Shownotes
5 Key Takeaways
- Slides should support the speaker without saying what the speaker says verbatim.The purpose of slides isn’t to duplicate what the speaker says. Instead, they should reinforce the message and help the audience understand and remember key ideas.
- Visual storytelling improves how audiences absorb information.Effective presentations use visuals to clarify concepts, highlight important points, and guide the audience through the narrative rather than overwhelming them with text.
- Text-heavy slides are one of the most common presentation mistakes.Many professionals, especially in data-driven fields like financial services, pack slides with information, which can distract audiences and dilute the speaker’s message. The less words the better!
- Aligning visuals with the story can transform a presentation.When slides are redesigned to match the flow of the speaker’s message, presentations become clearer, audiences engage more deeply, and speakers often feel more confident.
- Small changes to slides can make an immediate impact.Speakers can start improving their presentations by simplifying slides, reducing unnecessary content, and asking whether each visual truly supports the message they want the audience to remember.
Transcripts
back to the Speaker Success Toolkit, a special mini series of financial behavior thought leaders. I'm Mary Bell Carlson. In our last episode, we talked about writing a talk that's clear, compelling, and memorable. Well, today we're building directly on that foundation because once your message is clear, how you support it visually becomes the multiplier. Slides can either elevate a talk or quietly undermine it. That's why I'm so excited to talk.
today with Justin Huntsecker. Justin is a presentation coach who helps speakers transform cluttered, text-heavy decks into a visual of tools that support the story and strength the delivery. Justin, I'm so glad you're part of the series. Thanks for being here.
Justin Hunsaker (:Thanks, Mary. I've loved working with you over the past couple of years and I'm excited to make it on the podcast finally. Thanks for inviting me.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Well, glad you're here. Justin, you built a career around helping people rethink how they use their slides and really present the best way possible. But I want to back it up for a second. How did you get into this world of presentation design?
Justin Hunsaker (:I have talked to a lot of people who are in the communication space and it is a twisting path most of us come to get here and mine was particularly strange. So I was a mathematician by training as an undergraduate who loved computers. I eventually got a master's in computers and I was a software engineer. And so the path to go from being a software engineer to a communication expert, you can imagine that is quite a path. there were some little
hints early on. And even though I was a software engineer, whenever the software engineering team had to share some bad news with leadership, they would always kind of volunteer Justin to be the one to go to the communication. I was making these slides explaining this bad news. And the whole time I was very reluctant. I was thinking, why am I spending time communicating with leaders? I should be
Mary Bell Carlson (:you
Justin Hunsaker (:programming, I should be fixing bugs, like that's what they're paying me to do. And yet I ended up spending like 10, 20 % of my time just talking to people and communicating and explaining stuff and making sure everybody was on the same page. And it wasn't until I got ⁓ my business degree that I began to really see the value and importance of communication. And when I went to work at Capital One, I was an analyst. But again, it wasn't that you were an expert and that you knew the answer.
It was how effectively could you communicate the answer? And at Capital One, I started teaching the Creating Effective Presentations day-long class that they developed in-house internally, I helped develop. And it was one of the highest rated and most requested classes at Capital One. And now you see all the seeds of what eventually would become. It still took me decades to realize that what I really should be doing is communication full-time.
Mary Bell Carlson (:you
Justin Hunsaker (:but you can start to see all the seeds as they were planted.
Mary Bell Carlson (:huh.
That's a really unique path. Most software developers, I'm guessing, don't go into communication. Like they purposely go into software development so they don't have to communicate with other people, right?
Justin Hunsaker (:Cough
Right. They can be
coding late at night, two in the morning, nobody's around and they can code, eat their burrito and be happy and not have, and let the, let the code speak for itself. But yeah, I, at first I was reluctant and then I started gravitating more and more to being the communicator, to being the connector. And that's a really important role. And eventually in, in computers, they've kind of realized that and they've created a role called the product owner. And
Mary Bell Carlson (:Hahaha
Justin Hunsaker (:I really think of the product owner as the chief communicator. They need to talk to the business, they need to talk to the software engineers, and they need to talk to the customer. And then they sit in the middle of all that and explain everything they've learned to everybody. And so you speak a different language when you're talking to software engineers versus the customer versus the business. So anyway, I did that for a number of years.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Well, you're a pioneer in
that way. Did you realize that? Like here you were, they've created a position. You didn't even know it. You're one of the first to have it. I love it. So you, I really want to hone in on this experience you've had with Capital One. You spent years at Capital One teaching courses, teaching people how to communicate. What did you notice early on that people consistently struggled?
