1962 – Creating Impactful Corporate Presentations with Emily Schneider

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1:05With us right now, it is visual storyteller and freelance PowerPoint designer, Emily Schneider. Emily, you are found on the web at IamEmilySchneider.com. Emily, thank you for joining us. Oh, thanks so much for having me, Josh. It's so great to be here. Well, I can't tell you if I've ever had a professional PowerPoint designer on the show, but you're here, so I would love to hear more about your work, who you serve, and why your work is pretty important for the right audience. Oh, I'm so glad to be here. I love being the first, right? It's always fun to do something for the first time. So thank you for having me.

1:44Yeah, yeah. Or what I'm thinking about, obviously it's like when you specialize in a field and you're kind of the big fish in a very small pond, right? And so it's not like, what do you do? Well, I just do marketing strategy. I do all of the above. I'm like, well, that's going to be a noisy field, but not you. Emily, tell us a little bit more about what you do, who you serve? Yeah. So like you said, I'm a visual storyteller and I focus and specialize in PowerPoint design. So I have a magical map of simplifying complex information to helping stories be told more, you know, in line and sophisticated for the audience to connect, engage, and trust that source.

2:27And in the end to help inform and impact business decisions. I, to your point, I've been a general designer for 20 years. I grew up in the agency world, but I realized that my joy was helping people shine a little brighter. And I loved the box and the container that PowerPoint gives me, but the ability to extend that and to elevate that experience. And when I can help somebody else lead their conversations with more confidence and just feel more knowledgeable and ready to talk, it, it really does transcend, um, into stronger business connections and success. So it's been so fun to niche myself just to help, and to your point, be a little bit of a different fish in a big pond and open my doors to a lot more opportunities and people.

3:11Yeah, you end up doing a lot of work in corporate. And tell me about all of the, I'd say, use cases or case or deal, like projects that you're involved in. And again, why is it important to have a well-designed presentation? Now, I think most of us have seen ugly, unprofessional presentations. So I think we know how that makes us feel. But I'll let you kind of explain this a little bit more fully. Yeah. So just like any kind of storytelling aspect, right, we're all looking for a sense of connection, a way to connect with each other. And a strong presentation allows what we're thinking in our heads and the words that we are saying to really resonate and connect so that the audience can follow along with our story and our update and really be engaged and understand why they're here, what we need from them, and the point, right?

4:04People, we're so busy in our lives. So to show up to a meeting and not know what you're going to do or why you're there is kind of like you set the bar. You know, you kind of set that intention unintentionally, and that doesn't drive success. So I help businesses and in various industries, but with internal external communications, quarterly updates. I do help with sales pitches, business pitches, investment decks. I also am starting to do some training or seminars because the power of understanding how to set up your presentation is really important just in crafting it. And so in the end, right, the reason we have meetings, the reason we engage in conversations and business is to drive things forward.

4:49And so if you can set up your story to let your audience feel heard, feel engaged, they can, they trust you, they see you as the creditable source, you're so much more likely to get those in those decisions that you need, or those, those appropriate questions, based on that connection. I also, I guess that's a good summary. So some may hear what you are saying, Emily, and say, wait a minute, PowerPoints are just the facts, ma 'am, but you're talking about storytelling. Where does storytelling have a place in what might be perceived of as a very dry corporate presentation of the numbers or whatever?

5:36Yeah. So storytelling is the ability to connect with your audience, right? To engage in a conversation. When you're just sharing the dry facts, you're talking at them. So what I do as a visual storyteller is I help connect the story with visuals. Our minds retain 65 % information when it's visually designed. With just copy, it's only 10 to 20%. So if you want to make an impact and you want to engage your audience, when you can elevate that design experience along the way, you support the words you're saying and you write with those visuals. I have a five-year-old daughter. She cannot read, but she loves picture books.

6:15So think about when you were learning to read and the power of – or comics are a great thing, too. You can look at a comic and you can understand what is happening by emotion, by expression, by color, by energy. And that's what I bring in to a business in a business sense. I'm not I'm not bringing, you know, big Starburst and Comic Sans. But the idea that when you are intentional with your slide, you keep your point simple and you streamline consistency and simplicity throughout your presentation. you allow your audience to come along on your journey and you lead that conversation. And in the end, again, you're only getting to the right conversation, to the right decisions and to the right engagement that you need.

