You wanna make it pop. And that’s what my good friend Oreet does. And it’s not just some boring interview. I try to make it as creative and fun and interactive as possible by having visual. So if you have YouTube, watch it or Vimeo, watch this. Just ’cause she goes through some stuff with us and like, it’s a, well, it’s a super fun conversation.

Somebody that’s deep interfaith, somebody that is very family oriented, and if there’s companies out there that really need to level up their PowerPoint marketing, you need to watch this, [00:01:00] listen to it, whatnot. She’s absolutely a pro empathetic. Listens creative across the board. So if you like it, smash the like button, the subscribe button may and share it with another business owner as well that might need her services.

So without further ado, here’s my really good friend Oreet Kaufman from OC Presentation Designs. Let’s level up.

Time to Shine today. Podcast Varsity Squad. This is Scott Ferguson and I reached over to my Midwest lady over here who’s just the ultimate consummate professional. And it’s, we’re gonna, I’m, I’m just gonna preface it. We’re gonna dig into PowerPoint and everybody out there. Don’t freaking lie. You guys have struggled with it.

I promise you. I know. I struggle with it. , I probably reached out to Fiverr a couple times, , and did that. I’m not gonna lie, but like, if you want to. Meet someone who is on a mission to eliminate boring panic fill presentations for good. As the founder of [00:02:00] OC Present Presentation Design, my good friend Oreet Kaufman, she transforms complex ideas into clear, visually stunning slides that connect, inspire, and get results.

With 20 plus years in instructional design, Oreet helps professionals craft powerful stories through presentations so they can show up with confidence, own the room, and leave a lasting impression. And Ari, thank you so much for coming on. Please introduce yourself to the Time to Shine Today Podcast Varsity Squad.

But first. What superpower do you have that nobody really knows about until now?

Oreet Kaufman: Good morning, Scott. Thank you for having me. So I would say my,

L. Scott Ferguson: I’m just, what’s your favorite color? Love. You’re joking. She listens to the show and she knows it. So what’s your favOreete color?

Oreet Kaufman: I would say a, a deep gold. And that’s what I have on my website because it feels like a little bit luxurious and a little bit cozy, a little bit cozy, a little bit luxurious.

So I do, I realized, I looked around my house. I have a little accent of gold and so I did that. I like that deep, that deep yellow gold. It’s

L. Scott Ferguson: in your color wheel. Love.

Oreet Kaufman: , You could wear it.

L. Scott Ferguson: You could rock it. That. [00:03:00] That’s very cool. Very cool. So, okay. I have been to presentations where they could have used a little help, like the PowerPoint part of it.

Right. We all have. So let ask you something. What do you think people’s like, especially maybe you are meeting somebody. Actually, , I wanna get your origin stories first. Tell me a little bit about like, what got you to where now you’re a highly sought after, , PowerPoint designer. Like, let, let’s get to the origin stories from maybe like you, did you go to school for PowerPoint or did you go to school for something else?

Oreet Kaufman: So great question. So I spent about 20 years in corporate, and I think we’ve all been there in those meetings where there’s corporate jargon and you just don’t understand what they’re saying and you just wanna yell through the screen, just tell me directly what you’re saying and , just make it simple.

And we’ve all seen those. Slides along the way that are too cluttered, too many bullets, and people just copy and paste stuff. And I realized this. [00:04:00] It was just became frustrating. And then the last five years of my career, I was in sales training. And there I finally got to use the communication tools that have always wanted to use of simplicity.

We had to communicate to sellers how to say things simply and directly. To, so they knew what to go say to the customers to make that sale. So it was kinda like this breakthrough of like, ah, I finally get to simplify messaging and, and, and fix what I’ve been facing or this frustration of all this jargon all these years.

Yeah, and I had gotten a lot of feedback on my training materials. My design was really good and I was really able to cut down all that clutter and really communicate with clarity. So I took that feedback and my love for that. And I didn’t even know this was a thing two, three years ago, a presentation designer.

It’s not graphic design. It, it involves a little bit of graphic design, but really it’s that visual storytelling. So I took the problems that I experienced, the strengths that I had in my recent experience and said, [00:05:00] you know what? This could be a thing, and it’s freelance presentation design means I create your PowerPoints for whatever occasion you have, whether it’s a sales pitch, whether it’s a company overview, a sales call, whatever it might be.

Really perfecting that skill of balancing visuals and messaging. So making sure that your messaging is simple and putting the right visuals in it to really make that message pop and shine. So we think about. Everybody only pays attention three to five seconds to each slide. Sure. Right, right. And I try to put myself in those shoes.

So I was that person on the side of the company jargon who would only spend three to five seconds on a slide and zone out. And that’s it. I’ve checked out, not only do I not understand what you’re saying, sure. But your slide is way too much. Okay. And for three to five seconds, that’s the driving force of what you need to put behind.

Your design of, what do you want your audience to remember in three to five seconds? Wow. Okay. So, so that’s, that’s the kind of, , ’cause we’re all [00:06:00] in that, , thanks to people like Zuckerberg and stuff or on that, , addicted to this phone thing, we have that three to five seconds thing and nothing against Mark.