Justin Hunsaker (:Well, I would say that it's the very first chapter of the book that my business partner and I just published, which is presentation pitfalls, 10 traps business professionals fall into, and how to avoid them. And the very first trap we talk about is the Frankenstein trap. And so what people will do is they'll usually have a number of decks. And they maybe used one deck to present to Mary and another deck to present to Justin.
but they're finally having to go to present to a new person and they start pulling slides from the previous decks. And it ends up looking like some sort of Frankenstein monster because it's all these different slides kind of bolted together. And the solution to the Frankenstein problem is what we humbly call the platinum rule of presentations. And that is your presentation should be uniquely designed for your audience.
Mary Bell Carlson (:huh.
Justin Hunsaker (:and your purpose and your setting every time. And so the number one problem you ask me is what goes wrong? Usually people are creating a deck that tells the story of how they were convinced about the thing they want to talk about. You need to build a slide deck that convinces your audience of the same thing. And that path is usually very different. ⁓
Mary Bell Carlson (:I love it.
Justin Hunsaker (:you were an expert and you've studied and you know the details and you want to show that to your audience. You're like, look at all this math and all the work I did. Your audience is not expert. You do not have time to make them an expert. And so you need a different way of convincing them. And so that is the number one problem.
Mary Bell Carlson (:⁓ well, I'm going to dive in and ask my next question then because this is a chicken and egg problem that especially speakers go back and forth on. Does the script come first or does the slide deck come first? Any thoughts on that?
Justin Hunsaker (:⁓ how interesting. What we help people do is we say the storyboard comes first. And that's neither the script or the presentation. In fact, we like to use ⁓ sticky notes. ⁓ And so we say, OK, let's get out all your sticky notes and let's storyboard out just like you would the Lion King or James Bond or the Sound of Music. What visual and what message do you want for
Mary Bell Carlson (:Okay.
Justin Hunsaker (:every step in the story. It can also include what body language are you going to include? What are you going to say? But let's storyboard that all out because it's very easy to change a sticky note. It takes a lot of work to revamp your slides. It takes a lot of work to revamp your script. So let's start with a storyboard. They're very easy to move around. And you can also do my favorite thing in the world when you're doing a storyboard, which is you find a slide and you're like, ah, this isn't the, you can crumple that slide up.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
you
Justin Hunsaker (:and you can throw it away. And you didn't have to put any effort or work into it, except for just writing on a little sticky note. Saves you so much time. So neither visuals nor script, I would start with a storyboard and notice it has the word story in it. That's the next thing. What are the big stories you're going to tell? I want the script to revolve around the big stories. I want the deck to revolve around the big stories.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Yeah. I love that.
Yeah.
So my guess though is you start with the outcome, right? Or what are you wanting the audience to hear? What's the thought, the solution? You don't have to write the introduction. You don't have to write the conclusion. Those usually come last, just like in a book. You're getting to the content first. Where do you go with that path?
Justin Hunsaker (:Sure.
After you have a storyboard, after you've put everything down as a storyboard, I would start showing it to people and start talking through it with people at that point. It is the best time to get feedback before you've even started to make slides or start writing a script. But in that, you'll naturally start, as you're showing people, you'll naturally start saying elements of your script. And when you get a really great turn of the phrase or
Mary Bell Carlson (:Hmm.
Justin Hunsaker (:when you're talking to somebody and you're saying, and here's, I'm going to tell the story about my mother. and you'll start to remember, oh, I need to say these words. I need to, this was really emotional and important. And you'll start to be able to collect little nuggets of wisdom as you go, but present it as a storyboard to some people and get their feedback early. At that point, I think it's kind of dealer's choice. Do you start making slides or do you start writing a script?
I get both ways. I tend to start with slides, but I understand a lot of people start straight with script and then move to slides after that. I've seen both.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Yeah.
