By: Kimberly Grant
Everyone is an expert at something. Be it, painting or calculating complex formulas, we’re all good at something. But, wouldn’t you want to be better or greater? There once was a composer who was well known throughout the world. This composer was asked how he became a musical genius. His reply was that he practiced eight hours a day.
After all, practice makes perfect. So, does preparing a stellar presentation.
Presentation is Everything
In the world of business, marketing reports are life. They convey information and help shape decision-making. Having a report that’s accurate and reader-friendly is a must. You wouldn’t want a major decision being made based on half of the information. Decision-makers need to understand how to read your colorful line chart.
Enter software that takes a presentation to the next visual level: Tableau. Tableau is an analytics platform that provides visualizations using Excel spreadsheets and databases to help turn a mediocre presentation into a visual story. Now, Tableau isn’t the only software of its type. However, it’s one that I am familiar with.
How Tableau works is that you upload your Microsoft Excel spreadsheets of data unto your server (or your company’s server). Once that’s done, you can get creative. There are multiple templates to choose from based on the data you are using. You’re free to use your individual preferences for look and feel. Now, this is all fine and good, but you need to make sure your data tells a convincing story.
Keeping Calm
Once you’ve got your visual all nice, colorful, and easily understood, it’s time to present. Tableau will help you hone your storytelling skills to wow a decision-maker. This decision-maker will decide if you will go forward with your business or crash and burn.
Not to be dramatic, but learning additional skills is always a good idea. The exact opposite of these skills would be presenting at a meeting that should have been an email; forcing your audience to listen to data points without context. Giving data without context is like telling a story without conflict. There’s nothing to grab onto.
Example of a Non-starter
There once was an organization that wanted to know which demographic of their customers were providing lifetime value. The organization also wanted to know which demographic of customers were abandoning the business. After poring over three years’ worth of data, the organization realized that their black male customers were not returning. So, to present this finding to the employees of the organization, the team of analysts put together graph after graph that looked like the same Excel chart (16 times over).
After presenting these colorful yet boring bar graphs representing different information, the analysts asked the employees to answer a culturally insensitive question: “Why are we losing black men?” This was a non-starter. The only conversation that it generated was awkward exchanges between employees who were forced to be almost as culturally insensitive as the organization.
Being Sensitive to the Data
A better route for this organization would have been to note the data points regarding customer demographics and simplify their endless bar charts. A good rule of thumb would be to use three charts that tell a story with a beginning, middle, and end. Using Tableau, the story would start with how the demographics (read: customers) arrive to the company. The next chart would share some specific customer experiences (based on surveys). The last chart would end with solutions on recapturing customers with an emphasis on a specific demographic.
Learning new skills keeps your brain sharp and helps you with presenting key analytics to your organization. Even if you’re not an expert in analysis, Tableau makes it easier to present delicate stories that will have major impacts. And most importantly, there will be more understanding and less offense taken.
Interested in visualizing my latest post? You can view it here.