L. Scott Ferguson: I mean, he did what he did, but Yeah. , Just, we’re all kind of addicted to that. So that three to five seconds is critical. Yeah. To what they see and that they should be clean, right? Yeah. Visual. Messaging simple and creative, I believe you said, to make it pop and shine. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Oreet Kaufman: , And, and I’m part of that three to five seconds also.

So when I, when I, so when I design my PowerPoints, I go back, I look at it and say, what? I wanna see what I’ve just created. And if not, then I go back and I do it again. So a lot of it, almost all of it was really self-taught. I spent the time learning how to design online tutorials. Sure. And really practicing and practicing.

So I’m that person from a three to five seconds. I’m the person in, in your webinar conference, summit. Meeting

L. Scott Ferguson: Sure. Where

Oreet Kaufman: my three to five seconds aren’t really spent listening to your message. They’re really spent analyzing and judging your slide.

L. Scott Ferguson: Oh wow. Okay. No, I love that.

Oreet Kaufman: So I, yeah, I’m very curious.[00:07:00]

I’m a very curious person. In my old job, I used to seek out industry knowledge from people on the street who are in those industries. So I’m very curious. So I will look at your presentation and say. What is your layout? What is your composition? What is your wording? So I’m always looking to learn and always looking to improve, love it.

And because that, I’ve spent years on both sides of that presentation, the good and the bad, right? I know the problems that are out there, and with my expertise that I’ve devoted to become the expert, I know how to solve those problems.

L. Scott Ferguson: Love. PowerPoint like you and I talked off Mike A. Little bit about, there’s like other options that are out there, but you said you made a great point to me.

That Microsoft is installed pretty much on everybody’s computer. It doesn’t matter if it’s a freaking Mac, there’s gonna still be PowerPoint available on something like that. But again, it’s you. That’s, I just wanna clarify, it would be you that’s doing the work for the company, correct? Correct.

Correct. Okay, gotcha. Anybody ever come to you with a PowerPoint that they put together and you [00:08:00] consult them on it? Have you ever did that? Or do you just, , and say like, tell ’em how they can make it better? Or like, I’m just wondering how like kind of the, the flow would kind of go with, with how you’re building your business.

Oreet Kaufman: Yeah, I could do either. So people have come to me and asked me for advice and a lot of times. It’s more advice than they can handle sometimes. Yes. They’ll be like, that’s great. That’s, I’m just gonna

L. Scott Ferguson: follow up. You’re stealing my questions. I love it. Go ahead. They’ll

Oreet Kaufman: be like, that’s that’s great advice.

Could you just do it for me?

L. Scott Ferguson: Right. A hundred percent. I mean, that, that, that, that’s in a lot of professions, right? I mean, I grew up in a real estate world and people would be like, oh, I’m gonna sell the house myself. I’m like, that’s cool. And then 10 questions later. To me it’s like, Fergie, just take it.

Yeah. Help me with this. Right. Same

Oreet Kaufman: idea. Same idea. And , you could spend hours, I can give you the best advice, but my years of practice allow me to do it in a such shorter period of time than the 10, 12 hours you would spend doing it.

L. Scott Ferguson: Yeah.

Oreet Kaufman: A lot of times clients come to me because their presentation might look great, and they might have somebody in their marketing department that does these, but they just [00:09:00] need, I’ll call her Janet and marketing.

Just to work on other projects. Right. So it becomes also kind of a resource issue. Hmm. So there’s different reasons why people come to me. Your earlier question is, I typically will take someone’s. Presentation with a content already existing and we’ll, in our initial discovery call, we’ll have a meeting about, what your vision is and what your goals are.

And I’ll offer to say, what I also offer is kind of this word dieting approach, where I’ll help you cut down the clutter. Oh, that’s great. They’ll say, that’s fantastic. I kind, it’s kind of like an added bonus where I don’t just design pretty impactful, powerful slides. I also help you with the communication piece.

L. Scott Ferguson: Mm. And

Oreet Kaufman: communication is, as they say, half the battle. So. So that’s typically how I operate. So

L. Scott Ferguson: if I’m at an, an event and, , I’m pressing flush with people and kind of talk to people who, who would be like a really good referral for you. Like, because again, you made a great point about. The people that [00:10:00] are marketing their job is to be creative and think of things to sell.

Like their job isn’t to really dig into that. Like, it’d be so much more productive for them to reach out to you and say, this is our ideas. Make it shine, make it pop. Like I think you said. Right. So if I’m out at an event and I’m kind of talking meeting people and stuff, what might I listen for? Like key words or something to be, make me think of, , oc.

Oreet Kaufman: Yeah. So typically I work with, vice President’s a strategy of sales, of marketing.

L. Scott Ferguson: Okay.

Oreet Kaufman: Communica, communications people. I typically reach out to marketing executives to say, you do so much in marketing, but to your point, what I do is such a niche, a niche that this might not be part of your marketing wheelhouse, and I can come in and solve that.

That crack in what your, the services you offer and what, what, what your team can do?

L. Scott Ferguson: Right.

Oreet Kaufman: So typically people in strategy and sales, like I said, marketing, communications. I do a lot of company overviews.

