This title could go two ways, but today it’s all about making things look good. It’s amazing (or not depending on your background) how important the look of a sales presentation or report has on the audience receiving it. A mediocre but good looking report goes further than a thoroughly researched and checked, thrown together report.
If you don’t spend time learning how to use Excel and PowerPoint as if you were a graphic designer (lite) then you are doing yourself a disservice. It’s not as hard as most people expect it to be and can take you further than becoming deeper in your field. Finding experts is easy, finding experts who can express their thoughts and conclusions clearly and with style is difficult.
Rule of thumb for making it jump out: spend an extra 30 minutes at the end of everyday simply cleaning up the look and feel of anything you are working on. Spend an extra 2 hours at the conclusion of the project to finalize the look. The results will be dramatic and instantaneous.