Master the "Golden Circle Rule" and create an eye-catching presentation with marketing thinking

⛳️ This article was originally published on the “Marketers” website

In recent years, as a corporate consultant and professional lecturer, I have often had to produce business presentations for various purposes, such as course presentations to assist teaching or planning presentations for proposals, etc. Not only have I listened to some informal presentation courses, but I have also read many books related to presentations, and I have some knowledge and understanding of the field of presentation design.

Friends or students in the corporate world often praise my presentations for their good presentation. Not only are the layouts beautiful, but they also allow people to see the key points at a glance. In fact, rather than saying that I am a great expert in briefing design, it is better to say that I have mastered the essentials of briefing design and communication, so I can quickly design a briefing with marketing thinking.

Based on my many years of experience teaching and serving as a consultant within major companies, I understand that in order to create a presentation that dominates the workplace, the key to success or failure does not lie in beautiful templates or gorgeous animations and techniques, but in [target audience](https://www.content.t w/?s=%E7%9B%AE%E6%A8%99%E5%8F%97%E7%9C%BE&post_type=post) as the center, smoothly convey valuable opinions to the other party, and reach a consensus, only in this way can the purpose of briefing design be truly achieved.

So, how do you create a marketing-minded newsletter? Today, let me share it with you.

Confirm “Positioning” and “Purpose”

First of all, you must know that the purpose of designing a briefing is not just to communicate and persuade, but also to prepare for a consensus. As Ogilvy Advertising Vice Chairman and Group Strategy Chief Ye Minggui said, the foundation of doing business is “positioning”, and positioning is inseparable from three questions, that is, who should the product be sold to? What do customers think of the product? Also, why do customers buy this product? If I explain it in one sentence, positioning is: “To whom? What am I? What do I give you?”

Similarly, before we start designing a briefing, we also need to clarify the positioning, purpose, and target audience we want to target. In other words, if you want to design an effective briefing, we might as well “Start with the end in mind” and first think about what is the purpose and conclusion of the briefing? Then, start laying out. Especially when designing a business briefing, in order to grab everyone’s attention, you should first let the important conclusions firmly catch the eyeballs of the target audience.

(Start with the end in mind, first think about the purpose and conclusion of the briefing. / Picture: taken from Pexels)

3 principles for making good use of presentations

Visual thinking expert Dan. In the book “[Presentation Show and Tell: Storytelling Show Pictures, Easily Convince the World]” (https://www.books.com.tw/products/0010680589), Rohm encourages everyone to make good use of the three principles of presentations to prepare your presentation content:

▌Telling the truth can move the audience.

▌Telling stories helps the audience understand the content better.

▌Catch the eye and the audience will understand it at a glance.

I also adhere to these three principles. After all, the purpose of the design brief is to achieve consensus between both parties. Therefore, do not spend too much time on beautifying the briefing. Instead, you must use the main resources and efforts on the communication and expression of the message. Only by truly delivering the knowledge that is “helpful” to the audience can the purpose of the briefing be truly achieved.

(Utilize the 3 Principles of Presentations/Image: Retrieved from Pexels)

Golden Circle Rules: Why, How, What

Regarding the communication and transmission of information, I suggest you refer to the best-selling author Simon. The golden circle rule advocated by Simon O. Sinek.

Simon. Sinek’s 2009 TED × Talk “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” is the 7th most viewed video at the TED conference. He believes that the way all successful leaders or brands in the world think, act and communicate follows the golden circle rule, which includes three levels from the inside out, namely Why, How and What.

I think that when you are conceiving a brief, it is also very suitable to start thinking from why (Why), and then think outwards about how to achieve it (How), and even what is the final result (What)? For example, when you are preparing to create a proposal brief, if you can start from the needs of the target audience and take into account the three aspects of meaning, emotion and interest, I believe that you will be able to successfully impress the other party.

▲Simon． Sicknick spoke at TED × “How Great Leaders Inspire Action” (The video is taken from YouTube, please forgive me if it has been removed.)

Briefing Production 3 Blind Spots

The value of a briefing is not only to convey information or opinions to the other party, but also to help the target audience better understand! For example, teacher Zhang Wangxing once wrote in “Wangxingliu Briefing Thinking Technique: Find the logic of persuasion and let your value be seen!” 》This book mentions three blind spots in making briefings.

▌Blind spot one

Many people think that a large amount of information or intelligence must be included in a briefing to be useful, but they ignore that the simplification process is to help the target audience clarify the key points of the briefing thinking and then find their favorite viewpoints.

▌Blind Spot 2

Many people think that a briefing must be able to fly into the sky and escape the earth, or even speak clearly and clearly. A briefing is not only a vehicle for conveying truth, but more importantly, it conveys the emotion contained in the truth. In other words, the main purpose of producing a clear, logical and orderly briefing is to make the target audience feel at ease after listening to it, and to understand it in seconds (https://www.books.com.tw/exep/assp.php/vista/pro ducts/0010794093?utm_source=vista&utm_medium=ap-books&utm_content=recommend&utm_campaign=ap-201909).

▌Blind spot three

Many people think that the briefing must be designed beautifully to meet the standards. In fact, the most important thing is to make people feel. Even if you have never studied art design before, as long as you have a sense of beauty, you can create a briefing with clear graphics and text that can highlight your professionalism.

(The value of the briefing is to help TA better understand/Picture: taken from Pexels)

Briefing Template

Before, many friends have asked me where they can download beautiful presentation templates? Here, I also recommend three good websites to everyone:

▌OfficePLUS

The first website is [OfficePLUS] (http://www.officeplus.cn/), which is operated by Microsoft Mobile Lianxin Internet Services Co., Ltd. It aims to provide global Office users with a rich set of high-quality original PPT templates, practical documents, data charts and personalized customization services to help users improve efficiency and achieve more anytime, anywhere.

▌Youpin PPT

The second website is [Yopin PPT] (http://www.ypppt.com/), which claims to be a free and sentimental PPT template download website. This is a comprehensive website focused on sharing high-quality PPT templates, charts, background pictures, materials, tutorials and other various PPT resources. Committed to building a one-stop service platform for PPT related resources.

▌First PPT

The third website is [First PPT] (http://www.1ppt.com/), which was established in May 2005. It is one of the first professional websites in mainland China to provide PPT template download services. It was revised in June 2012 and renamed First PPT. The paid items on the website were cancelled. Currently, all resources in the First PPT website are free to download.

Don’t forget “Directory”

A successful presentation must not only have detailed information and beautiful layout, but also don’t forget to set up a table of contents for the presentation! The reason why the table of contents is included at the beginning of the presentation is to allow the target audience to confirm “which units the entire presentation can be divided into”, “the second unit is the one that is most closely related to me”, etc. In other words, inserting a one-page table of contents into the briefing is not just a brief introduction, but a way for the target audience to have a rough overview of the entire briefing material, which helps to speed up the communication of the purpose and key points of the briefing.

I often feel that designing briefs, just like writing, should be a happy and joyful thing. But if you occasionally get stuck or encounter difficulties, then there must be something wrong! I hope this article can bring you some new inspiration. If you have any questions about briefing design or copywriting in the future, please feel free to contact me!

Photo by xframe_official on xFrame

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