EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Matt Krause:
Hello, welcome to the inaugural episode of The White Rabbit. I’m Matt Krause, and this is Alper Rozanes and the inaugural episode of The White Rabbit. We have taken the name The White Rabbit from a movie that we both love called The Matrix. I’m sure that you’ve heard of it. And Alper especially is a big fan of The Matrix. So, Alper , can you tell us a little bit about what is the White Rabbit? What are we referencing?

Alper Rozanes:
Well, I’m not gonna give any spoilers in case someone hasn’t still watched the movie. Actually the White Rabbit is one of my favorite scenes from The Matrix. It’s when Neo opens the door after Trinity sends a message to his computer and standing there is a group of people and they’re making a business transaction. But after that, the people call Neo to join them on, on a club. And at first he rejects, he says he’s tired, he has work tomorrow. But remembers that there was a message. He sees one, one of the girls has a white rabbit tattoo on her shoulder, on the back of her shoulder. And the moment he sees that, he realizes that on his computer was a message, follow the white rabbit. And because of that, he, he, he goes with them to this club meets Trinity there, and then the whole movie takes off. But what I particularly like about this scene is that’s the moment he decides to take on the hero’s journey. That’s the moment he actually goes out of his routine of the comfort zone and actually follows the girl into the club where he eventually meets Trinity and the rest is history. That’s why it’s, it’s one of my, it’s, it’s one of the most critical moments in the movie. Yes. And one of the, one of my favorite scenes.

Matt Krause:
Okay. So in, just so that some people don’t start thinking that maybe they’ve tuned into a podcast about movie critiques, let’s get into the real business of this podcast, which is to talk about things related to presentations and one of the, one of the topics mm-hmm. that we’ve spent a lot of time talking about. And when I asked Alper, what, what should we talk about today for our first episode, one of the options that he threw out there was to talk about the difference between the presentation slide deck and the leave behind slide deck. Did I get that right out there?

Alper Rozanes:
Yeah.

Matt Krause:
Okay.

Alper Rozanes:
Yeah. Yeah.

Matt Krause:
So, so there’s a difference between the presentation slide deck and the leave behind slide deck or the leave behind materials. Tell me more. Alper, what do you mean by that?

Alper Rozanes:
Mm-Hmm. , eh, actually, before coming to that, since this is our inaugural episode I would like to underline something I’ll, throughout this podcast. I will probably mention this point at various episodes. It’s not, it’s not going to be limit limited to this one. And here’s what I think, especially with presentations where I, as the presenter, not , but as the presenter himself or herself I’m asking the people in front of me to give me something, to do something. As long as I am standing in front of them asking them to do this. We cannot talk about equal grounds. And one side always has the higher ground. And imagine this could be like a potential customer you’re trying to make a sale. It could be your department manager or, or the board of the company you work for, and you want them to promote you or approve your plan of action.

Or you could be an entrepreneur, for example, pitching your project to potential investors, especially with the last one, but applicable to all of those settings, there is nothing fair about the situation at hand. I want to underline that very clearly. Your audience has the decision power and enjoys a higher ground. Therefore, you as a presenter, in the position of lower power, you have homework to do. And since this is the inaugural in inaugural episode I wanted to underline that now, I said homework. I think the main homework of the presenter is to create the environment for the audience to be able to understand and follow himself or from…

Matt Krause:
Let me stop you there for a second. Let, let’s, let’s jump back to something. Yeah. You said a few moments ago you were talking about the, the, the power dynamics between the presenter and the audience mm-hmm. . And you were saying that the audience has the power in a, in a presenting situation. Tell me more. What do you mean by that?

Alper Rozanes:
Well, like I said, there is nothing fair or, or just about the situation. If I’m presenting to someone, chances are that I want them, I want something from them. Mm-Hmm. , and I want, I may want them to move in my direction. I may want them to approve a project, approve a budget, or I may actually want them to invest in my project, in my company. If I am standing in front of people, that means I need something from them. So in that setting, we’re not talking about equal powers. Okay. We’re not talking about equal grounds because the other people has the option and thus the power to make what I want true or not okay. To, to, to make it become true or not. Okay. I I may be speaking to them for two hours at the end of it, if they’re not connected, if they’re not convinced, they will say, okay, nice listening to you. Bye-Bye. Okay. Okay. That’s, that’s, that’s the end of the presentation. That’s the kind of unequal, eh, eh power dynamic I was mentioning too.

Matt Krause:
And, and, and, and let’s go back to the, let’s go back to the, the presentation itself versus the, the leave behind materials. So how do you make this decision between what goes into the presentation and what goes into the leave behind materials? How do you make that decision?

Alper Rozanes:
Well, I think it re it’s, it revolves around simplicity because what we need to do in the presentation is, is connect with the audience and have them understand this, right? And we do that through simplicity. True brevity, not complicated or, or crowded slice, because a presentation after all, a live presentation is between humans, is between people. So the connection has to be there, and it doesn’t, we cannot establish a connection through bunch of information we’re throwing at their face. Mm-Hmm. . That’s why the, the slide deck ideally should contain the main points of your, of your, of the idea that you’re sharing the big picture. And after conveying that big picture, if you still believe that your audience should be informed about further topics that’s when the leap behind document comes into the pic come, comes, comes into the picture.