L. Scott Ferguson: So

Oreet Kaufman: marketing teams hire me to do the market, the company [00:11:00] overviews, right,

L. Scott Ferguson: because

Oreet Kaufman: they’re working on the website and the branding and they’re working on the commercials and whatever else it is in the ads.

Mm-hmm.

L. Scott Ferguson: But

Oreet Kaufman: they don’t have. Something simple to share with potential investors or potential audiences who they are. Right. So that’s typically what I see a lot. Gotcha.

L. Scott Ferguson: , It, I’m just curious because I mean, it’s so, you are so niche. Niche, yeah. Niched in niche, whatever. Hell, the kids say it these days, right?

So like you, you were in corporate for 20 plus years and just busting your tail, doing your thing. Like what was that, that moment? I gotta know that You have to remember it. Like you’re sitting there going, dude, I’m gonna start. A PowerPoint, even if I’m like starting small, like, what was it, what, what was that moment?

Because me, , being a coach and working with people and watching that light bulb go off above their head, through my curiosity that I’m asking them questions, right? Because I’m not a consultant, I don’t tell anybody how to do it. Yeah. When I coach people, because I believe everyone knows what they want, they just don’t know how to talk themselves into it.

And when my superpower’s, curiosity, I can ask the questions and then I hold them accountable. So what was that [00:12:00] moment? That aha moment, that, oh shit moment, , that, , what was that?

Oreet Kaufman: Yeah, so I, I’ve talked about my word dieting approach in reducing clutter and I was in sale in a sales training team.

Mm-hmm. And I was brought onto a meeting and it’s kinda those meetings where you don’t talk till the very end. And we were reviewing a reporting tool for our sellers to use and I was brought on to help clarify the instructions.

L. Scott Ferguson: Okay.

Oreet Kaufman: And at the very end they said, re what do you think we could. Do to improve the instructions.

And I looked and they had four bullets and every bullet started with the same word. And I said, well just drop the same word at the beginning of every bullet. And they go, oh, that’s genius. Wow. Okay. And I said, , and it just is that eye of like, wait a minute, I do have an eye. And somebody, and my manager actually said to me, oh, well read, that’s so on brand for you.

And I didn’t know that I had a. Brand of cutting down the clutter at work. And I was like, oh, I have a brand, I guess, of somebody who goes in and simplifies your communication.

L. Scott Ferguson: Right? [00:13:00] And

Oreet Kaufman: it’s just the cut, cut, cut. And I just looked at the screen and I said, just reduce, remove the redundancy of the same word, the beginning of every bullet.

And you’ve already cut it down and it just visually easier to see.

L. Scott Ferguson: Okay. And then

Oreet Kaufman: I got, and then I was getting feedback on all of my presentations and training. That my, they look great.

L. Scott Ferguson: Mm-hmm.

Oreet Kaufman: They, they all look great. And I was like, okay, great. Thanks. I’m glad it, it has a good design. Sure. And I took those two things and I was like, wait a minute, this could be something.

And I was talking to a friend offline who was part of a volunteer emergency organization and responder a community organization, and he asked me to put together a. Presentation ’cause he knew that I liked doing it.

L. Scott Ferguson: Mm-hmm.

Oreet Kaufman: Could you do something for the hospital so we can share with them about who we are?

And I said, sure. So I did it and he said, , you’re really good at this. You really should do this professionally. And I was like, no, I’ve got a full-time job. And he says, well, you should really think about it. And then when I left the company. Turned to my husband and said, should we do this full time?

[00:14:00] And he said, yeah, let’s do it. Let’s take it on the road. So it was kind of that aha was from a branding perspective, people liked my visuals. I had support to say, wait, this could actually be something. Yeah. And I was like, let’s do it. Let’s

L. Scott Ferguson: do it. Yeah. So you’re like the clutter killer, right? Yeah. Just, just demolishing that.

So, if you’re in, you’re kind of in a discovery period to make sure that they wanna hire you, right? Yeah. And you’re kind of like, you’re sitting there and do they generally say, this is our idea, and have a PowerPoint already that’s messy and handed to you and be like, we wanna make this better? Or do you have kind of an interview process where you’re like, okay, and you have your key questions that you ask and you start designing?

There’s a little bit of both.

Oreet Kaufman: A little bit of both. Okay. So they’ll typically come to me with something that doesn’t look good and they’ll say, I mean, , we’ve all been there, we’ve all seen it. It doesn’t look good. And, , if, if it’s a bigger company, they’ve already got their branding and their colors and their templates and they’ll say, I just want you to make it look better.

Okay. And I’ll be like, well, okay. And so [00:15:00] we’ll start off with some questions to say, what is your end goal? So what I’ve learned from training experiences, what do you, what is the purpose of this deck? Right. Not, you don’t want it just to look good. You want it to achieve something. So are you trying to change a behavior?

Are you trying to educate? Are you trying to, like what action are you, are you expecting after this what outcome?

L. Scott Ferguson: Right.

Oreet Kaufman: And so my experience in training and development has taught me how to build that arc of Sure. Achieve those desired outcomes at the end. How do we build with your corporate background?

