When I started off as an Investment Banking Analyst, I had a fantastic Vice President that played no games when it came to presentations. If you had large blank space on the page, what he called “Real Estate”, he would draw a house and even add a few shrubs so that the "abandoned" space was in use. Yeah, it definitely wasn’t funny at the time but looking back, it really paid off. Every time I was working on a presentation, his words would echo in my head, “Ijay, remember it’s all about the Look and Feel”.
The impact was that I learned very early that a well-formatted presentation with the right infographic actually got an emotional response from clients. So even if the content was not yet there, if it looked good, the client is more willing to take the journey to the final form with you. The effect was my reputation as a slide ninja so I needed to make sure I was on top of my game constantly.
How does this connect to my freelance journey? Well, the goal of a side hustle or freelancing is working on your own terms, financial independence and getting more clients. As millennials, we are taking this gig economy by storm. So what better way to retain client s than delivering freelance projects that are visually on point each time. That's how I keep them coming back!
Instead of simple bullets points in powerpoint:
Here’s what I would do:
...And my clients appreciate it.
To save you time when creating a masterpiece, Ijay, your unofficial Slide Ninja is sharing 5 resources you absolutely NEED to make your life easier:
There! The secret is out. Let me know if you use these and how they work for you.
Happy Freelancing!
xx
Ijay
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