Ex-McKinsey Consultant Creates a Slide Presentation With You

 

 

0:05  When a couple of days ago asked on my Instagram account

00:08  whether you would be interested to see a video like that

0:11  I go out on an overwhelmingly positive response.

0:14  I believe never did I get as many people saying

0:17  "Yes please make this video.

0:19  And specifically today

0:20  I'm going to show you how

0:21  I create a PowerPoint presentation.

0:24  I will let you look over my shoulders

0:26  how I use PowerPoint for myself

0:28  and I will also share my thought process

0:31  why do I structure pages the way do

0:34  how I think about structuring elements on a page

0:36  So all of this will be included in this video,

0:39  and yes I will give the opportunity

0:41  to also download the sample slides in the end,

0:45  there's a donut link in the video description,

0:47  I can sign up and receive the files.

0:49  So when I come to another coffee break here

0:50  on my channel Firm Learning,

0:52  my name is Heinrich,

0:53  I'm a former McKinsey consultant

0:55  and on my channel I want to help you to become successful

0:58  in the first years of your career.

1:00  Now in the video, I wanna find a good balance

1:02  of really showing you what I'm doing

1:04  and why I'm doing it in detail

1:06  but also speeding up some sections

1:07  where I'm just doing things that are not that interesting.

1:10  So I hope you will like it.

1:11  And I will also try to not use that many shortcuts

1:15  to make it easier to follow.

1:16  I might do a video specifically on shortcuts

1:18  at some point in the future,

1:20  but frankly, I'm not even using

1:22  that many shortcuts in PowerPoint,

1:24  for sure there are some that are really hard for you,

1:26  but this will not be the focus for today.

1:27  So without further ado, let's get into it.

1:29  So before this video, I asked myself,

1:31  "Okay what presentation cannot really show you?"

1:33  Because for these reasons,

1:34  I cannot really guide you through an extra presentation

1:36  that I did for work.

1:37  So I thought, okay let me show you a presentation

1:39  that I potentially would do maybe for a sponsorship partner

1:43  of this channel.

1:44  So as a YouTuber, sometimes people approach me

1:46  and ask me if they can do a collaboration with me,

1:48  so let's imagine I'd like to pitch my channel,

1:51  Firm Learning, to such a partner

1:52  and how such a little pitch deck could look like.

1:55  And indeed the first thing that I usually like to do

1:57  is to come up with the storyline

1:59  and specifically to come up with the action titles

2:02  of the presentation.

2:03  So the titles that we put here in the beginning.

2:06  They have no idea what an action title

2:07 actually created a whole video about that.

2:09  I will link it somewhere above.

2:11  So have a look at that really a fundamental concept,

2:14  but let's start it.

2:14  I'd say the first page was always a nice page

2:17  but introduce myself and the agendas.

2:19  So I could write something like this.

2:21  Firm Learning is an educational video

2:26  consulting channel on social media.

2:31  It's the creator is Heinrich Rusche, a former MBB consultant,

2:39  So this will potentially be a good first slide

2:42  where I then insert the contents.

2:44  And the data often and also like

2:46  to already make some bullets that I will include,

2:49  so I could, for instance, show my audience

2:51  and also an introduction of who I am.

2:53   Okay, what could be next?

2:55  And here, I think it's good to provide a little overview

2:57  of how the content looks like

2:59  that I create here on my Firm Learning YouTube channel.

3:01  So here we could write something like this.

3:06  All right, so this is not going to be a page

3:08  where I indeed talk about some things that I'm doing.

3:12  So potentially, an overview of Firm Learning videos.

3:18  That I could then be showing you,

3:20  to this potential client of mine.

3:21  Okay next, what would do you as the next page

3:23  in such a story?

3:24  And let's imagine that already to the pilot for this client

3:27  where I tested out a campaign just to prove the value.

3:31  So I could write something like this

3:33  Firm Learning pilots.

3:36  So this could be now a little chart

3:38 which shows exactly the very look that I provided

3:42  and some conclusions from that.

3:45  Now probably an overview of the pricing,

3:47  the different contents that I could offer would be helpful.

