The most important factor to keep in mind when building a presentation is WHO your audience will be. As you may already know, all audiences are tuned to the same frequency; WIIFM “What’s In It For Me?” Imagine your audience has the same attention span and focus as every teenager you’ve ever known, and you’re on the right track.
What always amazes me is that despite the fact that ALL of us have been members of audiences much more often than we’ve been presenters, when we stand up to speak all memory of what it feels like to sit in the audience seat flies out of our minds. This is why I advise my clients (and you) to turn the focus 180 degrees. Keep putting yourself in the audience’s place; imagine that you are a member of that captive group.
What does this mean, exactly? Through every step of the presentation building process you must continually ask yourself; “Will my audience care about this? Is this important to them? Does this answer their questions? Address their concerns? Solve their problems?” If the answer to any of these questions is “no”, throw the proposed information out. Remember: it’s not about what you want to tell them; it’s about what they want to hear. Frankly, it’s ALL about them. They know it, and, if you want to be heard, you need to know it too.
So the next time you’re building a presentation, remember to keep turning your focus 180 degrees. Sit yourself in your audience’s seat. Get inside their head and heart. Speak to and about what’s important to them and you’ll have delivered a message that gets heard. And that’s the whole point, isn’t it?