Why?

Having provided your audience with your key message they will inevitably be asking themselves:

'Why should I do that?' or 'Why should I think that?' or 'Why should that be the case?'

In any event, all the questions that follow from an action-oriented key message are of the 'why?' kind. That means if the next stage of your presentation sets about answering these questions your talk is following what the audience perceives as its route through the material. The result is that you have them on your side immediately.

Many presenters prepare material that is only logical if you already know the subject or the information that is being presented. But few audiences will know. Hence they become quickly lost and have to work hard to pick their way through the information. Research shows that audiences that have to commit the least mental effort are the ones most likely to accept the material they are given. In other words, if you follow your own logic you are making it much less likely that your material will be accepted or acted upon by the audience.

If your talk follows the audience logic by immediately answering the 'why' style questions you will be providing just what the listeners want, mentally. As a result, you will make your material MUCH MORE LIKELY to be accepted and acted upon.

Having constructed your key message you simply have to think of all the reasons why your audience should accept what you are saying or act upon your material. These reasons and the detail behind them will form the first main section of your presentation

In our example, the presentation may go on to consider:

That marketing managers can't do their job without market research

That software makes accessing research easier

That there is no suitable program that works quickly enough for marketing managers

► The next step is showing HOW your message can be acted upon.