3:50  So let's create, such an overview

3:52  for a collaboration in 2020,

3:56  the following packages go to be offered

4:02  and then let's end with some contact information

4:05  that I provide for them to be able to contact me.

4:07  And again, this will be a rather short little presentation

4:11  of course, he will probably flesh this out a bit more

4:13  really recreates such a deck,

4:14  but I trust that this will provide a little overview

4:17  of all of this looks.

4:19  So let's start with the first one,

4:20  actually, let's start with the title page,

4:22  and you're just inserted a more or less random stock photo

4:25 shows a boardroom setting

4:27  but let's start here with the title.

4:30  So let's call it Firm Learning Collaboration Proposal.

4:36  And then often he has a subtitle,

4:38  you can include something like the month or the date

4:41  and then also whatever document potentially

4:43  there's a, for instance, discussion document.

4:47  So let's not start by filling this page.

4:50  So one of the most fundamental principles of slide design

4:54  that really makes your life so much easier

4:57  is the principle: every page is a table.

5:02  Every page or slide that you create in PowerPoint

5:05  is a table.

5:06  So always think about it like a table

5:09  where you structure information in columns and in rows.

5:13  So here in deep, we have two types of elements

5:16  that we wanna include here.

5:17  First, some information on the audience

5:20  and then some information on myself, right?

5:22  Where I'm introducing myself as a creator.

5:26  And what I like to use when I do these kinds of things

5:29  are always little column headers.

5:32  Because indeed we could not structure those as the table

5:35  we're probably on the left side of the page

5:37  is about the audience,

5:38  so the left column if you wanna put it this way

5:40  is the audience and then the right column,

5:42  the right side of the page is the introduction.

5:46  And I always like to use an element like this.

5:48  I know, copied it over from another document.

5:51  This is pretty much just a text element

5:53  and this is just a line.

5:55  And then if you do this together

5:57  you can also potentially group it.

5:59  I use Control + G as a shortcut for such an element.

6:04  So yeah, let's call this audience,

6:07  and let's call this the right-hand side, introduction.

6:12  So this is now the basic structure

6:14  that you want your page to take.

6:16  And all the good next step is always to think about

6:18  how do I not further structure

6:20  these two columns, these two sides?

6:22  So let's start with the audience.

6:24  And you're really we want to show

6:25  what the audience of Firm l]Learning looks like, right?

6:28  So how is it structured?

6:30  And your good first straightforward step

6:32  might be just to show the different social media channels

6:36  that I have.

6:37  And again, if you remind yourself

6:38  that every page has a table

6:40  no here is the natural step the natural tendency

6:42  that you would want to lean to

6:43  is now needed to structured as rows, right?

6:46  if you have no different elements

6:47  that you wanna show within such a column,

6:49  you use rows for that.

6:52  So let's not start by creating rows

6:55  for the different social media channels that I have.

6:58  So let's start here with first YouTube.

7:02  This is of course the largest channel that I use.

7:06  The next, we might have Instagram,

7:09  and I'll let me show you a little shortcut

7:11  because if you press Shift + Control

7:13  and then move an element

7:15  it creates a copy and it keeps the axis fixed, right?

7:19  So doesn't matter if you go up or down or he left and right,

7:22  it keeps it fixed, that creates it on the same level, right?

7:25  This is of course extremely helpful for things like that.

7:28  So again, I'm coping this over YouTube, Instagram,

7:32  I have the Firm Learning newsletter

7:37  and I have Linkedin.

7:41  I'd say these are my main channels.

7:44  And again these things that always simplify your life

7:47  so much if you make sure that all the elements

7:50  always have the same width,

7:52  because this will help you to keep the whole page

7:54  is much more organized.

7:55  You can not just drag it a little bit like this

7:57  and it will show you later why this is so important.

8:05  Let's make it a little bit smaller,

8:07  let's make it font size 16.

8:09  You, one basic rule of slide writing

8:11  is to make sure that all the texts elements

8:14  all the elements on one page

8:16  with the exception being the action title and the footnote

8:19  have the same font size, right?

8:21  So let's make sure that this is the case.

8:23  Okay, now we take these four channels.

8:26  We align them here to the left,

8:28  I always like to use these little alignment buttons.

8:31  What you can see is here that I drag the quick access bar.

