A client circled back to me recently to thank me for some advice I had given him.

He had spent hours preparing his script and slides for an important talk. He hired me to help him with his delivery – because he knew it was important to command respect from these high-level decision-makers.

In our first ten minutes together, I assured him we would absolutely work on his stage presence AND asked if he would also like feedback on his content if it would help make it more clear/convincing?

He said, “I welcome it.”

I asked, “In one sentence, what do you want people to DO at the end of your talk?“

Well, he started talking… and didn’t stop for almost five minutes. It was clear this was one reason his slides were so confusing.

I gently said, “Confused people don’t say yes. People won’t take action if you can’t clearly express it in one clean sentence.

Are you open to clarifying your one-sentence purpose statement, and then using it as a litmus test for every slide?

If the information and image on that slide help you achieve that, they stay.

If they don’t, they either go or they’re changed until they do.”

He agreed, and we spent the next hour cleaning up his deck and message.

When we finished, every word and image on his slides had earned its keep.

His talk flowed because he was intentionally clear on the purpose from slide one to done.