Your client doesn’t care about your 40-slide deck.
They care about three things: what’s the problem, what are their options, and what happens next.
Most consultants build slide decks backwards. They start with what looks professional, not what helps clients decide. The result? Beautiful decks that nobody reads and decisions that take weeks.
Here are the slides you actually need.
The Problem Slide
Not “situation analysis.” Not “current state assessment.”
What’s actually broken and why it matters.
Be specific. “CRM adoption is low” is vague. “Sales team ignores CRM because data entry takes 15 minutes per deal, costing 20 hours per rep per month” is actionable.
Put a number on it. Money, time, risk. If you can’t quantify the problem, why are you solving it?
Most problem slides are ten bullets of context. One sentence of actual problem. Flip that ratio.
The Options Slide
This is where most consultants fail. They present one recommendation and call it strategy.
Give them three options. Each with different trade-offs. Different costs. Different timelines.
Don’t hide behind “approach” or “recommendations.” Options means real choices:
- Fix the immediate issue and move on
- Redesign the system to prevent this happening again
- Quick fix now, bigger overhaul next quarter
Every option should be viable. If you’re padding with options you’d never actually recommend, you’re wasting their time.
The Scope Slide
What’s in. What’s out. What’s a maybe.
Most scope slides are vague because consultants are afraid to say no. “We’ll assess current processes and recommend improvements.” That’s not scope. That’s a job description.
Real scope looks like: “We’re fixing the sales workflow in Salesforce. We’re not touching marketing automation or customer service processes. We might expand to reporting if time allows.”
Specificity prevents scope creep. Vagueness guarantees it.
A client once told me: “Your scope slide saved us $80k because we knew exactly where to say no when stakeholders asked for extras.”
The Risk Slide
Not 20 risks. The 3-5 that could actually kill the project.
Most risk slides list everything that might go wrong. “Stakeholder resistance. Technical complexity. Resource constraints.” That’s not helpful. That’s anxiety.
For each risk: what triggers it, what mitigates it, who owns it.
“If IT doesn’t prioritize API access by Week 3, we can’t integrate systems. Mitigation: Get IT commitment in writing before we start. Owner: Project sponsor.”
Cap it at five. If everything’s a risk, nothing is.
The Decision Slide
What needs to be decided today. By whom. What’s the deadline.
Not “next steps.” Not “action items.”
Decisions.
“Do we proceed with Option B? Decision maker: VP Sales. Deadline: End of week.”
“Do we expand scope to include reporting? Decision maker: Steering committee. Deadline: Week 4 kickoff.”
This slide forces clarity. If you can’t articulate what needs to be decided, your deck isn’t ready.
The Timeline Slide
Not a Gantt chart with 47 tasks.
Key milestones and why they matter.
“Week 4: First workflow goes live. Matters because we need early wins to maintain momentum.”
“Week 8: Full team trained. Matters because this is when adoption either takes off or dies.”
Three to six milestones. Each tied to a business outcome, not a task completion.
If your client can’t remember the timeline after seeing it once, it’s too detailed.
The Cost Slide
Money. Time. People.
“This costs $120k in consulting fees, 200 hours of your team’s time, and requires one full-time project manager for 12 weeks.”
Most cost slides hide the total picture. They show consultant fees but not internal resources. Or they show hours but not opportunity cost.
Be honest about all of it. Hidden costs become blamed costs.
What This Actually Takes
Building these slides is harder than building a “professional” deck.
You have to know the problem well enough to quantify it. Understand the options deeply enough to present real choices. Be clear enough about scope to say no.
Most consultants hide behind polish because it’s easier than clarity.
Clients don’t want polish. They want to understand their situation and make a decision.
Seven slides. Clear problem. Real options. Honest about scope, risks, decisions, timeline, and cost.
That’s a deck that helps them decide.
Everything else is performance.