8:34  From the top here, where it's usually

8:37  here now to this lower element,

8:39  because this not reduces the distance

8:41  from my mouse to get there

8:43  and this really makes life easier for me.

8:45  So what I did is now highlighted this, highlighted this,

8:48  then click here this aligns left button

8:50  to make it all on the same playing field.

8:52  And in detail now another little rule of slight writing,

8:55  so always what you like to do is think about the page

8:58  to be like a drawing place, right?

9:00  Where you read on the boundaries of the actual title

9:03  and the boundaries of the page.

9:05  So you want to make sure for it to have proper margins

9:08  that nothing goes to the left of the action title,

9:11  that nothing goes beyond that.

9:13 So this is pretty an imaginary little boundary,

9:15  and then the same is through you to the right

9:18  where usually you like to end the action title

9:20  together here with the footnote

9:22  and then nothing is supposed to be further right

9:24  at the near the demarcation that exists

9:29  Now let's further think of how we can structure it.

9:32  And did not let's further desegregate

9:33  this left part into two types of information.

9:37  So the first is the platform,

9:39  this is now what we already did here,

9:43  but then we also want to include a second column

9:46  and you know added the same copying trick

9:48  that I showed you with the shortcut

9:50  where I talk about the Firm Learning audience

9:54  and this is then supposed to give us the audience size.

9:58   And here in D on YouTube, I have 85,000 subscribers.

10:03  So this is pretty much my audience

10:06  that I currently have at this very moment.

10:08  Now let's further style the section.

10:10  So I'd like to do to have the column headers

10:13  in bold and black

10:15  but then if I want to focus on any other elements

10:18  within the columns, I like to bold them,

10:20  but then not in black,

10:22  but personally I like to use dark blue, right?

10:25  So this creates a little hierarchy among the elements

10:28  because of course, black has darker than dark blue,

10:31  you, of course you could know,

10:32  highlight these numbers again make sure to make them blue

10:39  just to form this in a proper way.

10:41  Now you could further style it differently

10:43  by increasing all the font sizes of the numbers.

10:46  So that's, for instance, if we use a two font size 40,

10:51  so this is of course now a little deviation

10:54  from the rule that I told you

10:55  that everything needs to look exactly the same

10:58  in terms of font size,

10:59  but of course sometimes little deviations like this

11:02  are allowed if it improves the overall look and feel,

11:06  even though I would encourage you to follow this

11:08  rather strictly for most cases.

11:12  So not only do the thing that you can do

11:14  to further improve the look and feel of this page

11:16  is to include little icons for these platforms.

11:19  So I did a video on this topic in the past,

11:21  I will also include it somewhere above here.

11:24  They are also recommended your service

11:26  that also personally use to really draw icons

11:29  because of course, if you just download then somewhere

11:31  in the Google picture search

11:33  they will often have a problem with copyright.

11:36  But if you use the service simple slides

11:39  you can have access to large library of icons

11:42  all of them are for you copyright free

11:44  if you have the subscription you can also use it

11:47  for commercial purposes, so I can very much recommend this,

11:49  if you're interested to try out simple slides for yourself

11:51  there's a link to that in the video description this way.

11:54  So in the meantime already selected a couple of icons

11:56  that I took from simple slides, they also have icons

11:59  for the different social media platforms.

12:02  So I'm just copying that in here.

12:04  Of course, these look a bit weird in terms of the color.

12:07  Yellow would also be great to have,

12:09   this dark blue type of look

12:11  and this is exactly what we will get us here.

12:15  So let's not include them a bit

12:16  and now it's great to potentially insert them

12:20  to the left of your slides.

12:25  let's move this to the right as well.

12:28  And now we have some space here

12:30  where we can include these little icons.

12:34  So now another little thing to further tidy all this up

12:37  is to use separation lines.

12:39  So this is also very, very common element to use

12:43  and to do this pretty much include a line like this.

12:46  I often like to form this and some light gray

12:50  and then also some dashes here that you can use.

12:54  Again here make sure that this properly starts

12:58  here to the left and then also ends you to the right

13:01  of this element,

13:02  and then with the same trick that I showed you earlier

13:05  you can copy this over here.