Well, and I think it's a lot of how your brain works, right? Are you a visual learner or do you want that more written word? Some people are prolific writers and can write that script verbatim in terms of me. Sometimes I need the visual side to really make it come together. Go ahead.
Justin Hunsaker (:Yes. I, I, everything you said is
right, except for you've used a term that's largely been debunked by communication experts. We don't believe there are such things as visual learners versus conversational learners versus any, any attempts to replicate studies that have claimed that usually end up saying everybody is every type of learner.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Please tell me.
Justin Hunsaker (:And the more different ways you present the information, the more they're likely to remember it. can I give a little, let me, I'm gonna talk. So everything you said was still right. You need visuals, but there aren't just people out there who, there are people who claim I'm a visual learner. Again, science hasn't really replicated that. let me, I'm gonna do a little history lesson. Homo sapiens are part of a group called hominids.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Yeah, please jump in, keep going.
Yeah.
Okay.
Justin Hunsaker (:And hominids have been around for millions of years. And if you go back millions of years ago, hominids communicated with gestures, facial expression, primitive vocalizations, kind of like you would see animals do today. Around 200,000 years ago, homo sapiens emerged. And homo sapiens had a couple of things different. One, we had a change to our biology. Our larynx had descended a little bit, which gave us a greater vocalization range. And we also had a genetic.
change, we had something called the language gene. It's the FoxP2 gene, which allowed fine motor control, allowed us to speak in fine variations in a way that animals can't, right? Like if you have a dog, if you're a dog person, you can't really teach your dog to say hello. It just can't, even if you wanted to, it can't do the vocalizations. It doesn't have the fine motor control to do that. Okay. So that was about 200,000 years ago.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Right.
Justin Hunsaker (:100,000 years ago, we start seeing evidence of what we call symbolic thinking. Homo sapiens, we find things like beads and body paint if we do archeology. And other animals don't use things like that. And what that means to us is those must have meant something. Those must have stood for something, right? A little bit of symbology. 70,000 years ago, we know language got more complex. 35,000 years ago, cave paintings started coming out.
visualization started being important 8 000 years ago petroglyphs symbology in cave paintings right the it wasn't just a painting of something you would see the paintings had some symbolism to it 5.5 000 years ago proto-language three and a half thousand years ago alphabets developed so here's the way we talk about it we try to convince people using modern language which has only been around for about 5 000 years
Don't forget to use body language, which has been around for millions of years. Don't forget to use visuals, which have been around for 70,000 years. Our brains evolved for years and years to understand and intuit that information. Don't skip any of it. Include all of it when you're being, you're trying to be your most effective. And if you don't really love the evolutionary story, just think about how kids develop, right? When kids first develop, they're very focused on body language.
and little sounds and then they get very focused on books and pictures and then they start doing single word sentences then they start doing complicated sentences. Don't ignore the inner child of your audience. Use the visualizations. We still love them. We still need them.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Well, and what I hear you saying is this is all threaded together. So as a speaker, it's not like you can separate out and say, this is what I'm going to perfect today. Like I'm only working on my slides. Well, slides play into your body language, how the audience is interpreting it, what they're hearing, what they're listening. So I love that this very interconnected, we like to make things simple and say, well, I'm just doing the script. I'm just doing the slides. I'm just doing this. And you're really not. It's a, it's a very complicated, complex.
Justin Hunsaker (:you
Mary Bell Carlson (:connection that over time as you perfect that art and I would call it an art, right? It develops over time and as you continue to work that and rework it, even the same presentation, and we've all seen that, you can start with a, like you said, the storyboard shell, practice, practice, practice, but man, even I've seen great speakers give good speeches and really work their tails off and the next year give a great speech. Same speech.
Justin Hunsaker (:Mm, but they had to perfect it. Yeah. And that's what the science backs up is when all of those different elements align, your body language, the words you're saying, the visuals you're using, the stories you're telling, when all of that aligns, that's when people have the best memory of retention about what you said. And that's when it's the most powerful. If one of those is off,
Mary Bell Carlson (:but perfect it, right? Take into the next level.