L. Scott Ferguson: It’s like, yeah, you get it. Yeah. Okay.

Oreet Kaufman: Right. How do we build this? Yeah. And I had, I had somebody come to me and five days before she was a keynote speaker and said, I just have black words on white screens. And Oh, she had some slides that weren’t that great. And yeah, and I mean, if you’re the keynote speaker and I, how far in advance would you prepare?

Right. I’d be like three, four weeks in advance. But this was five days, which means we only had. Four days ’cause she had a practice, which really meant for my own timeline. I only had three days.

L. Scott Ferguson: Right.

Oreet Kaufman: So [00:16:00] in three days, what’s great was she said. Pick the design, pick the colors. The theme is ai, so make it look futuristic and bold.

I wanna be better than the other speaker. And I was like, challenge accepted.

L. Scott Ferguson: Right, right.

Oreet Kaufman: So there, so there again, she had the content. I really simplified it down. I was able to tell her out of 30 slides that in a half an hour, from my experience, you’re not gonna cover 30 slides. Mm-hmm. You’re not gonna be able to do an activity as a, as a keynote speaker.

So we got it down to about 15 slides.

L. Scott Ferguson: Wow, that’s still a lot of slides for 30 minutes. I mean, I, yeah. Keynote all the time. Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Oreet Kaufman: Yeah. Well when you think about like, I’d say average two minutes per slide, but yeah, I mean you’ve got your introduction and your Yeah, thank you. At the end. So 13, 12 slides of actual content.

And it was fun. I got in that chance, in that opportunity to really have creative license in that sense. That’s awesome. All different types of requests come in.

L. Scott Ferguson: Yeah. How, what’s the most craziest request that you’ve did to date? , Like if someone come in and say, [00:17:00] if you’re allowed to talk about it.

I don’t, I, I don’t know. Yeah. Like, what, what is kind of one of the craziest requests that you’ve had to do a PowerPoint on?

Oreet Kaufman: Well, I would say with that keynote speaker, because Okay. I did it basically in one day. Okay. Because it was over the weekend and thank goodness she had very little feedback.

It was like some semantic and , small little changes. Add a word here or there, but mm-hmm. She loved it and it was fantastic and it was, that creative license gets me excited, , obviously. There’s branding, adhere to the branding, but when you get that creative license and she says, make it cool and make it, wow.

Right. I was like, and then I had to think about, , as a keynote speaker, you understand what it’s gonna look like on the big screen. Sure. What colors are the right colors? What’s gonna project, what’s gonna work and not work? So that creative process is what I love. But I would say that was one of the craziest, I got the call at the car coming back from New York on Thanksgiving.

L. Scott Ferguson: Wow.

Oreet Kaufman: And she found me through LinkedIn. And it was fantastic. That’s awesome. And so she really, so I, so really, I allowed her to shine. That’s what I do. I hope other [00:18:00] people shine. Yes. Right. And so she got up there and she killed it. It was great.

L. Scott Ferguson: That’s awesome. And hopefully she gives you a lot of cred and be like, every speaker needs to talk to oc, , so, , that that’s, so I’ve actually like, I gotta get into like the kind of the creative side of things.

So, , I’m blessed to coach, , someone and she’s been on the People Cover People magazine 12 times. I’ve actually sat in on storyboards with her and like, . She has a part, she’s gotta act it out. And it’s like a lot of the times it’s on PowerPoint, right? So, oh, let me ask you something like.

The, the, the creative storytelling of it. Like if you’re working for somebody else, how, how do you catch on to their storytelling? Do they send you like a, a like a maybe three or four or five pages of what they wanna say and then you build the artwork? And when I say artwork, I mean the actual Yeah.

PowerPoint. Like how, how does that work?

Oreet Kaufman: It can come either way. So usually it comes on the PowerPoint. They’re just black text and white on white screens, and they’re like, make it look better.

L. Scott Ferguson: So they actually, as [00:19:00] I mentioned before, so they actually said you can have a PowerPoint and you just dial it up.

Oreet Kaufman: Yeah, yeah. But they sometimes they’ll send it through Word. Okay. And for, for an extra. Fee. Like I will help you actually craft that story. Okay. So part of my standard service is I’ll take your story and polish it so it sounds like a, an actual story. But if you’re really coming to me raw and you’re like, I, I just need help, how to tell the story, that becomes an interview that becomes of, , hearing from them.

, And I. I try to structure it kind of in like an arc like we used to do in interviews. The situation action results, right. So whether it’s a company overview of where you came from, the actions you took, and where you are today. Exactly. So , how do we build that story? How do what, and then.

Obviously, what is the important message you want your audience to walk away with, as you mentioned before, right? So really trying to build that, that arc of a story,

L. Scott Ferguson: right? And, and squad of you listening to her, like all I’m hearing is like she’s very empathetic to what your brand and what your message is gonna be.

, She wants to make you pop, make you shine. Makes it about the, [00:20:00] again, the company and the outcome, kind of like Stephen Covey’s, , fourth law is like begin with the end in mind. Like she really starts there and reverse engineers at squad to where it is and that that’s a huge heart. So, , I appreciate you like kind of taking the time with that.

So what is, yeah. Probably the toughest project that you’ve had to do in your career. Like, you’re like, oh man, you took it on. You’re like, dude, I’m, oh, really? Like, like, let me know so I can send you one harder. Okay. Like, like what, what is maybe one of the, the toughest one you’ve ever had to read?

