[00:00] LEAH WARWICK: Hi everyone, I’m Leah Warwick and you’re listening to the Admin Edge. When you’re making a slide deck or a document, are you thinking about the design principles behind it and what will actually impress your audience? We asked one of our trainers, Curtis Newbold, to break it down with lots of insightful details. And frankly, if you’re interested in presenting at EA Ignite or ETC one day, take notes. I hope you get a lot out of this conversation between me and Curtis at the ASAP event EA Ignite. Hi, I’m Leah Warwick, Senior Content Manager for the American Society of Administrative Professionals. My guest today is Curtis Newbold, owner of Newbold Communication and Design and a trainer at this event EA Ignite. Welcome to the podcast, Curtis.

[00:51] CURTIS NEWBOLD: Thanks Leah, thanks for having me.

[00:53] LEAH WARWICK: It’s so good to have you here and this is your first time in Nashville we were talking about.

[00:57] CURTIS NEWBOLD: Yeah, yeah, it’s been a lot of fun to be here, really fun city.

[01:00] LEAH WARWICK: Yeah, we love it. It’s a great place to be and a perfect place for EA Ignite. We’re having so much fun and learning at the same time.

[01:18] LEAH WARWICK: So you’re presenting on presentation skills, Curtis, about designing information for impact. So I’m sure you’ve seen a lot of presentations in your time and we see how many people in our community make slide decks for their executives or are preparing slides for other purposes. Maybe they’re preparing slides for a company off site or organizational initiatives. So what are the biggest mistakes you see in slide deck designs that make the information that is being presented less clear, less well received and less impactful?

[01:50] CURTIS NEWBOLD: Yeah, that’s a great question. We hear this a lot, but I think the biggest mistake we see in presentations is just trying to do too much, whether that’s too much text and of course we hear that a lot, too much text on the slide, too many bullets on the slide, but it’s also too much just information in general in either one presentation itself or in each individual slide. So that could be too complicated of a data visualization, I mean there’s a graph or chart that has too much going on in there, too many objects, we don’t always need all these different smiley faces and whatever we might want to add into that slide, it’s just too much, we don’t need all of that. So I think the first thing is just to kind of simplify and think about how we’re not overwhelming our audience because that overwhelming side of it is what we see the most.

[02:48] CURTIS NEWBOLD: The other thing though that I think is a big problem is not really thinking with the audience in mind, we’re just out there trying to get our information out as opposed to thinking what they actually need and how they’re going to be consuming the information minute by minute and even second by second, how are they going to be absorbing this? And so the problem we see with that is that we fall apart with the organization and structure, we’re not thinking about what comes first, what comes second, how do we organize our slides? So that second problem I think I usually see is that we’re not structurally thinking about how the organization needs to be put together, it’s just kind of all over the place, it’s just a dump of information all at once.

[03:28] LEAH WARWICK: When you’re drafting a slide deck, let’s say, is it good to sort of edit down? Like maybe you do put a lot on in the beginning and then you really think, do I need all that information on there, how can it’s and simplify from there, what do you think about the editing process?

[03:45] CURTIS NEWBOLD: Yeah, I think that’s a great, a great idea. I think it’s always good to get all of your ideas out there and there’s nothing wrong with that process. Usually I would normally do that not in the deck itself, maybe put it in and post it notes, maybe put it on a piece of paper in a word document where you’re just drafting it all together, get those ideas out, then organize them, put it in a structure that’s going to work really well for your audience, think about that plan, what’s going to come first, why is that first, how do we transition to this next part and so forth until we get to the end, but it’s all kind of laid out.

[04:21] CURTIS NEWBOLD: But yes, we have all that information out there, you will want to naturally cut things out, move things around, simplify it. Of course, we need to be thinking about how long this is going to be, is my audience going to be in there for 10 minutes, 30 minutes, an hour, what can I reasonably do that’s going to be most effective for them? But regardless of how long it is, we typically just want to reduce also how much, how many key points we have, usually three to five as far as we want to go. So even if it’s a one hour presentation or a two hour presentation, think about your three, four, five key points and focus on those and think about how you organize your information around those things. You get beyond that, it’s really hard for your audience to leave with a clear takeaway.

[05:09] LEAH WARWICK: How would you recommend, like let’s say you have 30 minutes to announce a new initiative? How would you recommend for even like how many slides that should be?

