How to create a successful pitch deck

Learn how to create a compelling presentation with the help of two world-class design and content experts who’ve worked with the most famous brands in the world.

Few things in business are as important as the pitch presentation. What other single event can make so much difference?

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a well-handled, exciting pitch will boost your career - and it hardly needs adding that an unexciting pitch can hurt it. More than any other business skill, your pitch presentation chops must be razor-sharp if you want to succeed at your job.

This one-day course offers the unrivalled opportunity to have your pitch deck skills reviewed and rebuilt by two master craftsmen: the former creative director of Rolling Stone and an award-winning editor, both of whom have pitched and won clients such as Cisco, the UN, the European commission and Guardian Masterclasses.

Learn the secrets of persuasion and book your place now.

Content

• Winners and losers: 10 decks that won - and lost - pitches

• The five Ps: proper planning prevents poor performance

• The fundamental importance of emotion

• A pitch as a storyboard and how to draft one

• The pitcher is on trial - not the pitch

• Know your audience: it’s one person

• The need for one powerful idea at the core of a pitch

• How to rehearse your presentation

• Creative partnerships: two’s company, three’s a crowd

• Battle plan for the winning pitch

• You control the data - don’t let the data control you

• Learn how to anticipate the next question

• The fundamental differences between internal and external pitches

Tutor profiles

Furthr’s director Andy Pemberton is a content expert with international experience. He edited Q magazine in London; launched Blender magazine in New York, which won Ad Age’s Launch of the Year; and edited Spin magazine. He has written for the New York Times, GQ, Esquire, Sunday Times, The National (Dubai) and the world’s largest newspaper, Times of India. He writes columns for Yahoo.com and the US Huffington Post, and trains social media, data visualisation and content strategy. He has worked as a content consultant for the RNLI, Time Out, BT and more. As a leading data visualisation expert he includes the UN, the World Food Programme and Aviva among his clients. He is a judge at this year’s British Media Awards. He tweets @andypemberton.

Andy Cowles is a highly accomplished creative director who creates and reinvents powerful identities for media brands in the UK, the US and Australia. He has stewarded 12 successful new launches in both print and digital for multiple publishers. He worked for nine years as the editorial and creative director for IPC Media, the UK’s biggest consumer publisher, and was art director of Rolling Stone and creative director of Mademoiselle in New York. He is the originator of effective editorial training programmes and the winner of the prestigious British Society of Magazine Editors Mark Boxer Award.

Booking information

This course can also be tailored to the specific needs of your organisation. Please enquire on 0800 088 2586 or email corporate.masterclasses@theguardian.com