13:07  Now if you're this far

13:09  you can then group the different elements.

13:13  You drag this to the bottom where you want to start it all,

13:16  you drag this to the top where you want to let this start

13:19  then you highlight this potential

13:22  so here to have an equally spaced out a line of this way

13:25  and then it's properly and evenly distributed.

13:29  So let's now move here to the left side,

13:32  so to the introduction parts

13:34  so first now it would be great also visually separate this

13:36  a little bit more from the right side of the slide.

13:40 So for that we can add here another line

13:42  for such a separation line

13:44  then it makes sense to us to make it

13:47  a solid line maybe increase the weight a little bit more.

13:51  And now make sure that this nicely ends to the right

13:55  where I showed you here to the end of the footnote.

13:57  And now you can use some space to include some text

14:01  about myself.

14:03  So we could for instance, call this

14:05  Meet the creator.

14:08  So pretty much meet me as the creator of Firm Learning

14:10  and then to further leverage on this.

14:13  So what could make sense in such a situation

14:15 Is to start by for instance, including a photo,

14:18  you just copied over a photo of myself

14:20  of course, the introduce myself

14:22  and then maybe you're on the right

14:24  you might want to include some texts.

14:28  So for instance, my name with career and consulting content.

14:36  Something like this is what you could include.

14:39  Then again, you highlight this,

14:43  you make it dark blue to bold it

14:46  and then you center it or line it here.

14:50  So this could be, you know this element,

14:52  and there then maybe here in some bullets below

14:55  I'd like to include some information

14:57  about myself also in the sense of a mini CV,

15:01  a mini curriculum vitae.

15:04  So just a couple of things

15:06  that you could include here, right?

15:10  Can move this up a little bit,

15:13  potentially move this a little bit down,

15:16  maybe you not realize that it would be nicer

15:19  to we land this more through the bottom

15:21  to have a more evenly spaced out,

15:23  of course, all of this could be done now.

15:26  And now it's also always a great idea

15:28  to potentially bold a couple of key pieces of information

15:32  that you would like to include, okay?

15:35  So this could be no first page

15:40 So let's not do the second page

15:42  and here, what I'd just like to show is a very basic page

15:45  where I show different examples of thumbnails

15:48  of my YouTube videos, just to give the impression

15:51  of what my topic is all about what my videos are like.

15:54  So indeed, if you do something like this

15:55  that it makes sense to also include a little header.

15:58  So I will include a little head out as this saying

16:01  Exemplary Firm Learning content,

16:04  selected YouTube thumbnails, right?

16:06  And again, here, what I like to do

16:08  is whenever I have a little extra information,

16:11  I like to unload it and then use here a little gray color

16:15  to just make it look nice

16:17  but this is my personal preference

16:18  other people might use different titles.

16:21  Now let's insert a couple of pictures

16:24  of thumbnails of my videos.

16:26  So here we go, and indeed now,

16:27  as always with these things, alignment is important

16:32  so these are now 12 pictures.

16:34  So that's roughly align them in three rows

16:39  with four columns each.

16:44  So something like this, but now of course

16:50 we'd need to be properly aligned to the boundaries

16:53  so here to the left here to the right

16:58  now the rows to each other.

17:01 What then you can do, if you do something like this

17:03  is always to include, for instance

17:06  a little picture border to make it look properly.

17:11  But then I'd say this really is a good

17:15 proper page that you can very well use for such a purpose.

17:17 Now, next page.

17:20 And here you remember that we wanted

17:22 to show some resides of a pilot

17:25  that I did maybe in the past with this specific client.

17:29  So the basic structure that you can follow

17:32  when you work like this, when you work with numbers

17:33  and create a chart

17:34  is that to the left, you have a column with exactly that.

17:37  So the chart and then to the right,

17:40  you have a color with some implications,

17:41  some conclusions that you wanna make.

17:44  So for us, all we do is that

17:45  as always we include some heteros for these columns. 

17:48 So this all be for the chart

17:50 where we say sources of new users,

17:51 numbers of users indicated by client

17:54 and then to the right,

17:55 you potentially write something like,

17:59 yeah let's just call it conclusions, right?

18:03 And now we want to include charts,

18:06 I will now use things say,

18:08 which is a plug in for PowerPoint.