[05:20] CURTIS NEWBOLD: Yeah, that’s a good question. You know, I get asked that a lot, how many slides is a good number and there’s not a perfect answer to that. Typically though, just because our attention span seems to be pretty limited these days, we want to move our audience into something new on a fairly regular basis, you know, throughout the presentation. There’s not a perfect answer because sometimes we need to slow down and walk people through maybe something a little bit more complex. Maybe there’s a diagram. We want them to follow and that takes some time to walk through that particular slide.

[05:56] CURTIS NEWBOLD: But in general, about one slide per minute is a good best practice and that way they’re looking at something new. And again, if it’s just text and it’s that same repetitive bold list after bold list, it doesn’t help all that much. But if you give us something to look at, some kind of an image, maybe it’s a story that you have a graphic that goes with, maybe it’s a diagram. But every slide has something new to kind of absorb and take in. That’s really helpful. And again, you don’t have to do that every single minute. But if it’s a 10 minute presentation, 10 slides is probably about right. If it’s an hour, you don’t necessarily need 60 slides because there will be moments when you want to slow down.

[06:37] CURTIS NEWBOLD: But some slides too are good and I can talk about this in a second, but we usually want to create transition slides. And those things you don’t necessarily spend a lot of time on, it’s just an opportunity for your audience to say, oh, we’re moving to the next piece, we’re moving to the next part. And that’s something we move faster through, but it’s helpful in terms of adding extra things to look at.

[06:58] LEAH WARWICK: Yeah. Yeah. Actually, something I’ve learned from you from watching your presentations. And I’ve seen others do it as well. So I’m sure this is something that is taught is when you start the presentation, you tell people what you’re going to teach them. And then at the end, you tell them, remind them of what they’ve been taught. And it sounds so simple, but people kind of want to know, okay, I’m here like, what am I? Tell me how this is going to go, then do how it’s going to go, and then recap how it went. And it sounds, yeah, very simplistic, but it works. It really works.

[07:18] CURTIS NEWBOLD: Absolutely works. Yeah. I know there’s that old public speaking at us. Tell them what you’re going to tell them, then tell them, then tell them what you told them. And it’s that pattern and it really does work. You give them kind of that introduction and you say, okay, this is what we’re going to cover today. It doesn’t need to take long. It’s 20, 30 seconds. You say, this is the plan. We’re going to go through part one, part two, part three, or topic one, topic two, topic three. And then you follow that exact pattern. You’re kind of like a tour guide. You don’t want to get off in any detours. You don’t want to take them in the wrong direction. You follow the pattern. And that’s a lot easier to remember for the audience. And that really helps them with that structure.

[07:54] CURTIS NEWBOLD: And then when you get to the end, again, you package it all back together and say, this is what we cover. These are our three key points. And you close it out. It’s really helpful for our brains, our minds do a lot better when it’s all organized and planned out.

[08:13] LEAH WARWICK: That’s true. And sometimes I notice when I put things into chat GPT, it does structure things very much that way. It says, here’s what you should do, bullet, bullet, bullet, bullet. And then it wreak summary of everything that I just put in there for you, that’s kind of the default that it gives you. So that is very, very interesting indeed.

[08:30] LEAH WARWICK: And we have talked about this a little bit already. What are some other tried and true methods for slides to impress people, especially senior stakeholders like executives? We hear they often think in bullets. They’re like, okay, just cut to the chase, right? So what really works for them?

[08:50] CURTIS NEWBOLD: Yeah, you know, I think there’s a lot of things we could think about. I think one thing I like to do is think about a hierarchy of impact. So the higher up this hierarchy you go, the more impactful this lid deck or the presentation in general is likely going to be. There’s six parts to this hierarchy. It’s kind of like if you’re familiar with the psychology, Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, kind of at the fundamental levels of what human beings need up to the top. It’s a similar kind of pattern, but at the most fundamental level for a presentation, it needs to be functional. It needs to work. The audience needs to be able to read the text. It can’t be too small or in some strange font that they can’t read, or in a language you’re using words or terms they don’t understand. That’s pretty easy to achieve. Most of us can make our PowerPoint slides functional.

