The best way to write a presentation is to write your conclusion first. Work out what it is you want to tell your audience and what you want them to think about it. If you get the conclusion right, producing the rest of the presentation is so much easier.

Ideally your conclusion should be some kind of action you want your audience to take, or perhaps a change in thinking you want them to consider. If your conclusion is focused on something the audience has to do, it is much better.

Once you have your conclusion, then you need to work out what bits of "evidence" and factual material would support such a position. These elements will make up the middle of your presentation. Now that you have the middle and the end, you can write your introductory material.

By writing your introduction last, you will, in fact, have a much better presentation as that introduction will be so focused on the outcome of your conclusion.

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It's amazing how many people try to write a presentation without having really listened to any other presenters. Not just having "heard" another presenter, but truly listened.

Going to see other presenters and speakers is one of the best ways of learning how to write your own presentations. Listen carefully to what these other presenters say, so that you can incorporate their techniques and ideas into your own talks.

By watching and listening to some great presenters and public speakers you can pick up ideas, hints and tips and learn new ways of structuring your presentations. Listen to what is being said and analyse how it has been put together. Look and listen too at the reaction of the audience. You will be able to match positive reactions to particular ways in which the presentation has been crafted.

Attending as many presentations as possible is a good idea for anyone who has to present themselves. But instead of learning the content of the presentation, go with an analytical frame of mind so you can study the way the presentation has been written. By doing that you will be able to improve the way you write your own presentations.

However, it all depends upon you making sure you attend as many conferences, seminars and meetings as possible.

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Your brain is highly efficient and once set a task can usually get on with it quietly, in the background - if you trust it. For example, many people see someone at a meeting or party and cannot remember their name. They give up trying to remember and carry on with the meeting or party. But the next day, usually at 4am, they wake up because they have just remembered the name!

What has happened is that the individual's subconscious brain has continued to work on the problem in the background. Whenever you need to work out what to say in a presentation you can use the same tool that your brain provides you with. Here's what to do.

Start off by planning your presentation as best you can. Make some notes, mind maps, rough out some slides and so on. Then do something else. Your unfinished presentation will continue to be mulled over by your subconscious. Then, suddenly it will come up with the answer for you.

That moment might be inconvenient though. You might be woken from sleep, you might be in a meeting, you might be in the bath. However, once your subconscious has provided the answer to your conscious mind it gives up. So, if you do not make a note of your ideas at that moment, it will be lost forever. So, always have notebooks by the bed, in the bathroom, in your pocket, so that you can immediately jot down the ideas.

If you can't get a notebook or it's difficult to write, use your mobile phone. Simply call your own number - it will be engaged - and leave yourself a voicemail message.

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When writing your presentation it's a good idea to have in mind the people you are talking to. Exactly who is this presentation for? Don't just think "colleagues" or "customers". Instead, try to focus on specifics.

For instance, is your audience old or young, male or female, educated or highly educated? How long have they been interested in your subject? What is their experience in your topic? What do they talk about when they discuss your subject?

What you need to do is get a complete picture of the person you are talking to. The more detailed a picture you draw up, the easier it becomes to write your presentation. Indeed, a considerable proportion of your preparation time should be taken up with audience research.

Once you have a detailed description of your typical audience member it becomes easier to write your presentation because you know who you are talking to. Otherwise your writing has to be too "generic" and that makes for a weakened presentation.

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A great way of writing your presentation is to use those familiar yellow sticky notes. Here's what you do. As ideas come to you for your presentation just write them down on a sticky note and slap it on the wall. You can do this in one sitting, or you can just jot things down as you think of them over the days and weeks before your presentation.

Once you need to assemble your presentation, look at all the sticky notes on your wall and find any duplicates - you may well have come up with repeated ideas if you have done this exercise over several days. Once you have ensured that all your notes are different you can now start to move them about.

Find notes that are on similar themes and assemble them in the same area of the wall. Move them around so that you have each theme of sticky notes all collected in the same section of wall. By doing this you will have "outlined" your presentation.

What you can do next is either jot down the notes into your word processor so you can start writing your talk. Or you can take a digital photo of each section of your wall to upload to your PC to use as your notes. Either way, you have produced the basis for your presentation quickly and easily.

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Examples and stories can bring your presentations alive. When presenters give examples, it helps explain what they are saying in a way that the audience can understand. Examples make the material you deliver less "dry". If you can give your examples in the form of stories, you will be using a format that everyone can understand. We were all brought up on stories and some of the greatest influencers in history gave their messages as stories - remember Aesop and his fables!

