What matters - the story we want to tell - or the way the audience reacts to the story, and the action they take afterwards?

Getting focused on the audience helps us move out of our internally focused mind - the one that concentrates on 'Here's what we do' - and move into the world of the customer. A lot of questions answered in this chapter...

In this chapter:

1. Video 1. Seven questions to ask yourself about your audience
2. Video 2. How to find out about your audience
3. Video 3. What if the audience is mixed, with different interests?
4. Action Step: make a profile of your audience.
   Download the General Audience pdf here.
   Download the Investor pdf here.

Three Takeaways from Video 1.

1. It's tempting to jump straight into the slides and the story - but take a step back and think about the people you are pitching to, and what's happening in their world first.
2. It’s not about the story you want to tell, but rather about how you can connect with the audience’s interest, and trigger them to take the action you want.
3. Make a profile of your audience - the 7 things you can think about that are mentioned in the video are in the Action Step Download at the bottom the page. (And watch the next video before jumping in - that will help with where to find out more info about your audience.)

One Big Takeaway from Video 2.

1. Take time to research your audience if it's a high stakes pitch. LinkedIn, their website, their blog, YouTube - these are all places you can get insight about how your audience see themselves, their interests, and how they communicate.

Three Takeaways from Video 3.

1. If you don't know much about the audience, avoid throwing as many details as possible and hoping they'll stick! Narrow the pitch down, and get into a conversation to find out what they want to know - and talk about the topics they want to talk about.
2. If there is a mixed audience - focus first on the decision makers, and make your audience profile based on them.
3. And second - if they are still from various functions or have a variety of backgrounds and interests - again, keep to the essentials, prepare for a broad range of questions, and get into Q&A as soon as possible.

Action Step! Turn the theory into action.

Take time to make a profile of your audience, using the one-pagers below. They are fillable pdfs, so you can download them, fill them in, save and keep as a reference while building your pitch. Keep referring to your audience profile while preparing your story - ask yourself, is this piece of content I've just put in my pitch relevant to this audience?

Note: there are two profiles.

1. General audiences - customers, internal meetings at companies, network events, pitch competitions, conferences etc.
2. Investors - there are very different questions to ask yourself about investors compared to customers.

"Got any questions? Anything unclear? Or anything you liked or want to share? Put it all in the comments below - I'll always follow up personally!"

Regards, David