How to create insightful diagrams for sales presentations

In my previous posts, I have shown you how ‘flea market’ slides and ‘zen’ slides can kill your presentations. In this post, I will answer the questions raised in those articles – that is – how to open up your audience’s mind using slides the right way.

The simple and most powerful way is to use diagrams. A presenter doesn’t require any specialized skill to draw insightful diagrams. In fact, you don’t even need to know how to draw a stick man to create good diagrams. 

Just pick up a piece of paper and a pencil. Learn a few fundamentals. You’ll be well on your way. In a series of posts from today, I wish to introduce you to this useful tool. 

Let us start by understanding what a concept diagram is. 

A concept diagram is nothing but a visual representation of objects and their relationships.

 

Let us understand this with an example. If asked to explain how an earthen pot is made, most presenters would use sentences like: 

 “Take some clay. Mix it with water till you get the desired consistency. Mould it into the shape of a pot”. 

Let us try to represent this idea as a diagram.

This is a simple representation of the images that pop up in my head, when I read the explanation above. As you could see, this simple diagram represents objects and their relationships in a natural way.

These rounded rectangles represent the objects in the idea: 

These circles in dotted line highlight the relationships:

Once we are clear with the relationship between objects, we can choose to represent the objects in the way we want, as long as we label them clearly. In the following case, I have not even used an image to represent the objects. It represents the idea just as well. 

So, the focus is not on the objects, but on the way relationships are represented. Of course, images or icons make the diagram look elegant. 

No matter how grand or complex your idea is, the underlying principle to represent it in diagrams, remains the same. But, the challenge is in identifying the objects correctly, and finding ways to representing the relationships accurately. 

More about this in later posts. Happy selling!

Visuals are your brains native language

Compare these slides

Here are two slides that make the same point. Which one appeals to your emotions better?

The first thought that came to your mind on seeing the text heavy slide was, “It looks COMPLEX". You hesitated to read through the text. Even if you did, it wasn’t easy to process it straight away.

The second slide gave you the idea instantly. The image of the dead bird triggered your emotions. You were compelled to read the caption. You were absorbed in the slide. 

Our mind thinks in visuals

The reason is - as humans, our mind thinks in the language of visuals. We learnt to draw long before we learnt to speak. 

 

Even now, our mind translates words into visuals before processing its meaning.

As a presenter...

What does this information mean to you as a presenter? 

Yes. When you present your idea visually, it gets understood faster, and retained longer than when it is presented just with words.

Even better – show your ideas in visuals, and support them with verbal explanation. This way, you engage multiple senses of your audience, which increases the retention of your message by as much as 65% (as per Cognitive load theory).

However, there is a slight hitch here. Using visuals in your slides is easy. But, using the RIGHT visuals is not. I know of so many cases where presenters have killed their presentations with inappropriate visuals. Since visuals attract the attention of your audience faster than words, wrong visuals can directly lead you to disaster.I have seen a lot of people use it the wrong way, read this article to see why.

How to use visuals – the right way? You’ll learn the answers to all these questions in my subsequent posts. Happy selling!