Want to do a successful presentation?

One that keeps your audience interested?

A presentation that persuades them to take action or accept a change?

You can have it all with one simple question:

“Why should they care?”

Throughout every step of the preparation process ask yourself this question:

“Why should they care?”

You see, what you want to say during your presentation doesn’t matter.

What matters is what the audience wants to hear.

Sure, you can just deliver any old message, but if the audience isn’t listening you may as well be talking to the wall.

Frame everything through the audience’s lens and you’ll go a long way to delivering a successful presentation.

“Why should they care?”

If everything you do in your presentation, everything you say, every slide, is guided by this question then you’ll have an eager audience willing to do what you ask them.

Let’s consider the opening of your presentation.

Imagine you work in the HR department.

You need to deliver a presentation to staff outlining the new employee stock plan.

The presentation opening could be something standard like:

“Good morning everyone. Today I’d like to share information about the stock offering we are going to make to employees. First I’d like to talk about who qualifies, next I’ll explain how to apply, and finally I’ll talk about the redemption restrictions. Let’s get started.”

This is a perfectly fine opening, except that it is entirely presenter-centric.

The audience hasn’t been considered.

The presenter just wants to deliver the presentation and be done.

Let’s rewrite this opening to something a bit more audience-centric. Something that answers the question, “Why should they care?”

“Good morning everyone. I have some good news to share! Over the next 10 minutes I’m going to explain how you can get a $1,000 bonus this year simply by filling out a form that I’m going to hand out at the end of this talk. Let’s get started.”

When you’re thinking about what to talk about in the body of your presentation, think about the audience first.

When you’re considering how to design your slides, think about the audience first.

When you’re doing any presentation planning at all, think about the audience first.

At all times, think about why the audience should care, and they are more likely to.

What do you think? Let’s chat in the comments below…