18:11 It's a plugin very widely and commonly used

18:14 by consulting firms, most large consulting firms use it

18:18 but also corporate firms use it

18:19 it's really great to create charts,

18:21 but of course you can do these things

18:23 with the bid in PowerPoint chart creation tools as well.

18:27 So I will spare you the details of our executive need

18:30  to work with things sell are created here,

18:32  such a very, very basic thing,

18:33 say waterfall chart where we say,

18:36 okay, total new clients

18:38 than what did Firm Learning contribute as a source?

18:40 What came from paid Facebook Ads

18:42 and what came from other channels?

18:44 And here is just what I wanna say was

18:45 that you I need to be very, very careful

18:49 and rather sparse with the color.

18:51 So don't really use lots of colors

18:53 don't make it super powerful.

18:55 You just go to make it for instance, on a gray

18:57 and then I just did this in dark blue just to emphasize

19:01 what was coming from my channel

19:06 Now next, you can continue by adding some information

19:09 and some conclusion some insights

19:11 that you are drawing from all of this.

19:14 So let justice always copy all over this text field.

19:18 Let's fix your, the font size of font 16,

19:23 and now we can insert some text.

19:27 So now in order for you

19:29 not needing to just watch me type a lot,

19:30 I adjust the copy or the text over

19:33 with a couple of information here

19:35 and this is now indeed what we will use for this.

19:40 Let's now maybe space it out a little bit better.

19:44 But now here we have such a page

19:46 where we indeed show a chart of the resides

19:50 and then provide some conclusions and insights

19:53 that we are drawing from that.

19:54 Let's not do this page,

19:55 where indeed I wanna talk about

19:57 the different service packages that we could offer,

20:00 what these would include

20:01 and then also some price tags in the end.

20:03 So let's imagine

20:04 that we have three different service packages

20:07 that we would be willing to offer.

20:08 And here again, in the table format

20:11 if you have three different elements

20:13 you can make sure to organize them in three columns.

20:16 So let's just imagine we call them level one,

20:21 the core package, intermediate package

20:22 and the advanced package.

20:24 So we created these headers for you,

20:27 so you see, these are just the very basic same header

20:31 that we were already using.

20:33 And then here in the rows, what do we put here in the rows?

20:36 And you know, one mistake that many people are doing

20:39 is on such an instance, just to create a page like this

20:44 include some bullets like this,

20:47 and then just create a long list

20:51 So now I'll be writing something about a long list of stuff

20:54 where you detail all types of different things.

20:57 This always looks very, very unstructured

21:01 and not professionally.

21:03 This is what you call the cloth line, right?

21:05 So a long close line list of randomly unstructured bullets.

21:09 So whenever you do things like that,

21:11 think about how could you structure the bullets

21:14 into logical groups,

21:16 into groups of elements that were fit together.

21:19 And this is exactly what we want to do here

21:21 and because here now we want

21:22 to describe the service package,

21:23 what we are offering you,

21:24 of course, and make sense

21:25 when you use the different social media channels

21:27 that we are offering,

21:28 and then what we would do in each of these packages

21:31 and then maybe in the end as the last row,

21:33 the pricing for all of this.

21:35 So in these instances, what I like to do

21:37 is to use a little boxes like this,

21:40 for instance, we could use a light blue then as a border,

21:44 a dark blue and now in this box,

21:47 you know, organize these things, right?

21:49 And we know one box for every channel,

21:54 let's make it Arial usually like to use Arial

21:57 as a basic font because I believe it looks nice

22:00 and clean the most cases.

22:02 And now we do this for the different channels

22:05 that we introduced earlier.

22:08 So YouTube, Instagram

22:11 and you just the general rule.

22:13 So what you should really notice memorize

22:15 is that whenever you have now a set of elements

22:17 that repeat throughout the document

22:20 and your, for instance this will be the different platforms

22:22 the different social media channels that you use

22:25 make sure that they always appear in the same order

22:29 as initially introduce them.

22:31 It's always super confusing

22:33 if you have a set of pages like this,

22:35 where you talk about the different channels,

22:37 and then on the one page it starts with YouTube

22:42 always keep it in the same order,

22:45 this will help you to keep this organized

22:47 and clean and nice to follow.

