Back in the mid 90’s PowerPoint became all the rage for business presentations. No longer did business people go for the ‘plop factor’ of thick printout productions, it became all about ‘wow factor.’ The problem then, and now is that too few people understand the power of the slide show. Slides are not replacements for the presentations, but rather compliments to the presentation – compliments that should help you make your arguments opposed to bore your audience.

The art of a refined slide deck is really not that difficult. Less is more. It is much like the 3 second rule for introductions – you have a 3 second window to make your impression (on each slide).

HBR published the below clip, which I thought summed this up very nicely. I’ve seen many CRE firms try to look like the ‘smartest guys in the room’ – but at then end of the day they are just reading their presentation off a verbose cluttered slide prepared by a researcher. If you want to look like the ‘smartest guys in the room’ having slides the succinctly and clearly back-up the verbal presentation is so much more powerful.