Project Lookback with Gary Rudman of GTR Consulting

In a brief post-project conversation with Gary Rudman, the founder of GTR Consulting, we look back at our project in which we helped visualize his work exploring the challenges of conducting custom qualitative research with Gen Z, for an audience made up of researchers and marketers.

Having carved a niche in this domain over three decades, and with 23 years at the helm of GTR Consulting, Gary is dedicated to a pursuing a deep understanding of the preferences and behaviors of younger generations; his insights help a variety of businesses reach Gen Z in way that resonates with them authentically.

What led GTR Consulting to reach out to Slidedesignr?

G: “I have been writing these articles all about Gen Z and with a lot of positive feedback on LinkedIn and wherever else people were seeing them.

And one of the things I realized is how little people understood about Gen Z, and I think, how different they were. And I thought that it would be a great idea to create a presentation to sort of show the differences between Gen Z and Gen X or Millennials or even Gen Alpha and explain how, and certainly, Boomers, and explain to them how different this generation is. And then also give some marketing and research implications when you're talking with this generation, how to do it, or when you're trying to reach them how to do it.

And I wanted to reach out to you because I came up with basically the title, the report, the presentation that started the articles that I've written, and I wanted to use some of the material that I created for that.

And, but beyond that, I had a sort of a general idea of how I wanted it to go, and what I wanted to talk about. But I really needed to put that together in a way that, really clearly kind of told a story because that's really what the most important thing is in this.”

Slidedesignr Helped Streamline the Presentation…

G: “Your thought process really helped to sort of streamline and to sort of think about it in a certain way. I put together a very, very, like, ugly brutally ugly, brutally ugly slideshow on, you know, a presentation sort of rough thing to give to you.

And you helped to sort of, think about it and then also think about, like, what what's necessary and what's not and what works and what doesn't and what's an interruption to the story and what isn't. And I think that really helped a lot.”

How Did Slidedesignr Make You Feel?

V: “One of the first things I'll ask in starting a project like this is, what's the audience's goals for this? And it became pretty clear to me that this isn't, like you said, this isn't a leave behind. This isn't the kind of thing that someone is gonna read later with a cup of coffee or anything like that.

It's to support you as the star of the show, basically. To support you and your talk about your expertise. They should be focused on you.

Do you feel like do you feel like this helped you kind of achieve that? Did you feel like the star of the show as you're presenting these slides?”

G: “So, I think these slides really made me feel like the star of the show, because it's like standing in front of a beautiful backdrop while you're giving a speech. I mean, it sort of allows you to really shine.

You know, I think, it's like the the slide serves as a thought starter, as a great visual, as a, you know, an anecdote. Because I was so comfortable with the slides that you helped to create, that I just felt like I felt more I felt more at ease in giving the the the presentation.”

Slidedesignr helped Gary receive glowing feedback and secure future gigs speaking about his expertise on Gen Z.

V: “When it comes to any specific feedback you got, did you hear back from folks?

I know you presented it with MRX Pros, have other presentations coming up. But so far, have you gotten any sort of specific feedback about it from those who saw it?”

G: “Yes. I definitely did, I got a lot of positive feedback.

The one the big my biggest, fan was, Janet Standen who just, she loved it, and she was saying that she wished that she had known about you because she had used you. But you may even be hearing from her at some point.

I think what I heard was that it was just a fun, sort of reflection of what we were talking about, which is so important that, you know, you're showing a slideshow that is again, it's a referral piece. It's not all the content, but it's the idea. It's thought starters. I think people really appreciated that it was interesting. Visually, it was just it really helped the flow of the discussion and the conversation.

And I think what what it did for me is it really gave me the confidence. Like, okay. I can like, this is a great I can use this presentation places. And I actually have already I'm presenting to IIEX in Austin, Texas.

It'll be a truncated version because I only have twenty minutes. So it'll be the three things. So the three keystrokes instead of four.

But, yeah. So it gave me confidence and, I definitely plan on on using this again. And then I would actually, even shopped it around to some banking conferences, and I'm just gonna have to tweak it a bit and maybe reach out to you again to help with that. But, yeah. I've been really pleased with the response, and I'm pleased with the confidence it gave me to shop it around.”

V: “That's wonderful. That's really, really good news. Like, I'm really glad to hear that.”