Common presentation mistakes to leave behind in 2025
We’re on the cusp of a new year, and lots of teams will be doing look-ahead planning for 2025. Whether revamping your go-to-market strategy, implementing a new monthly virtual “town hall” for employees, securing high-profile speaking opportunities for the CEO, or refreshing your brand narratives, the common thread connecting ALL these initiatives is succinct, on-brand presentations.
Mistakes to leave behind in 2025
Articulating what you do, why you do it, and why you should get paid for it in a compelling, engaging way is crucial to every facet of business. Despite this, so many founders think a quick-and-dirty DIY PowerPoint job (that abandons the gorgeous brand guidelines you invested in a year ago) is enough.
Here are some of the most common presentation mistakes our team at Presentation Studio encounters when working on presentation projects and developing decks for our huge range of clients:
Information overload and unclear purpose
Sometimes, we think one deck can “do it all” and decide to add slides for our company’s founding story, every single product, our myriad corporate initiatives, pictures of our founder’s puppy…, and the list goes on. The reality is that the clearer you are on the purpose of this specific piece of collateral (including its target audience and the information it WON’T contain), the easier your audience will understand your message and take action accordingly.
The fix: Make the content of your presentation easy for viewers to digest and retain by adhering to the confines of pre-designed slides that won’t let you get away with adding text boxes wherever you choose. Our presentation template design service does exactly this: it leaves you with a bank of customisable, on-brand, expertly-designed slides that double as a guide for what information to include in your decks — and how much information you can realistically fit on each slide.
Poor design choices
Even if the content of a slide deck is well thought out and the presentation serves a clear purpose that comes through in the text, design choices that miss the mark can confuse audiences and ultimately disengage them. After all, what good is a slick tagline or compelling call to action if it’s hard to read or lacks design credibility?
The fix: a good first step is to go back to basics and ensure adequate brand guidelines are in place. If the brand’s “DNA” isn’t strong, any design choices will look scattered and feel incoherent.
Many of our clients have come to us to get a deck designed, only to realise that solidifying brand guidelines, logo marks, colours and fonts are the priority before further design work commences.
Lack of structure
This usually comes from a lack of planning and “too many cooks in the kitchen.” When the draft document is shared with thirty people, and everyone wants to add their own slide or spin on things, it’s easy for things to get out of control. The result? Repetitive slides, an underdeveloped narrative, no clear call-to-action, and a lack of unified vision.
The fix: a clear ownership and accountability structure and a small group of people project managing the presentation will help keep things on track. If you work with Presentation Studio, this role usually sits with us (and named stakeholders on your side), so everything goes swimmingly. We’ll set out an agreed flow for the presentation that we’ll stick to throughout the process so all parties know what to expect.
If all of this sounds familiar, you’re not alone. It’s normal for teams without dedicated design expertise to find the process of asset creation and updating, slide deck conceptualisation and presentation drafting daunting.
If you could use some guidance to sidestep these pitfalls and support to put your business’s best foot forward in 2025, reach out to us here. We’ve supported dozens of clients just like you with elevated presentations that resonate, resulting in record sales, new inbound leads, substantial business traction, highly engaged employees, and more.
We’re booking Q1 2025 projects right now and would love to hear from you.