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Create Slides like McKinsey and BCG Consultants (Step by Step Process) — Transcript

by Firm Learning · 2,419 words · 352 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00This video might be one of the most
0:02important videos ever created on this
0:04channel because it teaches you the
0:06step-by-step process used by consultants
0:09and leading firms like McKenzie or BCG
0:13when creating their slide presentations.
0:16After watching this video, you will have
0:17a clear understanding what it takes to
0:20create slides meeting highest
0:22professional standards. Big thanks also
0:24to the sponsor of this video, Things
0:27Cell, a tool that I used literally every
0:29single day in my past working in
0:32consulting. Step one of the slide
0:34creating process is the messaging.
0:38First, you need to get clarity on what
0:40you actually want to say with a slide.
0:44And this is a mistake that many people
0:46do is that they already start working on
0:48a page, start arranging information
0:51before they are even clear on what
0:53exactly it is that they want to bring
0:55across. One key idea here is that at
0:57least as a rule of thumb, your slides
0:59should not contain more than one key
1:02message. So it's one key message per
1:05slide that you want to communicate with
1:07the exception of maybe of course
1:09overview pages, structure pages, and the
1:12likes. One of the key tools at your
1:14disposal when sharpening the messaging
1:16of a page is the so-called action title.
1:20We talked about action titles elsewhere
1:22on this channel in detail. It is a
1:25special way of writing the title that
1:27includes the key message in the title
1:30itself. And as a little example, I want
1:33to look at the following scenario. Let's
1:36imagine an analyst on your team, a
1:38junior colleague prepared a briefing for
1:41you and you need to transform this
1:44briefing into a slide in your slide
1:48presentation. How would you do that?
1:50Well, step one of the process, think of
1:52the key message of the slide that you
1:55want to push. And we have the briefing
1:57here in front of you. You can clearly
1:59see that there are different initiatives
2:01mentioned here. So three different
2:03initiatives that the analyst
2:05distinguishes and one thing that
2:07directly jumps to our eyes is that
2:09there's always an EBIT potential
2:11involved for each of these initiatives.
2:14So EBIT means for earnings before
2:16interest in tax. So it's a key profit
2:18measure. So likely the profit that a
2:21company can achieve with these
2:22individual initiatives that are being
2:24presented here. This seems to be one of
2:26the key messages that you want to
2:29highlight. So stating for instance that
2:31the profit of all these measures
2:33together the potential amounts to 61
2:37euro million. So what about a title like
2:39this launching subscriptionbased pricing
2:42expanding into the European market and
2:45offering corporate consulting services
2:46would entail an potential of 61 euro
2:50million. So now that we are clear on
2:52step one of the whole process the
2:54messaging we can get to step two which
2:56is the structure. So how do we structure
2:59first of all the overall presentation
3:01and then second of all and I want to
3:03focus on this element the individual
3:05slide though briefly to talk about the
3:08presentation as well here surely you
3:10want to understand how is the slide
3:12positioned within the overall slide deck
3:15and here you can use agendas to
3:18structure the document with things cell
3:20you have some nice agenda tools
3:22available where you can create an agenda
3:25set up an agenda that directly populates
3:28and keeps up to date throughout the
3:30whole document. So if you change an
3:32agenda item, you do not need to change
3:35it anymore on all other agenda pages in
3:38the document. But the agenda always
3:40keeps up to date across the
3:43presentation. And also if you want to
3:45move sections of the agenda, if you
3:47indeed shuffle around the agenda, all
3:50the slides attached to that section move
3:53with the section making it really easy
3:55to manage the overall structure of the
3:58document. But now let's also talk about
4:00the structure of individual slides. And
4:02here I witness it every day when working
4:05together with individuals and corporates
4:07that people overthink this a lot. How
4:10should I arrange the information? Right?
4:12What are the mental frameworks that I
4:15should use when putting together my
4:18slides? And one key takeaway that I
4:20learned in my time at consulting at
4:22McKenzie is that you should always
4:25structure your slides in table layouts.
4:28So don't come up with your own crazy
4:31variations of how to integrate and
4:33organize information. But always think
4:36about your slides as a collection of
4:39rows and tables. And if you do that, you
4:42will have many ways of arranging the
4:45information in an effective way. If you
4:48use Things Cell, Thingsel comes with a
4:51whole library of slide templates built
4:53in that you can leverage. And as you
4:56see, these templates very much rely on
4:59this basic recommendation of thinking
5:02about slide layouts as table layouts.
