Get yourself a presentation policy

Let me ask you a simple question: are presentations important? In my own thoroughly unscientific survey, based on nearly ten years working in presentation skills, I have found almost nobody who would answer no to that. And yet look at how we treat everything else. Quality is important, so of course we have processes for it. The working environment is important, so we have processes for that too. Finance, sales and IT all matter inside a company, so naturally we have processes, routines and policy documents to guide every one of them. Presentations, somehow, are left to chance. A presentation policy is how you stop leaving them to chance.

The purpose

A presentation policy exists to raise the professionalism of every presentation your company gives, internally and externally alike. And that professionalism is not just for show. It is what creates the conditions for a presentation to actually achieve what it set out to achieve.

Who does it affect?

Anyone who gives presentations, whether inside the company or out in front of clients and partners.

What should it contain?

Here are eight examples of what a presentation policy can, or should, include:

• One or more presentation structures that everyone should aim to follow, so that every presentation carries its most important building blocks.
• A clear definition of the rhetorical ethos for each presentation: how much weight to give your own ethos, the product's ethos, and the company's ethos.
• Different PowerPoint templates depending on the purpose of the presentation, whether it is meant to inspire, to sell, or to teach.
• A clear definition of how the company itself is presented, and why certain parts must carry more weight depending on what the audience expects and needs.
• Guidance on how images, fonts and objects should, or should not, be used in presentations.
• When to use which tools. PowerPoint, as we know, is a static aid, and should only be used when the aim is genuinely a static presentation, without dynamism or interaction from the audience.
• A definition of the different kinds of finale that external presentations should include.
• Confirmation that the presenters within the company are genuinely equipped to present what they present. Training in the fundamentals of presentation skills, then continuation courses and deeper work on rhetoric and PowerPoint, are all examples of what they should have completed.

None of this is about turning your people into robots who all sound the same. It is about giving everyone a shared foundation to stand on, so that every presentation your company gives is worthy of the message it carries.