[09:45] CURTIS NEWBOLD: The next thing is reliable. Reliable means it’s good information. It’s accurate. It’s something that makes sense, but they can actually apply it in their lives. The next one is related to that and it’s useful. So the third level is making it useful to their lives. Something they can do or use at work or in their personal life. Those are three levels that most people achieve without too much trouble. It’s functional. It’s reliable. It’s useful. When we hit what I call the experience threshold, and this is where most people stop and they don’t get past that experience threshold, in the fourth level, we want to make it convenient. And convenient means that it’s easy. It’s easy to process, easy to understand. We don’t have to put a lot of effort into trying to understand what the speaker is saying. It’s just kind of obvious.

[10:33] CURTIS NEWBOLD: And some of those things we already talked about make it easy. So for example, that structure with the road map at the beginning and following the road map. Giving them transition slides so that they know you’re moving from one topic to the next. Giving them really simplified versions of what you’re talking about. So don’t cover everything on every slide. Give them kind of the key point that they can look at. Maybe it’s a focused part of the graphic or something, but it’s simple. It’s easy. It’s convenient. That’s what we call that fourth level.

[11:07] CURTIS NEWBOLD: But then we move up to the next one, which is enjoyable. And that can sometimes be really hard for people to achieve. If they’re not real well versed in good visual communication skills, but enjoyable means that it’s nice to look at. You’re using the right fonts, you’re making it clean and simple. But then also you’re following good design principles. You’re following your company’s brand identity as well using high quality images and graphics. But then it really starts to resonate with people at a higher level. And it does take some practice to do that. But if you can get in that enjoyable realm, you’re in a really good spot.

[11:42] CURTIS NEWBOLD: The peak then of the six layered hierarchy or this pyramid is going to be impact, impact for or personally meaningful. This is the hardest to achieve. Not every slide needs to be impactful at a high level. But what we’re trying to do is add something and maybe once or twice throughout the presentation that really hits home, it really resonates with somebody or most everybody if you can. That’s maybe it’s a personal story. Maybe it’s an image that really is surprising or alarming or whatever that might be or just might be motivational in some way. But if you can achieve that even just once in a presentation, then you’ve hit that highest level of impact. If you don’t get there as long as you’re acrossing that experience threshold, if it’s convenient and it’s enjoyable, you’re going to be in a much better spot to make a good impact.

[12:23] LEAH WARWICK: Yes, I totally hear you on the impact one being the hardest one to achieve. That’s okay sometimes, but I think it also speaks to you have to know your audience for that to even be possible. So sometimes we give presentations and they hit that, you know, they’re functional, they’re reliable, you get past the experience threshold and they’re convenient. And in the enjoyable part, I wonder how you think about when it comes to enjoyable and then the impact, how much of that doesn’t just have to do with the slides that you’re presenting, but how you deliver the information. That I think is a whole other skill set that we don’t have to get into so much here. I think we could do a whole podcast episode on just how to use your words, but in your experience when you have hit all these other levels for your slide deck alone, what are some ways in your communication style verbally and with your body language that you have found have been successful to be an aid with the deck?

[13:10] CURTIS NEWBOLD: Yeah, I think that’s absolutely critical in your right. We can only do so much with design, with words, with content. The rest of it comes with our engagement with those in the audience and of course, that just seems being personable. I think sometimes we get caught up in being perfect. We want to be, you know, exactly everything that you expect in a presenter, we want to be in the right spot at the right time. We want to say exactly the right words. We want to use any filler words like those are problematic if they’re if they’re constant or annoying, but really it’s not about being perfect. It’s about being natural. It’s about being human. It’s about looking at our audience and their eyes, looking around the room and feeling like you’re having a conversation with them.

[13:46] CURTIS NEWBOLD: Usually that means moving away from the podium or the lectern if there is one, moving around the stage a little bit, not doing anything overly repetitive. So you don’t want to be pacing, you don’t want to be shifting your hips, playing with your clothes, playing with your face. You know, those are nervous ticks that we often do, not knowingly, but many times we’re not aware of those. But we’re trying to just be natural, not doing anything overly, overly repetitive. But really, yeah, it’s about having that conversation and looking at people and if you can ask them questions and keep that kind of rolling throughout. So it’s not just you speaking the entire time, but it’s getting them involved.

