You need to know Who’s in the room.
Really know who’s in the room!
Yeah, it sounds cheesy.
You’ve heard it a million times.
It’s not a formality.
It’s the backbone of everything you’re about to do.
Sometimes, the audience is your compass.
You’re starting from scratch.
You can shape the session for the kind of people you want to invite.
Other times, the audience is a constraint.
You’ve been hired to teach someone else’s crowd.
Too late to change who shows up.
You have to adapt.
Learn who they are.
Design around them, not over them.
Why does it matter?
Because you can’t teach sales.
You can only teach sales to them.
You can’t teach leadership.
You can only teach leadership to this specific group.
Every workshop that tries to do “everything”
ends up saying nothing.
So ask yourself:
1) Who are they?
Students? Freelancers? Middle managers?
Burned-out? Overachievers? Both?
One group or a mixed crowd?
2) How far along are they?
Beginners? Experts? Somewhere messy in between?
Do they need the basics? or are they ready to run?
3) Why are they here?
What do they want out of this?
What would make them walk away saying, “that was worth it”?
Or, what does their boss want?
4) What’s in the way?
Are they skeptical? Tired?
Forced to be here?
Do they think the topic’s too obvious? Too abstract? Not for them?
And this is how you decide what to keep and what to cut.
This is how you choose the right Learning Outcomes.
And if the crowd is a wild mix?
Look for the thread.
The one pain, belief, goal, or frustration they all share.
Pull it. That’s your throughline.
No thread?
Be honest.
Say who it’s not for.
Split the sessions.
Or focus on one group and serve them fully.
Even if you have to let others go.
Creating an Audience Profile is simple.
But it’s never optional.
And it’s not something you grow out of.
Everything starts with who’s in the room.
Thank you.
And Free Palestine.