Motivation in business presentations

¶ … build rapport with your audience during a business presentation?

'Know thy audience.' This is essential to give an effective business presentation. The presenter must be familiar with the knowledge base of his or her audience. Without effective audience analysis, a good presentation will not be comprehensible -- otherwise the speaker runs the risk of being too technical or too simplistic. The purpose of a business presentation is usually to educate the audience, not merely entertain its members. This does not mean that the presenter should not try to reach the audience on an emotional level: using personal anecdotes and connecting the material to the audiences' needs is required. The audience must have a compelling reason to listen to the speaker and genuinely believe that to listen is necessary.

One way to think of structuring a speech is to use Monroe's Motivated Sequence of getting the audience's attention; establishing the audience's need to listen; satisfying the need (through information, examples, personal testimonials, and other forms of data); enabling the audience to visualize the future; and following this with a call to action (Monroe's motivated sequence, 2014, Mind Tools). The steps of visualization and actualization are the ones I am most often apt to forget as a speaker. Without a clear picture of what needs to be done, it can be challenging for individuals to put into action the suggestions made during a speech, even if they desire to do so. Finally, actualization renders the aims of the speech in concrete teams, leaving the audience with an immediate reference to specific things they can do. If the speaker does not have an action plan before presenting and some knowledge of what the 'takeaway' is from the speech, the audience will not know how to act.