“News” on Persuasion

April 18, 2025
Phil Krone

The  Chicago Tribune  reported today that a consultant in California is gaining fans in the legal world for breaking the mold with his “frighten-ingly powerful” PowerPoint presentations.

The article on the front page of today’s Tempo section correctly reports:

  • Images are more powerful than text
  • Using a creative artist to story board the message is powerful
  • Dramatic visuals should replace boring pie charts and text
  • The visuals should not compete with what the speaker is saying

So what’s wrong with this message? What’s wrong is: This is not news. The California consultant in question has apparently been successful with his use of images. But PSI has been creating and implementing highly successful presentations for its clients using this technique for more than a decade.

Most of you who are reading this have either taken the Productive Strategies FOCIS® Selling course or PSI has built your PowerPoint Sales Presentation. Going back as far as 1993 PSI began helping clients win new accounts using the same techniques the Tribune now describes in glowing detail in its article.

Many of you know this story: the first law firm that used our service had lost six major beauty contests in a row, competing for Fortune 1000 corporate cases. After taking our training and using our presentation, our client won the next five opportunities. While our technique was not used in the court room, as it was by the subject of the Tribune article, our client says he would not have been in the court room representing his corporate client without the benefit of our discovery training, presentation techniques, and the presentation itself.

Yes, the Tribune article is more than a decade late. But it is right on in its central premise: there’s an “art” to creating high-impact, persuasive presentations.

If you are reading this, you are a client of our firm. If your presentation is now out of date; or if you have been using FOCIS® but have not coupled discovery with a persuasive presentation, we should talk. www.productivestrategies.

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