High Stakes Meeting? Now What?

Investor presentations, merger announcements, new product launches – these are the kinds of high stakes meetings that can put years of research, planning and millions of dollars on the line.

When preparing for such an event, it’s imperative to make the right choice about how the information you need to convey will be produced and delivered. You will almost certainly use a business PowerPoint presentation – the gold standard for communicating to influential audiences.

A well-designed PowerPoint deck will help you get the results you need. So, when you have a high stakes meeting on the horizon, you’ve got an important choice to make: Do you go it alone and try to create the presentation yourself? Do you hire a presentation design freelancer? Or do you engage the expertise of a specialty business PowerPoint presentation design company?

There’s a lot to consider, and you want to make sure you’ve got the right resource for your presentation needs. Here we look at which of these three options is most appropriate for your next high stakes meeting.

Do It Yourself

Every businessperson has PowerPoint at their fingertips, so it’s tempting to just go the DIY route. This choice may be appropriate if you have good information design skills, you have the extra time and bandwidth required, or if the presentation is more informal or of a limited scope.

However, when the meeting is high-stakes, it usually requires shaping complex data into easily digestible visuals and weaving multiple points into a compelling, cohesive story. Typically, there are multiple content contributors, and many presentations needed to communicate the information. If you decide to go this route, remember to leave yourself lots of time – clients tell us that it usually takes them 2-3 times longer to build their PowerPoint deck than they would’ve thought.

In this scenario, your time is better spent managing contributors’ efforts and refining key messages – rather than trying to create effective and consistent visuals for multiple slide decks. Attempting to do all of this at once can lead to slides that don’t communicate your ideas in a way that will resonate with the audience.

Presentation Design Freelancers

Important meetings can turn into lost opportunities when presenters do not have the information design skills or sufficient time to produce effective business PowerPoint presentations. So, another option is to enlist the help of a presentation design freelancer.

Hiring a freelancer allows presenters to cleanly divide the work between content creation and slide design. However, finding a dependable, skilled design resource isn’t easy, as the best freelancers are in high demand and they might not be available when you need them. Forbes recently published a list of tips for managing freelancers which can provide some insightful best practices.

Large, high-stakes events typically have multiple presenters and many presentations. This amount of work can quickly overwhelm a single designer who may need to be available to several presenters simultaneously. If you need to hire several freelancers to handle the amount of work, they may have challenges working together. And slides from different sources may result in presentations that don’t have a unifying visual theme. In this scenario, you will likely find yourself managing freelancers’ workflow and troubleshooting at a time when you already have enough to do.

A final concern with freelancers is security regarding your confidential company data. If your presentation freelancer(s) does not have a secure system in place, they could be placing your intellectual property at risk.

Specialty Business PowerPoint Presentation Company

Engaging the expertise of a specialty business PowerPoint presentation design company is the best solution when a high stakes, high profile meeting is on the horizon. This allows presenters to focus on developing important content, leaving the presentation design to the experts.

With this option, you’ll have a dedicated team of experienced designers and workflow managers with built-in systems for coordinating complex jobs. You’ll receive options for templates, layouts, and design in advance so you can choose those that fit with your meeting’s precise needs. You’ll be confident that you’re getting a consistent look across all presentations for your important meeting. And most importantly, you’ll have PowerPoint visuals that enhance the impact of your message – not detract from it.

Finally, an experienced presentation design company will have a proven track record of managing and meeting demanding deadlines. Using an agency may require a little more advance planning, but it also means greater success for your event. Knowing that you’ll be standing in front of a professionally designed presentation will give you the confidence you need to get the results you want.

Where Do I Find Such A Company?

Right here. eSlide is a specialty business PowerPoint presentation company. In fact, PowerPoint is all we do. For more than 20 years, we’ve been helping some of the biggest companies in the world with presentations for their most important meetings. We take the worry out of presentation design so you can focus on content development and successful delivery.

Get in touch with eSlide today to speak with a member of our professional design team.