Woolley Ideas: When Presenting Your Agency, You Must Show and Tell

Several years ago, before the pandemic, I was invited to present a keynote talk at a showcase event in Hong Kong. There were many high-quality speakers on a range of marketing topics. Each had their presentation crafted and designed to perfection. Until it came to me. I took the stage and spoke for 25 minutes on managing marketing to maximise performance and productivity. Without a single slide.

When I was finished, it was time for questions from the audience. The first question was from an older person sitting directly in front and centre. They asked, “How can you make a marketing presentation without a slide deck?”

Slide presentations have become ubiquitous in marketing, media, and advertising, moreso than in many other industries. They are particularly essential in new business presentations, either in the credentials presentation or in the pitch itself. As a pitch management consultant, I have witnessed thousands of these presentations. It would be wonderful to share that they were all amazingly memorable, but most are not.

Let’s focus on the credentials presentation to help make the point. This is often where a potential client meets the agency for the first time formally and usually sets their opinion of that agency. This makes it necessary for the agency to get the meeting right.

But agencies often poorly use presentation decks in these credentials meetings. This is the ‘how’ of presenting credentials, as opposed to the why, when, where, and who, which must also be considered. Three core opportunities exist to make how you present your agency credentials more effective and infinitely memorable.

The first is that people look for connections and relationships with people. When your team is competing with a vast illuminated screen, the audience will be inclined to focus on the screen rather than the individual talking to the subject on the screen. This is especially true in a post-COVID pandemic world, where making these presentations via video conference is increasingly popular.

The moment you share the presentation, you and your team are reduced to small postage stamps as your presentation dominates the screen. Please don’t do this. You are allowed to turn off the presentation. All presentation programs come with a blank slide for when you want the audience to listen to you. You can turn it back on when you have something to show them. That is why it is called show and tell.

This brings us to the second point, the presentation's content. Too often, the presenter simply reads from the slide, embellishing and adding to it. Do you need your script on the screen like an auto-cue? Is it because you don’t know what to say? If you are effectively reading your slides, why shouldn’t the audience read along with you? Excellent communication allows the audience to connect what they hear from you with the image they see.

If you could present without a presentation deck, that would be even better, as it means the audience is focused on you. But often, there is work to be shared and detailed information that is more effectively shared visually. This is when and why you need a presentation deck.

The final point is that the credentials presentation is not the credentials document. Typically, the presentation contains a huge amount of information that the client may request or you believe needs to be shared. However, this is not the time, place, or format for effectively sharing it. It leads to a presentation that appears more like a Snellen chart than a business presentation.

This is usually because agencies prepare one deck to present and then share it as a leave-behind document. This is lazy and hugely ineffectual.

When planning the credentials meeting, always prepare it in two parts: what you will say, and what they will take away. The takeaway is to provide all the detail and information they need and want in a format they can consume and review at their own pace. But what you say is about communicating in a way that makes the client feel positive you are the right choice for them or, at the very least, makes them want to know more.

So, the next time a potential client contacts you to request a meeting and hear about your agency, before you open that Prezi, Keynote, Google Slides, or PowerPoint, consider what you will present to make them want to work with you. Then, ensure you also consider how you will show it.

Too often, agencies do themselves a disservice with a ‘death by slide deck’ with too many slides containing too much information, leaving the client confused or, worst of all, bored. 

Worse still… too often, such decks fail to help agencies differentiate themselves. It leaves the client with an important question: if you can’t sell your brand with a clear differentiated position, why should I trust you with my brand?