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Now you might be asked by your boss, your

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manager, or your team to deliver a talk
about something.

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It all happens to, to us every once in a
while.

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Now maybe it's a progress report of some
kind, or you're outlining a

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project that you are working on or maybe
you want to work on.

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Now, regardless of how you decide to

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deliver this information, you generally
know three things.

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You know how much time you have to prepare
your talk,

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whether it's tomorrow or next week, or a
few months from now.

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You know how long your presentation should
be, whether

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you've got five minutes to give this talk,
20.

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You know, you're gonna be key noting or an
hour.

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And the third thing is you should have a
pretty good

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idea of who your audience will be, and its
this third

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point that is key.

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Understanding who your audience is needs
to be a huge part of your preparation.

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If you can tailor your presentation to fit
the experience level and

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the interest of your audience, they're
going to retain so much more.

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They're gonna get so much value out of it.

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And in the end, they'll be more apt

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to take action, whatever action you
present there.

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Now as I was preparing this presentation,
I wanted to reach out to

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some people that have given lots of talks
on their on their own.

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Whether it's you know, with their
different teams or on stage.

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So I reached out to some friend of mine on
Twitter to get their advice.

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One of the first people I heard back from
is Aleyda Solis.

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Aleyda is Head of Digital Strategy at
WooRank, and the one tip that

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she wanted to share with people giving
presentations is to know your audience,

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and shape your presentation accordingly to
make it useful and actionable to them.

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Also, leverage storytelling.

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Now basically, this echoes that first
point that I made.

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If your presentation isn't relevant to the
audience, it's not going to be effective.

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Now, let's take a, a real

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business scenario where preparation like
this becomes a real factor.

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So, say you're a freelancer and a friend
of yours

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tells you about a local business that
needs a new site.

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I mean their, you, you look at their site
and it's woefully out of date.

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And you know that you can do so much
better, and I think this

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is kind of a classic example for a lot of
devs and developers out there.

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All right, so you decide to approach them.
Right.

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So I'm gonna pick on

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a local business here which I actually
love, no disrespect to the

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Beefy King, but here in Orlando the Beefy
King website is not responsive.

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The images and the usability could be
improved, maybe.

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You know, they can add some nice features
like an online ordering app.

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That might be something that they could
use

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that I know maybe some other restaurants
have.

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Now, the mistake that some freelancers

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make, if they wanna approach a business
like

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this, is to fire off a general boiler
plate.

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Sort of pitch.

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Where they talk about who they are, maybe
a couple of the skills they have.

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And then they, you know, they leave it
with,

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you know, contact for, contact us for a
quote.

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This isn't all that compelling.

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Alright, you're, what you're really doing
is taking this

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sort of lean back approach and you're
relying on

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the potential client to put all the pieces
together.

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To come to the same conclusion that you
did.

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Right?

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That they need a new site, and that you're
well suited to it.

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You know, don't make them do all the work
here, all right.

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If you know your audience and of course
you know, here they are on their website.

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Why settle for a generic pitch when you
can tailor something specifically

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for them.
Okay.

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Research your audience and identify their
needs.

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These are two key points that I wanna

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make about preparation of any presentation
or pitch.

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Research the potential client.

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Check out their website.

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You know, take a look at everything on
there.

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And then take a look at their industry.

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Look at their competitors.

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See what their competitors have on their
websites.

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What features they have, what content.
Stuff like that, right?

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And then speak to some of the needs that

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you identify within the pitch that you
send them.

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So, You know, you may do your research and
you may discover that

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the customer at the Beefy King don't

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necessarily care about an online ordering
app.

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You know, it's an idea you had.

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It was worth pursuing, but you know,
unless it's

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safe for catering and large parties or

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events, these guy don't specifically need
it.

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But what they really want when they hit
the

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site, I'm talking about potential
customers here for them, is

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you know, if they are on a mobile device

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say, is they want quick access to location
information, right?

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So, maybe putting the map in the location
on the

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home page is better than burying it within
the site.

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This could be a conclusion that you

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come to because you understand the
potential client.

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And by understanding the audience, you
know, and

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the, their needs, you can better plan your
approach.

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The same type of approach could be used
during a job search.

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You know, you don't wanna send a generic
cover letter

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to everyone, to every company, about every
opening that's out there.

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You should be customizing

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it based on the job description.
Their company, website, and so on.

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You know, another example, here on
Authentic Jobs.

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They have a job opening from Charity
Water.

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And there's a lot of detail in

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it, especially this section here, the
must-haves.

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Right, you can see point by point what

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kind of skills they're looking for in an
applicant.

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They, they just, they're spelled out for
you right here.

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These are their needs.
And this is fantastic.

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If only you knew.

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If only all potential clients put out
their, what their

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must-haves are, what their needs were,
this would be amazing, right?

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So when you pitch them you know, if you're
going for this job, for

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example, on your qualifications, you don't
ignore

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this stuff, especially when it's labeled
must-haves, right?

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So refer to this or address it in some way
so

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that they realize that you understand
their needs.

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So, are client pitches and job
applications

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over email necessarily presentations in
the classic sense?

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Not really, but the principles are very
much the same.

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Knowing you audience, who they are, what
they're interested

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in, is extremely important in this process
of preparing something.

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Otherwise the presentation is not going to
resonate.

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It won't be as effective.

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And you won't get as many people to do
what you want them to do.