To be effective in business, you need a clear point of view, and a clear line of argument that ensures that people agree with you. This highly popular training scheme and talk uses material from Kevin's books -The Diagrams Book and The Ideas Book - to explain how.

1. FROM POV TO LOA
How to develop a Point Of View
and
create a persuasive Line Of Argument

2. You did not join the company to do
PowerPoint and be an email clearing house
so you need a…
1. Point Of View
2. Line Of Argument

3. HAVING A POV
• Your job is to.....
• Be relentlessly curious
• Assimilate wide-ranging stimuli
• Gather the right data and information
• Come up with some hypotheses about what to do
• Have an opinion on it
• Distill it down to something clear
• Recommend a direction

4. YOU CAN’T CREATE AN LOA
WITHOUT A POV
• Here are some ideas to increase your
chances of having a POV...

5. A decent brief?
• To achieve what?
• Why?
• Who is this aimed at?
• Statement: our objective
• Question: how do we…?

6. What if the brief is defective?
• Use Three Good Three
Bad
• Draw out negatives first
• 3 worst and 3 best things
• Find common ground
• Offset bad with good
• Time limit & move on

7. What if our ideas are too random?
• Use Think Inside The Box
• Map out constraints
• Only work within those
• Bounded subject area
• Reject everything
irrelevant
• Think Apollo 13

8. What if our perspective is too
narrow?
• Use Eyes Of Experts
• Choose experts in
advance
• Or get attendees to do it
• View brief through the
eyes of different experts
• How would they do it?
• Consider those unrelated
to category

9. What if everyone in our
market does the same thing?
• Use Category Stealing
• Identify other categories
(not your own)
• Define characteristics
• Name brands
• Identify approaches
• Apply to your brief

10. What if we tend to express
ideas verbally?
• Use Picture Platforms
• Break reliance on the
same old vocabulary
• Find images from a wide
range of sources
• Choose in advance or
allow choice on the spot
• 10 = narrow range
• 100 = free form

11. What if we tend to use the
same language all the time?
• Use Random Word
• Take a book
• Ask for numbers to find
page, sentence, word
• Dictionary at random
• Or enter relevant words
into wordle.net

12. What if we have too little to go on?
• Use What’s Hot?
• Examine current trends
• Major events coming up
• Look at celebrities & issues
• Attach your issue to them
• Don’t force fit

13. What if too often we have a
fixed point of view?
• Use Different Light
• Are you identical to
your target audience?
• If not, name very
diverse people who
may have a different
perspective
• Assume their role and
explore the
implications

14. What if we usually end up with
a compromise?
• Use Exaggeration and
Deprivation
• Push to irrational
extremes
• Ludicrously over-
exaggerate product
benefits
• Imagine product doesn’t
exist at all
• What are the
implications?
• Use hyperbole as drama

15. What if we need a new
jumping off point?
• Use Analogy Springboard
• Many great ideas were
observed in one place
and then applied in
another
• Pictures? Words?
• Stimuli from elsewhere
applied to your brief
• What if x were used in
y…?

16. What if we want something
more whacky?
• Use Sticking Plaster
Sentence
• Invented by surrealists
• 2 adjectives, 2 nouns, 1
verb
• Think of words secretly,
then put in right
sequence
• Scrutinize in relation to
brief
• Suspend disbelief!

17. What if we are stuck in a rut?
• Use Conceptual Blending
• Start with what you know
• Add something from
somewhere else
• Blend the two
• Repeat for interesting
combinations

18. What if we know nothing
about it, or too much?
• Use Strange Or Familiar?
• Unfamiliarity = fear
• Overfamiliarity =
conformity
• 1. = Learn more + develop
• 2. = Revisit assumptions
• Reappraise in new light

19. What if the brief is always the
same?
• Use Four Corner Walkabout
• 4 flip chart pages
• 1 in each corner
• 1 strategic word on each
• Walk round and add ideas
• Review when pages full

20. What if we usually ignore any
anomalies?
• Use Outliers
• Context is crucial
• Head to Extremistan
• Ignore consensus view
• Head to the edges
• What’s the oddest
thing?
• Examine the anomalies
• Is there an interesting
lateral link to the brief?

21. ONCE YOU HAVE YOUR POV...
• Don’t stampede to PowerPoint
• Get a pen and paper and sketch out your LOA
• Just because you have a POV, they still might
not get it
• If you have no LOA, they definitely won’t get it

22. THINK BEFORE YOU START
WRITING
• What is this supposed to achieve?
• To whom is it directed?
• What approach is likely to yield the
best result?

