Presentations move people to act—but only if you explicitly state what actions you want them to take, and when. Are you asking them to be doers, suppliers, influencers, or innovators (see table 2-3)?
To get to this list of four things an audience can do for you, I read hundreds of speeches and classified their calls to action. Whether your audience is corporate, political, scientific, or academic, the people you’re addressing should fall into one of these categories.
Make it clear what you need to accomplish together and break that down into discrete tasks and deadlines that feel manageable to the audience. Let’s consider an example where the call to action is to “innovate”—since that can be tough to pull off. Suppose you have an aging product that needs reinvention. Not all great ideas have to come from engineering. So after you say that the organization is open to ideas from all departments, you might break down the tasks like this:
You might ask everyone to take just one action, or you might provide a few actions people can choose from. Either way, be explicit in your request—and about how it will benefit the audience.