A crucial tool of the trade, PowerPoint is the powerhouse for your slide decks for every dealmaker in finance. It's used to create expensive, high-stakes, storytelling, marketing materials to sell a business or raise capital. However, PowerPoint can quickly become a huge time-drain, especially for juniors, with seemingly minor issues such as alignment, colour compatibility or endless iterations to improve slides to ‘make it look better’ or ‘make it more visual and less text heavy’. Learning to be efficient and effective in creating an influential slide deck is not just a skill of written persuasion, but also graphical design, storytelling, colour balance and financial analysis.
The Role of PowerPoint for Dealmakers
Deal-maker PowerPoint creations (“Dealmaker Docs”) are marketing materials. They are the vendor's written story to sell the business or raise capital. They are written confirmations of dealmaker conversations and statements, providing further supporting evidence, connecting statements with data and combining each aspect of the business into the overall narrative that supports the company's valuation and growth proposition. They also house necessary but lower-priority information, typically placed in the appendix, to ensure completeness without distracting from the core narrative.
The difference between standard marketing materials and Dealmaker Docs is the audience. Typically, marketing experts focus on a consumer audience. Unlike typical consumer marketing materials, Dealmaker Docs are built for a sophisticated, financial audience that requires clarity, depth, and accuracy over simplicity. This is an important distinction, as you cannot overly simplify ideas or concepts and must provide complete information. This means complex ideas must be shown elegantly, while keeping the necessary detail, such that a person with financial expertise will understand the key messages and overall storyline at a deep enough level. This balance of complete information, presented simply while keeping a coherent overall narrative, creates the complexity and time-consuming challenge of creating high-quality Dealmaker Docs. When combined with time pressure, many dealmakers in M&A commonly err on the side of caution, providing more detailed sides to ensure that they don't mislead, and this is why (I believe) dealmaker docs commonly get the bad rap of being very dense and too text-heavy. Venture capital dealmakers are different. Commonly their pitch decks are light and graphic, as they are more willing to take a bit more risk, the business founder is part of the process, and the purpose of the Dealmaker Docs is more conceptual rather than providing detailed supporting evidence and analysis over a long period of time (it’s a new growth business!). The other end of the spectrum is an IPO prospectus, which is the most dense deal document due to regulations and required analysis and information requirements.
This article focuses on mid-market M&A deal-making. The most common examples of Dealmaker Docs include the initial Pitch Doc, Information Memorandum (“IM”), Management Presentations (Mgmt. Presentations) and various client docs such as the initial strategy, process updates and specific written advice.
Designing Dealmaker Docs – Best Practice
After years of creating and overseeing Dealmaker Docs, I found several best practices that help create high-impact materials efficiently and effectively. These include:
Key messages in the first few slides of the doc
The first few slides of the Dealmaker Doc are the most important. They set the tone and need to include your key message. For example, in a pitch doc to sell a business, the first slide should say why the vendor should choose you as an adviser – e.g. you have completed the most recent deal in the industry, you believe a valuation of x-y is achievable, you have strong relationships with ABC potential buyers, etc.. Gain the reader's attention before supporting the claims with detail and data.
Make each slide’s purpose clear so that the deck can be skimmed
Ensure that each slide has a clear Title and/or Subtitle that shows the purpose of the slide. Within each slide, use subtitles to show what each section covers. These are the basics of ensuring a slide can be skimmed and the key messages obtained. Where more time is available, colour and relative size of text and icons/images can draw the eye to what is essential on the page in more graphic layouts.
Ensure a coherent narrative throughout
Use a clear structure throughout, ensuring messaging is consistent and doesn’t leave apparent questions or gaps unless this is intentional.
Proofread and ensure consistency of numbers and correct formatting throughout
For your Dealmaker Doc to be practical, readers must be able to trust the information. There is no quicker way to lose trust, than if on Page 1 the EBITDA for the year is £20m, and on page 10, it is £25m. Ensuring consistency is essential.
Similarly to PowerPoint, trust is also built or lost on the document's appearance. Ensuring consistent alignment, text sizing, page layout and colouring may seem unimportant, but maintaining the document's credibility is essential.
Use charts, diagrams, icons and images where possible to make the document easily digestible
Diagrams are commonly the most concise way to present information—for example, a timeline, a business process flow chart or a value chain.
Images of operations, people, or communities also enhance and support your narrative and make the document less word-dense
Know when time is more important than improving the doc further
Given the challenges of Dealmaker Docs, there is no limit to how long you can spend preparing and perfecting the final product. I’ve found it essential to develop a range of ‘finished product quality levels’ appropriate for the situation. For example, my lowest level would be an internal client doc providing an update on the process. It will follow a template and meet all the essential requirements, but no additional time will be spent. My highest level would be for a highly paid IM with a complex business model that needs to be explained clearly to achieve the sales goals. By identifying different levels of document quality early, allows you to more accurately estimate the creation time of documents, which can vary widely. For example, for the same document, the lowest quality level may take a couple of days to complete, while the highest may take weeks. Knowing this upfront and setting appropriate expectations are key to working smarter and keeping clients happy.
