On the Road to a Great Presentation —
Step One: Care About Your Audience

by Peter and Cheryl Reimold

Great presentations are radical in their focus on the audience. They address real people with real needs and ask them for a real response. Poor presentations — including many that seem quite polished — play out in thin air, removed from the audience, in an abstract space of ideas. Because they don’t address real people, they rarely get real responses.

In preparing a great presentation, your first job, then, is to understand:

• Who the audience is;
• What you want them to do or believe; and
• What the important audience needs and interests are.

Playing "20 Questions"

Your audience analysis need not be formal; in fact, the messier it is, the better it may be. The key is to make it real and lively. Have an imaginary, informal discussion with your audience. As you tell them what to do or believe, let them call in their questions and comments. Let them be direct, tough, even obnoxious; let them verbalize their private thoughts, fears, misgivings and wishes.

The scheme illustrated here summarizes the main things to consider as you analyze your audience. But your actual analysis may actually be as simple as a list of 20 questions. Following a format is less important than being specific and tough.

(Click to enlarge image)

General scheme for a thorough audience and purpose analysis

This early preparation stage is also the best time to decide the format your presentation will take. Is interaction essential — say, because you want to reach a consensus at the end? If it is, you may want to encourage questions throughout or at the end of each section. Generally, to engage your audience, use the least formal and most interactive format.

Be Specific With Your Questions

We said you should write down 20 questions the audience might have. Why so many? The reason is that the first few questions you write down are apt to be vague, general ones: “How will this work?” or “Will this improve our quality?” Your listeners do want answers to those broad questions, but they will be much more engaged when they hear you answering very specific concerns of theirs: “How will departments A, B and C and operations X and Y be affected while we implement this?” “What training will we need; who will take care of it; and how long will it take?” “How will this lower our rejects rate?” “How will this create new marketing appeal?” “How will this open up the possibility of new product lines?” “How will this affect color uniformity?” “How can we be sure that solving this one set of problems will not cause problems in other areas, such as ...?”

Often, you will know the detailed questions different people in your audience will have, if you only think about it a little bit. Pushing yourself to come up with question 11, 12 or 13 will set that thinking in motion. So don’t stop after five questions; go on until you feel you’ve really covered all the ground.

Asking the Tough Questions

One of the things that makes presenters fearful is the dread of receiving tough questions. Well, they will be much easier to handle when you have thought about them beforehand and worked out some convincing answers — and maybe even backed up your answers with visuals that show your data or process details.

Here are some tough questions you should always be prepared for:

• Why do we need this?
• How much does it cost?
• How much do we save?
• What are the real costs — including all the downtime, extra trials, etc.?
• Will it really work? How do we know?
• Who has done this before? Has it worked?
• How long will this take? (Why not shorter?)
• Why don’t we do something else?
• How can we be sure all reasonable alternatives have been considered?
• How reliable are the data? How well do they correspond with other data from previous work or the literature?
• Can we trust you (or others) to implement this without problems?
• What troubles can we expect as we go along with this?
• How will other processes or departments be affected?
• When problems develop, who will take care of them and how?

If You Can't Anticipate, Ask

What if you don’t know enough about your audience to think of detailed questions? The temptation to stick with generalities is great but will likely only bore your listeners. The solution is obvious: ask people ahead of time. Even if you don’t know people well, they will usually not resent a few targeted questions about their concerns. And if you can’t ask them directly or you are uncomfortable doing this in a given case, you may know somebody who can help you indirectly. It can make all the difference.

 

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This article was excerpted from The Short Road to Great Presentations, by Peter and Cheryl Reimold. It is available from Wiley-IEEE Press (2003); price: $33.95 members, $39.95 non-members.