Nothing says “amateur” quite like a piece of paper with a hand-drawn line on it.

You know the line we’re talking about — the one that starts at the bottom left of the page and goes up to the top right, with some peaks and troughs in the middle. It’s the graph illustrating overall growth in market value, and advisors often use it to persuade clients to keep their money in the markets rather than cash out.

Such lines are hopefully reassuring to clients at times like these, in which instability and volatility reign. While there’s nothing wrong with using that line, it’s how you present it that matters. Even the hardest-headed client is likely to pay more attention if you present the graph in a professional fashion.

The really switched-on professional will use more technically advanced presentation systems to persuade clients that they shouldn’t hide all their money under their mattresses. Such software — and how you use it — becomes particularly important both when presenting to clients one on one or when presenting to a group at sales events such as special invitation dinners, speeches and forums.

Ultimately, a savvy advisor will choose financial planning software that either includes a presentational style element or allows for other presentation software to be integrated with it.

One example of a planning software provider with a focus on presentation is Tucson, Ariz.-based Finance Logix, which produces online and desktop versions of its financial planning product. Both versions are designed to take client data and create presentations that will help clients relate their data to goals such as education and retirement.

Cambridge, Mass.-based Windham Capital Management LLC has also folded customizable client reports into its Windham Financial Planner software, which is aimed at financial advisors.

DEDICATED SOFTWARE

However, to truly wow your clients, nothing beats dedicated presentation software to help them fully understand the data and, hopefully, sell them new concepts. The most well-known one is Redmond, Wash.-based Microsoft Corp. ’s PowerPoint, of course. But there are alternatives.

PowerPoint has developed into a comprehensive product over the years. The latest edition, PowerPoint 2007, includes more features than earlier versions. One useful function is the ability to move among Excel spreadsheets and charts within PowerPoint. Users can enter their data into Excel and then use that to create a chart dynamically in PowerPoint.

The PowerPoint chart will then update in tandem with the Excel spreadsheet, keeping your chart up to date. That can be useful if, for example, you’re hoping to show a client the value of his or her portfolio as measured against a constantly moving market index.

PowerPoint features a range of charting options. But, if you want to give your charts some extra selling power, it might be worth considering an add-on. Santa Clara, Calif.-based CrystalGraphics Inc. sells a range of enhancement products for PowerPoint under the PowerPlugs banner. These tools include PowerPlugs Charts, which features more than 100 pre-formatted charts designed to communicate information in both two-dimensional and three-dimensional formats.

If you want to enhance your PowerPoint presentations with animation, consider Los Angeles-based Wildform Inc. ’s animated presentation tool, Flair. It can import PowerPoint files and use them as the basis for interactive animations that feature timelines.

Timelines make it possible to schedule specific types of animated events and even initiate new actions when you click on components of a slide. This could be used as the basis for a take-away presentation featuring animated graphs that a client could select and review by him- or herself. Because Flair can output movies in Flash format, these presentations could even be hosted online — and thus accessed using a Web browser.

USE WEB-BASED SERVICES

The other option is not to buy any software at all. Instead use “software as a service” or Web-based software. These tools are influencing many software categories, including presentations. Sliderocket (www.sliderocket.com) is an online presentation service that features 3-D transitions, video and animations, as well as the ability to import Google Spreadsheets to inject “real” data into the presentation.

An advantage to this service is that you can conduct online meetings using its slides, which can be useful when you are trying to catch up with elusive clients who can’t make face-to-face appointments.

There is, however, some problems with all of this presentation wizardry. The danger comes if you end up focusing too much on prettying up the graphics. Just as the desktop-publishing revolution spawned a generation of garish community newsletters, poorly done presentations can end up overwhelming the client with excessive bells and whistles.

@page_break@Says renowned presentation guru Edward Tufte: “Power corrupts, PowerPoint corrupts absolutely.”

In his essay, The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint, he cites mistakes that are commonly made with the software, including the squashing of information into bulleted lists that are then simply read — parrot-
fashion — as a means of reminding the presenter rather than as a means of stimulation and inspiration for the presentation’s audience.

The trick is to use these presentation tools judiciously to catch the client’s eye and explain the data clearly, without distractions.

Unfortunately, that skill isn’t something that you can buy off the shelf. It takes practice — and a gut feeling for visual cognition. That said, it can’t be any worse than a sheet of paper and a wobbly, hand-drawn swoosh. IE