Overall, mastering PowerPoint is a critical skill for any dealmaker. The best materials communicate ideas persuasively, simply, while providing required information and in a coherent overall story, while balancing speed and quality. I hope this guide offers practical insights to help you create better, faster, and more effective Dealmaker Docs throughout your career in finance.
The Role of PowerPoint for Dealmakers
Deal-maker PowerPoint creations (“Dealmaker Docs”) are marketing materials. They are the vendor's written story to sell the business or raise capital. They are written confirmations of dealmaker conversations and statements, providing further supporting evidence, connecting statements with data and combining each aspect of the business into the overall narrative that supports the company's valuation and growth proposition. They also house necessary but lower-priority information, typically placed in the appendix, to ensure completeness without distracting from the core narrative.
The difference between standard marketing materials and Dealmaker Docs is the audience. Typically, marketing experts focus on a consumer audience. Unlike typical consumer marketing materials, Dealmaker Docs are built for a sophisticated, financial audience that requires clarity, depth, and accuracy over simplicity. This is an important distinction, as you cannot overly simplify ideas or concepts and must provide complete information. This means complex ideas must be shown elegantly, while keeping the necessary detail, such that a person with financial expertise will understand the key messages and overall storyline at a deep enough level. This balance of complete information, presented simply while keeping a coherent overall narrative, creates the complexity and time-consuming challenge of creating high-quality Dealmaker Docs. When combined with time pressure, many dealmakers in M&A commonly err on the side of caution, providing more detailed sides to ensure that they don't mislead, and this is why (I believe) dealmaker docs commonly get the bad rap of being very dense and too text-heavy. Venture capital dealmakers are different. Commonly their pitch decks are light and graphic, as they are more willing to take a bit more risk, the business founder is part of the process, and the purpose of the Dealmaker Docs is more conceptual rather than providing detailed supporting evidence and analysis over a long period of time (it’s a new growth business!). The other end of the spectrum is an IPO prospectus, which is the most dense deal document due to regulations and required analysis and information requirements.
This article focuses on mid-market M&A deal-making. The most common examples of Dealmaker Docs include the initial Pitch Doc, Information Memorandum (“IM”), Management Presentations (Mgmt. Presentations) and various client docs such as the initial strategy, process updates and specific written advice.
Designing Dealmaker Docs – Best Practice
After years of creating and overseeing Dealmaker Docs, I found several best practices that help create high-impact materials efficiently and effectively. These include:
Key messages in the first few slides of the doc
The first few slides of the Dealmaker Doc are the most important. They set the tone and need to include your key message. For example, in a pitch doc to sell a business, the first slide should say why the vendor should choose you as an adviser – e.g. you have completed the most recent deal in the industry, you believe a valuation of x-y is achievable, you have strong relationships with ABC potential buyers, etc.. Gain the reader's attention before supporting the claims with detail and data.
Make each slide’s purpose clear so that the deck can be skimmed
Ensure that each slide has a clear Title and/or Subtitle that shows the purpose of the slide. Within each slide, use subtitles to show what each section covers. These are the basics of ensuring a slide can be skimmed and the key messages obtained. Where more time is available, colour and relative size of text and icons/images can draw the eye to what is essential on the page in more graphic layouts.
Ensure a coherent narrative throughout
Use a clear structure throughout, ensuring messaging is consistent and doesn’t leave apparent questions or gaps unless this is intentional.
Proofread and ensure consistency of numbers and correct formatting throughout
For your Dealmaker Doc to be practical, readers must be able to trust the information. There is no quicker way to lose trust, than if on Page 1 the EBITDA for the year is £20m, and on page 10, it is £25m. Ensuring consistency is essential.
Similarly to PowerPoint, trust is also built or lost on the document's appearance. Ensuring consistent alignment, text sizing, page layout and colouring may seem unimportant, but maintaining the document's credibility is essential.
Use charts, diagrams, icons and images where possible to make the document easily digestible
Diagrams are commonly the most concise way to present information—for example, a timeline, a business process flow chart or a value chain.
Images of operations, people, or communities also enhance and support your narrative and make the document less word-dense
Know when time is more important than improving the doc further
Given the challenges of Dealmaker Docs, there is no limit to how long you can spend preparing and perfecting the final product. I’ve found it essential to develop a range of ‘finished product quality levels’ appropriate for the situation. For example, my lowest level would be an internal client doc providing an update on the process. It will follow a template and meet all the essential requirements, but no additional time will be spent. My highest level would be for a highly paid IM with a complex business model that needs to be explained clearly to achieve the sales goals. By identifying different levels of document quality early, allows you to more accurately estimate the creation time of documents, which can vary widely. For example, for the same document, the lowest quality level may take a couple of days to complete, while the highest may take weeks. Knowing this upfront and setting appropriate expectations are key to working smarter and keeping clients happy.
Overall, mastering PowerPoint is a critical skill for any dealmaker. The best materials communicate ideas persuasively, simply, while providing required information and in a coherent overall story, while balancing speed and quality. I hope this guide offers practical insights to help you create better, faster, and more effective Dealmaker Docs throughout your career in finance.