5:05Though in addition to that you can add
5:06your own slides and presentations
5:08through the think cell library as well.
5:11And now in this example given that here
5:13Abbott is such an important logic that
5:16we want to leverage I will here search
5:18through some of my own slides for Abbit
5:20right and see how I communicated Abbott
5:23improvements Abbit potentials Abbit
5:25levers in the past and as you can see
5:28right here there is a slide that I can
5:30leverage for this indeed that follows a
5:32structure likely very well suited for
5:35what I want to depict right here. What's
5:37important to highlight is that all the
5:39files remained stored and saved exactly
5:41at the location where they were saved in
5:44the first place. So they're not getting
5:46uploaded to any cloud or other remote
5:48server like that. As you can see, the
5:50slide directly adjusts to your
5:52presentation template. We now can do
5:54some minimal cleanup and of course also
5:57insert our new structure with our main
6:00recommendations that we want to talk
6:02about and then potentially also just
6:04some other labels. And of course here
6:07the main numbers for the ABIT potential
6:09that in this example are added in the
6:12number bubbles here. And now we can move
6:14to step number three of the slide
6:15creation process. And this is the data
6:17and graphics step where you can now ask
6:19yourself am I visualizing all the
6:22information especially of course all the
6:24number all the data that I want to show
6:26in the best possible way. And in this
6:30example here there were number circles
6:32used which is a technique that sometimes
6:34can be handy but in most cases it is
6:37much superior if you can think of a
6:39proper data visualization that you can
6:41leverage to really bring these numbers
6:44to life. And here in the past, I
6:47developed this chart selection guide
6:50that I'm sharing here with you today.
6:52With this chart selection guide, you can
6:55quickly get clarity on what the best
6:58data visualization type is for the data
7:01that you want to visualize. Then it
7:03draws on the idea the data
7:05visualizations in the end are
7:08comparisons. You're always comparing
7:10some numbers with some other numbers.
7:13And in this example, it is about the
7:15comparison of absolute figures. Which is
7:18why in this specific example, you want
7:20to leverage the chart types for absolute
7:23item comparison. And here, for instance,
7:26a waterfall chart would be very well
7:29suited to be added to the page. And of
7:32course, you can nicely do that with
7:34things as well. The great thing about
7:36things is that the charts right out of
7:39the box appear on the page very close to
7:42how you want them to appear. So with
7:44very little visual clutter very well
7:47suited to be directly integrated in such
7:50a table structure into a so-called
7:52integrated page layout. We can now of
7:56course clean up the chart a bit. of
7:57course use rather toned down neutral
8:00colors, maybe a highlight for the total
8:03figure and of course things that also
8:05allows you to link the chart to an Excel
8:08sheet depending on the chart type and
8:11use case. Things that also makes it easy
8:13to add additional visual annotations to
8:16the data visualization. For instance, if
8:18you would have here a time series where
8:20you would want to highlight differences
8:22year on year or period on period in this
8:25example, I'd suggest to keep it simple
8:27though. Big thanks to Things Cell for
8:29sponsoring this video. Things has been a
8:31partner of firm learning for many years
8:33now. It is a partner that is very close
8:36to my heart because I learned things in
8:38my time in consulting actually even
8:40before that and I can only share that it
8:43is one of the industry standards that
8:45you need to master to succeed in your
8:48role in professional services in
8:50consulting. I absolutely learn to love
8:53things. It is a tool that I use on a
8:55very very regular basis almost every
8:59single day. Things that helps to support
9:01you across all the key steps of the
9:03slide creation process that we are
9:05covering here today. You can use it to
9:08sharpen the messaging, help you with
9:10coming up with great effective layouts
9:13and of course it also excels in creating
9:16powerful and effective data
9:18visualizations. And the great thing is
9:20that you can try things for free. You
9:22can download it via the link in the
9:24video description. And for the firm
9:26learning community, I negotiated an
9:28extended trial of 45 days, which is
9:32longer than the regular trial that
9:34things sell offers. So if you have not
9:36worked with things before, I can only
9:38encourage you to download it today to
9:41learn the functionality. This is by the
9:43way also a great recommendation. If
9:45you're about to join a role in
9:47professional services, but many other
9:50industry roles as well. Make sure to
9:52familiarize yourselves with the tools
9:54that you will need to use every day in
9:56these roads and things that will very
9:58likely be one of them. Again, link to
10:01things cell in the video description.
