Instructions on how to order a business presentation

Surprisingly, there are still people who don’t even know about the existence of graphic design studios where you can order a presentation turnkey. And when they need such services, they are lost, not knowing which way to approach the matter.

If you find yourself in a similar situation, be sure to read this article. In it, we talked about all the nuances that should be taken into account before you sign an agreement with the contractor and transfer the advance. 

At the end there is a useful bonus: a detailed checklist on how to choose a contractor for presentation design. 

Collaboration begins as usual

TOP questions we are asked upon first contact:

1. Do you make presentations?
2. How much does the service cost?

And if we answer the first quickly and unambiguously, since all we do is create beautiful presentations, then with the second there is always a hitch. To give a more or less accurate figure, you need to know what exactly you need.

A few customers talk about their needs on their own. Usually you have to use pincers to extract information about the composition of the work, which takes a lot of time. 

But ticks and other stimulating instruments are definitely not a threat to you now. In just 10 minutes you will have a detailed action plan and you will be able to talk with any performer. 

So, we have already found out how the first contact usually happens, and now we will figure out how it should ideally be.

Goals and objectives of the presentation

Before you write content, select pictures and draw the first slide, you need to decide on the goals of the presentation. If you skip this stage, at the finish line it will become clear that all the work has been done in vain. The problem with business presentations lies not in the design, but in the structure and formulation of the task!

First of all, decide on your target audience:

1. Who is the presentation intended for?
2. Who will read it?
3. And most importantly, who will make the final decision.

For example, you want to sell your idea to a company. You go to the purchasing department and hand over a presentation to a specialist. Most likely, he will twirl it in his hands, look at the pictures and give it to the head of the department or the owner. Because making a decision is their competence! 

So they will be the main target audience.

At the second stage, you need to understand what this person should do? Every convincing presentation leads to some targeted action, didn’t we just talk about ourselves and leave our contacts at the end? 

Come up with a specific Call-To-Action (call to action), and with benefits. 

Which one will get more responses? That's right, the first one! Because it brings benefits, and not just a request to call. 

After that, move on to the pains and needs of the target audience. Can you cope with the task yourself? Great! But if you have never conducted marketing research, it is better to entrust the question to a studio specialist.  

This concludes the preparatory activities. Now you can transfer the material to the agency: they will segment your target audience in more detail, identify their pain, needs, advantages of your product/service and reflect all this in the presentation itself.  

Text

The cost of a presentation depends on a number of components. One of them is text content. There may be 3 options here: 

1. Your text is completely ready to be placed on slides;
2. Adjustments required;
3. Content needs to be created from scratch. 

In the latter case, it is worth checking whether the studio has a copywriter. If its functions are performed by designers (who are more free), do not start cooperation. 

Perhaps, somewhere there are multi-armed specialists, but this is rather the exception than the norm. High-quality work is obtained where everyone does their own thing! An experienced copywriter should be in charge of writing the text, developing the structure and determining the density of information on the slides.  

And yes, if you order a text, be prepared to fill out a brief on the activities of your company. As a rule, it consists of several parts and includes questions on text and design. Take the filling responsibly: this is the basis of the entire project - from solving a problem to visualizing data. 

Infographics and photos

If complex infographics are required, immediately notify the studio about this and write this item in the technical specifications (TOR). This must be done at the start, otherwise the designer may refuse further cooperation in the midst of work or charge you an additional astronomical price. 

Sometimes the client himself does not know whether he needs infographics. Then the studio’s task is to help him figure it out. 

For example, you are promoting interesting equipment and understand that it must be shown in cross-section in the presentation. But you don’t have such a model in your design, you need to order it. This is what needs to be reflected in the brief and then the designer will offer options: pure 3D, visometry or something else.

Data visualization in business presentations is the direct task of illustrators. They can draw not only a section of a part or equipment, but also any of the most complex features that you want to display. 

The main thing is to say so right away! 

The same situation applies to photographs. It's good if you already have high-quality photos. If you don’t have them, you can buy them from a photo bank or organize a professional photo shoot.

Sometimes it happens that there are photos, but their quality leaves much to be desired. May require complex retouching. Imagine, your commercial premises are far from ideal, but you desperately need to show it off. What to do? Retouch the errors!

But this is an impressive piece of work and it’s also worth talking about right away. Because retouching one photo can cost more than the entire presentation. Yes, this happens too!

Such things must be discussed initially so that cooperation can proceed positively. Because you expect one thing from a designer, but he delivers something else. He may rightly refuse to continue working because unexpected details will emerge that are difficult/impossible to implement. 

So you risk being left broke (with an unfinished presentation) or overpaying at least three times! 

Conclusion: discuss all issues before signing the contract. Show the source material to the studio, ask questions. Check that the contract contains:

• exact amount;
• number of slides;
• scope of work: copywriting, marketing, design, layout. 