6:55If not, you lose your audience. And then there are a million places and it's so hard to bring somebody back to make those important decisions or to agree with where you're going in your business. A quote you shared on your social media, which I really love is storytelling offers the opportunity to talk with your audience, not at them. And I think that that's just such a great lens to look at maybe our existing presentations and ask ourselves, are we really engaging in conversation? Are we evoking emotion with what we're sharing? And sometimes this might feel like a challenge, Emily, if we do have some very dry info to convey, do you not, or do you sometimes get pushback from people who said, well, that feels a little too fluffy, or that feels like it's distracting from the core message, which is the numbers?

7:46No, actually, I've never had that, which is great. I usually hear the opposite where it's like, oh, you've helped us highlight what we need to take, what the takeaway is. So part of my process is I ask my clients from that kickoff to walk me through their deck. I don't need to be the expert on this topic. They are. But I want to understand how they're sharing it, right? And I come in and I help refine their story so that we really tell it in a sequential and appropriate manner, but also so that I can hear this is the point. So to your point, a data slide, right? Usually my clients give me all the information and all of the data points in a graph or in that chart or in that Excel sheet, and I transcend it into something visual.

8:26But what I help do is highlight, we don't always need to know every single month, let's say, what happens. We wanna know what happened in January. maybe in June and then maybe in December. And so when we can design those with emphasis, when we can simplify the unnecessary information and remove that, again, we're highlighting for our audience, we're doing the heavy lifting and we're putting the puzzle pieces together so that our voiceover and our story aligns with our visuals. The simplicity to your point also of treating different sections with the same kind of color system so that when I'm talking about a topic, I resonated.

9:04Again, our brains are so good at creating our own stories, but if we can lead them, that's what I help my clients do is lead their audience in that story, that visual development. They connect those dots automatically. Again, highlighting text, blocking things out. There's very simple, subtle things that I bring. And then I also help people to teach them with some of my trainings so that they can be more consistent and make it easier for us to digest the information. You know, again, if you put all your words on a slide, it's death by PowerPoint. People are reading it, you've lost their engagement, and they don't really know what's going on.

9:43And so it's so much harder to grab somebody's attention again unless, you know, we want to get them from the beginning and make it short and sweet. So to our friend that's listening right now, and they likely have a slide presentation somewhere. You had talked about maybe the number of words on a particular slide. I'm wondering if maybe you could give us maybe just a very tactical list of best practices. Maybe it's just two or three things that we could say. Generally, you're not going to want to violate these few rules. And the first one I'm hoping you can address very specifically is around the number of words on a slide.

10:23And then feel free to then go with whatever other things you're like, oh yeah, don't do this or that. And I see it a lot. Yeah, totally. Actually, Josh, I could even do one better. I have a one pager on my website under my blog. So when people go to IamEmilySchneider.com and it's my four tips to craft a powerful presentation. And in the design section is really where I highlight that. So you wanna talk about simplicity. You wanna talk about what's my checklist on how I'm gonna create this. I'm going to give it to you. It's three key points per slide. Don't say any more. Don't say any less. And what does that break down to?

10:57About 30 words, six to eight lines of copy. And even within that, that includes bullet points. So when I back that up, that's using text intentionally and sparingly. Enhancing your headlines so they're not long, drawn out paragraphs. You want people to understand it. be quick you know you don't have to be witty but you got to be quick and to the point and make it understandable so that they can digest it um focusing attention like we said leveraging consistency with how you treat headlines how you treat bullets how you bold things along the way that supports your simplicity in those slides i always say less on a slide and more slides is so much better than too much information um and that's the beauty of PowerPoint is kind of there's like now again you got to be mindful of are you over communicating if you need so many slides for a 20-minute presentation but there's balance in there and with that besides just being intentional with what your key points are and the amount of text and how you treat headlines and how you treat them visuals and balancing visuals and content is so critical and visuals are not just pictures and icons visuals are the way charts are laid out It's the amount of information you're sharing.

12:11I kind of mentioned that earlier, right? It's aligning colors. It's color blocking. It's determining your image style. If I'm going to pick some kind of photo realistic image style, I need to keep that essence throughout. Again, you create a synergy and a simplicity and a consistency for your audience and they are engaged and they are listening and they want to know more. And those are my best tips. So I hope that helps. but uh yeah more more on that more than that on my website like I said I I have this because I'm honest that like my services don't you know there's time and money are not always available to invest in some and hiring somebody like me but if you can be more intentional or you can have a couple tips to elevate your experience I hope that always helps somebody else if there's someone that is they're just at the DIY level right now and they don't have a big budget um Are there any tools or processes or systems or things that you like rather than they might be struggling with just like they say, well, I want to create something that's a little bit more visually appealing.

