For years I have coached many of America's top CEO's.  I have worked with over 500 organizations from over 35 countries. I have worked with all levels of positions from sales, to management to executives to entrepreneurs. I have found that no matter our career choice, we all have to make presentations. As a matter of fact, I believe "Life is a Series of Presentations" and the skill set is frankly overlooked and really is an undiscovered secret to success in both business and life.

As I have coached and trained over the years, one of the core elements I find people often skip when preparing for presentations (that causes the pain of not getting the audience to fully buy-in) is lack of clear written objectives. I speak to this issue in whole chapters in many of my books.

Let me share with you a few highlights in a simple process that should help you with your next important presentations.

Think of a funnel - at the top is all the possible things you can share in your presentation  (many people share way too many things...we all know that). At the bottom of the funnel are your core objectives of the talk  - as you go down the funnel from the top, here are 5 steps to consider:

Step 1 - Define the actions you want the audience to take as a result of your talk.

Step 2 - Define your audience (backgrounds, age, frame of reference, and mental mindset, etc.).

Step 3 - Clarify the needs of your audience (basically what's in it for them).

Step 4 - Begin to write out 3 or 4 phases that will become your objectives starting with an action word like share, communicate, inspire, motivate and then follow the action word with what you want to accomplish. For example:  "Share the highlights of....", or, "Communicate the specific time line of....", or, "Inspire the attendees to...". You get the picture, three or four simple phases beginning with an action word.

The Final Step 5 - Mentally test your objectives and outline with others - perhaps someone who knows your audience and/or knows your subjects and have them give you a One-minute critique so you end up with a clean & clear set of tested objectives.