Great Templates Aren’t Enough – You Need Training, Too!
You know you’ve got just three seconds to make a great first impression. That’s why you’ve invested in professional, branded PowerPoint and Word templates for your external communications. Not only do they save time and effort – fill them out, and you’re done – but there’s nothing like really strong, impactful pitch decks, proposals or reports to win over potential clients. In other words, templates minimise stress, and they get you more YESes.
But the slide decks and documents your employees send out look nothing like the visual identity. They’re messy, inconsistent and DIY, depending on who created them. And it’s not for lack of effort, either. Your design team is constantly fielding support queries from team members who can’t figure out how to make the templates do what they want in PowerPoint and Word.
So what’s the problem? You might think that your employees just don’t know what they’re doing. Or maybe you’re wondering why you bothered with branded templates at all.
Help! I'm lost!
In reality, this isn’t about ability or competence. It’s a skills gap. When people struggle with templates, it’s usually because they haven’t been given the right training with the software they use daily to make things work on their own, every time. This happens a lot when organisations issue new templates and branding guidelines without providing support to their team. That’s one reason I founded Beyond the Surface, the visual branding and PowerPoint design agency for your external communications.
So many inspiring businesses and non-profits are stuck with messy, amateurish slide decks and documents for their external communications. They might be doing amazing work, but they never get to make that powerful first impression on potential clients, funders and decision-makers.
That wasted first impression can mean less funding, damaged credibility, and fewer opportunities. And all this because of software that’s actually full of possibilities when you know how to use it. The problem is, people are rarely taught.
It’s not about total mastery
I don’t mean that you and the people in your team have to become Microsoft experts, mastering every tiny detail of Word and PowerPoint. Far from it! You just need to know how to use the specific tools that’ll empower you to create the documents YOU need confidently and consistently, and make them good without breaking the template. The solution to that is training.
With the right training:
- Everyone will be able to work independently. Your central design team will have fewer support requests to deal with, freeing them up to focus on higher-impact tasks in their own area of expertise instead of fixing decks.
- No matter who’s in charge of that new proposal, pitch deck, or report, the final documents will always look professional and consistent – giving you more chances to win that sale or opportunity and get more YESes.
- Including employees in the change and guiding them through it ensures better buy-in. People are much more likely to embrace the new templates rather than sticking with the older, less effective versions they know already.
- Employees will know how to use PowerPoint with confidence to do exactly what they need without feeling limited. This means they’re less likely to bend or break the template, allowing it to be (re)used across your organisation for many years to come.
In other words, your templates will deliver on their full potential. You’ll get more YESes, and streamline your workflow, week after week.
Templates and training for the RAEng
Just ask the Royal Academy of Engineering. As part of their template refresh, we created a set of bespoke training videos on how to use different features, so that they’d be easy for everyone to access and find the answer to any query.
As a result, support requests to the central communication team have significantly reduced. Everyone is more confident that they can get things done on their own, saving time, reducing stress and maximising impact when communicating with decision-makers.
Empowerment pays off
At Beyond the Surface, we know that having the right templates isn’t enough. Empower every employee to use templates and assets that work with PowerPoint and Word, not against them, and you’ll really make your investment count.
Serious about making a powerful first impression? Just send me a message, and we’ll discuss what we can do for you. You can also sign up for our newsletter here.