Justin Hunsaker (:That's what they notice. becomes this disharmony. And so, you you've probably seen some facts out there that say something like nonverbal communication is 70 % of communication. Now, the study was a lot more complicated. What it actually said is when nonverbals don't agree with verbals, what are people most likely to pay attention to? And the answer was 70 % more focused on nonverbals. And so it's not that nonverbals are more important. It's
Mary Bell Carlson (:sure.
Justin Hunsaker (:When you have a disjunctive message, they're going to pay attention to nonverbals. They're going to pay attention to your visuals, not the words you're saying. And so you've got to make sure all these things align. And that's part of what makes a great talk.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Well, I heard this said once and I've loved the analogy. It says you can't listen to the radio and read the newspaper at the same time and get something out of both. And so let's take that analogy and apply it to my real question is what role should slides play? Because sometimes we have slides that literally you're reading the newspaper and listen to radio at the same time as the speaker. What are your thoughts?
Justin Hunsaker (:you
Hmm.
You're getting to a question of how much text is too much text? Because for me, slides primarily should be playing a visual and a storytelling purpose. Now, I do like some text on my slides. I would say, if I'm gonna give a rule of thumb, I would say you should have one sentence.
that is explaining the main point of your slide, and you should make that sentence as short as possible. That's a minimum. And then maybe you might have a couple other sentences. But when I see a slide that's just a wall of text, bunch of, like, that is a huge signal to noise problem. Are you familiar with the concept? I should explain signal to noise for the audience. it's an electrical engineering, an engineering concept, and... ⁓
Mary Bell Carlson (:Okay.
Yes, dude, jump in.
Justin Hunsaker (:Imagine you're listening to a baseball game on the radio and the radio has a little bit of static. Well, that's noise. It's getting in the way of your understanding, but the speaker, the call of the game, the crack of the bat, the roar of the crowd, that's all signal. And if you're in a noisy room, maybe with kids running around, that's noise. So signal to noise ratio is
Mary Bell Carlson (:Mmm.
Justin Hunsaker (:How much of clear information are you trying to convey? And the noise is, what's getting in the way of that? And so if we kind of go back to this idea of text, you only want a couple sentences on a slide because anything else is going to result in them spending time reading the slide. And then your talking is noise. Or they're listening to you but wanting to read the slide. And then the slide is noise.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Yeah.
Justin Hunsaker (:And so you really have to be like, you'd want to be, you want to have some text. I see a lot of Ted talks are really text light and I think they're leaving some opportunity on the table when they do that. like a good, really powerful, so what sentence, not just a word, not just a feeling. I want a really powerful, so what sentence that when written in somebody's native language, they almost can't help, but read it.
And so if you have that on a slide, every time the reader, your audience will glance at it, they'll read it real quick and then they'll listen to you. And the visual can then help be part of the storytelling. Like to me, that's the perfect world. And Mary, I know I was a little bit all over the place. I think I answered some of your questions, but where do you, where, should I fine tune or be more specific?
Mary Bell Carlson (:Well,
I want to go in. the text is very helpful to have that in context. think a lot of times when people think of slides, they think of pictures, right? Or visuals. So can we spend a little time on visuals and what that, what are your recommendations for visuals? How should they support it?
Justin Hunsaker (:Mmm.
I would say,
yeah, I would say. ⁓
Big, bold visuals. Sometimes people put a bunch of little tiny postage stamp pictures. because they're trying to convey a lot of different pieces together. I would go with one big picture any day of the week. Pictures are really emotive. People love to connect with other humans. So the more that you can do visuals about other people, the more that's gonna draw people in, the more that it supports their story. So images right off the bat.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Mmm.
Justin Hunsaker (:Very powerful. The next powerful type of visualization, would say, is frameworks. So in a good talk, you're probably going to be making like three key points. Those three key points are connected somehow. Maybe they occurred in a sequence. Maybe there's a priority to them. Maybe they're all part of a triangle and each are equally important.
the way those points are connected, create a visualization that shows not just the key points, but how they're connected. And that becomes a great way to start and end your talk. And it becomes a very memorable way for somebody to say, ⁓ I remember Mary gave a great talk and she had these three points and they were all important, but they were in a triangle. And it gives a way for people to help remember. So images are great visualizations. Frameworks are great visualizations.
