Show Me Your Numbers

I recently discussed the importance of identifying the bumper sticker of your presentation and not burying the lead. This is crucial for your presentation as a whole, but this thinking can also be applied to individual slides and messages.

I often see buried leads on slides in the form of numbers, and sometimes I find it far more effective to not just highlight the number in the text or in the chart, but to make the slide all about the number.

Here are a couple of examples...

You'll realize that these slides also hold to a killer (and more disciplined) presentation style of having no meaning absent the speaker's involvement and explanation. These slides essentially pose a question, and the audience must engage with and listen to the speaker to hear the answer. How great is that? Additionally, you can be sure this will not be a "see-say" presentation.

Keep in mind that slides like this provide no visual context for the numbers themselves. And if your takeaway is that sales increased month over month to a yearly increase of 150%, it might be more appropriate to your story to show a steep line chart that tracks that increase.

When I had to design a presentation on philanthropic giving, I immediately thought of this technique. I was given a very well-written prose outline of the presentation, and the very first sentence was, "We believe that we can guide $10 billion a year in charitable giving to greater impact." It was such a strong, clear and direct message, that I saw no better solution than to hit the audience over the head right from the start. $10 Billion Dollars was, after all, the bumper sticker of this presentation.

As it happens, however, the presentation went through multiple revisions and for many reasons, my opening slide found itself on the cutting room floor. Before that happened though, this was a subsequent revision that while missing the boldness of design and placement of the first one, now required speaker explanation—something I was very pleased about.