Strategic Storyboarding

“It’s insulting when executives read exactly what’s on the slide. What do they think — I can’t read?! Tell me how this information fits into the bigger strategy. Make me see more than what’s written and obvious!”

That’s from a director in a Strategic Storyboarding workshop I held last week.

I couldn’t agree more.

(Plus I’m certain you don’t want your director moaning and ranting.)

What is PowerPoint storyboarding?

It’s a specific blueprint system to plan the flow and sequence of your ideas. And create meaningful, convincing PowerPoint presentations.

A storyboard shapes and guides every phase from idea to delivery to audience engagement. It’s the fastest frame-by-frame system used by artists, architects, entrepreneurs, filmmakers, and leading innovative design studios.

But, let’s face it. This is not how you may be currently planning your presentation or strategic story. Perhaps you currently use a bullet-point outline. And you’re comfortable with this method to organize your thoughts and PowerPoint presentation.

In fact, you’ve been doing it this way for years. Why should you bother learning a different method?

Storyboarding is an opportunity to get your ideas out in the open. Give breathing room to new thoughts and innovative connections. And it’s not only a way to gather your own ideas.

Most often your work involves other people. In creating a PowerPoint presentation for a face-to-face high-stakes meeting you may be part of a larger team. Your team may include---researchers, writers, teammates and co-presenters.

In many corporate presentations, a team struggles with bringing together all kinds of diverse ideas into one cohesive flow. As more people on the team get involved, ideas can mushroom exponentially. Each person has radically different perspectives and assumes that their ingredient holds the ultimate answer.

The finance guy is focused on the numbers. To him, the numbers tell the entire story. The researcher is convinced that showing more case studies and statistics tells a more compelling story.

In steps the director. She has often not been part of the midnight hour developments in strategic development…and wants to put her charismatic spin on the story.

End result? A collective mess.

What’s the way out? Step outside of the contributors’ criteria. And inside the minds of your audience. Get familiar with the decision-making criteria of the leaders in your audience. If you are planning to present your strategy, find out about your audience.

This insight will radically influence how you tell your story, what metaphors you use and even what images and sequence you ultimately choose.

Every group you speak to will have different evaluation criteria. Find out what they are looking for. Do the front-end research of ‘what worked last time’ in winning over this person or this executive crowd.

Investigate everything you can by interviewing people who have presented to this group before. In fact, your most direct approach may be the best: ask.

I recently consulted with 12 teams of brand planners and managers who were presenting to their boss and their executive team. They had one hour to present a 3-year strategy using PowerPoint. Based on their effectiveness, their brand would receive funding or get axed.

Not too much pressure…right?

In this case, the tough work was already done for them. Their boss had provided a blueprint of what he was looking for. And it wasn’t really rocket science. It was basic strategic ingredients in the form of three questions: What’s going on? What’s your strategy? How much will it cost?

In most cases, whether presenting to your boss, attracting investors or winning over a new client…you will be answering some variation of these questions.

I’m not saying that this is the only set of questions you must consider. But take a closer look. What’s really going on?

You must anticipate your audiences’ questions. If you want people to embrace your strategy, your first job is to know their questions.
In most cases this will fall out into relatively simple questions—What is the situation? What is the strategic action? What’s the bottom line cost? What’s the return on investment? The words will change but the simplicity remains.

The more you shape your PowerPoint story to answer the questions that are top-of-mind in your audience, the more you will get people to accept your plan. Buy your new idea. Change their minds. Learn from your experience. Follow your vision. And, that ultimate of wins, fund your plan.

Answering their questions is the art and architecture of convincing your audience. It’s a combination of discipline and creativity. Write out the questions that you know must be on the minds of your audience. Use those questions to focus how you present information… anticipate and answer their questions.

I told you this wasn’t rocket science. But it is a rock-solid system for organizing your winning PowerPoint storyboard. And telling a winning story. How do you know you got it? Your project gets the funding!


To your strategic success!