Oreet Kaufman: So I would say it’s kind of the type of presentations that I get versus one particular.

Okay. It’s where, you get a slide that’s full of charts and data and graphs and they’re like, everything here is important. And I’m like, no, it’s not

L. Scott Ferguson: okay. So

Oreet Kaufman: I relish those challenges also, where I get to just dive deep into saying, and I, and I say to them, , this is part of my, my word dieting, tips of what data is really important.

So working with a big client right now. [00:21:00] These charts and graphs, and I’ve said, what I need you to tell me which, which one is really important that I can pull out? Because everything else in three to five seconds doesn’t matter. ? What do you want your audience to walk away with? You want them to remember that they just froze looking at your screen of charts and graphs.

Mm-hmm. And I mean like four or five graphs on one slide and your eye just doesn’t know where to go. Yeah. You’re

L. Scott Ferguson: like, oh yeah.

Oreet Kaufman: So to me it’s not about the imagery. To me it’s about the, the content. So your content is king, right? So you gotta make sure that it’s simple, it’s simplified. , One of my tips is if I always say, don’t make me do math.

, If your percentage is two thirds of college graduates, right? Don’t, don’t make me do math. Just say 66%, right? , If you’re showing a graph where the top number is where you are, just show that top number. Sure.

L. Scott Ferguson: Got you.

Oreet Kaufman: , You can speak to the rest of it. , All of our competitors have done X, Y, and Z, but we have come out on top.

Just show that you’ve come out on top and I’ll help you make it look really good. So, wow. [00:22:00] I would say the hardest is, hardest is really the fun challenges for me where I get to dive deep, like I said, and just say, okay, there’s so much here you need to tell me as the client, this is what I think is important as an audience.

Right. If I’m reading it, this is my guess, right?

L. Scott Ferguson: You

Oreet Kaufman: need to confirm for me what you think is the most important thing you want your audience to walk away with. ’cause if we don’t do anything, they’re not gonna pay attention at all and your whole message is lost.

L. Scott Ferguson: That’s a hundred percent true. Like I’ve been lulled asleep by one of those PowerPoints that has six graphs on it.

Yeah. And you’ll see the graph in the top left hand corner. I’m like, dude. Yeah. It’s like, , that’s right. Okay. That, that, that, that’s awesome. So the trust factor that you get from people, how, what is it, I mean, you’re very trustworthy sounding, , you look trustworthy, but like, what is your secret sauce about like getting these companies to trust you to put.

Their name on something that you create and you’re not even part of their company.

Oreet Kaufman: Yeah. So I think it’s the nature of [00:23:00] freelancing also how who, who the person is and who you’re gonna trust, right? So I’ve got the corporate experience in terms of communication, style and design. Say that. Yep. And I’ve got a portfolio that shows the types of work all different types of work that I’ve done on my website.

So I don’t have one particular style. Mm-hmm. And I think, . Being fairly, fairly new in the business, I’ve been lucky to work with several large companies and I think it’s just that, that corporate experience. Sure. That gives me the credibility to say, , I know what it takes. Mm-hmm. And I’ve seen these problems and I know how to fix them.

L. Scott Ferguson: Gotcha. What did you do for corporate work for that 20 plus years? Like what was your, so

Oreet Kaufman: for the first. 20 years or so, I worked for a large company in managing their onboarding curriculum and also their training materials for different, different departments, cheap PowerPoints

L. Scott Ferguson: all the time in that.

Oreet Kaufman: So you’ve seen that?

Yeah. Yeah. And a lot of organization. And then the last five, six years, I, five and a half years I spent in a sales organization and dealt sales training one way or another. So whether it’s sales communications or sales actual onboarding and training. [00:24:00]

L. Scott Ferguson: So what do you have, if any, weaknesses when it comes to PowerPoint?

Oreet Kaufman: Well, I think I’m always learning. I think I’m always learning new functions. Love

L. Scott Ferguson: that answer.

Oreet Kaufman: , I always learn new functions. I mean, I’m not a PowerPoint certified expert, I’m just somebody who spends a lot of time in it, and I’ve learned a lot online. Yeah. I used to watch power. I used to watch YouTube videos to teach myself.

So like a 20 minute YouTube video would take me an hour and a half. Wow. ’cause I would stop and do Stop and do. Yeah. Stop and do. Gosh. So I’m just always learning transparent.

L. Scott Ferguson: That’s so refreshing. I love that you’re, you’re implementing kaizen or, , consistent improvement, , into it, , because things change.

Even if it’s still PowerPoint, there might be something added, so, , to make your life easier as the designer. So I’m sure you’re on top of all of that as well. Right? Yeah.

Oreet Kaufman: I was part of a, an amazing designer group where we would share experiences and learnings of, hey, do this function is out there and people ask questions about other add-ins or whatever it might be.

So I try to surround myself with really smart people who have been doing this longer than I have. That’s smart. [00:25:00] And always trying to learn first in the room. Yeah, and always trying to learn from the tool and see what’s the latest. , There’s books that have been written about PowerPoint templates and whatnot, so.

