The day the CEO called our deck ‘a mess’.

A true story.

I will always remember the first time I was in a session with a CEO.

It was the CEO of the company I worked for - a multi-billion pound turnover household name. And I was a cocky young marketer.

I was invited to a meeting and we had to give a presentation to him. It was about a big strategic marketing decision. I’d built the deck. My manager was presenting it. This was our moment.

And within minutes… it went off the rails.

Not because the content was bad. It wasn’t. We’d done the prep and the research. The story, the logic and the theatre was all there.

But then the CEO started asking questions.

Reasonable ones. Smart ones. The kind you'd expect.
And we had all the answers. They were all in the deck, at various points.

So we started flicking through the slides.

Backwards, forwards, skipping to this, jumping to that.

Answer here. Proof point there. Supporting data … Hang on, let me find it.

And as we did that, you could feel tensions rising.

The narrative we'd crafted had gone.
The structure was smashed to pieces
The CEO’s patience had run thin.

And then he said it.
‘Guys, this deck is a mess.’

The truth is that it wasn’t a mess.

But if you jump back and forth throughout any set of PowerPoint slides then I can see how it can appear that way.

He ended the meeting early and told us to tidy it up.

In the following days, once it had stopped burning, I realised what would’ve saved us.

One simple thing.
So simple.

A contents page.

That’s it.

Just a clean, clear slide right at the front, showing what was in the pack.

Where we were going.
How long it would take.
When we’d get to the answers.

If we’d had that, he wouldn’t have needed to keep interrupting because he’d have known what was coming. And we could’ve kept control of the pace and the story.

So now, I always use a contents slide. Even for short decks.

It shows the structure, the flow, the narrative.
And it keeps you in charge and in control.

Lesson learned.

Small change, little effort, big impact.


Hate public speaking? Let’s fix that.
Start the journey to banish your fear of public speaking and presenting, improve your confidence, and boost your career prospects. Check out the online masterclass here at Better Public Speaking.