At this event, we will lead our guests through three powerful tools from our core program - Strategic BluePRINT. This program provides Sales Leaders with a powerful process to create and execute a compelling strategic direction for their sales organization.

Presentations – Part 2 – Architect Your Presentation Content

You have an important presentation in a few days. You have clearly developed your strategy. Now it is time to design the content, so that your client or prospect buys from you. In the last insights!, we explored the importance of developing a strong strategy and we introduced this process:



What are your challenges in creating content for presentations?
Do you have a common framework or template you draw from?

We believe it is helpful to think of designing a presentation like building a new house. When building a house, once you have determined your budget, location, architect and builders, what next? Would you start with designing the “look and feel ” of each room (ie. carpet size and colour)? Of course not! Then why in presentation development, do we often “ dive in” to create individual PowerPoint slides?

It helps to first “architect” the presentation. Create the blueprint and the structure and then flesh out the details from there. “Architecting” the content means giving it a preliminary structure and shape.

We facilitate the following process with our clients to support this “architect first” approach. Follow this process and it will improve your presentation creativity, efficiency and win rate.

Step 1 - Brainstorm Content Ideas
The time to expand your thinking with presentation design is at the front end of the process. It is much more effective to first generate ideas and then edit. Challenge yourself to get creative and come up with a couple of different ideas (or options) rather than the “same old, same old” approach. In this step:

• Get a pad of Post-It Notes
• Write down 1 idea, theme, or headline per Post-It (ie. Investment Summary)
• Generate a minimum of 15 Post-It Notes of ideas (unless this is a very straightforward presentation/proposal)
• What will capture the hearts and minds of your client/prospect/audience

Step 2 – Prioritize Key Messages
In this step, start organizing content into “clusters” of information:

• What are the main themes, or key elements to your presentation?
• Anything missing from Step 1?
• How many categories of information make sense for this presentation? Any more than 5 main categories of content for a presentation is likely too many.

Take your Post-It notes and organize them in clusters or in rows. Also, devise preliminary headlines for each cluster (for example – key things you have heard from client, your company strengths, recommended solution, investment summary, timeline).

Now it is time to get really focused about what to include:

• Remove the “nice to have” content elements and focus instead on “need to have content.
• Which content elements support your purpose?
• What content will resonate most with your client/prospect?

Step 3 – Organize Content Flow & Visuals
You now have a rough outline of your presentation and you haven't touched your computer (a good thing). Well done!

Put yourself in the shoes of your client or prospect - what flow would make most sense for you?

Now it is time to produce a detailed design/script:

• What format (PowerPoint, Word, etc) makes most sense for this presentation?
• Will you get a chance to present this live?
• Who else will see this presentation?
• What templates or past proposals can you leverage to save you time?

The last step is to edit – fresh eyes always bring tremendous value – who will you engage to edit your presentation?

We hope that this article has got you thinking. Try this process out and let us know how it works for you.

-Participant, Key
Account Planning,
Telus, August 2005







Katie Burnett has
joined Fusion Learning
as Project Manager.
She will help streamline client projects and
make it even easier
to work with us!







Secrets of Power Presentations
By Peter Urs Bender

Why you should pick it up:

This is an economical, informative and entertaining book. It is an easy read, from a seasoned pro presenter - it is packed with tips that even the most experienced presenters will find useful.

A Quote from the book - Page 58:

“Just remember, there is no right way to organize your presentation. The main thing is the development of structure. Otherwise, you stumble all over the map – and the Chairman of the Board is the only one allowed to do that!”





"Whatever you can do, or dream you can…begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it."
- Goethe

"It is more important to do the Right Thing than to do the Thing Right!"
- Peter F. Drucker

"The people who get
on in this world are the people who get up
and look for the circumstances they
want, and if they
can't find them,
make them."
-George Bernard Shaw





Please click here to send us the e-mail address of any colleagues or associates who might benefit from Insights... To unsubscribe click here. To talk with a human please call 416-424.2999 Ext. 23