Every chart on this page uses the same delivery sequence. Memorize these five steps and you won't worry about what to say next. The formula applies to most visuals an analyst would create and present.
Explain the horizontal axis.
Explain the vertical axis.
Walk through the legend or groups.
Put one number into a sentence.
Share the takeaway.
Before the case · Why the formula matters
Bad example
You can't present every chart. If a chart is too busy the creator didn't spend enough time on it.
Peloton — Everything We Could Possibly Measure
Too many metrics · too many scales · no single number · no clear takeaway
This chart resembles the same Peloton story, but it is not ready to present. Revenue, subscribers, churn, inventory, gross margin, marketing spend, and the share price all share one frame, on scales that don't belong together, with no single number the audience can hold onto.
Do not judge your presentation ability by a slide like this. No one can present it clearly because the slide does not give the presenter a path. We are going to tell the same story in a simpler manner: one chart, one number, one takeaway at a time.
Practice Case · Peloton 2020–2022
The story we will use for practice
To practice the formula, we need a story with real charts and a clear narrative. We will use Peloton from 2020 to 2022.
When the pandemic closed gyms in early 2020, Peloton became the way to work out at home. Sales doubled, then doubled again. Management read that surge as the new normal and built for it — more factories, more inventory, more marketing, more staff — all sized for demand to keep growing at the pandemic pace.
The demand was borrowed, not earned. People weren't choosing Peloton over the gym forever; they were using it while the gym was closed. When gyms reopened in 2021, the demand went back where it came from. Peloton was left with warehouses of unsold bikes, a cost structure built for a company twice its size, and members cancelling faster every quarter.
Peloton's founder stepped down as CEO after the demand reversed, and the company lost $2.8 billion in fiscal 2022. The four charts below give us enough story to practice with. The chart type changes. The delivery method does not.
Chart 1 of 4 · Bar chart
Slide takeaway
Revenue doubled, then doubled again — then fell for the first time.
Peloton — Annual Revenue
Fiscal year · USD billions · 2019–2022
Source: Peloton annual reports. Fiscal years end June 30. Navy bars are the years before the peak. Orange bars are the pandemic peak and the decline that followed.
Presentation script using the five-step formula
Explain horizontal axis "On the horizontal axis, we have fiscal years from 2019 through 2022. Peloton's fiscal year ends in June, so fiscal 2021 is the first full pandemic year."
Explain vertical axis "On the vertical axis, we have total revenue, measured in billions of dollars."
Walk through legend/groups "Each bar is one year of revenue. The navy bars are before the pandemic peak. The orange bars are the peak year and the year after."
Put one number in sentence "In fiscal 2021, revenue reached $4.0 billion — more than double the year before. The next year it fell to $3.6 billion, the first annual decline in Peloton's history as a public company."
Share takeaway "The takeaway is that the growth was real but it did not last. Revenue doubled two years running, then turned down the moment the pandemic eased."
Notice the order
The presenter does not start with the whole business story. They follow the same five-part order every time: explain the horizontal axis, explain the vertical axis, walk through the legend or groups, put one number into a sentence, share the takeaway. And if the number matters, put it on the slide so the audience does not have to do the math.
Chart 2 of 4 · Line chart
Slide takeaway
As gyms reopened, members started cancelling — and the rate doubled.
Peloton — Monthly Subscriber Churn
Average net monthly connected-fitness churn · fiscal 2022 by quarter
Source: Peloton quarterly shareholder letters, fiscal 2022. Churn is the average monthly rate at which connected-fitness members cancelled their subscription.
Presentation script using the five-step formula
Explain horizontal axis "On the horizontal axis, we have the four quarters of fiscal 2022, from the September quarter through the June quarter."
Explain vertical axis "On the vertical axis, we have the monthly churn rate. Churn is the share of members who cancel each month — if a hundred people start the month and one leaves, that is one percent churn. Higher is worse."
Walk through legend/groups "There is one line. It shows the churn rate climbing across the year. The dashed marker is the fourth quarter, where it jumps."
Put one number in sentence "By the fourth quarter of fiscal 2022, monthly churn hit 1.41% — nearly double the 0.75% just one quarter earlier."
Share takeaway "The takeaway is that the subscribers were not as committed as the headline growth suggested. When gyms reopened, people started leaving, and the rate of leaving doubled in a single quarter."
Chart 3 of 4 · Bar chart — two panels
Slide takeaway
Inventory kept climbing while every bike started selling at a loss.
Peloton — Inventory and Hardware Gross Margin
Net inventory in USD millions and connected-fitness gross margin · fiscal 2021 vs. 2022
Source: Peloton 10-K and quarterly letters. Left panel: net inventory at fiscal year-end. Right panel: connected-fitness gross margin in the fourth quarter of each year. The two panels use different units, so they are kept separate.
Presentation script using the five-step formula
Explain horizontal axis "On the horizontal axis, both panels compare fiscal 2021 with fiscal 2022."
Explain vertical axis "The left panel measures net inventory in millions of dollars. Net inventory is the value of all the finished bikes and treadmills that were built but not yet sold — product sitting in warehouses. The right panel measures connected-fitness gross margin as a percentage. Gross margin is what's left from the price of the hardware after you subtract what it cost to build and ship it; below zero means the cost was higher than the price."
Walk through legend/groups "In both panels, the navy bar is fiscal 2021 and the orange bar is fiscal 2022. The further the orange bar sits from the navy one, the bigger the change in a single year."
Put one number in sentence "Inventory rose to about $1.1 billion even as sales fell, and connected-fitness gross margin went from positive 11.7% to negative 98.1% in a single year."
Share takeaway "The takeaway is that Peloton had two problems at once. It had too many bikes, and for a while it cost roughly twice as much to build and ship a bike as Peloton got back when it sold one."
Chart 4 of 4 · Table
Slide takeaway
Gyms filled back up the same year Peloton stalled.
Peloton vs. Planet Fitness — Growth
Subscriber and member growth · 2020–2022 · columns = years · rows = companies
Metric
2020
2021
2022
Peloton — subscribers (M)
1.09
2.33
2.97
Peloton — growth YoY
+113%
+114%
+27%
Planet Fitness — members (M)
15.5
15.2
17.0
Planet Fitness — growth YoY
—
−2%
+12%
Source: Peloton and Planet Fitness annual reports. Peloton counts are end-of-fiscal-year in June; Planet Fitness counts are calendar year-end. The 2020 Planet Fitness figure is approximate. The definitions differ, but the direction is the contrast.
Presentation script using the five-step formula
Explain horizontal axis "Across the top, we have years: 2020, 2021, and 2022."
Explain vertical axis "Down the left side, we have the two companies, and for each one its count and its year-over-year growth. Year-over-year growth is how much the number changed compared with the same point twelve months earlier."
Walk through legend/groups "Each cell shows the figure for that company in that year. Blue-shaded cells are growth. Red-shaded cells are the slowdown."
Put one number in sentence "In 2022, Planet Fitness added members — up 12% to 17 million — while Peloton's subscriber growth fell from 114% the year before to 27%."
Share takeaway "The takeaway is that people did not stop exercising. They went back to the gym. The demand Peloton lost was demand it had only borrowed."
What you just practiced
The chart type changed. The approach to presenting them didn't.
The lesson: do not make the audience decode the chart alone. Use the five-part order: explain the horizontal axis, explain the vertical axis, walk through the legend or groups, put one number into a sentence, share the takeaway.