Ledgerline revenue ownership
Overlap slide example with two circles and side lists
An overlap slide earns its place when the shared ground is written first and the two outer lists are what is left over. This one belongs to Ledgerline, a fictional software firm, and settles which team owns which part of the revenue process.
What is on the slide
- Framing line
- Three things sit in the overlap: lead scoring, the ideal customer profile and the 24 hour handover.
- Sales circle, four cards
- Opportunity stages and the forecast reviewed every Monday. Discount approvals to 15 percent. Renewal conversations from day 300 of a 365 day contract. The CRM record once a lead is accepted, including the close reason.
- Marketing circle, four cards
- The $41,000 monthly campaign budget and channel mix. Website copy, the pricing page and every gated asset. Accepted lead volume against the agreed 640 a month. Brand, event presence and the customer story library.
- The diagram itself
- Two tinted circles overlap in the centre, labelled Sales on the left and Marketing on the right, with the eight cards flanking them four a side.
When this is the right slide
Two overlapping circles with four cards a side suit an overlap slide when two teams share a process and the argument is about where one team's responsibility stops and the other's starts.
What to swap it for
Comparison: Two-Circle Overlap Statements. Swap to the overlap statements layout when the shared ground is the whole point and each side needs one sentence rather than a list of four owned items.
What this slide shows
The title reads Ledgerline, Who Owns What, and a single framing line under it names the three items in the overlap: lead scoring, the ideal customer profile and the 24 hour handover. Below that, two large tinted circles sit side by side and overlap in the middle, labelled Sales on the left and Marketing on the right. Four numbered cards flank each circle. On the sales side: opportunity stages and the forecast, reviewed every Monday with the revenue lead; discount approvals to 15 percent, with anything deeper going to the finance director; renewal conversations from day 300 of a 365 day contract; and the CRM record once a lead is accepted, including the close reason. On the marketing side: the $41,000 monthly campaign budget and the channel mix behind it; website copy, the pricing page and every gated asset on the site; accepted lead volume against the agreed 640 a month; and brand, event presence and the customer story library. The layout numbers the cards 01 to 08 automatically, so the slide reads down one side and then down the other.
When this is the right slide
Use it when two teams or two systems share a process and the meeting is about the boundary. Sales and marketing ownership is the common case, but the same shape fits engineering against platform, clinical against administration, or a joint venture where two parties fund different parts of one programme. The slide works because a circle is an unarguable container: an item is inside one, inside the other, or in the middle, and there is no fourth option. It is the wrong slide when the two things do not actually share anything, because then the overlap is empty and a two column table says the same thing faster. It is also wrong when one side has eleven responsibilities and the other has three, since the layout is fixed at four a side and forcing the imbalance into it misrepresents the split. Where the argument is about which option to choose rather than who owns what, a decision slide with a verdict is the honest structure.
How to adapt it
First, write the overlap before anything else, then let the outer lists be whatever is left. A team that starts with its own circle will claim the shared items by default, and the slide stops being a settlement. Second, make every card checkable: a threshold, a date, a dollar figure or a count. Discount approvals to 15 percent can be verified against the approval matrix; better sales enablement cannot be verified against anything, and a line like that will survive the meeting without changing behaviour. Third, keep the circle labels to one or two words and push the nuance into the cards. The label sits inside a filled circle where the text has to stay large to read, so Sales works and Revenue and Customer Success Operations does not. If the two sides really need longer names, the paired statement layout gives each side a sentence and drops the item lists, which is the trade this slide makes in reverse.
What makes this slide work
The overlap is written before the outer lists
Lead scoring, the ideal customer profile and the 24 hour handover are named in the framing line under the title. Those three are where the arguments actually happen, so putting them first means the eight outer cards read as the settled part. A slide that fills the two circles first and leaves the middle vague inverts that, and the meeting then spends its time on the easy half.
Every card names a thing that can be checked
Discount approvals to 15 percent, renewal conversations from day 300 of a 365 day contract, a $41,000 monthly budget, 640 accepted leads a month. Each is a number or a threshold somebody can look up, so a disagreement becomes a question about the figure rather than a difference of opinion about scope.
The two circles stay short so the cards can be long
Sales and Marketing are one word each inside the circles, which is all the labels can hold at that size. The detail sits in the eight cards where there is room for a full sentence, so the diagram carries the relationship and the cards carry the substance. Long labels inside circles are the usual reason this layout stops reading.
Questions people ask
How much text should an overlap slide carry?
About eighty words in total across the cards, plus one framing line. This layout takes exactly four items a side at roughly one short sentence each, which is the practical ceiling for a diagram an audience reads while someone talks over it. If a side needs six items, the extra two belong in the written brief, or the slide should become a table where a reader can scan rows at their own pace.
What goes in the middle of the two circles?
The shared work, and on this layout it is named in the framing line rather than inside the shape, because the overlap area has no text slot. Write those items first. The middle is where ownership is genuinely joint, so it is also where the disagreement lives, and a slide that leaves it blank has skipped the only part of the diagram the audience needed.
Is a two circle diagram the same as a Venn diagram?
It is the two set case of one, and that is as far as it should go on a slide. Three overlapping circles create seven regions, which nobody can label legibly at presentation scale and nobody can read from the back of a room. When a third party is involved, run two paired diagrams on separate slides or move to a responsibility table with a column per party.
When should this be split into two slides?
Split it when the overlap items need their own detail, such as an agreed definition of a qualified lead or a service level on the handover. Keep this slide for the ownership picture, then give the shared items a slide of their own with the definition and the date it takes effect. Trying to do both here forces the card text past what the four fixed positions can hold.
How should an overlap slide be presented out loud?
Name the overlap first, in one sentence, then walk one circle and then the other. Do not read the cards aloud; the audience has already read them. Spend the time on why an item sits where it does, especially any card that moved recently, and finish by asking whether anyone disputes a position rather than whether the slide is clear.
What makes an overlap slide fail in a review?
Vague cards and an empty middle. A card that says own the funnel gives nobody a threshold to check, and an overlap with no items suggests the two teams have not yet met. The other common failure is asymmetry hidden by the layout: four cards a side implies a balanced split, so if one team truly carries more, say so in the framing line.
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