#presenting #confidence #audience #communication #diversity #culture #effective #success
Who’s Listening? Are they Listening? And, How are they Listening?
You will not be communicating optimally if you do not know who your audience are.
Have you lost them before you even start?
E.g. – You talk about the 30 NGOs you have worked with when the audience does not even understand what an NGO is! (A Non-Governmental Organisation). You are a techy and plunge into, Terabytes, Angstroms and Quarks – You have lost them. You are an insecure academic with a mean streak – You lose the audience deliberately with poncy overcomplication in the first 2 minutes. Fail, Fail Fail.
Effective communication
We must understand our audience in order to cater for their ears, hearts, minds, muscles and wallets. We must resonate with their culture in order to have them dial in, connect, trust, listen, relate, engage, align, activate, decide and move.
Core
SHOCK – Not all of your audience are YOUR audience. In a crowd of say, 100, between 0 and 99 may be potential followers. And even if you have a good few people that qualify as your target crowd, are you speaking their language?
Values
The language we need to be using caters for and resonates with our people’s values. They will do not do who they are not. Read that again. They will do not do WHO they are not. You will not get far asking for audience participation from a group of introverted reflectors. You will not get far asking the younger members to share opinions when their bosses are present. You will not get far when you talk Woke to centre right thinkers. Their values matter. Hit the sweet spot and you will communicate. Share the polar opposite to the crowd in front of you and you will get booed off stage.
Due diligence
The easiest way to construct your audience avatar and work out who they are, is to go back to the people who did engage and see what their values, culture and preferences are. And the easiest way to do this is to ask them who impresses them, who was their best boss / teacher / client or their worst?
When they speak, don’t focus on the content but on the preferences, values, likes and dislikes that they give away.
Test your assumptions with some feedback (I get the sense that X is important to you. Yes?) and then see if that lands. And, bingo, you have a set of values that you can write for and speak to.
Language
One of the best lexicons for mixed audiences is second language corporate English. It is the number one commercial lingua franca in the world and works in many circumstances. Learn and don’t overcomplicate your messages with esoteric phrases that have words like esoteric in them!
Culture
Work out your core avatar. Are they polite, introverted thinkers, analysing and needing data and time to process your message? Are they overtalking enthusiasts who need to hear your personal story before connecting with you and only then opening up to your message? Are they deductive logicals, who require tons of input, context and set up first and then wait to be convinced by the discipline, sophistication and strength of your argument? Are they fundamentalists needing narrow track input, who will never consider any parts of an alternative point of view?
Go
Now you know who you are talking to, and you can adapt your words to connect around commonalities, compliment their choices and beliefs, and align with their thoughts, reactions and feelings.
When you resonate with the crowd’s values, meet your audience where they are, and speak their actual preferred language, AND you structure a message specifically for their culture, background, educational level etc. Then you will engage with them. This will take you from not being anybody in their eyes or hearts, to being somebody worthy of attention and, over minutes, hours or days, they will learn to know you, like you and trust you.
And all because you took the time to find out who they are, what values they hold dear, what language works for them and with them, and how to move them to listen, stay, relate and engage and, eventual vote, decide or act.
Wrapping up
We have covered what a message is in the first piece and what, this time, what due diligence to do with your audience to build an avatar as your communication target.
Next time we will talk about the structures you can deploy to activate your listeners / readers.
Questions
What do your audience not appreciate? – vulgarity, bad news, over optimism, political polarity, reality, criticism, uncomfortable discussion, manipulation, phoney friendliness, aloof superiority, aggression, passivity, wetness, vagueness, waffle, hyperbole, hesitancy, modesty, caution, risk taking, humour, dryness?
It is never too early to work out your crowd’s avatar…
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