23. AUDIENCE ORIENTATIONS
Results
Don’t bore with details. Snappy points. Talk results.
Emotions
Show genuine interest in feelings. Give help & support.
Abracadabra
Give it some magic. Make it interesting and sparky.
Data
Make research, facts, and figures perfectly precise.

24. What if we want to say it all in
one chart?
• Use The Market Map
• Win the business with one
diagram
• Plot any market
• Encapsulate strategy
visually
• Try multiple variables
• Imply direction of travel
and success

25. What if we don’t know how
brave to be?
• Use The Bravery Scale
• How adventurous is the
individual?
• How adventurous is the
company culture?
• How brave should targets be?
• What standards are expected?
• Remind when you present/they
reject

26. What if we don’t want to look
indecisive?
• Use The Whittling Wedge
• Tell an engaging strategic
story
• Start broad, then reduce
• Consider, then reject
• Exclude competitor
proposals
• Recommend with authority

27. What if we need to cover a lot of
detail?
• Use The Bow Tie
• Perfect story telling
• Reduce, big reveal,
expand
• Cadence and pace of a
presentation
• “And now for the detail...”

28. What if we need to distinguish
between strategy and tactics?
• Use The Strategic v.
Tactics Year View
• It’s not what changes that
matters – it’s what stays
the same
• Strategy = fixed
• Tactics = flexible
• You must always be able
to link the two

29. What if we need to organise our
creative thoughts?
• Use The Central Idea
Satellite System
• How to explain ideas
clearly
• Sub-sets and
interrelationships
• Proper anchored strategy
• Multiple themes and
fertility of ideas

30. What if there are too many
projects or tasks?
• Use The Three Buckets
• BB = excellence as
standard
• CD = significantly better
than normal
• CTG = truly extraordinary
• Put all projects in a bucket
& review

31. What if we think they won’t buy it?
• Use The Barriers To
Purchase Axis
• What are the barriers?
• How many?
• How do we knock them
down?
• All at once?
• Or in what sequence?

32. What if we haven’t got much time?
• Use The Personal Deadline
• Human nature to delay, but
don’t
• Convene decision makers
in the first 24 hours
• Set direction, brief experts,
course correct if necessary

33. MAPPING OUT YOUR LOA

34. 1. KILLER TITLE GOES HERE
•Make the title truly reflect the main point
you are trying to get across
•It must be accurate and engaging
•Do not write “presentation by Agency X” - let
the logo do the work

35. 2. START WITH A BANG
• Do not repeat the brief or cut and
paste “the task”
• Use a grabber, such as...
• A controversial statement
• A quotation that sums up the dilemma
• Stating the opposite view

36. 3. MAKE ASSERTIONS AND BACK
THEM UP
• Re-express their issues cleverly
• Don’t hide negatives and overclaim in a list of
things to do - be honest about the job
• Challenge their assumptions and be brave
• Follow with solutions as unique to your agency as
possible
• Show data that support your argument(s)
• Deliberately introduce similar issues from other
markets they aren’t familiar with
• Cross fertilise knowledge from different disciplines

37. 4. TELL THE STORY OF YOUR
STRATEGIC JOURNEY
• Such as: in this market there are only really
four strategies - eg. price, reliability, innovation
and speed
• Isn’t it interesting that your company has tried
three of these in the last four years?
• We wanted to know why your most admired
competitor has cleverly migrated their position
from x to y
• So we researched it and this is what we found…

38. 5. ARRIVE AT A STRATEGIC
POSITIONING
• So we think you should be occupying
territory x
• (At this stage we have not mentioned any
particular medium at all)
• The positioning statement needs either to
be a distinctive diagram or a crystal clear
sentence which your mum could understand
• The positioning statement must not include
any flabby adjectives such as “innovative” or
“trustworthy”

39. 6. TELL THEM THE CENTRAL IDEA
• We propose basing the campaign on x
• Our creative expression of x is …..
• This is such a fertile idea that it works
effectively for a range of audiences, vertical
markets, countries, channels, ++
• We have cherry picked 6-10 ideas from the
implementation programme to demonstrate
the point, and they are…
• Here are some examples that bring it to life -
video, personalities, graphics etc

40. 7. IN THE CONTEXT OF THE OVERALL
(COMMUNICATIONS) STRATEGY
• Don’t dive straight in to the details of your
favourite medium - that’s what they would
expect from a media agency
• Instead review their whole marketing strategy
and communications plan
• Look at all the communication options and
show how the plan fits in with the total picture
• You may end up concluding for example that
your agency cannot do everything - recommend
other experts if needed

41. 8. TONE OF VOICE
• Don’t confuse what you wish to say with how
you wish to say it
• Select no more than three adjectives that
reflect the right tone of voice
• If they could be applied to a competitor they
are not distinctive enough
• Try to choose words that you have not seen in
marketing documents before
• Not allowed: innovative, visionary, responsible,
mould-breaking
• Try: eccentric, cheeky, loud, invasive, etc.