I think just of building the business, I’ve learned so much about what it takes to start. I just wanna make pretty PowerPoints. Yeah. And I didn’t realize, and they’re good. What it took to, they’re

L. Scott Ferguson: really good. Yeah. Oh,

Oreet Kaufman: thank you. And I didn’t realize what it took to actually build the business.

L. Scott Ferguson: Sure.

Oreet Kaufman: But I remember saying to my husband one day, I just, I just wanna make pretty PowerPoints. If I could do that all day, I’d be so happy.

L. Scott Ferguson: Yeah. It, what, I, it’d be remiss if I didn’t take you through some of my canned questions. So, , you’ve seen the movie Back to the Future, right.

Okay, we’re gonna get in that DeLorean with Marty McFly. Right? Let’s go back to say the 22, 20 3-year-old eet. Okay. I don’t know if it was coughing yet, but the 22-year-old eet, it was reduce. What would you drop on her for knowledge or knowledge nugget you put on her? Not to change anything, but to maybe shorten her learning curve a little bit without changing the journey, ?

[00:26:00] But what would you maybe have her, , tell her. If you had a, if you had a conversation with a 22-year-old reit, what might you tell her?

Oreet Kaufman: Learn as much as you can, learn from your mistakes. Ooh. And, and just, , it was always that you hear people say all the time, do what you love, do what you love.

And I used to say to my manager, that’s a luxury to do what I love. I know at the time, at the time, I wasn’t always loving what I did, right? So I didn’t have the luxury to love what I did, right? And a pa and a passion. And I said, I gotta pay the, I gotta pay the bills. That’s what I have to do, right? I, I was good at what I did, but did I love it all the time?

I don’t think anyone loves their job all the time. But now I really love what I do. I really love what I do. And so as a 22-year-old, I would say, it sounds corny, but really learn from your mistakes and find what you love to do. That

L. Scott Ferguson: is so key. It’s

Oreet Kaufman: like,

L. Scott Ferguson: and I

Oreet Kaufman: just, I never, I thought it was always so cliche and I’m 50 years old and I’m finally learning what I finally love what I do.

Yeah. [00:27:00]

L. Scott Ferguson: And Wow. You’re 50. I’m 53. We look good for our age, right? I mean, that’s right. We bring it so. You hear that squad, I always talk about this is, , URI is like, do what you love in the service of people that love what you do. Right? Think about that. Do what you love. That’s Steve Farber that said he’s another coach.

Very good friend of mine, someone I respect immensely. , I’m just regurgitating him, , it’s, , do what you love in the service of people that love what you do, so you are doing what you love. Yeah. Right, right. But you’re doing it in the service of people that see you love what you do, right?

Yeah. So people notice that you love what you do, and that’s why people hire you, right? Yeah. And that’s, that’s amazing. So, , this goes a little bit deeper. In into more of the emotional side, but how does RET want her dash to? Remember that little line in between your incarnation date and your expiration date, your life date and death date.

Hopefully it’s way another 50, 60 years down the line. Right. But like, how do you want your dash to remembered?

Oreet Kaufman: So I would say, how many words do I get to use?

L. Scott Ferguson: You can use, well, it’s a [00:28:00] dash that you can use as many words as you want. Because , I would say you have your born date and dead date in that desk.

Yeah. Includes a lot of stuff. So how would you want it to be remembered?

Oreet Kaufman: I would, I would say authentic. Loyal, faithful, and fun. I, I’m the one who does all the, the party games and all the different family parties.

L. Scott Ferguson: Yeah.

Oreet Kaufman: So fun. I just like to have fun. I realize life is short. And again, it sounds cliche, but

L. Scott Ferguson: you start

Oreet Kaufman: thinking about it and you’re like, how do you wanna spend your time on earth?

So I just want to have fun. Yes. And we, we play the simple old. Carnival games and fun games. Yeah. And it’s just fun.

L. Scott Ferguson: Yeah. So yeah,

Oreet Kaufman: bankable

L. Scott Ferguson: experiences, man, that you can like, yeah. That pay dividends in your future and that you can go back to and just visit. Yeah. That. That’s awesome. Yeah. Yeah. So what do you think people misunderstand about you?

Oreet Kaufman: About me? Yeah, about you versus the bi versus the business. [00:29:00] Misunderstand. I dunno. Maybe it’s that I’d like to have fun that maybe I seem so serious sometimes. I was say, but that I actually like to have fun. I please just say no.

L. Scott Ferguson: I like the party plan. I’m like, yeah, yeah. So I would misunderstand that about you because you, you come on me and you just meet and you’re like all business.

You’re like, all I have to. Put on my best business face. Right. Yeah. ? Okay. I can, I can that, that’s cool.

Oreet Kaufman: I’m the one, we’re the one dancing in the kitchen and we’re the one when the kids have parties that we’re all, even as adult parties, we do the, the red cup, fun and always looking for more Instagram games.

And yeah, again, it’s just, just wanna have fun like. I, I, at my age, I realized not to take life too seriously. My kids are older, , I’ve done the, the kid raising stage and that little kids and I just wanna have fun and I wanna do what I love and live life and yeah. I’m, I’m loving it.

