Transcription
I took a thousand real Mackenzie slides and uploaded them to ChatGPT. Then I just asked it a bunch of questions, and the answers that it gave me were actually really helpful.
I started by just finding as many real slides as I could get my hands on from places like Mackenzie's website, but also from a website called slidestart.com, which is basically like a database of real consulting slides. I compiled them all together, uploaded them to ChatGPT, and gave it some basic instructions. And then I just started asking my questions. I asked things like, "What's the most common slide layout? What's the average number of words on a slide? What chart do they use the most?"
Then I took all the best answers and data points, compiled them all together into a list of insights that I thought would actually be helpful.
Insight number one: Titles are conclusions, not labels. The average length of a title on a Mackenzie slide, at least from this data set, was 14 words, which looks like this. Obviously, there were some that were pretty long, like this one, and some that were also pretty short. But what almost all of them had in common is they were all descriptive. In fact, the GPT tells me 72% of the slides use active voice, result-oriented titles. The whole idea is they're not just trying to transfer information from their brain to your brain. They're trying to tell you why that information actually matters.
When you do it this way, you're able to tell a clear and consistent story from slide to slide. Notice how when you put these three slides together, it completes a narrative. First slide is about how companies have put innovation on the back burner during crises like COVID. But then the next slide talks about how companies who invest in innovation during these times actually tend to outperform their peers. Then the last slide continues by talking about how they generate higher economic profit. These three slides together, even though they're each separate ideas, flow really nicely because of these descriptive titles. One slide leads to the next, and you tell a nice, consistent, cohesive story.
Insight number two: Every slide has one job. 62% of slides delivered one clear, easy-to-understand message. Here's a perfect example: "74% of vulnerable jobs pay less than $40,000 a year." Very simple, clear takeaway reflected in the title and supported by the charts below it. Now, when I brought in the definition to include compound messages or titles like this one that kind of talk about two points under a single theme, then that number was more like 76%. But regardless of how you define what's a single message versus multiple messages, what's clear is that they weren't afraid to use slides. That's because when you use one slide for one message, you put an emphasis on that message without focusing on anything else. This is actually a really good example. So, this slide says, "Tech companies greatly outperformed companies from other sectors." But notice how the second part of that message is put into a completely different slide. While their profile changed, most top 10 tech companies in 2019 are digital attackers. They could have very easily combined this into a single slide, but instead, they split it out into multiple slides. One slide, one message.
Insight number three: Slides should be simple and clear. For this set of slides, the average number of words on a slide was 100 words, which is not that much. To give you an example, this slide right here is 108 words. You've got a main chart in the middle with a little bit of supporting text on the right. And of course, you've got a title on the top. According to the GPT, only about 15% of the slides were considered dense, which they define as greater than 200 words. And a lot of these slides were just appendix slides. Of course, you had really dense slides like this one right here, which is about 500 words. But then on the other end of the spectrum, you have slides like this. This one's only 46 words. And this connects with the idea of one slide, one message. You have an unlimited number of slides, so just emphasize one thing at a time. And one way they do that is by putting a big, bold, easy-to-understand chart right in the center of the slide.
Insight number four is that they repeated a lot of the same layouts. I took a look at all the different layouts that they used, and according to the GPT, just four layouts accounted for about 70% of all the slides they used. And that's not just within one single presentation. That's across the whole data set. The most common layout accounted for 29.7% of all the slides. And that was just a single chart slide. Basic descriptive title on the top, and then a chart right in the middle of the slide. And again, this goes back to the idea of simplicity. One chart, one message, clear descriptive title. The underlying analysis might be somewhat complex, but they're not trying to be complex with how they present that information. They want you to understand it and understand what to do with that information.
Next, most common layout was actually very similar: just a single chart on the left with bullet points on the right. And this accounted for 18.7% of all slides. Then after that, you had the two-column comparison slide, which accounted for 12.1% of all slides. And then lastly, what I call a table slide, which accounted for 10.4% of all slides. These slides can be great when you're trying to put a whole bunch of information into a single slide. In a separate YouTube video, I actually covered all the major chart types that consulting firms tend to use, so if you're interested, make sure you check that out.
