Stop competing with your own slides

We’ve all sat through it. The slide deck with so much crammed in you wonder if the speaker is secretly trying to punish you.

When your audience is reading, they’re not listening. And if they’re not listening, your message doesn’t land.

The fix? A deck is not a handout.

Slides are for the room. Handouts are what you send before or after. Two tools. Two purposes.

That’s why I built the Ready Room™ Framework, and inside it, a tool called FOCUS.

FOCUS in Action

F – Frame the slide

Can you explain the point of this slide in one sentence? If not, start over.​

O – One-thing takeaway

Every slide gets one idea. Not three. Not five. One

.​

C – Clean visuals

White space is not wasted space. Or go bold and make the whole slide one image.​

U – Use meaning and metaphor

Numbers fade. Stories stick. Compare hitting sales goals to crossing a finish line, launching a new product to firing up a rocket, or meeting deadlines to cooking a meal on time.​

S – Show the story

Each slide is one beat in your bigger story. Move people forward. Don’t bury them in info.

Before & After

Before:

• Five bullet points in tiny font

• A chart stuffed in the corner

• Audience checks out

After (FOCUS):

• A photo of a mountain summit

• One line: “Our Q2 targets are the climb. Here’s how we’ll reach the peak.”

• The slide points back to you, not away from you

  
  

Which would you remember tomorrow morning?

The Takeaway

When you use FOCUS, your slides stop competing with you.

Your audience actually listens. And remembers.