Where’s The Money: $25,000 for a PowerPoint Presentation?

This has been nagging at me for almost two weeks now. I wasn’t going to write about it because really, I don’t have much to say.

I have an opinion (of course!)  but it mostly consists of sputtering, “Are they serious?…Seriously?!”, and a healthy sprinkling of WTFs.

But I’ve gotta put it out here because I’m dying to hear what you have to say about it. Whether you’re with it or appalled by it or somewhere in between, please do take a mo’ to leave a comment.

The $25,000 PowerPoint Presentation

The first thing my girlfriend said (with a huff) when I answered the phone was, “Clearly, we’re in the wrong business.” And since she and I aren’t in the same business, that was a really odd thing to say.

But after a jaw-dropping stroll through the price quote she just received, it was very clear indeed that any business is the wrong business…unless it’s the presentation dev & design business.

The dev & design firm remains nameless out of respect to her contract and NDA (even I don’t know who they are), but even anonymous they leave a lasting impression. Here’s a general breakdown of their quote to develop one 50-slide PowerPoint presentation from client-provided content:

$ 4,500 – Development, organization, project management, supervision

$15,000 – Content development, editing, fact checking, proofreading,2 rounds of revisions, formatting of 50 slides

$ 3,500 – Creative services for slide template, re-creation of charts, graphs, and figures

$ 2,000 – Out of pocket expenses: copyright licenses, fax, photocopies, reference retrieval

$25,000 - Total cost for a 50-slide PowerPoint presentation

They aren’t creating an interactive kiosk-style presentation, by the way. Just a regular ol’ click-and-speak for a conference: Click. Blah blah. Click. Blah blah blah. Click. Blah.

Back when I thought the quote was for TWO 50-slide presentations, Chris Anthony (@etherjammer) pointed out that it was $250 per slide. Our awe was mutual. Now that I find it’s half as many slides, it’s twice as awe-ful: $500 per slide.

WTF.

Where’s the money?

From my series on Making a Million with 1000 True Fans, you know I love sifting through business models and finding where the money comes from (and goes to). This one has stumped me for weeks.

Some of it can be explained by their location: New York. But all of it can’t be explained away with regional price differences.

And it’s no good saying, “Well they can quote it but who says anyone’s paying it?” because at least one person did pay it. My girl contacted this firm based on a referral. The referrer just nodded when she went back to them with her mad, mad quote. As if paying $500 per PP slide was something they did every day. And, hey, who’s to say? It may very well be.

So tell me: Do you think this job is overpriced?

As ever, all perspectives are welcome, but I especially encourage/dare/beg you to leave a comment if you can justify $25,000 for this 50 slide PP deck. If you can make sense out of that, it’ll be a mystery solved…

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