Edward Tufte (writer of this book that every communications pro should read) has a great, short rant on PowerPoint in a recent issue of Wired. Read it here, and read on for my take on how presentation programs are a sure-fire way to kill a great new-business pitch.

I’ll spare you a rehash of Tufte’s excellent points. Here’s why PowerPoint sucks if you’re trying to pitch a potential client:

If they’re watching the screen, they’re not listening to what you have to say. Yes, I know people can absorb multiple streams of information, and if you’re going to use PowerPoint, then at least have the good sense not to have the same thing on the screen that’s coming out of your mouth. The thing is (and I’m going into sales-coach mode here), no one in the room is buying your firm, your past successes or even the brilliant idea you have up on the screen at the moment. If you’re talking, they’re buying you. And if they’re looking at the screen, chances are they’re not getting what you have to sell — unless, God help us all, you’re selling stock in 18 pt., bright-yellow Helvetica.

PowerPoint cheapens your core competency. You’re not selling your SuperSecret Media Contacts ™, your staff of eager interns or your well-formatted strategy memos. What you — and every other PR practitioner out there who gets it — are selling is storytelling ability. If a client wants ink (and clients who just want ink are nearly always trouble, but that’s another topic), then your value is the ability to make information relevant, compelling and digestble. In other words, you tell stories. These guys, although not a PR firm, get it.

So how does PowerPoint undermine that? Simple: Take any PowerPoint presentation — yours or your aunt Sally’s, it doesn’t matter — and try to write an essay or story out of the contents. Unless you’ve got an odd presentation to work with or a gift for making up details, you can’t — the formats are incompatible.

Finally, PowerPoint adds one more cultural variable for you to screw up. If you’re like me, you don’t go into a pitch without trying to find out how the folks you’re talking to dress, what their corporate culture is, etc. Why? Because you want to fit in from the moment you walk into the room. PowerPoint just gives you one more variable to manage on this front, and it’s a tough one at that. What if they’ve banned all use of PowerPoint the way Sun and even the Pentagon did? (OK, it’s unlikely — but possible.) Much more likely is that your potential clients do PowerPoint far better — or far worse — than you do, and so your presentation hits a flat note.

My advice: Sit down, listen more than you talk, and make sure you’re asking questions, not delivering pat answers. Stay away from the word “strategy,” (a term we’ve almost criminally misused in PR) and always ask yourself: What can I deliver that’s more than a well-written press release?

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