When you are setting out to create your presentation,

ask yourself the following questions.

What type of information am I delivering?

What do I want to happen as a result of this presentation?

And how formal is the presentation?

Begin with, what type of information am I delivering?

You may be pitching a new idea, program, or policy.

You may be teaching coworkers a new skill.

You may be sharing information, such as a quarterly marketing report,

a budget update, or a project plan.

Be clear on what the presentation is about before creating content.

Next, what outcome do you want as a result of this presentation?

In other words, will there be a call to action or a recommended plan?

For example, if you were sharing the results of a recent customer survey,

your call to action may be,

based on this information I've shared from our customers,

I recommend that we start offering these new products in the next quarter.

What if your presentation is meant to inform rather than persuade?

When asking yourself what you want to happen as a result of the presentation,

the answer could be that you want your audience to walk away with all

the information they need, or that they have learned what they need to know.

Finally, think about whether this presentation is meant to entertain,

inspire and deliver big news.

Or is it a smaller presentation, designed to inform or

persuade a few co-workers or leaders.

Most work presentations will be the latter.

They will be detail focused, likely have some kind of data to report and

they may wind up proving an idea with facts.

I'll be focusing more on how to prepare for those smaller types of presentations.