As I talked about in a previous post (exclusive-content-white-paper-1), a presentation is always created for a specific audience. That means who you are speaking to has everything to do with what you put in your presentation.
There are four key questions to ask yourself about the audience as you prepare your content:
What if you can’t get much information?
As we have discussed, it is always best to get as much information as possible about your audience before you begin to prepare your presentation, but what if, try as you might, you are unable to learn much about them? The best advice, in that case, is to “shoot for the middle”. Plan to include some background, but don’t start at the very beginning and include a “medium” level of detail. If you are presenting on a topic you have presented before, think about how other audiences have responded, what they knew, and the kinds of questions they asked.
Another way to handle it is to keep your presentation basic and allow your audience to ask questions in the Q&A to fill in the blanks. This could create a conversational dynamic to your presentation, but it could also indicate to some audience members that you don’t know your stuff. Think about your overall goal to decide if this would get you the outcome you need.