Role Playing to make impactful presentations

We, as market researchers, need to create presentations for our clients. But have we ever wondered about what the client feels when she is looking through our slides? It becomes difficult for us to visualize and think from the client's perspective about the same presentation that we have created with our own hands. The reason is that we already know all the rationale behind the information presented in the deck. But does the client share the same level of understanding about "why" you have created each slide and "what" are you trying to say in each slide?

The best way to understand the client's perspective is to play the role of a client and look at the presentation like a client - asking at each slide,

"What is the key takeaway from this slide?"

"So what should I do about this information?"

But be cautious about choosing the presentation that you want to scrutinize as a client. Do not use the presentation created by you because you will be biased towards it and will already know the "hidden" facts. It works very well if you pick up a deck created by someone else on an unrelated topic and look at it like a client. In this process you will realize the common mistakes done by researchers (including yourself) while presenting data and giving recommendations.

It is very fascinating to dig out some old decks created by employees who worked for the same client before you joined the team, and to scrutinize them.