Now go out and get yourself some big black frames
With the glass so dark they won’t even know your name
And the choice is up to you cause they come in two classes:
Rhinestone shades or cheap sunglasses

- ZZ Top, Cheap Sunglasses

I have the worst luck with sunglasses.

No matter how cautious I set out to be, they always end up:

• sat upon
• scratched by my car keys
• pulled in two directions by a toddler
• swimming in a non-fresh toilet bowl

In high school I had a friend who always bought the most expensive sunglasses he could find. I think he had a revolving account at the Sunglass Hut. After months of gazing upon his shiny black shades of wonder, I splurged on a pair myself. I forked over my entire paycheck (because who needs car insurance?) and got a slick pair of Ray Bans.

Less than a week later I left them at a Taco Bell. I kicked myself for years (and still do, but it’s more about my sad choices in food).

That day I lost a high-ticket item but I gained a new principle: Never spend over $10 for a pair of sunglasses.

In fact, I’ve spent only $1.00 each for my last two pairs. UV-coated, hipster styling. Of course, even when they’re cheap they need to actually protect my eyes from macular degeneration. And they should look reasonably fashionable (no hand-clapper attachments or dolphin shaped arms, thanks). It is possible to find sunglasses that meet my needs without considering the additional purchase of safety cords or velvet-lined cases. Now I greet the sun protected and stress-free.

Yesterday I dropped my cheapo shades onto the floor of a coffee shop bathroom. They were unscathed (and the floor was dry), but had they become bent, scratched, or… wet, I would have chucked them without losing any sleep.

My friend and I have different lifestyles and different priorities. He buys the Acer laptop from Costco and spends as much on eyewear. I splurge on expensive computer gadgetry and crow about my dollar sunglasses. Yay us.

Is there a Presentation Hut at the mall?

If presentations were sunglasses, here’s how the two classes would break down:

The Dollar Store Presentation

This is the DIY solution. This is the one you hack out on the plane on your way to the conference because you’ve been so frickin’ busy with other things (translation: you procrastinated). You can still make this work. But you don’t want to look like you hacked it out on the plane.

For audience members, it’s not endearing when you joke about how crappy it all looks. It sounds like either you don’t have time for us little people or you just didn’t plan well. Now we trust you slightly less, and you haven’t even started on your message. Here are a few tips while you whistle in the dark (tray tables up, Ladies and Gentlemen. We are landing):

• Don’t get fancy. Seriously. Simple is your friend.
• Use one font. A serif or a sans serif, but stick with it. Do I even have to say don’t use Comic Sans? Don’t.
• Solid color background. Something light paired with dark text for high contrast. The lights might be on and it will be harder to read. Gradients are super duper awesome! Don’t use them.
• No animations. No transitions. Yes, I agree it’s fun to play with. Now stop using it.
• Don’t use crappy photos or clip art. What’s crappy? Pixelated. Blurred. Microsoft. If you use photos, either don’t use a border or use the same border on each one. Consistency is your next best friend after simplicity.
• If you have data charts, use the same color scheme in all of them. If you got them from someone else, at least give them all the same border.
• Format each page the same way. Help people forget about the format so they focus on the message.

We notice. We care. We want to trust you as an expert – but not in designing presentations. So skip the impressive, fancy treatments. We just want to hear your message.

The Rhinestone-covered Ray Ban Presentation

This is hiring someone to design it for you. You have to pay for this, but then you don’t have to worry if you did all that other stuff right. Let someone else figure out what’s right for your content, because there’s more to crafting a great presentation than just picking colors and fonts. Hey. You can watch the inflight movie for a change.

The choice is up to you

Just as there’s a place in the world for both cheap sunglasses and fancy shades, there are situations best suited for both DIY and hiring a designer. A few examples:

• Internal presentation to educate staff = DIY
• Client presentation to sell your services = Hire designer
• Small, free workshop with people who already trust you and “get” you = DIY
• Big 2-day seminar where people paid big bucks to absorb your wisdom = Hire designer

Bottom line: you don’t want people commenting on your presentation (good or bad), you want them to comment on your message. You want them to trust your information.

Help us trust you. We really want to.

Close your eyes for a moment. Oh, wait. You’ll need to read. So keep them open, but pretend they’re closed.

