By now, you will have a good mental picture of members of your audience. Now is the time to take the exercise one step further by deciding what their key interests are. You already know the topic of your presentation (and if you don't, find out now!).

Sit down and re-read each profile that you have prepared.

Close your eyes and imagine yourself as that person, sitting in your audience.

What are the important issues about your chosen topic that will be of most concern to them?

For example, if you are discussing how a company is going to develop over the next few years, the main concern of the staff will probably be job security. The directors, on the other hand, will be more interested in financial performance. The customers will be interested in products and services, and so on.

For each of your profiles, write down the two key points that will be of most concern to them. When you are preparing your speech, keep the profiles handy, and refer to them constantly. if you are not addressing their concerns, they won't be listening.

Now decide your aims. Are you going to

• Inform?
• Persuade?
• Entertain?
• Instruct?
• Call to action?

Write down your key aim, and any secondary aims. Keep it brief, for reasons we'll talk about later.