1 For each of your main points try to think of at least one example that backs up what you are saying. You may not use each example, but you should have them in mind so you can introduce them if necessary.

2 Make your examples include human beings, preferably real people. Examples that include people are much more powerful than abstract examples.

3 Try to paint vivid pictures in the mind of your audience with your examples. If your audience can mentally see what you are describing they are much more likely to remember it.

4 Make your examples relevant to the audience. Find out in advance the kind of examples that are likely to interest them; do some audience research to help boost your examples.

5 Choose examples that are current.
Do not use examples from the distant past as they have less impact than examples set in the present.

6 Always announce your examples with words like "here's a story that shows what I mean". Announcements like this will alert your audience to pay close attention.

7 Useful examples are anecdotes based on your own experience. Your audience will value your personal stories.

8 Wherever possible make your examples light or humorous. Avoid being serious or stuffy with your examples.

9 Tell your stories in the same way as you would in a social situation, such as a dinner party or in a bar. The more natural they sound, the greater their impact.

10 Always be on the lookout for new examples and stories that can back up your points. The more examples you have "in stock" the more you will be able to choose one relevant to a particular audience.

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Presenters often adopt the approach of "telling" something rather than "showing" something. For instance, presenters who have to launch a new product or sell one of their company's offerings will often say what it does, but rarely will they show what it can achieve for the audience.

The "show don't tell" approach is much better since it connects with the audience much more clearly. For instance, let's say I have to sell you a new car which will be more environmentally friendly than your current vehicle. I could tell you all about the gas emissions, I could explain the fuel consumption and I could give you a whole host of data to support my claims.

But what if I told you about one of my customers, Steve, who bought one of these cars only last month. Then I told you that he went to a web site that helped calculate his "carbon footprint" and he had worked out that merely getting this car had reduced his impact on the environment by half. Added to that, his children loved him getting the car because their school project on the environment had shown them how their Dad's old car was an embarrassment to them.

Using an example like this really connects with the audience. They can visualise Steve and his children; they can see him logging on to the web site. In turn, they can see themselves in similar situations. That creates a mental connection with what you are trying to get across in a way that merely "telling" cannot do.

So whenever you have to write a presentation, always look for possible examples you can use to highlight the points you wish to make.

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If you have several things to say in your presentation, what order should you put them in? Should you make it logical in some way or should you just choose a random approach? When writing your presentation it is important that you make the right decision as to the order of the material, otherwise your audience will not be able to follow what you are saying.

When starting on your presentation make a note of all the points you wish to make. Then make a note of all the things the audience wants to hear. Now see if there are any matches. If there are, these are things you should start and finish with. Always make sure that the beginning and the end of the presentation are the things which will have most resonance with the audience. People will remember either the first thing or the last thing you said, so put the points which are least important to your audience somewhere in the middle of your presentation.

Once you know the start and end and what goes in the middle, all you need to do is connect these items in some way. You can do this by telling some kind of story around the points you wish to make. Or you can simply ignore any connections, instead jumping from one topic to the next. That may not be as daft as it sounds; research with audiences suggests they actually like material that isn't completely logical in its flow. The novelty of items that pop up keeps them interested and on their toes.

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Audiences love interactivity during presentations. They want to be involved in some way. Whether it is just being asked for a show of hands, or taking part in some practical exercise, research shows that audiences want to be involved in one way or another.

When planning your presentation it is a good idea to include interactive features. Get your audience involved early on. Simple things like a show of hands can help, but the more actively involved your audience becomes the better. So, ask them to pair up and come up with a "list" of things. For instance, let's say you are talking about environmental issues, your audience could pair up and devise a list of things they could do in the next 24 hours to help the environment. After a few minutes you ask them to shout out a few of the things they have written down. You simply then connect the items called out to what you were going to talk about anyway. As far as the audience is concerned you have used their input to help shape your presentation, which makes it much more engaging for them.

Other things you can do include "brainstorming" sessions, where groups of people come up with ideas, or a question and answer session where you ask the questions and they answer them. There are various practical exercises you might do, depending upon the kind of presentation you are giving. For instance, if you are launching a new product get the audience to use it and then give some feedback.

Whatever you do, though, if your presentation includes several elements of interaction between you and the audience, it will be much better received than you just talking.