[14:19] LEAH WARWICK: Yes, and I think for anxious people, it can also be hard to do this, but so important to read the room and take the temperature a few times. So, you know, especially if you’re speaking for longer than a few minutes, like has anyone ever experienced this, like saying something relatable and you’re so right, we think we have to be perfect and polished. And to a certain extent, yes, not having the nervous ticks and stuff does help, but it also is really nice when I see this with the most experienced speakers, they always will say something kind of relatable, I will say, like, you know, when this happens to get, to kind of get a reaction from the audience because you have to keep them with you, right? And it’s very easy, even if the presentation looks great and so the content is great, it’s drawing their eye with the design. Their minds still might start to wonder if they’re like, does this person really get me and like what I’m doing? So kind of like checking in every so often with your audience is helpful, too.

[15:16] CURTIS NEWBOLD: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s always good to have a few personal anecdotes kind of like in your back pocket when you can throw them out there. If you ever start to notice that the audience is disconnecting, they’re filling, they look tired or bored, you know, pulling out their phones, whatever. And it’s common, it’s hard to keep people engaged constantly, but you can kind of read that room, like you’re saying, and if they’re starting to phase out, there’s six magic words that will always work. If you say, let me tell you a story, those six words, let me tell you a story. And the audience will look up, we are just storytelling beings. We love to hear stories. Even if it’s not that interesting of a story, people want to hear it. We want to know what happened. We want to know, you know, how it affected you. We want to know how it applies to our own life. We will listen to stories. And so if you have a few of those extra stories ready to go, when you think about all of your content, you say, I’ve got the story, throw it out there and they’ll almost always look back up.

[16:12] LEAH WARWICK: Yeah. And stories even translate to like the slide itself, I find the best presentations I’ve seen even just at work, not even in environments like this that you ignite where something is just being presented is, is the person presenting a good storyteller? And that goes to the slides itself, but also to how they’re delivering. Are they, can they make anything a story, you know? And so I think, and that’s where you hit that impact too, because people catch on to the story. So going back to the example of like you’re presenting a new initiative, right? There’s some change management involved. You say, this is where we are now. This is where we’re going. This is where we want to be. And so it tells an arc of a story and people’s mind. So they’re like, ooh, like I like that. That’s interesting. I’m going on this journey. So I think that’s a good way to put it, everything can be a story and presenting it in a way of a story. And again, like we were talking about with the structure. It’s like chapters in a book, right? It’s very much that way. So I really enjoy that aspect of it.

[17:02] LEAH WARWICK: And so I want to get a little bit more into documents, because you have done presentations on, you know, creating SOPs, standard operating procedure documents, you know, certain deliverables in the profession can often be very dry, but still important. Like we’re still conveying important information. So if there’s a document like that, let’s say an SOP, what are your tips? Do’s and don’ts for making sure that that document grabs the reader’s attention and produces the desired result. So that SOP is not skipped over.

[17:34] CURTIS NEWBOLD: Yeah, I mean, this is a great question. And it’s, there’s not an easy answer because every type of document, every SOP has a different purpose, has a different audience, has a different level of importance. Some are created to create a safe environment to keep people protected from danger. Others are just, you know, how to use a software program. And so there’s a lot of variety that goes into what we put into these types of documents. But I think a good way to think about this, we haven’t talked about layered messaging. And a fun way and kind of a memorable way to think about it is the bite snack meal approach, where you look at a document and it should, it should grab your attention initially. Something about it should say, I need this document in my life. And that’s usually answering a question they have, or if it’s a part of a training, it just, it says you need to do this for some, for some purpose.

[18:27] CURTIS NEWBOLD: But that, that first level is the bite. And we have to give enough information that people actually want to taste it, right? They want to see it, they want to experience it at least for a few seconds. So that’s a good title, it’s a good, it’s a good design. So it’s attractive, it doesn’t look overwhelming. As long as you can give them that bite, then you’re more likely that they’ll want the snack. The snack is kind of that second layer of information. That can usually be the headings or subheadings. It can maybe be a little snippets, it could be a photo with a caption. Or thinking, what’s the second layer, once their attention has been grabbed, what should we tell them next? And given that second layer, again, thinking about how they’re actually absorbing and processing information, most people don’t read everything on a page.