L. Scott Ferguson: No, don’t take life too seriously.

We’re not making it out alive.

Oreet Kaufman: Yeah,

L. Scott Ferguson: right. No one makes that alive. The hundred percent true. We all die, so that’s awesome. So [00:30:00] what is re’s definition of a life well lived?

Oreet Kaufman: Oh, deep Scott. Deep. So I would, I lead a religious life. Very good. And so for me, a religious life is a life well lived in service of God,

L. Scott Ferguson: service of God.

Yes, absolutely. I mean, people’s views can be different, but my creator and your creator are the same creator. What I’m saying? And that’s what Yeah. I dig is that people that. Are spiritual in their religion and they’re and convicted in it. And that’s that. I dig that. I mean, I, I’m a Christian. I know that we don’t see the same views, but I am proud of it and I’m not afraid to say it.

And thank you for not being afraid to say it too. So like own that shit because that is amazing. That’s amazing. Thank you. Time to Shine today.

Podcast Varsity Squad. We are back in ret. Next time I’m in Chi Town, we might have to just like meet up for a coffee or something, ? Yeah, yeah, for sure. Catch up and see if there’s anybody in Chicago land out there that needs some PowerPoint services that she can help. I know she can help ’em [00:31:00] all over, but face-to-face help is, is help is fun as well.

But we might talk about some of these questions, maybe 10, 15 minutes on some. But today. You got five seconds. Okay. With no explanations, and I promise you they can all be answered that way. Okay.

Oreet Kaufman: Okay. Ready

L. Scott Ferguson: to level up. Go. Here we go. All right. Lori, what is the best leveling up advice you’ve ever received?

Practice. That’s awesome. Share one of your personal habits that contributes to your success. Persistence. Yes. So. You see me like kinda walking down the street or I’m somewhere and I look like I’m in my doldrums. Is there any book other than the good book, any book out there that you’ve read that kinda maybe flipped your script and got you in maybe a better mood or in a good trajectory?

Oreet Kaufman: The one, I, I’m not a big reader, but I recent, I read the autobiography of Indra Newie, the former CEO of Pepsi. Yeah. And I just found her story so inspiring. That’s the first thing that comes to mind.

L. Scott Ferguson: Oh, thank you. That’s awesome, Donny. Add that to my list. Thank you. Appreciate it. Your most commonly used emoji when you text?[00:32:00]

Oh, I’m old. So I always use the standard smiley face. So I face, I love it. Nicknames growing up. Weedy Weedy. Okay. I gotta, I gotta break my rule. What’s that about?

Oreet Kaufman: It comes from ret and my neighbor used to call me Ret Reedy. Reedy. And then Reedy became weedy weed. And now,

L. Scott Ferguson: yeah. I love that. It’s awesome.

So now we gotta go back to the original question. What is, do you have any hidden talent on our superpower that you have that nobody knows about until now?

Oreet Kaufman: Superpower?

L. Scott Ferguson: Speak a couple

Oreet Kaufman: languages.

L. Scott Ferguson: That’s very cool. Very cool. Chess checkers a monopoly.

Oreet Kaufman: Monopoly,

L. Scott Ferguson: right? Let’s

Oreet Kaufman: get serious. Right. Headline for you life, by the way.

Yeah. By the way, you could always tell which kid is gonna support you later on in life by playing one kid monopoly with them. That’s so true. So true, my friend. Love it. I could tell. I could tell you. Which of my kids is gonna support us. Headline for your life. Oh. Fun and creative.

L. Scott Ferguson: That’s perfect for you.

So perfect. Go to ice cream [00:33:00] flavor. Oh, anything

Oreet Kaufman: mint.

L. Scott Ferguson: All right. There’s a sandwich. Mint chocolate chip. There’s a sandwich called the wheatie. Build that sandwich. What are we eating?

Oreet Kaufman: Ooh, there’s avocado in there. And tomato

L. Scott Ferguson: and,

Oreet Kaufman: and whole grain bread and pepper jack cheese.

L. Scott Ferguson: There you go. Yeah, that, that works for me.

That sounds good. FavOreete charity and or organization you’d like to give your time and or money to?

Oreet Kaufman: There’s an organization here in Chicago, a Jewish, charity organization that helps families with everything from soup to nuts. The Chicago Hassed Fund. And say that again. It’s just an amazing

L. Scott Ferguson: org.

Say Chicago. What fund?

Oreet Kaufman: It’s, it’s, it’s called the Hassed Fund. C-H-E-S-E-D.

L. Scott Ferguson: Okay. Hassed.

Oreet Kaufman: That means charity and Hebrew. That’s charity.

L. Scott Ferguson: Yeah. In Hebrew. Yeah.

Oreet Kaufman: And it’s just an amazing organization from soup to nuts that helps people in every aspect of their lives. And they’re just an amazing, amazing, we have a lot of amazing organizations here and I, that one stands out to me the most.

That’s beautiful. Alright.

L. Scott Ferguson: That’s awesome. Thank you. Last question. Best decade of music. Sixties, seventies, eighties or nineties.

Oreet Kaufman: On my SSXM. On my, [00:34:00] in my car. I’ve got eighties and eight and nineties on nine and I’d say whenever my son gets in the car, I’m indoctrinating him to eighties and on eight. So eighties.

