How to create Storylines for Business Presentations (Consulting and PowerPoint skills) — Transcript

Full transcript

1. 0:00recently someone asked me what the most
2. 0:02important element of a business slide
3. 0:05presentation is and after thinking about
4. 0:07it for a bit it was very clear to me
5. 0:09that action titles are actually the most
6. 0:12important elements so if by now you're
7. 0:14not really sure what an action title is
8. 0:16or how to come up with a very very
9. 0:19strong action title welcome to another
10. 0:21video here on my channel firm learning
11. 0:24my name is heinrich i'm a former
12. 0:26mckinsey consultant and on my channel i
13. 0:28talk a lot about topics such as career
14. 0:30success and also consulting skills and
15. 0:33surely as a consultant one thing that
16. 0:35you really need to do well is to create
17. 0:37slight presentations in powerpoint or
18. 0:40any of these other programs so in
19. 0:42today's video i want to sharpen your
20. 0:44understanding why action tits are so
21. 0:46important and also give you some very
22. 0:48very tangible tips including an exercise
23. 0:51to help you come up with the best
24. 0:53possible action titles that you can
25. 0:54write for your slides let's start by
26. 0:56looking into why action titles are so
27. 0:58important and the key point here to
28. 1:00understand is that your presentations
29. 1:02should have a storyline and it is the
30. 1:05action titles that bring this story to
31. 1:08life the main idea is that if you read
32. 1:10your titles of your presentation from
33. 1:13start to end so every single slide just
34. 1:16read the titles the key idea is that by
35. 1:19just doing that you will be able to
36. 1:22understand all the key messages of the
37. 1:25presentation just by reading these
38. 1:27action titles so why is this even
39. 1:29necessary why is this important we try
40. 1:31to put yourself into the shoes of a
41. 1:33c-level manager you are a ceo cfo any
42. 1:37other business unit had any other senior
43. 1:39guy in an organization likely especially
44. 1:41these large blue chip companies that
45. 1:43often these consulting firms work for
46. 1:46these c-level people every single day
47. 1:48every single week they will get several
48. 1:51big documents 50 pages 100 pages or even
49. 1:55more of other projects that are going on
50. 1:57project updates progress reports
51. 2:00deliverables like that this is far too
52. 2:03much to read people like this cannot
53. 2:05just read every single slide of
54. 2:08documents like that so what they will
55. 2:09expect you to deliver is a document
56. 2:12where they can just skim through just
57. 2:14read the action titles and just by
58. 2:17reading the action titles be able to
59. 2:20understand all the key messages and this
60. 2:23is the so-called horizontal logic the
61. 2:26storyline of the presentation this needs
62. 2:28to come to life via the action titles
63. 2:31and then the idea is of course that if
64. 2:33they read something in the action title
65. 2:34that is really interesting
66. 2:36where they want to learn more about then
67. 2:38they stop and then they read the page
68. 2:40they read the full slide this then is
69. 2:44the vertical logic and here of course
70. 2:45you already understand one key thing
71. 2:47when writing strong action titles and
72. 2:49this is that of course an action title
73. 2:52should summarize the contents of a slide
74. 2:55in a clear and concise way so this is
75. 2:58the intuition but now you might ask
76. 2:59yourself well what exactly is an action
77. 3:02title so i try to put down here in
78. 3:04definition this is coming from myself so
79. 3:07no fancy source just my best way of
80. 3:09putting it in writing and i would define
81. 3:11an action title by being a header of a
82. 3:13slide presentation that summarizes the
83. 3:16content of the slide by formulating a
84. 3:19complete sentence so if you wanted
85. 3:21something like here the header also here
86. 3:22on top of this slide saying action
87. 3:24titles help to create the storyline
88. 3:26within the presentation this would be
89. 3:28the action title of that slide this is
90. 3:31what you want to try to achieve but what
91. 3:34do you write in such a title what are
92. 3:36the contents supposed to be and here i
93. 3:38think the best test that you can do is
94. 3:41the test of the so called so what the
95. 3:44question of the so what and i once
96. 3:46created a full video just about the
97. 3:48concept of asking this question so what
98. 3:50i will link it somewhere about here if
99. 3:52you're interested to learn more about
100. 3:53this feel free to check it out but in a
101. 3:55nutshell the so what is a question that
102. 3:58you as a project lead might ask to an
103. 4:01associated consultant who prepared a
104. 4:02slide or maybe a partner asked to you
105. 4:04and this person looks at your slide and
106. 4:07asks him or herself the question
107. 4:10so what right so so what why is this
108. 4:12irrelevant what is the implication of
109. 4:16what i see here because maybe the
110. 4:18information on the slide is interesting
111. 4:20it's data it's nice but what does this
112. 4:23mean for the problem at hand for the
113. 4:25thing that i need to solve so when
114. 4:27putting together the document you should
115. 4:28ask yourself what is this so what of
116. 4:31this light if you really struggle to