[19:14] CURTIS NEWBOLD: This, this, a lot blamed the internet for this when it came out 30 or so years ago. We used to read things at a higher level. But now we skim and we scan, we make quick decisions based on minimal information. There’s actually a word for this, we call it Satisfice. But you read things quickly. So if you think of like going to a website, you look at it, you skim it, you scan it, you usually have a question in mind that you need answered. And you’ll click on that thing very quickly, without reading every word on the homepage or on any webpage, you’re just going to click on it. So we have to design with that in mind. We’re thinking, how are they going to satisfy us? How can we give them the first layer, the second layer? If we can get them past that snack, we get them into the meal, which is really the bulk of the content, but they usually won’t get there unless they feel like it’s relevant. So I think whether it’s an SOP or a report or even a presentation to some extent, we do have to be thinking about, okay, what’s the first layer? Are they going to get past this? If it’s not relevant, if it’s not interesting, if it’s not easy to read, they’ll probably never get there. But if we can get them, get them there, they get to the snack, then they get to the meal, and that’s where we really want to get them. Because that’s the most meaningful, the most important for them. But I think that’s a helpful way to think about that information there.

[20:30] LEAH WARWICK: Absolutely, and it made me think about what you were saying earlier, where it’s just so hard to get people’s attention at all these days. It’s become increasingly harder because it’s so easy with the distraction of your phone. It’s very addictive, so people are there, they’re all over the place. And so to get them to focus, to reel them in, yeah, it first has to be relevant to them, and then how we structure things, you know, maybe back in the day when people, I don’t know, didn’t have a phone to distract them, they would read a three-page document. And now it’s just much less likely that people will do that. So if it’s a document that needs to be read, you know, making sure that it’s designed in a way to pull them in first, and then so they actually read what you want them to read. And yeah, if there’s stuff that’s less important, then maybe you put it on like a later page, right? But I think this is just only becoming more important in this day and age when there’s so much competing information out there, vying for our attention, how to get the attention of others.

[21:28] LEAH WARWICK: I’ve heard it said that the one thing, you know, that AI can’t do yet, and hopefully, we’ll never be able to do it the day, is like be a human person. So AI tells you like what it thinks you want to hear. Sometimes it’s overly flattering, and it often presents things in a certain way. But it doesn’t, it’s not a person, and it doesn’t know how to be relational with other people. So I’m really glad you’re here talking about this stuff, because there’s still, even with all these great tools, we have nowadays to help us get processes started and help us get organized. You are a human who thinks like other humans and can put yourself in their shoes more, so like how can you use that to your advantage?

[22:06] CURTIS NEWBOLD: Yeah, yeah, absolutely, great. You know, as you were saying all of that, it reminds me of kind of a funny conversation I was having. In my other professional world, I’m a full-time college professor, and I was in the hallway talking to another colleague of mine who’s also a professor. His dad was a professor many years ago, and he was telling him when he was a college student, I believe in the 1960s, his professors would read lectures. They would walk in with a piece of paper, and they would read it, not with zero engagement at all, and it was just about, they would write the whole thing out and read it. And that was what the expectation was back then, and they loved it, they absorbed it. That was kind of what they expected in a college course, and they would be taking copious notes as they’re listening to this lecture.

[22:53] CURTIS NEWBOLD: That doesn’t work at all today. We have to adapt as things change, and when we’re in an environment now, we’re being a college professor requires a performance, or requires engagement, requires activities, and that’s a much different way of teaching, but that’s because our audiences have changed, and that’s environments have changed, and we have to be thinking, what do they need now? And it’s not just kind of a generational thing, but the topics and the subject matters require different types of engagement too. And again, that brings in that kind of human element to a lot of what we’re doing.

[23:24] LEAH WARWICK: Totally, how can I relate to my audience more, and how can I also get them to relate to each other, because we’re in such silos these days, getting people to talk to each other. It’s a lost art for, but kind of seems like talking to each other, how novel, what is that? It actually is still really powerful, and it reminds us all of our shared humanity.

[23:43] LEAH WARWICK: So one more question I have for you, it’s from one of our listeners, they wrote in, sometimes executives do want every detail on the slide, but I know it hurts the flow. How can I push for simpler, more impactful slides without stepping on toes?