The next insight that was very obvious was that they use a lot of visuals. 71% of slides contained a chart of some kind. And when you include visual frameworks in that number, it jumps closer to 80%. And this just connects with the broadly accepted idea that it's better to show someone than to tell someone. But then number two, people tend to trust information when you've got hard numbers. And those numbers are easier to understand in a chart. But even when they didn't have numbers, a lot of times they would use a chart to visually explain an idea. They'd show different phases and maturity levels and things that just can be difficult to understand when you only use text.
By the way, if you're looking to build your own high-quality, clear, and sharp template, I have the perfect recommendation. It's a company called Preslab. Preslab's a strategic presentation consultancy that helps consultants, corporates, and government teams transform their ideas into clear, structured, and impactful presentations. They do a really good job of making slides that are not just pretty and nice to look at, but well-structured, easy to follow, and, to be honest, consistent with the principles we teach at Analyst Academy. I'm actually in the process of working with them right now and I've been super impressed. Here's a quick peek at the slides we've been putting together. And as you can tell, it looks really good. As you can imagine, I'm very particular about the design and the structure and everything about my slides, and they've been very open to feedback while also providing direction. I really enjoyed working with Preslab. So, if you or your company is looking to level up your presentations and just give them that extra design and extra structure impact that your clients are looking for, then make sure you check them out. I'll include a link down in the description below.
Insight number six: Bar charts, bar charts, bar charts. Bar charts were the most commonly used chart by far. We teach a lot of data visualization at Analyst Academy, so I assumed that bar charts would be the most commonly used chart, but I didn't realize how common. So, of all the charts that were used, bar charts made up 40%. And just by number of slides, one in three slides had a bar chart in it. And when I say bar chart, I mean both horizontal and vertical, so column charts included. But even still, that's a lot of bar charts.
Next most common chart was a line chart: 15.9% of all charts were line charts. And I don't have data to back this up, but it seems to me like Mackenzie tends to really like line charts more than other companies, so I can imagine this number is maybe even higher than normal. Next is waterfall charts at 10.8%. I tend to see a lot of waterfall charts in consulting slides. That's because they're good for a couple of different reasons. They show you how to get from one value to another, but they're also useful for showing the breakdown of a given value. That's because you can separate each of the different subcomponents of the value, and it's just really clear and easy to understand. Again, going back to this idea of taking complex topics or data and making them simple for the audience and putting them on one slide.
Number seven: One chart is enough. I told you earlier that 71.4% of slides had at least one chart. Well, it turns out 42.9% of all the slides had one chart. That means about 59% of slides that used a chart only used one chart. Again, simplicity is king. In case you're curious, by the way, about 15% of slides used two charts, and the rest of the slides with charts were three, four, or more charts, but those were pretty rare.
Next insight was to use callouts on your chart. About 72% of the charts had some kind of callout. Of course, all the charts had basic information around units and timeline and that sort of thing, but a lot of them went this extra mile to provide either a text callout or some sort of visual callout to help explain the information or to call attention to a specific part of the chart that was most important.
Then, aside from all this, there was a bunch of other observations that I don't necessarily have data for, but that I thought was pretty interesting and helpful. Number one was just their minimal use of colors. Certainly within a given presentation, there wasn't a wide range of colors, but then even across slides, they didn't use a bunch of different colors. And when they did use color, they used it very intentionally, either to call attention to a specific insight or they use shading to communicate a message, things like that.
Second, but related observation, is just the design consistency, again, within each presentation, but also from slide to slide. Their icons in particular, they all follow the same design language. They used a lot of the same colors, and it was just sort of distraction-free. And this is what you get when you have a really strong and consistent template.
And then lastly, just a good use of top-down communication. Of course, they put the description in the title, but then that message sort of broke down into subtitles or different sections of the slide. They tended to follow this kind of grid layout that just made the information easy to understand and easy to follow. Again, just this idea of taking complex topics and making them simple.
So, if you want to build better slides, write clear titles. Make sure your slides are simple. Don't overload the audience visually. Usually, one or two charts is best when you're trying to communicate a message. Make sure you have a general level of consistency and design language. And then lastly, most importantly, make sure you're focusing on the insights. Why does this information matter for your audience? If you're interested in learning more about consulting slide layouts, make sure you check out this video on the screen where we talk about the five most common layouts and exactly when to use them.