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Writing a presentation and getting it right is often time consuming. You need to go over the drafts several times, change the word order, edit the slides; gosh it is all so frustrating. Well, here's an easy way to solve the problem.

Firstly get a digital voice recorder such as those made by Olympus. Then, prepare the outline of your talk using your favourite method, such as mind mapping, making notes or simply scribbling down your ideas.

Then, switch on your voice recorder and simply chat about your notes. Talk about your subject and say the kind of things you would expect to say to your audience. Then play back your recording, noting down any adjustments you wish to make.

Next, create your slides to support what you say. Then, go through your sides saying out lout what you would say, again recording your own voice. Check this and make some notes on any changes you thing necessary.

After you have made your changes, record your talk again. Then get yourself Dragon Naturally Speaking Preferred and run your recorded talk through it. An hour or so later you will have a Microsoft Word document of what you said. With just a little editing you will now have your written presentation.

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People in your audience get what you say by listening to you. Even though many presenters try to "hide" behind their slides, it is what you say that is most important. Your audience has come to listen to you, not see how good you are with PowerPoint.

This means that the words you use are important; they are the elements of your presentation that are going to create the most impact, so you need to choose them carefully. But where do you start?

The first thing to do is prepare your outline for your talk and then spend some time literally saying it out loud. As you hear yourself speak, you will select various words to describe what you are trying to get across. If possible, record yourself doing this "first run" and then play back what you said.

Make a note of words that could be loosely called "jargon", words that you repeat and words that could not be understood by an intelligent 12-year-old. Then seek alternatives for those words. Your speech needs to be completely clear and the words that are jargon, complex or repetitive are the ones that get in the way of that clarity.

Do not think that you will patronise your audience by speaking at the 12-year-old level. Most books are at that reading age, for instance. Most newspapers and magazines, including business ones, are at a lower reading age. The need for such a level of language is because your audience is not poring over the fine details of your subject; they are not fully concentrating on the subject either. This means your language needs to be at the level their brain can absorb without effort.

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One of the most important things to write for your presentation is the opening - your audience will make up their mind as to whether or not you are worth listening to within the first 15 seconds. Hence the first few things you say are essential to get right. They need to be attention grabbing, focused and point the way ahead for your talk. This will then encourage people to stick with you and listen to the rest of your speech.

If you are doing a presentation on a big stage you can have theatrical openings which are real attention grabbers. However, most presentations are given in less space and without the benefits of theatrical equipment. For these presentations you need to use something as an attention grabber that will work no matter what size of room you have.

Some time-tested and audience-researched openings you might consider include:

1. A quotation - a few words from someone famous or well known in a particular industry

2. A controversial statement - a single sentence that people in your audience will find uncomfortable or which they will disagree with.

3. A statistic - impressive numbers can often be attention grabbing (increase in numbers of sales, for instance).

4. An anecdote - a personal story that's connected to the subject and which makes a point is the favourite of audiences.

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Presenters often feel under pressure to put everything they know about their subject into their presentation. As a result they often start with background information, so that the rest of their material can be set in context. The problem with this approach is that you easily lose the attention of your audience.

Research on audiences shows that they are actually full of expectation at the outset of a presentation, waiting to be told what to do. That's right, audiences expect you to give them something to do after the presentation is over. A good presentation is one that ensures the audience has at least one clear action to complete after you have left the platform.

So, how do you ensure you write a presentation that follows this 'rule'? The first thing to do when sitting down to put your presentation together is some audience research. Many presenters only do basic audience research. But to construct an outstanding presentation you need to find out as much detail as you can. In particular you need to know where they are now, on your topic - and where they would like to be. That will give you some clues as to the actions you can suggest in your presentation.

Once you have the desired 'destination' of the audience in mind, you can work out how you can connect your topic to that specific requirement. Start your presentation with a hint of how you are going to achieve this. Your audience will immediately pay attention because you are 'on their wavelength'. In other words, demonstrate right at the beginning of your presentation that you understand your audience, what they desire and how you are going to help them achieve that.

The best presentations are not those which have the greatest applause, nor those which are remarked upon for their wonderful PowerPoint slides. The best presentations are those which the audience act upon afterwards; it's not what you do in the room that is the mark of a good presentation, it's what the audience does after you have left that is important. As a result, the way of writing the best presentation is to focus on what the audience will do, not what you want to say.

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