Giving Your Audience What They Want
As you are considering your presentation (whether that is in front of a live audience or online), one of the most fundamental questions that you will need to answer is, what does your audience want and need to hear (or read)? It is essential that you give them what they need and want each time you present information to them.
What goes into making a meeting valuable to the audience?
If you don’t already know instinctively, you may want to obtain some valuable information by creating a survey and sharing it with your target audience. Most likely, you can count on the people who are participating in the survey, to be honest with you. They don’t have any reason not to be honest and their honesty will hopefully help you to gather the information that you can apply to your business in a positive way.
Some characteristics of a successful presentation
Considering that one of the main reasons why people are interested in hearing what you have to say is because they have a problem that needs to be solved. If you are able to wrap your mind around the issues (problems) that your audience is experiencing and offer a solution that works, you are truly a step ahead.
In addition to solving a problem, sticking with your audience to ensure that everything is truly fixed is a big plus and that means that you need to maintain effective communication with them on a permanent basis. That shouldn’t be so difficult because you should maintain effective, clear communication with anyone with whom you share a relationship anyway. It is never a good idea to only be with your audience at the very early phase. You need to give them the feeling that you are with them and that you are not going anywhere.
Let’s break it down
There are specific characteristics that make a presentation (in any form) a success and, at the same time, those characteristics add value to who you are and what you are doing as well as helping your target audience tremendously. Some of those characteristics are:
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Creating clear, concise objectives with a reasonable deadline.
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Following an agenda and including action items and follow up.
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An effective leader who can ensure that no distractions take away from the effectiveness of the meeting.
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A focused attitude.
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The presence of effective decision-makers (or at least one really strong one) who can drive the decisions that need to be made.
A think tank of sorts
One of the most important reasons why people have chosen to attend your presentation is that they not only want to hear what you have to say and benefit from your knowledge and expertise but also that they wish to be heard for the ideas that they have. Those ideas are no less important or significant than the ideas that you wish to share. Also, it is very much a human trait. Everyone wants to be taken seriously and everyone wants to be made to feel that their contribution is solid and that it is taken seriously.
There are many different ways to interact with other people and to share ideas. The most important thing is that everyone learns something of value and that everyone benefits in some way. Hopefully, the meeting will also enable the participants to think from several different effective perspectives.
Conclusion
If you run your meeting (or your written content) in the right way, all of those benefits will be yours. Making a positive impact on your target audience is why you are there and you will want to do everything possible to achieve that each and every time you present information. Remember to always keep your audience in mind and keep them as your top priority. It is important to always keep in mind that they chose to give you some of their time. That should always be acknowledged in some way by you.
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