How to Deliver an Incredible Client Presentation
Often times the way you sell your work is as important as the quality of the work itself. Discussing project details is the easy part — you’ve already spent hours conceptualizing, creating and sharing your ideas internally. Aesthetically pleasing visuals will catch your client’s attention, but if you’re not armed with background and strategy, aware of your end goal, and deliberate about the sequence and delivery of your work, the visuals alone won’t keep your ship afloat.
Delivering a successful and comprehensive client presentation is about pacing, telling a story and creating a comfortable space for conversation.
To get off on the right foot, it’s important to allow time for set up and expectation setting before diving into the work. This will ensure your clients are receptive and will allow you to walk away with actionable feedback.
What’s the set up?
Context is key. Participants — often in different roles, companies and potentially different time zones — are coming together to hear what you have to say. Some work on multiple different clients, others aren’t as ingrained in creative as you. It’s important to remind your audience of what this meeting is for and the overarching subject matter you’ll be discussing. This is the time to reference what you were tasked to accomplish and how you’ve met your goal.
If it feels genuine, I like to express my excitement to the client, to let them know I’m proud of the work we put together and get them engaged.
At this point, it might be appropriate to refer back to the creative brief and talk a bit about the audience insights you’re working off of or other pertinent strategic decisions that influenced the work.
In addition to data-driven decisions, express the values or emotions the work is meant to reach. Speak to the visual motifs they can expect to see throughout and why they were chosen.
What other expectations should you set?
Setting expectations can influence whether a presentation is successful or not. If the work is pretty much ready for market, let the client know how much work has already gone into it. If the concepts are still in a rough stage, express that it’s a work in progress and want them to weigh in on the ground floor.
Is there specific feedback you’re looking to receive? Ask them to pay special attention to specific ideas or aspects of the concepts. For example, maybe you want them to focus more on design than the specifics of copy at this stage. This will give both you and the client clearer understanding of what you want to walk away with at the end of the meeting.
I always like to remind my clients that their opinion matters. Even if we are showing polished work that we’ve met internally about a dozen times, the client needs to feel there’s room for their opinions. However, it is important to establish the creative team is the creative expert and make it known how deliberately the work was created.
When’s the time for client feedback?
In addition to the specific feedback you’re looking for, make sure you establish how and when you’d like them to deliver this feedback. Your client needs to be given time to react to the work and you also don’t want to be interrupted in the middle of your sentence.
One presentation style is to talk through everything consecutively, holding client for the end. In this scenario, you’d go through each slide, then start back at the top to talk through each concept.
I am personally not a fan of this approach. You want your client to feel like this is a dialogue and not a scripted performance. You don’t want your client have to to hold onto a pertinent question that they’ll be stuck on for the rest of the presentation.
I prefer the “pull over” approach. I establish that we’ll pause after each concept to allow for questions and feedback.
This approach develops a more collaborative environment and natural back-and-forth. I also find I can answer client questions more easily when I’ve just finished pitching this specific idea rather than wrapping back around to it after talking through other projects.
In what order should I present my ideas?
I promise you, everyone will have a different opinion on this subject. Some people have a preferred method that feels comfortable for them, others adapt their presentation style depending on which client they’re speaking to. Here are a few approached I’ve come across.
Mild to wild
Are your clients conservative with their creative approach or less likely to go for big, out-of-the-box ideas? One approach is to start with your more moderate ideas that are agreeable and non-controversial. For clients that are very data-driven or bottom-line conscious, presenting your safe concepts first could show you’re listening to their needs and expectations and working within their bounds. As the presentation goes on, your ideas can start to become more ambitious or non-conventional. This will demonstrate that you understand their baseline desires, but that you and your team can think big and differently, and if they’re willing to push out of their comfort zone and take a risk, it could reap big rewards.
Start strong
Do your clients get really excited about creative and tend recommend grandiose ideas? Try starting your presentation with a big “wow”. This will get your client on their feet and excited about what you have to show them.
This is a good approach if you might run out of time — maybe meetings with this client tend to get derailed or you have more work to show than you expect to fit in the meeting timeframe. You don’t want to save the best for last if there’s a chance you may not make it to the finish line. Even if everything goes as planned, there’s a chance that by the last couple concepts, you’ve lost your client’s full attention.
If you take this approach, the risk is having the presentation turn into a “snooze-fest”. Position later, safer concepts in a way that’s still exciting. Maybe you highlight how true to the brand vision the idea is and how you’re sure it’ll perform well in market.
First impressions are important, but last impressions matter too. You want your client to walk away feeling invigorated about the work you shared.
Tell a story
Is your client generally receptive to the work you show? Both the “mild to wild” and “start strong” approaches are a bit anticipatory and often stem from a client’s previous (potentially negative) reaction to an earlier presentation. But if you feel your client understands the creative process well and trusts your expertise, I recommend the “tell a story” approach.
Just like a conversation, it’s important for a presentation to flow naturally. You don’t start telling a story about that time you went to Bali and in the next breath talk about your neighbors new puppy.
Forming natural transitions where possible will help your client follow your thought process. You’re not asking them to completely switch gears from one concept to the next.
Try thinking of each concept as a story – who’s the story about (what audience are you speaking to), where does the story take place (what channel(s) is being used), what happens in the story (what are the individual elements in the concept), and lastly, what’s the story about (what message are you trying to convey). Find the common bonds between your ideas and use their similarities and differences as a transition method from one to the other.
The work itself
Make sure to reference the deliberate choices you made.
As designers, we don’t often include elements just because they “look good”. Mention font or color choices, or why you chose a certain subject or style of photo. Being able to articulate your decisions will remind the client that the work you make is functional and purposeful.
Many clients are influenced by strategy and market research.
If the work was influenced by hard data, make sure to mention this. It bolsters your already beautiful work and can sell less visually savvy clients on your idea.
Always wrap back around to the core purpose of why you created this work.
Remember that the idea or concept itself is not about an individual execution or element. What problem does the work solve? Why do you believe it will perform well? Who it’s appealing to and what core values or emotions does it elicit? Contextualizing your work will make your client more apt to sign off the concept, and the questions and comments you receive will be more essential and actionable.
Take your time.
You’ve spent hours thinking about and creating this work, but remember that this is the first time your clients have had the opportunity to see it. Give them adequate time to both process it visually and synchronize it with the supporting information you’re discussing.
Stand by your ideas.
Clients are going to have feedback and changes, and it’s important that your vision and the client’s vision align. You need to be flexible, not take critique personally and be willing to concede. But there’s a way to accept their feedback and still stand your ground. If it’s an idea or aspect of an idea worth fighting for, fight for it. Establish yourself as the expert, prepare for the meeting by anticipating some potential questions, and be armed with strong context and reasoning for the choices you made.
Be professional and personal.
It’s important to be professional, but no one wants to feel like they’re sitting through a lecture. It’s important to make a personal connection with your clients as well — so loosen up! If there’s time at the beginning or end of the meeting to shoot the breeze, do so. Try thinking of your next presentation as an opportunity for collaboration and connection.
Final thoughts
Trust that you know the work better than anyone. Instead of focusing on executionary bullet points, make sure you’re thinking big picture. Brush up on brand mission and how the work fits in the current market. Know your audience, strategy and end-goal objectives. You need to convince your client that the incredible work you made solves an important problem. If you position your work — and the presentation itself — in a logical and meaningful manner, more of your ideas will make it to market and your client relationship will grow for the better!
Do you have a favorite method of presentation? Are there any points you disagree with or have additional presentation advice? I’d love to hear your feedback!
