has had the profit number transposed - it should read 7.4. Then the total profit adds up to 24.6 correctly. But once challenged...“Well what is the real return, 21.9 or 24.6”...you’re unlikely to figure out the problem fast enough to recover before the damage to your case has been done... “Uhh, I think it’s 24.6 but I’ll have to go back and check the numbers

49. You can be confident in investing $50MM with our team on this risky venture - we are very detial-oriented. This also doesn’t inspire trust!

50. There are five “Main Things” to keep in mind when developing slides for persuading people. Why doing good slides is important The 5 Main Things Some Examples Examples revisited Summary 1) Time is of the essence 2) Everything communicates 3) Slides are made to be shared 4) Leave the office on time 5) Shelf-life