[23:59] CURTIS NEWBOLD: Yeah, that’s a really good question, and it’s something I think a lot of executive assistants probably face, where they’ve got their executives have a certain way of thinking about their content, or their data, and they want to present it a certain way. I think the big thing is to think of yourself as an ally, and to help them see you as an ally, somebody that’s helping them create good content that’s going to really resonate with the audience, or whoever they’re speaking to. One thing you can say is something like, what if we, just to make sure that the presentation is as powerful as possible? Let’s hit on these key points and put this information there, and then this other information, which is excellent, maybe we add it in an appendix, or maybe we give a handout to the audience, so they can look at it then, but also maybe absorb it later as well. That way the presentation itself hits on all the key points, but they’re getting the information that you want them to have, but in a different space.

[24:54] CURTIS NEWBOLD: Most executives in my experience respond really well to the audience is going to love this, because they want to impress the audience. It’s usually about them anyway, and sometimes if they haven’t been trained in communication, or speaking, or presenting, they don’t always think necessarily in those terms, but it’s like, wait a minute. You’re right, if I simplify this slide, if I hit these key three points, they’re going to leave us something powerful, and that might work better. So I think it’s a good way to approach it, but again, don’t be combative. It’s not, no, this is wrong, or this is going to be a problem, or you’re going to distract them, or whatever. It’s not about the way they did something wrong. It’s, hey, I’m here to help, and I think this is going to work better for our audience, and I think they’ll respond well to that.

[25:32] LEAH WARWICK: I agree, it’s how you frame it. We talk often about feedback is good, but I think how you deliver the feedback is what matters, because things can be, you can be delivering the same thing, exact same sentiment, but it can go over better depending on how you phrase it. So, exactly, with an executive, in my experience with executives, they want to make sure that what they are saying are presenting is impactful, like impact, going back to that. So if you approach it from that shared goal of like, to make this presentation super powerful and impactful, what do you think about moving this around? And it’s for the goal of greater impact. I don’t see how someone wouldn’t respond well to that, because I’m like, yes, well, I want the best impact. I want it to make the biggest splash. So yes, I’m going to look into that.

[26:18] CURTIS NEWBOLD: Right, yeah, and that then becomes a, kind of almost a brainstorming problem-solving conversation, as opposed to, I know more than you, you’re doing this wrong. That’s not a good approach, and that framing is going to be problematic, but if it’s, hey, I love this topic, I think your audience is going to really respond well to this. What if we do it like this, this, and this, and then we put this information in this other space, and a handout, and an appendix, and the speaker notes that can be maybe printed out with the slide deck if you want to do that. But this is another way of framing it, but then you brainstorm this to arrive at the best space for your audience, as opposed to, you need to fix this. This is not going to work, and that’s easily the wrong framing.

[26:59] LEAH WARWICK: The real business partnership lies in being able to have a collaborative conversation of, and so, yes, the framing of how about we, or what do you think if we tried this, instead of you need to do this, right? It’s just, it’s so subtle, but it actually makes a huge difference.

[27:15] CURTIS NEWBOLD: It makes a huge difference, yeah.

[27:17] LEAH WARWICK: Yeah, yeah, it’s great. Well, Curtis, this has been a great conversation. I’ve really, really enjoyed talking to you, but please tell our listeners where everyone can find you online.

[27:27] CURTIS NEWBOLD: Sure, yeah, LinkedIn’s probably the easiest. I invite you to follow me there. I put a lot of tips and tricks and communication insights on there. I also run a website called thecomspot.com, the comm meaning communication, so it’s THECOMspot.com. Definitely come in and follow that, and I put a lot of those tips from that website on LinkedIn as well, so that’s probably the best. Two places to find me online. I have one other website, if you want to follow the visual communication guy.com as well. It’s a little older. I more update the new one, thecomspot.com, but we’d love to see you all there.

[28:03] LEAH WARWICK: Sounds good. Well, thank you so much, Curtis.

[28:05] CURTIS NEWBOLD: All right, thank you, Leah.

[28:07] LEAH WARWICK: Thank you for listening to the Admin Edge, produced by the American Society of Administrative Professionals, our original music and audio editing by Warwick Productions, with audio and video production by 5Tool productions. If you like this podcast, please leave us a nice review, five stars, and subscribe. If you’d like to submit a listener question, you may do so on our website at asaporg.com/podcast.