42. 9. MECHANICS, MEDIA,
CHANNELS, ROUTES
• You are now clear to outline the specific
strategy or plan that you are recommending
• Be concise and avoid cliché - if the words
are similar to those used in other
presentations, it’s probably not going to be
memorable enough
• Show the relative merit of your agency’s
recommendation alongside others

43. 10. ADD PRODUCTS AND
PROCESSES
• Now is the time to introduce your bespoke
products as clever solutions to their tricky
problems - but only if they are relevant
• Putting “Brand Process X” on a chart out of
the blue doesn’t work
• Try to demonstrate their efficacy by
reference to irrefutable success on other
impressive clients - “we introduced “Brand
Process X” to Client Y 2 years ago and now
they can’t operate without it…”

44. 11. THE PROGRAMME
• If at all possible, put this in the appendix
and don’t present it on the day
• If the client is process driven, then do it,
but do it fast and distinctively - reading
bullet points off 15-20 charts will bore
them rigid
• Summarise the hygiene factors such as
costs and housekeeping as succinctly as
possible

45. 12. APPENDIX
• Put all back up material in the appendix
• Don’t protest too much in the main LOA with
too much evidence
• Relegate to the appendix anything that
interrupts the LOA
• Don’t stray into this material if the job is
done
• If they agree with your recommendation,
don’t use it at all

46. JUST A FEW THINGS LEFT...
• Edit several times
• Remove all cliche and bullshit
• Add a bit of colour
• Test drive with a colleague
• Write the executive summary

47. A CLASSIC LOA
1. There are various views on X, which span broadly from A
to B to C. Let’s take a new look at this.
2. The facts are D, E, and F.
3. Interestingly, new evidence sheds a different light on how
this is usually viewed.
4. Analysing this leads us to main areas 1, 2, 3.
5. Looking specifically, we get closer to a solution like 4.
6. Objections to this idea might include X, Y and Z, but they
can be countered with A, B and C.
7. So we recommend X.
8. X is a very fertile idea, and can be developed by XYZ.
9. If enacted, the principle benefit of this will be X.
10. In our line of argument, the chain of logic is A + B + C = D.

48. STRUCTURAL CHECKLIST
• What are we trying to achieve?
• Who is the audience of this LOA?
• Research subject
• Be accurate and engaging
• Decent structure
• Colour and pace
• Remove cliché and bullshit
• Edit several times
• Writer’s block & colleague check

49. Brevity equals intelligence

50. You need a
Point Of View
and a
Line Of Argument
theideasbook.net
thediagramsbook.com
expertadviceonline.com
kevinduncanexpertadvice@gmail.com
@kevinduncan

51. 3. LIVING WITH IDEAS

52. What if nothing happens at first?
• Recognise The Unconcealing
• Things don’t always
happen immediately
• During the stumped
phase, your depth mind is
still working
• Focus on not being
focused
• Brief yourself, then do
something else

53. How can we ‘make ideas happen’?
• Try to Train Your Depth Mind
• Be constantly curious
• Be a ‘junk collector’
• Be a Mental Magpie
• Widen your span of
relevance
• Attach stimuli to issues
• Practice serendipity
• Chance favours the
prepared mind

54. What if we invent something
original, and then always dilute it?
• Don’t allow ideas to be
Pecked To Death By Ducks
• Do you like it?
• If so, don’t fiddle with it
• What would you sacrifice
to make it happen?
• How can we devote every
possible resource to it?

55. What if we have too many ideas?
• Use Post-It Voting
• Cull regularly
• In session, or on project
list
• Put on the wall
• Take a pause
• Limited number of votes?
• Rank order?
• Consensus = commitment
and better use of energy

56. What if the idea is okay,
but not that great?
• Use Kill It
• Don’t flog dead horses
• Issue limited number of
Kill It cards
• Play if feel strongly
• Yes = develop
• No = stop wasting time
• If in doubt, kill it and think
of something better

57. You need a
Point Of View
and a
Line Of Argument
theideasbook.net
thediagramsbook.com
expertadviceonline.com
kevinduncanexpertadvice@gmail.com
@kevinduncan