I’ve written previously about how to have more effective meetings, touching on how to frame agency presentations to be more prospect-oriented. But until now, I haven’t addressed the technical aspects and detailed content of agency capabilities decks. It’s overdue.
Having had my share of headaches with capabilities decks, I’m sensitive to the prospect’s experience of being on the receiving end of these files. Some of the decks I’ve been sent are just beasts. To give one example, I recently reviewed a 60-slide capabilities deck that cost me hours trying to change one of the obscure designer fonts into something I could print legibly. I printed and saved it in multiple ways that continued to present the header font in what may as well have been Wingdings. An agency prospect would have given up in under five minutes.
TIP: People often want to print out a hard copy of presentation slides, so sending a deck that is impossible to print is a recipe for frustration. Be sure to test your deck outside of your agency before risking a new business opportunity over it.
Earlier this year, Lindsey Slaby, Founder of Sunday Dinner, took to LinkedIn to vent about the capabilities decks she typically receives and offered some solid “ground rules” for agencies to observe when creating their decks.
They include (paraphrased):
I instantly related to her post, and I’m not the only one:
Over 350 people responded to Lindsey’s post — probably because most of us are guilty of creating bad presentations, and nobody enjoys sitting through them. Ironically, I believe agencies do put significant effort into making them better, but “better” from a design / creative perspective isn’t necessarily better from a functional, UX, or new business perspective.
People aren’t shy about declaring their disdain for capabilities decks. They have been described as “the worst,” “sucking,” “for losers,” “dreaded,” “tyrannical,” and “reviled.” Let it be known — I’m not a fan of them either. But we don’t talk enough about what exactly makes them so bad. So, despite the best intentions and efforts, bad capabilities decks live on, to everyone’s detriment.
Walkwest made a list of five reasons why you should ditch your capabilities deck altogether, including that they limit how clients perceive you, they are always out of date, and relying on them is lazy. Guess what? They aren’t wrong! Those are all valid points. Other valid criticisms of capabilities decks are that the static format (Powerpoint, or Keynote, etc.) is inherently boring, and “...just isn’t collaborative.” Unfortunately, you still probably need to maintain a capabilities deck anyway. Though it would be wise to keep these inherent shortcomings in mind so you can offset them as much as possible.
More importantly, think about how you can dial back your reliance on the capabilities deck (and slide decks in general). Showing your deck should not be your agency’s go-to approach. It is not always the best or most appropriate option. If you have a “default” or “master” capabilities deck, it can be tempting to rely on what you have ready to go, but a pre-made capabilities deck is the antithesis of custom creative solutions and will cost you valuable opportunities. Your “default capabilities deck” should merely be a common starting point for dozens of different custom iterations.
This may be perceived as blasphemous among creatives, but your deck need not center on cutting-edge creative, much less custom creative ideas. Your prospects have already seen your work on your website and were interested enough to proceed to a meeting. They’ve already seen your team’s bios and your agency’s awards and are enthusiastic enough to be curious about what you might do for them.
Your capabilities deck should be about your effectiveness at delivering future creative solutions that will address the prospect’s unique challenges. Those solutions may be suggested and explored elsewhere, in the same or a future meeting, via methods other than your slide deck.
It’s probably not news to you that most agency capabilities decks are problematic. You may be aware that your agency’s capabilities deck is flawed, too. The real challenge is understanding how best to fix it. A capabilities deck should be evaluated for new business strategy first; next for functionality and user experience; and finally, for design consistency and creative elements. This is probably the reverse of how many agencies approach them. When you re-evaluate your agency’s approach to the purpose, creation, customization, and delivery of your capabilities deck, you will see a positive impact on your agency’s new business outcomes.
Do you have any insights or stories to share about your experience with capabilities decks? Let us know in the comments or on social.
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Image credits: agency capabilities deck © Adobe Stock / Monkey Business; agency capes deck © Adobe Stock / vectorfusionart; bad capabilities presentation © Adobe Stock / aerogondo