117. 4:33come up with this or what then this
118. 4:34often is a sign that this light maybe
119. 4:37isn't that important right it does not
120. 4:39have a clear so watch maybe it's
121. 4:40something that rather belongs in the
122. 4:42appendix but maybe not in the main deck
123. 4:44or maybe take it out completely but once
124. 4:46you know this so what make sure that
125. 4:47this award is clearly stated in the
126. 4:49action title and then of course when
127. 4:51you're presenting the slide then this
128. 4:53award is also what you should be
129. 4:55communicating in your presentation now
130. 4:57let's look into a couple of best
131. 4:58practices that you should apply whenever
132. 5:01you write an action title and here we'll
133. 5:03always have an example and then an
134. 5:04insight that i want to draw out from
135. 5:06that the first example is
136. 5:08managing risk is important for this
137. 5:11project's success and your mindset is
138. 5:14try to avoid statements like that try to
139. 5:16avoid writing general truths that are
140. 5:18pretty much always correct so of course
141. 5:21managing risks is pretty much always
142. 5:23important for this project's success
143. 5:26right so for almost every project that
144. 5:27will be relevant so try to avoid writing
145. 5:29things that are obvious really draw out
146. 5:32more insightful things than that
147. 5:36next something like all divisions have
148. 5:39found to not be following best practices
149. 5:42what's often dangerous is to write
150. 5:44action titles with really hard absolute
151. 5:47statements
152. 5:48always never in every case this is like
153. 5:51this or like that so these very hard
154. 5:54statements often are traps because there
155. 5:57are often some weird edge cases maybe
156. 6:00there is this like very little division
157. 6:02somewhere who does something that you
158. 6:04are not aware of just my personal
159. 6:05learning that often then especially if
160. 6:07you're presented maybe there's like one
161. 6:09board member sitting in the audience who
162. 6:11will tell you no but this is not correct
163. 6:13this is wrong because you know it's just
164. 6:15enough to have one example that
165. 6:17contradicts this and then pretty much
166. 6:19you're there i need to admit that yes
167. 6:20your message was wrong what you put on
168. 6:23the slide was wrong it's not the case
169. 6:25that this is true for all divisions next
170. 6:27one company has potential to
171. 6:30significantly improve profit so here my
172. 6:33learning from that is try to whenever
173. 6:35possible to quantify the action titles
174. 6:37include numbers in the action titles so
175. 6:40if you make a slide about profit of a
176. 6:42company usually you should always be
177. 6:44able to also put a number so what is the
178. 6:46profit improvement potential what is the
179. 6:48potential for the profit that you see in
180. 6:50the company next one when conducting
181. 6:52data analysis and interviews we learned
182. 6:54a lot about the business so this would
183. 6:57be an action title which very much
184. 6:59focuses on the process so what you did
185. 7:02you analyzed data conducted interviews
186. 7:05you learned a lot this is often not so
187. 7:07relevant people don't really care who
188. 7:09you talk to what analysis you conducted
189. 7:12what people are interested in are the
190. 7:14results this is one of the key
191. 7:16fundamental principles of top-down
192. 7:18communication again i don't want to go
193. 7:20too deep into this in this video but i
194. 7:22will link another video that i did about
195. 7:24top-down communication that buffer check
196. 7:26it out really one of the most
197. 7:28fundamental concepts for communication
198. 7:31as a consultant but also in general in
199. 7:33any professional environment last
200. 7:35example here results indicate
201. 7:37significant potential to look into
202. 7:39further improvement measures for the
203. 7:41business with the goal to increase
204. 7:43profits by 50 until end of this
205. 7:46financial year for the company so frank
206. 7:49i don't even know what exactly this
207. 7:50means the point that i wanted to make
208. 7:52here is write action titles in a concise
209. 7:55way don't use more words than necessary
210. 7:58yes usually there will be a full
211. 8:00sentence but don't just write for the
212. 8:02sake of writing the rule is that usually
213. 8:05in the title you should not have more
214. 8:07than two lines of title so two lines are
215. 8:10fine but not write more than two now
216. 8:12let's put your action title writing
217. 8:14abilities to test you see here a
218. 8:17standard slide it's from a mock-up
219. 8:19presentation of course not any actual
220. 8:21client engagement but what you see here
221. 8:23is a slide where the action title is
222. 8:25missing and i won't know you to come up
223. 8:28with an action title and now to happen a
224. 8:31little bit out here we'll just like
225. 8:32briefly explain what you see here so
226. 8:33here you see a sizing of a growth
227. 8:36potential every potential for this
228. 8:39company that could choose to enter these
229. 8:41markets so the north america market or
230. 8:43the asia pacific market and then you see
231. 8:46different numbers you see the market
232. 8:47size you see how much of the market is
233. 8:50covered by competitors a current market
234. 8:52share and other considerations like this
