There is nothing more important than your audience. Some speakers look at audience members as the enemy: they're the ones inducing stress in the speaker, they're the ones with the difficult questions and they're the ones who are seemingly impossible to please.

The truth is, however, the audience is the only reason you're there. I'll talk later about analyzing your audience and getting to know them better. For now, let's concentrate on what they'll be looking for in your presentation.

Most audience members will tell you that they come to a presentation looking for something they can use that is positive and beneficial to them. The audience generally assesses that content in three ways: organization, expression and support.

Organization is the simplest and easiest of the three criteria to explain. Your task is to organize your presentation in a way that makes sense to your audience. The better organized it is, the greater the chance they'll pay attention and do what you want. If you make them do the work, either because you're unable or unwilling to organize your thoughts, the audience won't like it. If they're highly motivated and know they'll receive some useful benefit from organizing the information you present, they may stay with you. They won't like, but they'll stay engaged. If the reward doesn't justify the effort, though, they'll simply check out.

You can use any of these organizational patterns to make your presentation useful, interesting and easy to understand.