Getting from here to there

A simple truth: If you care for what you do, there’s always going to be more interesting things to say than you’ve got time to say them.

That’s why it’s a bad idea to start your preparation by collecting all the info. It will almost inevitably be too much info.

A better way is to start with the gap between where your audience is coming from and where you want to lead them and then to bridge that gap step by step:

What’s the first step they need to take in order to get from here to there? (Not the the first dozen or even the first five steps but THE first step.)

And then what’s the second?

And then the third?

And sooner than you think you’ll have led them there. More importantly, I bet you’ll discover that you didn’t even need all the info from the beginning of this post to lead them there. A couple of key steps were sufficient to take them there. It’s basically a shift from what I want them to know towards what they need to know.

The beauty of it is this: Some of your audience will have enjoyed that journey so much that they’ll ask you to take them on an extended tour that explores the side roads and branches, too. When they ask “tell me more”, you’re in a much better position to give them the rest of your info.