235. 8:55and in the end also an avid potential
236. 8:57that the company could receive from
237. 8:58entering these markets now i would
238. 9:00encourage you to maybe even pause the
239. 9:02video for a moment and think about for
240. 9:04yourself what would be a strong action
241. 9:07title for such a slide if you won't even
242. 9:10write it down so let's look into a
243. 9:12couple examples of what you could have
244. 9:13written so the first is derive
245. 9:16potentials for an expansion and again
246. 9:18feel free to always pause and think
247. 9:20about this for yourself whether you
248. 9:21consider that this is a strong action
249. 9:23title or not because indeed i would
250. 9:25argue this is not even an action title
251. 9:27this does not even meet the definition
252. 9:29of an action title this is a title in
253. 9:31the style that i know many people like
254. 9:33to do it but just not what i would
255. 9:35recommend you to do and this is for
256. 9:36instance if you have a page that
257. 9:38describes the risks of a certain
258. 9:41strategy than just writing risks in the
259. 9:44title right so it's a title but it's not
260. 9:47an action title in the sense that it
261. 9:49doesn't summarize the key message of a
262. 9:52slide in a full sentence next one
263. 9:55expanding to new geographies creates a
264. 9:58positive abbott potential abbott by the
265. 10:01way for the uninitiated stands for
266. 10:03earnings before interest and tax it
267. 10:05pretty much is one metric of profit
268. 10:07right so what is the profit the profit
269. 10:09potential of the company so what do you
270. 10:12think about this action title and here i
271. 10:14would argue that yes it meets the
272. 10:15definition i mean it is an action title
273. 10:18following the definition but i would
274. 10:19argue it's not the best action title
275. 10:21that you could write because indeed this
276. 10:23seems far too generic you could be much
277. 10:26more tangible much more concrete here
278. 10:28but let's look into a couple of other
279. 10:29examples expansion to north america and
280. 10:32asia pacific creates a positive abbot
281. 10:34potential i mean yes i like it it's a
282. 10:37bit more rich of information we're not
283. 10:39just talking about geographies but
284. 10:40already mentioning the geographies
285. 10:42you're interested in but here qualify if
286. 10:45possible we just looked at these best
287. 10:47practices whenever possible especially
288. 10:49whenever you have numbers available at
289. 10:50your disposal put them in the action
290. 10:52title and quantify it next one expansion
291. 10:55to north america and asia pacific
292. 10:57creates a positive ability potential of
293. 10:5922 euro million so yes hero would argue
294. 11:03it's fine it's already a very strong and
295. 11:05solid action title though here you could
296. 11:07argue that this is still a little bit
297. 11:09too wordy you could write this in a bit
298. 11:11more concise way usually the fewer words
299. 11:14you use the better so here one example
300. 11:17expansion to north america and asia
301. 11:19pacific with 22 euro million avid
302. 11:22potential and i would argue that yes
303. 11:24this is a good and solid action title
304. 11:26here what's also important to understand
305. 11:27is then you want to write these action
306. 11:28titles you do not need to write them
307. 11:30like you would write like proper full
308. 11:32sentences in a book it's completely fine
309. 11:35to take out certain words of new take
310. 11:38out articles any other filler words
311. 11:40which are not absolutely necessary to
312. 11:42understand the key messages obviously
313. 11:44you would probably not write something
314. 11:45like this as a full sentence in the book
315. 11:47but here's a concise action title this
316. 11:49is absolutely fine so hope this makes
317. 11:52sense to you so i know that in the firm
318. 11:54learning community there are many other
319. 11:55people who are also quite experienced
320. 11:57with action titles so if you have any
321. 11:59tips or insights or other comments on
322. 12:01this video please leave a comment below
323. 12:03in the comment section i trust that we
324. 12:05would all very much appreciate that
325. 12:07maybe you've already noticed that this
326. 12:09is a remake of a video that i did is one
327. 12:11of my very first videos on this channel
328. 12:14i just felt like the video back then was
329. 12:16not really up to the level of the
330. 12:18quality that i do the videos today and
331. 12:20the topic is just so important that i
332. 12:22just wanted to do an update on that hope
333. 12:24you still found interesting also if
334. 12:26you've already watched this quite old
335. 12:28video and if you've watched it thank you
336. 12:30for watching from learning for that long
337. 12:32i would never have thought that i grow
338. 12:34to the point that i do right now when i
339. 12:36started in january 2020 thank you for
340. 12:39being here with me since the beginning
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351. 13:00course last but not least the big big
352. 13:03thanks to all the members of the channel
353. 13:06you're really making a difference for
354. 13:07from learning thank you so much my name
355. 13:10is heinrich i release videos every
356. 13:12single saturday so see you again next
357. 13:14week until then bye bye