Good studios like Veonix, conduct an extensive interview to delve deeply into the client’s needs, identify all the details down to the smallest detail, and only then name the exact price and begin work. 

Presentation volume

The number of slides directly depends on the purpose of the presentation. The optimal volume for an online newsletter is no more than 8-10 slides. 

Printed formats have their own nuances. Such presentations should consist of a multiple of four slides, preferably 12 pages or more. Why is this so?

Imagine a booklet in the form of a book. It is logical that the number of its pages is a multiple of four: with double-sided printing, one sheet folded in half can accommodate 4 slides. This optimizes production costs. 

To print on a spring, the number of slides must be a multiple of two. In this case, a page-by-page booklet is made - 2 slides (on one side and the other) on 1 sheet. 

If you plan to print a presentation on a color printer according to the principle of one sheet - one slide (the reverse side is white), then there is no fundamental difference in how many stripes there will be.

And still the same conclusion: in order to count the number of pages of the printed version, you first need to decide on the type of presentation. 

Design

It’s easier, faster and cheaper to create a design based on a brand book (a marketing document that describes the attributes and concept of the brand, the company’s positioning, target audience). 

In this case, any decent studio will give you a discount, because you won’t have to invent something new, develop and approve the concept. As a rule, at least 3 concepts are created to agree on the design. And only one of them is being finalized.

If you don’t have a brand book, it doesn’t matter. You can choose the work or template that you like and ask the designer to adapt it to your niche. There are a lot of useful resources for this with excellent examples for every taste:

1. Behance is a community of millions of photographers, illustrators and designers where they share their work and experience;
2. Shutterstock is an American platform where you can buy or simply get inspired by photos, videos and music;
3. Depositphotos - photo stock of high-quality illustrations, photos/videos, vector images;
4. Creative Market is an online platform for selling graphics and photographs. 

If you don’t like anything and don’t even know what design you want, ask the design studio for a brief. Based on the information you present in it, it will become clear what you generally expect and it will be easier for designers to choose the appropriate option.  

Deadlines

Be sure to discuss this issue with the contractor. If a presentation is needed for an event on a specific date, it is better to play it safe and leave a gap of 2-3 days. Believe me, it’s more reliable this way! 

As a rule, the customer begins to burst out with brilliant ideas almost on the day of the presentation and asks to urgently justify the ideas, supported by the presentation slides, in a completely new way. When deadlines allow, there is more opportunity to do this without unnecessary hassle. 

We have had situations like this, more than once.

The event is ALREADY underway, there are 10 minutes left before the customer speaks. He writes to us: “Remove information X, insert Y instead. This is urgent!”

We managed this too. Although it is 100% better to make edits without stress!

We get excellent immunity by working with the public sector. For them, all changes occur dynamically. Today there are some numbers, tomorrow - others, and the next day the boss rushes with a report to the president and only the latest data is needed there. We have to redo everything. 

How to choose the right contractor

And here is the long-awaited checklist. It will help you recognize an irresponsible contractor in no time and will not let you waste your money:

1. Find real reviews on the Internet.

There are 2 proven options for this: 
a) study independent reviews,
b) create a questionnaire in a business group of social networks (for example, Websarafan on Facebook).

2. Check the age of the website domain. This can be easily done using the services: Whois, SeoLik, Serpsstat. Some companies, which are a couple of months old, shamelessly talk (and don’t blush!) about dozens of years of experience.
3. Analyze the studio’s work for uniqueness. Yandex pictures will help you, you don’t need to do anything else with it.
4. Inspect the contractor for the cleanliness of the legal entity. Is he involved in legal disputes as a defendant? There are special services for this too - Google it.
5. Understand every clause of the contract. If any of them is suspicious, have it checked by a lawyer. 
6. Ask how many designers are on staff. Is there an art director and will it be possible, if necessary, to change the designer if his style does not suit you.
7. Specify who will write the text (this point is relevant when ordering a turnkey presentation). If there is no full-time copywriter in the studio and everyone writes the texts, including the cleaning lady, run away without looking back.
8. Require signing of an NDA (non-disclosure agreement). This will guarantee that your presentation with secret data (if, of course, you plan to post it) will not end up in your portfolio for everyone to see.

And don’t forget about such things as intuition and comfort of communication. If you are rude already on the first “date” or are not told something, then you are unlikely to wait for any adjustments, or even the entire presentation.  

Let's summarize?

Now you know how to avoid getting into bad company. We have nothing against freelancers; there are often responsible guys among them. But still, developing a presentation is a collective, thoughtful work. It’s better to order it in a studio that has:

• a marketer who does deep analysis;
• a copywriter who writes competent, selling texts;
• designer who creates creatives with a WOW effect;
• an art director who controls the designer so that he doesn’t get lost;
• layout designer who makes clear layout.

It is clear that the price will be slightly higher than that of a freelancer, but the quality is heaven and earth!

Haven't decided on a graphic design studio yet? Start with Veonix and we are sure you won’t want to look for anyone else!