10:03Step four of the presentation creation
10:05process is to add all the supporting
10:08text that you want to add to the page.
10:11And in this example, of course, all the
10:13individual bullets that you want to add
10:16here to the slide. So, I added all the
10:18bullets based on the analyst briefing.
10:21And there's one little hack that I want
10:23to share with you that you can leverage
10:24to significantly improve readability of
10:27the slide. And this is to work with
10:30selective bolding. So, in each bullet,
10:32I'd selectively bold a few words that
10:36really capture the essence of the
10:38bullet. And this helps the reader to
10:40skim through a text in a quicker, more
10:43precise way. and usually makes a rather
10:45textheavy slide more accessible, easier
10:48to digest for the reader. And in
10:51addition to that, if you have numbers
10:53that you want to include on the page, as
10:55it is the case right here, you can
10:57actually link the numbers to an Excel
11:00file as well to make sure the numbers in
11:03your text always remain up to date. And
11:05a typical example for that is some type
11:07of summary statistics that you add to
11:10the action title. So I do not know how
11:12often it happened to me in consulting
11:14that you add a number to the action
11:15title but then later the analysis
11:17changed the numbers updated and people
11:20forgot to update the action title as
11:23well. If you are linking these numbers
11:25to the spreadsheets this will of course
11:27never happen to you again anymore. And
11:29if you took any value out of this video
11:31so far, please this throw the like
11:33button for the YouTube algorithm and
11:35also subscribe to stay up to date and
11:37see more slide writing and presentation
11:39creation content like this. If you have
11:42your own tips that you would like to
11:44share, please add them to the comments.
11:46Trust all of us can only benefit from
11:48that. So let's now move to step five of
11:50the slide creation process and this is
11:53polishing. At the very end, you of
11:55course do want to make sure that your
11:57slide is polished for it to meet highest
12:00professional standards. So you want to
12:02conduct quality checks, especially make
12:04sure that everything is well aligned. So
12:07to make life easy for you, in the past,
12:09we prepared a firm learning slide
12:11checklist that you can use to go over
12:14the most important most common mistakes
12:16that people make when creating their
12:18slides in terms of the final touch, the
12:20polishing. If you do not have access to
12:23it yet, feel free to download it, of
12:25course, for free. Also, link in the
12:27video description. And things that can
12:28help you in polishing a page as well.
12:30They have a full quality section with
12:33different features to make that work.
12:35For instance, you can check if there's
12:36still any digital ink somewhere in the
12:39presentation. You can remove certain
12:41transitions or other types of animations
12:43that you do not want. You can remove any
12:45invisible or off slide content that you
12:48do not want to appear anymore and so on.
12:51And in addition to that, for the last
12:53step, you can of course also use things
12:55cell to for instance save individual
12:58pages. So no need to now save the full
13:01presentation to then delete everything
13:03and then only share an individual page.
13:05And in addition to that, I trust every
13:06consultant will appreciate this. If you
13:08use the send slides functionality, you
13:11can for instance also always attach a
13:13PDF version of the PowerPoint file to
13:17your email. I trust consultants know
13:19that this is very important to keep
13:22leadership happy who can only review the
13:24documents on an iPad for instance,
13:26right? And then struggle with PowerPoint
13:28files. So this is the step-by-step
13:30process leveraged by all the big
13:32consulting firms. First, messaging,
13:34second structure. Third, data and
13:37graphics. Fourth, supporting text,
13:39fifths, polishing. And if you now not
13:41only want to use the workflow of these
13:43big consulting firms, but actually also
13:45the tool, feel free to try out Thin Cell
13:48yourself with an extended free trial.
13:51Link to Think Cell in the video
13:52description. Thanks to the Things Cell
13:54team for supporting firm learning by
13:56sponsoring this video. Big thanks of
13:59course also to all the channel members.
14:01See you next week. All the best to you
14:03and bye-bye.

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