13:16I don't use PowerPoint. I generally use Google Slides. And so I'm just a little unfamiliar with that world. But, you know, any resources you say, yeah, this is pretty cool. You should look at this or just anything in particular. Again, you'd mentioned your resource guide on your website. I am Emily. Schneider.com and that's going to be helpful but any other like kind of more tactical tools out there that you like or resources or websites that you're a fan of for the ditch wires yeah yeah totally so I think I have two two suggestions of that so I always and I still do kind of Google or research understanding different ways to bring information to life I am I am such a learner so there there are some great free Google and PowerPoint templates now again do they highlight what you need.

14:04I think when you pair them with my resource guide, it is great because then you can really focus on that intentionality and that consistency. You kind of can get that process going. So I always look at those. I think SlideGeek is one of them that I use. Again, I use them for resource and reference. I don't necessarily pull from them, but they're great starting points for sure. And they're free. There's also Envato and Etsy. You definitely can buy affordable templates. Now, are they designed? Are they easy to use? I can't answer that, but they're available. PowerPoint also has a feature where it could help you be a designer.

14:39My biggest caution or warning about those is just because you have a tool that allows you to do it doesn't mean that it's done right for you. And that's where like even the question of AI comes in. There are some AI platforms. I have not explored AI with presentations yet, but you always want to make sure that you are leading and each slide's intention is set right and that the hierarchy is there if that makes sense you're telling the right thing highlighting the right information um i'm also a huge fan of nancy doherty um who is a storytelling guru expert she's been in this industry and has led and has done a lot of work in silicon valley and leading all of those kind of big tech startups and she has an amazing resource and a book that just helps you understand how to craft and how to build.

15:29Now, again, it's a book you're going to read. It is an audio book as well. What's it called? It's the Slideology. Slideology. Yep. It's one of my favorite. But I think there's also just the craft of knowing that PowerPoint is a tool for presenting. It's not a tool for crafting your presentation. Start offline. Start with Post-it. Again, Again, that gets you, how can I get each slide or that key takeaway on a post-it? Write out that outline so that you see the sequence of it. Understand the importance of how storytelling is. Start with the end in mind. You engage your audience. You let them know why you're here and what you need them to do.

16:08And then you tell the beginning, the middle, and the end, right? So you keep them engaged. You can't just be throwing things all over the place. We don't follow information like that. Um, so I'm a big fan of signposting as well. Like telling people, here's what we're going to do. And so like, especially where it's like a checklist or a bullet list. So I feel like there's a framework rather than like, wow, you're taking me on this mysterious journey and I have no clue where we are. I have no clue where we're going. I, I, I appreciate that both as a, as you know, an audience member and I appreciate it as a presenter too, cause it helps me stay on track.

16:45I'm like, okay, you know, the time is out. We should be on point number two now. And I definitely have more of a structure kind of set to that. But that to me feels like, you know, it's almost like, you know, when you're laying that roadmap to your audience, I think is more likely to stay with you because they kind of know what to expect. Totally. And if they do happen to like get sidetracked or their brain goes off because you said something really interesting, they can come back so much easier and they remember where you are. And also it gives like that, that safety of like, okay, we're here in the presentation.

17:20This is like, it allows them to have that time kind of essence. So they're not just like, how much longer? What else do I need to take in? Or where's my focus? Because sometimes people don't need, again, pending who you're talking to, they might not need the upfront, because they already know that. But when you get to when you share those signposts, when you give them that understanding of this is the sequence, you set them up for success to be engaged at the right times too. Yeah. Emily Schneider, your website, I am EmilySchneider.com. When you go to that website, you said that there is a free resource guide so you can look for that and that'll give you some great things that you can go through your own presentations.

17:57And then, Emily, for our friends that they have budget and they have some critical, mission critical, business critical presentations coming up in the future, what do they do to grab a call with you or engage with you? Yeah, totally. The best place to find me is my website or LinkedIn. I'm super active and love engaging there. It starts off with a short discovery call, understanding what your challenges are, where I could come in and help and how we can work together. And then from there, we'll take it. I'm a huge collaborator, so I believe in working together through the process to build the best story that we can.

18:38Emily Schneider, freelance PowerPoint designer on the web at IamEmilySchneider.com. Thanks, Emily. Thank you so much, Josh. It was so great to chat with you.

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