Slides are the Instagram of business. They tell the story just how you want it to be told. The problem is that they are not responsive to questioning, nor are they dynamic. For every question that comes from a slide presentation, there is an hour of work required to get to the answer. Instead of building slides, build systems.

When you build a system, you create a way to answer questions on the fly. A system allows you to be agile and slice and present data in real-time to address requests. Instead of presenting a budget slide, offer a budget overview from your Excel file, Google Sheet, or better yet, Airbase.

The common reason we move from systems to slides is for presentation. Slides, on the surface, simply convey information. If you spend more time designing your system views to be consumable, you will reduce the time you spend updating slides. Make your spreadsheets prettier by increasing spacing, hiding guidelines, and increasing the font size. Better yet, use Airtable where all this has been done for you.

Remember: build systems, not slides. Doing so will save you hours of work.