And then graphs and charts for the really nerdy of us. Like the, I still love them. mean, I was software engineer. was a bank analyst. I still love data. I've started to use data as it used to be my go-to very first place. It's now I sprinkle it in there, like a little bit of spice to make sure people know, yes, I'm an expert. Yes, I have data, but it isn't my first go-to. My first go-to is going to be big images.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Hmm.
Justin Hunsaker (:and big visualized frameworks.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Well, and I think your verbal, from my understanding, it's always been stories, right? Like, so yes, you can have data, but you have to tell a story around it to help bring that to life. Otherwise, data is, we've all seen the charts of a data graph where people's eyes roll in the back of their heads and like, I don't know what that means, move on, right? So tell us about that, that kind of marriage between what they're seeing and how that blends into the storytelling that you're doing.
Justin Hunsaker (:Mm-hmm.
Exactly, exactly.
I, when I'm doing storytelling, I'm usually using big images. And what I want it to do is I want it to help be the major beats of the story or just a backdrop to introduce the story. And then I want all eyes on me. And so,
Mary Bell Carlson (:Mm.
Justin Hunsaker (:Depending on the story I'm telling, I might use a transition to signal a big change in the story, or I might just leave an image in the background as I tell the story because I want people focusing their attention on me. I also really love big emotional images of people, right? Some of the best stories in most talks are gonna be about somebody's personal life, about their family, about their mother, about their father.
And all too often I'll be working with a speaker and they'll say, and now I tell the story about my mother and there's no picture of their mother or there's a little tiny picture of their mother. And I'm saying, no, we want this, this picture. It should be bigger than life. should take up the entire slide. There should be no border at all. It should be the picture of your mother. And maybe we have a few words so that people can understand where this is going or where it's coming from. But I really want that to live and breathe and the bigger I can make it the better. And so I.
You know, that's the first place I would go is I look, what are the stories? Do we have good visuals to back up the stories? What are the key points you're making? Do we have good frameworks and visuals with the frameworks to back up the key points? And finally, have I sprinkled in a little bit of data to make sure that you believe that I'm an expert, but also for the people who love data out there who might be like, I really love that fact. I'm going to use it. I sprinkle a little bit of that in. And again, it kind of.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Well, and to know that
that's truth, right? That you're really saying truth, and it's not completely anecdotal, that it's being supported by evidence. Fair?
Justin Hunsaker (:Yes, as
experts. Well, as experts, we love that. Absolutely. And I think I love it as an expert. I love it as a detail oriented person. And there's a lot of people who tell you like that isn't all that necessary. Like it's actually stories and anecdotes that will convince people and the data, the data we're doing for the other experts and ourselves. And there's a lot of people who say it's, it's actually people don't change their mind because of it. Now, does this mean, you know, does this mean there are people who are
Mary Bell Carlson (:No, yeah.
Justin Hunsaker (:could be bad actors and are...
you know, focusing in on certain anecdotes to try to convince the audience. Absolutely. I think you only have to look at politics to see that happen every day on both sides of the aisle where people will pick the one little thing they want to talk about and they'll pretend like that solves the whole equation or that's the whole story. And that's just not how it works, right? As experts, we should be holding ourselves to the standard of having data, but realize that's not what's going to convince your audience. That's what convinced you.
The stories of the anecdotes are going to convince your audience.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Okay, so speaking of stories, I would love to go into a before and after story where redesigning the slides completely changed the way the message landed. Do you have one?
Justin Hunsaker (:Gosh, okay, so as a coach, everything I do is confidential and so I am not going to be super specific here.
Let's talk a little bit about, I usually work with startups. Not usually, I do a lot of work with startups, especially technical startups. And they are nerds and they love the details and they love the data and they love explaining their technology in terms of, it's an API and it can plug into all these things and does this blah,
And what I almost always have to do with them is re-engineer so that they tell it as a story, not as details. And once they can start telling the story, usually it's a story of how this idea occurred to them, or it's a story of their first customer and what their first customer was so excited about. And...
