Welcome Professionals…
…Here comes a reminder on an old principle that probably every consultant already knows: The message of a presentation must be tailored to the receiving audience!
Sure, you might say. This is so simple and obvious, yet it gets forgotten so many times. All too often we tend to use the material that we already have and skip the extra tailoring effort. We like the messages that sound convincing to ourselves, not necessarily pursusasive for the individuals we address. We think within the frameworks that work for us, but may be too complicated for the attention span of our listeners.
For every presentation that we prepare, we must answer the most basic questions first:
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Who is our target audience of the message/presentation?
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What is their status (knowledge, opinion, goals, capacities, restrictions, etc.)
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Where do we want to move the audience?
Once the key message is tailored, we should review the following three questions to make our message pursuasive:
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How can we create a supportive atmosphere in the beginning (a compliment, a joke, an appreciation of the audience, a consensus, etc.)
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How can we address stakeholders during our presentation and show them that we understand them and that we care?
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How can we finalize with a positive call for action?
Everything else is just PowerPoint,
Malte
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