Imagine you restore old cars. You’re the type who dons blue coveralls just to change your wiper blades. You smoke around open cans of gasoline, taunting the fumes. You keep a greasy socket wrench in your bra. If you even wear a bra, that is. Maybe you’re too tough for a bra. Or you’re a dude who likes to wear women’s undergarments under your coveralls. But let’s get back to the story.

Imagine you just built a hot rod with a super powerful engine. Rumble, rumble. Gun that engine. Go ahead, rev it up.  Nice.

You’ve spent hours timing that engine. You found only the best parts to assemble it. Special mail order from some old geezer outside of Detroit. Expensive, but worth it. I mean, listen to that thing. Hell yeah.

Now step outside the car. Look at that dull, chipped paint and those worn-out tires. That needs fixin’. So you polish it up, apply a few careful dabs of your kid’s tempura paints and call it done. Will anyone even notice? I mean… listen to that power under the hood.

You take it to the car show (which is what coverall-wearing people do for fun). Before anyone gets to hear that turbo-charged rumble, they stroll right on by thinking, “Who let in the riff-raff?”

So you jump behind the wheel and crank that sucker over. rrrrRRRRROAR! Rumble rumble. By the time it revs up, they’re already over by the Batmobile.

On the flip side, let’s talk about the Batmobile. People gather around to soak up the legend behind this jet-powered rocket car they used to see on TV. Sooner or later, they’ll find out it’s only slick black paint and shiny chrome. Wait. Is that a Volkswagen engine? Then they feel bamboozled. They want what they saw on TV.

Hey. That’s kinda like a product.

Is it unfair that people judge your content before they even read your turbo-charged words? Yes, it’s unfair. So unfair. My coverall-covered butt is clenched in outrage over the unfairness.

Okay. So you can make them pay attention with your Batmobile reputation. If you’re Danielle LaPorte, for example, you can create a fantastic product and design it yourself. Even if it has chipped paint (and her stuff does not), people will see potential value in your product before you open the hood simply by virtue of you having rocked their world before. From what I’ve read, Danielle’s engine is turbo-charged. So no problem there.

But what if you’re just a weekend garage monkey with no rep? What do you do about your paint job – er, your package?

Your biggest priority is to turbo-charge that engine. Remember the Batmobile. Ironic, but most people I work with designing their products make the mistake of underestimating how powerful their engine (message) is, not the other way around. So hone it, test, it, get feedback. Tweak it. Then close the hood and move on to the paint job.

Take your hands off the wheel

What’s stopping you from hiring someone? What I hear from clients most often is the money. My fees are outrageous for some people. Money worries will put a wrench into the flywheel every time.

You need to decide what’s right for you. A few things to ponder that might help you decide:

Consider what you’ll get from your launch. Do you expect to make $11K on your product? That’s awesome. Go for it. If you’ve got an audience eagerly awaiting your product, you might be able to advance the cash to hire a pro, knowing you’ll get it back in spades. If you’re offering a free 5-page ebook to your email subscribers, you can save your money for the big $11K stuff.

Consider your time and sanity. Do you really want to learn InDesign? Pick fonts? Scour Google for answers on why Adobe Acrobat won’t make your hyperlinks clickable? Use your energy to build your turbo-charged engine and let Earl Sheib paint your car. Give yourself the space to think creative thoughts rather than technical ones.

Think about the hidden value in hiring someone. Ponder two projects I recently completed; World-Changing Writers Workshop and the LIft-Off Retreat. In working with both of those teams, I cared about what they were creating beyond the final invoice. Plus, I did some of my best work with them. So when the time came, I promoted the hell out of their stuff.

Even on the purely selfish side where I just wanted more people to see my art, they got the benefit of my emails, tweets, and connections with their people.

I don’t know if you can put a dollar value on that.

Meanwhile, back at the car show…

So while you’re crafting the engine of your genius product, think about what you’re going to deliver to your people. You’ll probably spend hours on your sales copy, explaining the benefits and outlining features. Think about what happens when someone identifies with your offer and clicks that “buy” button.

Picture their anticipation at receiving the final product.

Try to imagine what it will be like when they see that first page of your book. If you’re giving a presentation, what do you hope people will feel when they see that first slide come up?

Before you hit the car show, make sure you have something to show off inside and out. And take off those coveralls. Wait. Are you wearing pants under there?