Matt Krause:
L l let, let me stop you there. Let’s, let’s let’s dive into this leap behind material package a little bit further. So, okay, so for example let’s say that I am a marketing manager. For example, I’m a marketing manager at a mm-hmm. at a multinational company, let’s say Unilever, and the chief marketing officer is coming for the annual meeting, and he or she is gonna sit there in the audience and listen in, listen to my marketing plan for the next year. So I have to make a decision.

Alper Rozanes:
Mm-Hmm.

Matt Krause:
What do I put into the presentation and what do I put into the leap behind documents? How do I, how do I make that decision?

Alper Rozanes:
Before even making that decision, you need to ask yourself, what is it that you want to achieve with this presentation? What is it that you want to happen at the end of it? And that is, that is the most crucial question that you will ask yourself when preparing for this presentation, because everything that goes both into the slide deck, as well as the lead behind documents, will, will be shaped around the answer for that question.

Matt Krause:
Okay?

Alper Rozanes:
So, like I said, what, when you ask this question, when you find the answer of about what it is that you want to achieve, then you will get a big picture. The big picture will be this goal that you will convey to, to your manager.

Matt Krause:
Okay?

Alper Rozanes:
Now most of us have suffered, I will say from the habit of just, you know, when the, when the presentation date comes around the corner, we, we just start populating the slides, especially with copy paste. It has become extremely easy to take bunch of material from Excel, from word order, true from the web, and, and true, put them onto the slide.

Matt Krause:
True, true.

Alper Rozanes:
With the hope that the other person is going to digest all of them, which is impossible.

Matt Krause:
Okay? Yeah.

Alper Rozanes:
The basic decision starts between what is big picture and what are details that mm-hmm. actually support that big picture. Okay. the main ideas go into the, onto the slides. Anything else that can be later revealed in their own time, they go to the leave behind documents.

Matt Krause:
So, okay, so on the leap behind document with the, with the presentation itself, I’ve got a nice time limit. Let’s say that somebody else is telling me 10 minutes or 15 minutes or 20 minutes, or five minutes or three minutes or whatever, there, there’s a nice finite limit that someone’s giving me. And I, I know that I have, have to say everything in this mm-hmm. short period of time. But with the, with the leave behind document, there’s an infinite amount of space. It could be like a one page leave behind, it could be a thousand pages leave behind. I could just have one slide on the leave behind. I could, you know, put in everything about my whole life. And I could even mention that I was born in California and I used to eat pureed carrots when I was a baby. How do I know, like between the, the spectrum of infinity, how do I know what to put in the slide or what to put in the, the leaf behind materials and what not to?

Alper Rozanes:
Well, that’s a good question. Let me think about that for a second. I’m sure like everything in life, there is no clear cut answer to that, but I believe common sense will be the key here. And you need to remember that unless it’s a legally binding document that you’re giving me as a lie behind, I’m not going to have willingness to go through every single detail. You throw it my way. Now, once we start talking about documents just like you said, we may feel that the sky is a limit, especially with PDFs. There is not much difference between sending a 10, 10 page document or 110 page documents. But again, simplicity is the key. You should not just put things into this document just because it’s, it’s very easy to do. So all the points you include in this document, just like it was in the, in the slide presentation presentation slides, all the points you include in the document they should also serve as justifications or data to back up the, the claims that you made in the big picture.

Matt Krause:
Okay.

Alper Rozanes:
So it’s from your example mm-hmm. , I, I particularly like that one. From, from your example, if in the presentation you decided that it was important for them to know that you were born in California and you like eating carrots, by all means, put that in the document, but think twice before if it is actually necessary or…

Matt Krause:
Not. So, so for example, if I am an entrepreneur and I am pitching somebody on making pure carrots for babies, then I should include that slide probably. If, if not, if, if I’m the marketing manager for potato chips or laundry detergent or something, I probably shouldn’t,

Alper Rozanes:
I could agree and disagree with that. You make the choice, you, you make the judgment. If it is relevant, by all means, include that. But just becau j remember that, just because it’s easy to include things on their PDF document, it doesn’t mean they should be, they should be there.

Matt Krause:
Okay. We could go on and on about the subject for hours and hours or days and days. And believe me, we have, but we’re gonna stop here. And so I’m sure that you will hear about the subject in a future episode too. But for now, that’s it for today.

Alper Rozanes:
Oh, I’m, I’m sure, I’m sure this will come up. Yeah, interesting. Yeah,

Matt Krause:
You will hear about this again. All right. Well, thank you for joining us today and, and we will see you again on the, on the next episode.

Alper Rozanes:
Thank you, Matt. Good talking to you.

Matt Krause:
Good talking to you.