As we can turn that into a story, that becomes the strongest part of their sales pitch. Now, I know we talked about the importance of stories. ⁓ let me give you other examples we've talked about as well, where adding the visual of the person the story is about can have a hugely transformative effect. It can really pull out the emotion, either...
the happiness or the sadness for the particular story. And then I've also talked about the importance of having a framework, right? I've revamped decks where somebody said, we went through their deck and I'm like, okay, you're making these four points. Are these the right four points? Let's put it into a framework. And we've realized, wait, there's actually one of the four points is just a sub part of one of the other three. And there's actually a different fourth point. And it's revamped their whole talk as we went through and did
good framework analysis. All of those were things we talked about earlier in the podcast. So I'll give you one more. And that is comedy. I am not a comedian. I am not a funny person. And, people really love the highs and lows when they're going through a presentation. They want the emotional, ⁓ draining heart strings being tugged, but they want also the happiness and they want the comedy. And so how do you do that?
Mary Bell Carlson (:Okay.
Justin Hunsaker (:Slides can help you with all of this. When there's a particular motion that you really need, slides can help you with the comedy. I am not ever gonna have great comedic timing, but I can put together a slide that will get a chuckle from an audience. And that just increases the emotional range. And I've helped other presenters who had a great presentation, but just no comedy. And I said, why no comedy? I'm not a comedian.
Let's let your slides do the heavy lifting on the comedy. Let's put together a funny slide or two. ⁓ I know you've seen examples where we've done some of the, ⁓ there's a lot of memes. Memes can be very helpful for working in versions of comedy because people have seen them. lot of the audience will think they're funny. It reminds them of something that they've seen in the past that's funny. so working in a meme can be good. Having a cartoon that tells a funny part of the story or having like really
good classical art, but then adding ⁓ words to it that are funny, modern words that tell a funny modern story with this classical art. These are all ways to add some comedy to it.
Mary Bell Carlson (:So I'm
going to add in my story right here because I have worked with you and I brought you, remember a few years ago, I brought you a presentation and I was like, it was very, it was from my heart, very data-driven, like very numbers oriented and trying to push that point across. And I would say, you know, with decent visuals. And you told me that you said, well, Mary, you need to add humor. And I looked at you and said, Justin, I am not a funny person. Like that just isn't in my DNA. ⁓
not funny. And so it was a real struggle for me. I was like, how am going to pull a joke out of this very serious? It was actually loving money and relationships and it was to a group of moms and I was like, ⁓ my, how am going to ever do this? And you've helped me with that. In fact, we had added in, you had said, let's take some of the classical art and add in the word blurbs to be able to make it funny. And it landed, it landed so well. And it was perfect because I didn't have to have the comedic
Like I didn't read the slide and say anything about slide. I just pop it up and it would be right timing, right place. So I think adding that little bit of humor and letting the, like you said, letting the slides do the heavy lifting really kind of relieve that burden. And it made it a more enjoyable.
talk to listen to because so many people in the audience, they hate talking about money. And so me bringing that subject up already has their stress levels super high on edge and they're thinking of all the bad parts of money. And then I throw in this random clip art with a bubble on it and they're laughing. And so it really helped expand, I think the range of emotions. Yeah.
Justin Hunsaker (:Hmm.
I'll give an example that I use very commonly, is I usually kick off, if I'm doing a talk, I'll kick off with a quick tip, which is usually about virtual presentations. And then I'll end the deck with...
another quick tip about virtual presentations where I say, hey, did you know Zoom has a highlight feature that can really improve your, you know, it can give you a virtual facelift. And then I'll show a picture of me and it'll say before, and then I'll pop up a picture of Sean Connery and it'll say after. Now,
Mary Bell Carlson (:You
Justin Hunsaker (:people, it kills. People find it hilarious. It kills every time. And I look at it I'm like, I'm not even sure why that's so funny. I think, you know, want to laugh. so, yeah, again, you can really have your slides. If there's an area that you feel like you're not an expert at, the slides are the one thing you can fully prep ahead of time.
Mary Bell Carlson (:time.
You're like, I look just like him. What's the problem? ⁓
Justin Hunsaker (:And so if there's something that you were like, man, I'm just not great at this part or this emotional story, you can really get your slides to help you do some of heavy lifting for whatever thing you're still working on as a public speaker. You can perfect the slides for that part and really make you feel more confident.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Well, we're going to end with your quick tip. How about that? I would love to know if someone's listening to this now and they're like, I know my slides need work. Can you give them just one simple change they could make now to have an immediate impact? I know it's hard.
