154 Consulting

We have been very lucky to recently wrap up a project with Denise Lee Yohn, who partners with her client firms to help close the gap between brand promise and business execution (see note below).

Working with Denise was not only a pleasure, it also provided us with lots to think about. Her work suggests that a company's brand cannot be separated from the day to day work of the employees of the company - and that ensuring that there's no gap between the two is what makes for successful brands.

154 Consulting is a fast-growing company that helps people make better presentations. We work with our clients to make more effective arguments and develop the collateral (slides, handouts, and leave behinds) that support their audiences’ decisions.

We are seeking two key team members on a contract basis:

Client Relationship Manager: The client relationship manager will be a point person for 154 projects. Responsibilities will include developing and monitoring project deadlines, managing day-to-day contact with clients, and coordinating all aspects of a series of projects.

Here at 154 Consulting, we have been receiving a healthy number of requests to offer a public workshop on designing presentations.

At first, we were skeptical that there was a need. Then we scanned the market.

We found many speech coaches and media trainers offering short public speaking workshops. We've seen several of these, and they're very good, but they're not focused on structuring a great presentation.

After a new client emails or calls us, we kick off our project work by reviewing our process overview document. We use this document both to give a sense of how we work and to set deadlines for each of the project's deliverables. While it's specific to how we work, others building presentations may find some use from it, which is why we've posted it here.

Unclutterer has a recent post on organizing meetings - it's not solely about presetations, but it provides an occasion to note that good meetings and good presentations both focus on getting a decision made.

Several recent correspondents have wondered where 154 Consulting is located. While the question is of course a reasonable one, I've been resisting putting our location on the website, as we're eager to work with clients in almost any location. One of our team has often travelled to meet with clients onsite, and we will happily continue to do so.

Our headquarters, however, is in New York. If you contract with us, most of the work will be carried out either at your location or in New York, though some of our team is not local (and, for what it's worth, I often work from South Dakota).

Andrew Abela, a presentation consultant, has been blogging about academic and scientific research on presentations (see his most recent post The Science of Effective Presentation ). Dr. Abela and I were at the Corporate Executive Board at the same time, but never worked together. His approach is somewhat different from the 154 Consulting approach, but I'll look forward to the book he's writing with interest.

To get a sense of the type of presentation 154 Consulting offers, view our Sample Presentation.

There are several extra text slides in this web version of the presentation that wouldn't be in the presentation if it were being presented live, giving it a feel similar to Lawrence Lessig's excellent presentations. For more on Lessig, view our Presentation Resources & Diagnostics.

154 Consulting has been getting a fair number of requests from potential clients about presentation training. The training we offer takes the form of an onsite presentation to your team. We request that the audience have roughly the same seniority, and that each audience have no more than thirty attendees. Sessions vary in length and in the amount of interaction that happens during the session. While each session is customized to the needs of the particular client, a basic outline might look something like:

Part 1: Overview and basic principles
•The importance of presentations

I sat in on a client's meeting yesterday at the Georgia Tech Global Learning Center. It's a nice facility with both "ballroom" style setups auditorium-like classrooms. But it's the facility's motto, not the facility itself, that really caught my attention.

Plastered across the front of the podium during the session, and on many many other surfaces in the facility, was the motto: "When meeting outcomes matter."