4/24/26 for marketing legends

I Had To Deliver My Own Deck

I once got frustrated with my sales team for turning down a speaking opportunity I'd lined up for them — with a slide deck ready to go. Then I had to deliver a talk myself on short notice.

cartoon: small person at large podium

Giving a good presentation is harder than it looks, and they were right to insist on having enough time to prepare.

Here’s what I discovered about my “brilliant” slide deck when I actually had to present it.

  1. I spend a lot of time railing against overly complex slides. Guess who created not one, but three eye charts in her deck? “Moi.”
  2. Bullet lists that should have been speaker notes… If you don’t trust the speaker to remember the content, you can at least make bulleted lists into builds.
  3. My gorgeous green background with white type? It looked great on my monitor. On a big LED screen or (gasp!) a projector, you couldn’t read the text. Screens in bright rooms wash out light colors, so remember to use high contrast with text.

Stress-test your slides

Here are the best ways to stress-test your slides, in order of preference.

  1. Deliver the slide deck yourself, in front of a real audience.
  2. If you can’t do that, attend when your sales team presents it.
  3. If you can’t do that, rehearse the slides out loud (in “Slide Show” mode).

However you stress-test your slides, you’ll see what works and what doesn’t.

I found myself apologizing during the talk for “eye charts”—something I make fun of other speakers for doing. I guess I’ll be spending this week simplifying some slides!