Creative Yet Simple Bar Chart Option

I haven’t blogged much on solution sales presentations since discovering instagram and thoroughly enjoying posting pics there.

So here’s a terrific way to liven up your barcharts and make them especially memorable to your audience.

In fevered Blighty as 18 September’s Scottish referendum strikes, the ever dependable Ed Conway of Sky News demonstrated how vastly different the major economic forecasts of the two campaigns are.

The two indicators he chose were productivity and oil revenue.

It saddens me that one side so obviously hugely over-estimate these numbers. Still, our Ed’s treatment was a delight (full 4min report via Sky News youtube channel).

Why use a tired old bar – and regular readers will know how much I rail against that as an approach – when you can funk it up.

First off, Ed went to a shortbread baker. So why not stack up little biccies to show the difference in projections?

Unfortunately, the graphic (above) does not appear to reflect the numbers. By my reckoning, the nine cookies for the larger number is two-and-a-quarter times the four used to depict the smaller number. When the actual difference is 0.3% over 2.2%. That’s about one-seventh, not more than double as alluded to. Perhaps Ed was trying to highlight the ludicrous nature of the over-statement?

A slip maybe, but I feel the visual still, ahem, takes the biscuit.

Then it was off to the seaside. Oil revenues. Is that really crude oil in that beaker?!

This time the difference between the opposing views is a whopping £4bn (2.9 vs 6.9). That makes the larger almost two-and-a-half times bigger. Now, Ed may well get some slack here – after all, how clever would your sandy-beach-standing free-pouring of oil be?! – but by my rough reckoning, his larger pot is merely one-and-a-half times more full.

Enough of the pedantry.

These are cracking graphics.

And pretty easy to jump off from in your next sales slidedeck.

Ditch those bars.

Oil apart, there are plenty of ideas I’m sure you could come up with that are relevant to your prospect.

Maybe shortbread indeed if your potential client sells food. Assorted widgetry for any maufacturer. Even playing with a wodge of paper clips if you can’t cheaply find something extra-special.

The options are limitless. And the impact, hopefully, endless.