Something for Everyone
Have you ever sat through a presentation or even read a book and thought, This isn’t for me, what is this all about? or Why am I bothering with this? That isn’t how you want your audience to feel when you present, but I can’t tell how often this happens.
This usually occurs when the audience for this specific presentation isn’t clearly identified upfront. As a result, different pieces of content get added for everyone ‘who might be interested’ or who might attend the meeting. All bases get covered. What could have been a clear message for the right audience, addressing a clear problem, becomes a waffly rambling collection of something for everyone.
The hope that something sticks, that there is something in this that someone might get excited about, is not a great place to start.
When you start without a clear idea of who your audience is, what problem they have or what their underlying needs are, you are like a boat in a harbour without an anchor, at risk of drifting off at any moment. And drift you will as the opinions, content and ideas of others creep in during the building of your presentation, because you were not focused enough at the outset.
Before you start searching for cat pictures and grabbing old slides out of the cloud, ask yourself how strong your anchor is for what you are about to create; answering these three questions will help you get clear:
Who is this for? Who am I solving a problem for, and who will do something with this content after I leave?
What can I do to help them? How are we demonstrating the change we see as being possible and making it easy to follow and reuse this content?
What is the biggest impact we can have?
This understanding does more than provide a nice way into your story. It is critical to how you establish the value in your ideas for your audience and how you curate the content to make this clear to them.
Strategic storytellers start with a clear audience in mind. They picture the change they see as being possible and use it to craft a compelling story that takes the audience on a clear and concise journey.
This is what it takes to create a winning presentation that won’t just engage; it will change minds and leave a lasting and powerful impact.