Professional actors and great communicators always start by identifying an objective to pursue with their communication — a goal they hope to achieve with an audience hearing their message. Actors and leaders want their listeners to feel something, and subsequently do something, as a result of hearing what they have to say. For Romeo, it’s to make Juliet fall in love with him, for a politician it’s to win votes, and for a salesperson, it’s to motivate a client to buy.

Speakers and leaders, much like actors on a stage, always have an objective they are pursuing with their message, and the effectiveness by which that message is delivered directly correlates to how well they are able to influence the emotions of their audience and motivate them to action. By controlling the intention cues a speaker sends out — their vocal dynamics, body language and facial expressions — in the manner of a great actor, they will ultimately be able to control how an audience will feel about them.

To do this effectively, I’ve helped to develop a method that can be employed by any leader or influencer to sharpen their delivery and maximize the impact of their message in meetings, during presentations or when providing feedback to others.

Those three steps are as follows:

Step One: Analyze your audience.

Audience analysis is a complicated process but an essential place for you to start. If you ever go into any client meeting or begin a presentation without knowing with whom you are about to speak, you are walking into trouble. How can you satisfy the needs of your audience and customize your message for them if you don’t know who they are? When it comes to analyzing an audience, there are many factors to consider, but here are the three most important ones:

Demographic factors: The demographic makeup of your audience includes identifying the age, marital status, gender, education level, occupation, religion as well as cultural, racial and ethnic backgrounds of the various people with which you are communicating.