by SmartSamantha
Imagine owning a Ferrari – the power, the sleek lines, the precision. A car with a hefty price tag. Now imagine that it needs a new transmission. Would you try to install it yourself in your driveway one Saturday afternoon?
According to Nettie Nitzberg, owner of WOW! transformations, too many companies are handing their corporate image (the Ferrari) to their workers (the “weekend mechanics”) and the results can sometimes be frightening.
“Frankly, companies are destroying their carefully crafted corporate brands with lousy PowerPoints. Millions of dollars are spent on advertising and public relations campaigns. Product packaging is carefully designed and tested. Yet smart business people throw it all aside by putting together presentations that are unclear, ugly and unfocused.”
The assumption that many companies make is that since PowerPoint® seems as easy to use as word processing software, and because it’s on everyone’s computer, then having everyone do their own PowerPoints is simple and saves time and money. That assumption, however, is dangerous.
Most people are not trained on properly packaging information, explains Nitzberg, an instructional designer with 15 years of corporate and consulting experience. Instructional designers understand how adults take in and process information, and how to put it together with pictures and other elements for maximum effectiveness. PowerPoint is a tool to facilitate learning/information dissemination and should be designed with that as the main goal.
If in-house, “do-it-yourself” work is risky, is outsourcing presentation development cost-effective in these days of tight budgets? Yes and no. For simple uses, such as small staff meetings or last-minute presentations, homegrown work is sufficient. The tricky ones are the presentations where results are potentially big wins or losses. That’s when weighing the pros and cons of costs come into play. How much will a lost sale cost? Is there a cost associated with looking bad in comparison to your competition?
Working with a professional can give your presentations and materials a unified look and ensure that you message gets across. If your budget is tight, consider outsourcing the creation of a template that you can use as you create your own presentations and materials.
Outsourcing, however, needs to fit your budget and your timeline. If it doesn’t you’ll have to go the do-it-yourself route, but that doesn’t mean you have to skimp on quality and professionalism. Next week we’ll look some steps to create presentations that WOW!
BIZDOMS ™ are for informational purposes only and are not intended to provide any legal, financial or other advice. You should consult with a professional in such fields before acting on any information on this or any other website.