Corporate Profile slides. Do they actually work?

It is quite common that we often start the first 5-10 minutes of our presentation to a new client with the Corporate Profile slides. Walking them through the history of our company, regional and global footprints, achievements, staff strength, products and services, etc. Do they actually work?

Bad Slides
I recently worked with a couple of clients to review their Corporate Profile presentation slides. All of their slides have one common problem—cluttered with information packed into every slide. There are many things about our organisation that we all love to share in a presentation to new clients. But do we really need to walk them through all the details?

Most new clients would have already done their research before the meeting. Furthermore, information about your company is already on your website accessible to everyone. So, we shouldn’t be wasting time repeating what our clients might already know. It is more effective if we get straight to the point of the presentation session, sharing information relevant to the objective.

Better to Keep it Simple
If we really must talk about our company, then keep it short. Share only key and important information that matters. Be focused. Make it interesting and show information in a visual format. Make it easy and comfortable for the audience to understand and accept the information you are presenting.

For example, refrain from showing lengthy text paragraphs that describe the history, competitive advantages, or product features in your slides. Instead, use keywords that form a diagram to make the slide more visual. Use an image that relates to key information.

Better Slides
Here are a few examples (before and after) of corporate profile slides that are more visual, easier to understand, and will work better in every presentation.

Fig.1 Before Too much information written in lengthy text. Difficult to understanding and hard to see from far.

Fig.1b After Decide on a few key information about your organisation and show only those in the presentation slide. Ignore the rest.

Fig.2 Before Information listed in bullet points are not effective for presentation slides.

Fig.2b After Use keywords to represent information and arrange them in a logical visual format which is easier to understand.

Fig.3 Before Slides cluttered with figures are frustrating. They look bad on charts used for presentation slides.

Fig.3b After Use only key and relevant data/figures for your charts when they are meant to be used on presentation slides.

*Company name and logo of the above slides have been changed to protect sensitive information.

Give these some thought and try them the next time you present your corporate profile. It's not too difficult and will get easier after a while.