The first two minutes of your communication will determine whether or not anyone will listen to what you have to say. You need to say something to grab their attention; otherwise your audience will multi-task. But, where should you start? What should you focus on? What if you have a mixed audience with different needs?

If all these questions have you spending hours developing, changing and editing your content, I’m here to tell you, it doesn’t have to be that way. Getting started is always the hardest part. Once you know where to begin and get in the proper mindset to prepare your content, the rest of your presentation will easily come together. The following four tips will put you on track to developing a compelling, audience-focused presentation that will garner the results you deserve.

1. Who is attending? Knowing who your audience will be is the first step in figuring out where to begin. Answer the following questions to help shape your presentation: What is their knowledge level as it relates to your topic? Why are they attending the meeting? Why do they care about your topic? What problem are you going to solve for them? Why is your information important for each group in attendance? Learning the answers to these questions will shape your presentation to fit their needs. Focusing on what they need to know rather than on what you want to tell them gives them a good reason for being there, makes them feel appreciated and, perhaps most importantly, makes you look good.

2. Pay attention to detail. Now that you know your audience and have determined what’s important for them, you can begin to figure out what topics are necessary to cover in-depth and which ones you can review at a very high level or eliminate altogether. Chances are you’ve been given a short amount of time to cover a lot of information. Determining what information you can skip or eliminate will be key to your success. Keep in mind that if you skip something that is important to a particular segment of your audience, they can always ask questions.

3. Focus on value. For each of your key attendee segments, come up with three value statements. The point of a value statement is to make these individuals shake their head “yes” in agreement with you. At the bottom of each slide or at the end of each point, you should remind your audience why this information is good for them, or of the value it brings to their team. Doing this makes it very easy for them to understand exactly what’s in it for them. It keeps them engaged and lets them know that you know what they need and understand their situation.

4. Take action. You won’t deliver this information until the end of your presentation, but knowing what your outcomes need to be before you begin will help shape your content. You’ll need to define what you want people to do immediately after your presentation. What are your goals? What do you want to accomplish? You don’t have to assign the action steps in advance, but have an idea of who in your audience should be responsible for what. This will help you further focus on the goals and keep the whole presentation on track.