22:49 Of course it would in these cases also be nice

22:52 to use the same icons that you used here on the page before.

22:57 Now, in order for you to not see me type too much

23:00 I'll just now create a different text boxes of bullets.

23:04 Now, of course, we could also use separate aLliance here.

23:07 So let me copy some in here as well.

23:09 So let's now also make sure to include some content here

23:11 in the bottom for this content editing and production part.

23:15 And now what you could do is include a little arrow

23:18 to make sure that this last one is really relevant

23:22 for all the three packages, right?

23:24 So it's the same for all these three packages

23:27 that you're offering.

23:29 So you could use an arrow like this,

23:32 maybe make it even a little bit bolder,

23:35 or now even if you make this up front,

23:37 it does look a little bit weird.

23:38 And here, what you can do is to then include a little box

23:42 that you would just make white,

23:45 you again properly center it here in the middle,

23:49 and then you do this to the end,

23:53 you do this to the end of this as well,

23:55 you will lie in all of this.

23:58 which looks more or less, great.

24:01 So let's now align this properly as well

24:03 here again, you can group these different row elements

24:07 as always something you learned this by now.

24:09 Now it's all nicely and evenly spaced.

24:17 So let's see what is causing this and this is caused

24:19 because this is here included in the group.

24:21 So that's ungrouped, but again,

24:23 let's group it and let's align it as well

24:28 to now fix it.

24:30 Now, finally, though, you might want to include a line

24:33 with the commercials in the very end to also indicate

24:41 So let's just take some text here,

24:43 let's align it here to the left,

24:46 let's call this commercials and now indeed you can include

24:51 how expansive exactly all these different packages

24:54 are supposed to be always aligning,

24:57 aligning is the most important thing

24:59 to make it look nice and clean.

25:02 Now here you can insert the Euro amounts in here.

25:06 I will leave it to your imagination,

25:08 what you could charge for these packages.

25:11 Again, if you have this one finder alignment will not hurt.

25:21 And now you're good for this page.

25:22 Let's maybe move all of this up a little bit

25:25 and then you are fine.

25:27 Now last but not least

25:29 let's include some contact information here.

25:32 This is of course, nice and straightforward,

25:35 this is something that you can easily do here in the end.

25:38 So you could just do a nice page like this

25:41 overstyle it.

25:43 So if you create something like this,

25:45 this is where you usually be more than fine for last page

25:48 with contact information.

25:50 So this is a very basic little document

25:54 that we know jointly created as a pitch deck,

25:57 for a typical influencer marketing collaboration.

26:01 So for sure, this is now not yet super polished,

26:04 there are several things that you could not do

26:05 to further improve this.

26:06 And of course, if it would really create such a deck

26:09 probably would expand on it a little bit more.

26:11 You would go into more detail

26:13 of how these packages would look like.

26:16 You would go into more detail

26:19 or what you could do for the brand.

26:21 But I hope that this gives you a good first impression

26:23 and I hope that I was successful

26:25 in really guiding you through my thought process

26:28 and helping you to understand how I would take

26:31 such a task if I would need to create such a presentation.

26:34 So as always, if you have any questions on this

26:36 do leave me a comment in the comment section,

26:38 I would do my very best to answer every single comment

26:41 that you write.

26:42 Also, if you wanna have the slides

26:43 that we just created for yourself,

26:45 also included a link in the video description

26:47 where you can donate this little deck.

26:48 And please, if you took any value out of this video at all

26:52 please hit the like button for the YouTube algorithm

26:54 and also subscribe to the channel

26:56 to stay up to date on all my content.

26:57 You can also follow me on Instagram

26:59 my handle is @firmlearning or you can even use letter

27:02 sign up link in the video description.

27:04 And of course also feel free to reach out on LinkedIn.

27:07 Again, linked to that individual description.

27:09 Now a big thanks to all the members of Firm Learning,

27:11 you're really amazing.

27:13 My names Heinrich,

27:14 I'm releasing new videos every single Saturday.

27:17 So looking forward to next week,

27:19 until then good weekend to all of you,

27:21  cheers this Heinrich from Firm Learning.