Justin Hunsaker (:⁓ okay. I,
⁓ let's see. I will give you, I need to give you three, not one. So the first is every slide should have a visualization. Every slide should have a visualization. If you look at a slide and it's just a bunch of text, then revamp the visualization and think, why are these, why is all this text on the slide together? That will tell you what your visualization is. So that's first. Every slide should have a visualization. Second.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Okay. All right. Do your three.
Justin Hunsaker (:Every slide should have a slide title, a full sentence, as short as you can make it, so what about the slide? Ideally, it's almost always in the same place on your slide. That is the Malibu real estate of your slide. People will always glance where they know your title will be. They can't help but read it if it's in their native language, and they will absorb the so what of whatever your message is. So those are the first two. And the third one is...
have somebody else read your entire slide deck out loud to you and react to every page. Just sit down with somebody. It can be a partner or a friend and just say, I want you to flip through the deck. want you to read every single word you see and react and tell me what you think. And what you'll find is they will find mistakes. They will find grammar mistakes. They'll stumble over parts of it where it's not clear to them. They'll say, I don't really like this picture. that is a great way to get feedback without getting a coach.
you can get feedback from somebody, but have them read it out loud and react to every single slide. So those are three quick ways.
Mary Bell Carlson (:I love that.
Well, I think this has been great. And this is like the tip of the iceberg of what we can, you could actually do with someone. So if someone said, Hey, Justin, I want to learn more about you. Where do they go to find more about you and what you do in your coaching?
Justin Hunsaker (:I go to LinkedIn, Justin Hunsaker.
If you're part of the Financial Behavior Keynote Group, I to stay active on Circles. I also have an account there so that you can catch up with us on our message boards. I'm also at JohnPolkInAssociates.com. That is my business partner, John Polk. I work with him. That's where our book is. And then our book is called Presentation Pitfalls. You can find that on Amazon or anywhere that you buy books and ⁓ any of those places. feel free. I love talking to people. My goal here is to be
to really just help people as much as possible. And that way we figure out, and sometimes we say, you know what, let's have a good conversation, but we don't really need to work together. I love it. I love just getting to know people and finding out what they're struggling with. I try to help as much as I can. Sometimes we end up working together formally, sometimes we don't. I love it either way.
Mary Bell Carlson (:I love it. Well, and just for that message too, if you're a part of the FBKG community, which we invite you all to become a part of, there is a discount and a free session. Actually, the first intro session is free with Justin. So we encourage you to join a financial behavior keynote group ⁓ via the community. We're so glad to have you. Thank you.
Justin Hunsaker (:And
And real
quick, before we sign off, some people say, well, what can you do with one free session? And the answer is I can usually help you. If you have something you're working on, I can help you diagnose what it is, talk about what are the best practices you should do, and then help you set up a way to start practicing it. Because a lot of communication, a lot of it's just going to be practice, right? If you want to work on your filler words, we'll diagnose where the filler words are coming from. We'll identify best practices instead of filler words.
And then I'll set you up with a way so that you can go practice on your own and you don't necessarily need to keep talking to a coach. So we can do a lot with one session to get you on the right path and then it's up to you to see how far you can walk on the path.
Mary Bell Carlson (:I love that. Thank you so much. We will also link all of those to the end notes and make sure that everyone has access. So if you want more in the book, the book will also walk you through several pieces of what to do in a presentation. Well, Justin, thank you so much. This episode builds directly on what we talked about last time, keeping that clear message that's essential. And yet now we're adding that visual support to help you strengthen and make sure that you're not diluting your impact.
If you work along these skills with other speakers and want to refine your message, strengthen your delivery, and build a platform that supports and keeps consistent bookings, we'd love you to join Financial Behavior Keynote Group's community. If you go to financialbehaviorkeynote.com forward slash community, we are so grateful and hope that this conversation helped you think differently about your work. So make sure, subscribe to the show, share the episode, and join us for our next one. Thanks, Justin.
Justin Hunsaker (:It's
such a warm and collaborative group working with FBKG. just, can't get over it and I hope your audience, if they're not already a part of it, I hope they check it out.
Mary Bell Carlson (:Thank you.
