Things are heating up! Presentation Pitfalls hits shelves on September 3, 2025, and we’ve got a lot to share. So yes, you’ll be hearing from us a bit more often. We’re proud of this book and want to use every channel to reach the people it can help. We would appreciate your help in spreading the word. That said, this newsletter will stay true to its purpose: sharing helpful, practical content you can use.
Book Excerpt: The answer to all life’s questions: “It depends!”
Experts (even us) often give advice with absolute certainty. It’s comforting to seek and share advice that works in all situations. However, for most presentation design questions, the right answer is “it depends.” This is the heart of the Platinum Rule. Here are some common pieces of generic presentation design advice and when they might not be appropriate:
- Generalization 1: Less is more. Using fewer words is the antidote to the wall-of-text problem. However, complex concepts require relevant detail. And presented slides are often forwarded to people who couldn’t make the meeting and don’t have the benefit of the voiceover.
- Generalization 2: Limit the presentation to X slides. An executive we worked with had a rule: “If your deck has more than 10 slides, I’ll stop at slide 10.” While this encourages brevity, we often see presenters cram 20 slides of content into 10, making slides overly dense. Presenting dense slides overwhelms the audience and leads to more questions.
- Generalization 3: Make the smallest text X-point font. This is usually targeted at large-audience presentations, like town halls or TED Talks, where the words need to be big enough for people in the back to read. However, large fonts take up too much real estate for decision meetings.
- Generalization 4: Avoid animations. Like many rules, this advice comes from misuse. When overdone, animation is distracting and unprofessional. When done right, animation can engage the audience and enable them to digest complex slides easily.
We return to these themes and share more nuanced versions throughout the book. The nuance typically involves different choices for different situations. Most business presentations support decision-making, making it a common scenario throughout the book. When our recommendations seem in conflict with those of other experts in the field, it’s often because they focus on different scenarios. The goal of business presentations is to drive action. To drive action, you must influence, and to influence, you must engage, as illustrated in Figure 1.12. If a design choice isn’t intended to engage, influence, or drive action, it’s superfluous.
Figure 1.12 The presentation chain reaction
Source: John Polk & Associates
“It depends” isn’t a cop-out, just an acknowledgment that there are few absolutes. We love getting pushback on our advice because it forces us to be explicit about the design principles. The core of effective design starts with understanding the audience, purpose, and setting, then making intentional design choices that engage, influence, and drive action.
Excerpt Note: While we challenge some common (and flawed) pieces of advice, don’t worry. We provide clear, practical guidance for business decision meetings throughout the book. If you know any presentations “rules” that you’ve heard that belong in the “it depends” category, put them into the comments below!
By the numbers – a quantitative look at our book
Although we are now Executive Communication Trainers and Coaches, our roots are deeply technical. John has a bachelor’s and master’s in engineering. Justin? A bachelor’s in math, a master’s in computer and information systems, and an executive master’s in technology management. And we spent our early careers in strategy and analysis roles. Naturally, we couldn’t resist breaking down the book by the numbers:
- 1 book
- 2 coauthors
- 2 proofreaders
- 4 editors (they all have different fancy titles)
- 9 beta reviewers (we told you we like feedback)
- 10 chapters (plus intro and conclusion)
- 20 pages of cut material
- 22 sidebars
- 84 endnotes (because we cite our sources like good nerds)
- 99 key takeaways (there’s a list after every chapter for easy reference)
- 284 figures
- 320 pages (just about everything we know about business presentations)
- 76,737 words
- 479,529 characters
But we can use your help. Here are the numbers that you control:
- ?? books sold (go ahead, make this number bigger by preordering here)!
- ?? teams spared from hearing, “Let’s circle back after you update your deck.”
- ?? bad decisions avoided because the presentation was clear and concise.
- ?? presentations improved (every one of them counts).