How do you set a goal for a presentation before you build it? Decide what you want your audience to do as a result of hearing you, before you write a single slide, and build every part of the talk to get them there. Begin with the end in mind.

Begin with the end in mind

Stephen Covey wrote some great books, and one of his key tenets is to begin with the end in mind. So what is the end? What is the end goal? What do you want your audience to do, and what do you need to have happen as a result of giving a speech or standing up in front of your colleagues in a conference room?

If we don't even know what the end is, if we don't know what people should do and they don't know what they should do, we'll never get there.

The material is the vehicle, not the goal

Ask most people what they want from an upcoming presentation and you get something vague: I want it to go well, I want to cover the key points. The goal is always something that happens after the talk is over: a decision made, an action taken, a belief changed. Without a defined end point, a talk wanders. Points go in because they are true or interesting, and the talk ends up informative without being effective.

Three moves to build a path from your goal

  1. Name the specific end result. Not "I want them to understand the project," but "I want them to approve the budget" or "I want them to sign up for the pilot."
  2. Chart the path. Once you know the end, you can build a way there. Ask what the audience needs to know or believe before they will take that action. That becomes your real content list.
  3. Plant seeds and take certain actions along the way. Every story and point earns its place by moving the audience closer to the end. Material that is true and interesting but does not serve the goal is a candidate to cut. Planting seeds toward a destination is not manipulative. It is structure.
Before you open a slide deck

Write one sentence: after this presentation, I need the audience to X. If you cannot fill in a specific, concrete X, you are not ready to build slides yet, no matter how much material you have gathered.

What happens when you skip it

If the outcome is never defined, the audience often cannot tell what they are supposed to do either. You wind down a path that, who knows, goes anywhere. A talk that leaves people informed but directionless rarely produces the result you needed.

Next step

Before you build your next presentation, write down the one specific action or decision you need from the audience, and build backward from it. If you want help defining that outcome and structuring a high-stakes talk around it, get a quick quote. For more on making sure the close delivers on that goal, see how to get a business return from a presentation and outline a presentation.

You cannot build a path to a destination you have not named. Name it first.

Jess Todtfeld, CSP, Guinness World Record holder, former ABC/NBC/Fox producer, and 20-year executive communication coach.