I love that.

L. Scott Ferguson: , We grew up in the eighties, right? So Yeah, you’re probably graduating 93. 94. You? 92. 92. Okay. Nine, two. Sorry. So you must have been a smarty ’cause I’m looking at our ages. Okay. So like it, it’s like you, we kinda grew up a disco phased out. Right. And then we had like the rap, right. With Beastie Boys and run DMC, right?

Yeah. Then we got invaded from by U2. Duran Duran meant at work culture club. Right. And then you had the big hair, don’t care. Right? Yeah. And you had the glam rock, metal, rock, , hardcore rock. We did everything. Yeah. Yeah. And if you listen to the songs now, they take the hooks from the eighties and put it in.

There’s like Pit bull. There’s not one of his songs that does not have an eighties hook in it. What I’m saying? It’s like his one song. It has take on me. You can hear Take on me’s. Aha. Yeah. ? Yeah. They can hear it in the background and I’m like, that’s so, so funny. Liking this song [00:35:00] because of that.

It’s so funny. Right. Yeah. That’s awesome. It’s fun. Yes. So my friend, how can we find you, Ari?

Oreet Kaufman: So I have a website, OC Designs info, and there’s my portfolio and my client success stories and the best practices we’ve been talking about, about word dining. You can find that as well. And you can download a PDF about that just for you to start learning how to declutter your slides on your own and just some tips.

But OC designs info. Yeah, and there’s is this kind of like the, the word dieting here on the other screen. If you squad, if you’re watching in the top right. You just click on word dieting and it’s gonna open you up to here and you’ll have the the, give us a little bit more about what they would get when they click here.

So a tutorial about how to start to declutter your, your words, and then there’s a PDF to download as well. So it just teaches how to identify redundancies. So I think one of the examples is like, next Q2 quarter results are available online. Well just say. Q2 [00:36:00] results are online. Like there’s so many words you can cut out available.

L. Scott Ferguson: You can cut that out, right? Yeah. Gotcha. She

Oreet Kaufman: ran around the block. Well, she ran around. She ran around the block. She ran. , Like there’s different tips about how to cut down on your communication.

L. Scott Ferguson: Love it. And. Well, not am I not sharing this? I am so sorry. I am meant to share this and I apologize. This is, there you go.

This your website squad. Oh wow. Hello. And if you click here, the word dieting, it does open up a new thank you for opening up a new one. And it can, you can actually book a call after you find out that you really can’t do it as good as her. And make sure you do that and make sure that if you do book the call that you.

, Let them know Fergie sent you out there. And like, because this has been, an interview that I’m gonna, I’m not gonna lie to you, right? When I woke up, I looked at it as a challenge, which a challenge is an opportunity for me, right? And I knew that we were gonna kill it. I just didn’t know how.

And I’m so blessed that I got to do this interview with you. ’cause it’s, we, our, our chemistry, like, , [00:37:00] on the mic and stuff is awesome. But you also. Put stories behind it. So I need you to leave us like our motivated crowd out there, our squad with one last knowledge nugget that we can take with us, internalize and take a action on.

Oreet Kaufman: Simplify your slides. Simplify is the first thing you can do. Yes. So you make it and consistent. Whatever you decide to design, make it consistent. So simplification and make it consistent.

L. Scott Ferguson: That’s beautiful and. My good friend Hero Re just came to, gave us a free masterclass on. One, I am gonna affectionately say this, why you need to hire her to do your slides.

Okay. Because one, it’ll take the headache away and you can kind of go do what you’d like to do and what you’re good at. Okay? And this is what she is good at, with, I mean, she did her 20 years of corporate, okay? And then she’s like, wait a minute, that’s too wordy. They asked her, Hey, what’s your, , what’s your take on this oree?

And she said, well, how about we just stop using the same frigging word over and over again? And they’re like, oh. And it was just really dumbed it [00:38:00] down. It’s her. Introduction to people in word dieting, right? And , she’s somebody that is empathetic to your design. She’s not gonna look at your design if she needs to fix it and rip on you.

She knows that there’s a story in there and she’s gonna work to raise your story and, and make it shine because her superpower like mine is curiosity. She’s a very curiosity, curious person. ? Also what I notice is she’s very humble and transparent. Know, that’s something that you don’t get off of kind of artsy people.

Sorry, Marie. Like you’re getting very, some of this very humble and transparent, , that she’s doing what she loves in the service of people that loves what she does. Right? She’s out there and she understands that, , life’s short. It’s like, don’t take life seriously. We’re not making it out alive, ?

So get out there and have fun and be authentic like her. Be loyal like her, and have fun like her. And simplify your slides. If you’re out there, simplify your slides because it’ll make a lot better content. Ari, thank you again so much for coming on. You level up [00:39:00] your health, you level up your wealth.

You’ve earned your Varsity Squad letter here. Time to Shine today. You’re absolutely stunning inside and out again, thank you so much and enjoy the holidays. Okay,

Oreet Kaufman: thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Scott. It was You’re very welcome. A great time.L. Scott Ferguson: Thank you. Soon. Bye.