Show them you care

Caring for your audience is more important than anything else. Every aspect of your communications needs to show a great deal of care and concern for your audience - even if this is just a single person. You need to see the entire communication session - whether it's a conversation, a presentation, a speech, or a contribution to a meeting - from the perspective of the audience. Don't waste your time worrying about what you want to say. Instead, consider what the audience wants to hear - then deliver it and they will start to build your credibility rating.

Caring for your audience accounts for 50% of your credibility. If you show them you care for them they will start to believe you - no matter what else you are saying. To each and every one of us, the most important person in the world is ourselves. Hence when other people take notice of us, look after our needs - make us feel loved - we respond. By focusing on your audience's requirement you are satisfying one of the most basic human needs and boosting your own credibility as a result.

Practical steps you can take

1. Look at them - have plenty of eye contact as this demonstrates your interest in them.

2. Smile - this signifies your positive view of your audience and provides further confirmation of your interest in them.

3. Get close to them - move near or lean towards them; demonstrating your physical closeness shows great interest in your audience.

4. Ask them questions - ask about them, not about what they think of you, your products or company or whatever. Turn questions around to ask how they feel they would use your product/service. In other words, involve your audience - they are waiting for you to do it and if you neglect this, you are demonstrating lack of care.

5. Use their name - it's the most important word in the world to each of us. Calling people by name shows you have taken the time to remember it, indicating how much you think of them.

6. Value their input - thank people for their questions, their contributions and their ideas. Never dismiss what people tell you or appear as though you ignore it. Saying 'thank you' really helps.

7. Consider the physical - are the comfortable, or too hot or cold? Is it too bright or too dark? Can they see you or your presentations materials? Taking the time to ensure that people are in good physical conditions will make them more receptive to your message, but also has a second benefit as it shows you have thought about their needs. Never ask 'can you hear me at the back?' or 'can you see the screen?' as these kinds of questions indicate your lack of preparation; if you have prepared for your audience you will have made sure that everyone can see and that you can be heard effectively.

8. Deliver pictures - human memory is heavily biased towards the pictorial. If you deliver text-rich material, such as bullet point slides, you make it harder for people to remember. Indeed, you'll notice a handful of cartoons on this web site that taken together summarise the points being made. All you need to do is look at the pictures and you know how to be credible! If you talk in pictures your audience won't have to concentrate so hard, reducing the mental effort they require and they'll love you for that.

9. Fit in with expectations - people have an internal 'schema' that is a representation of every event they encounter. So we have a pre-defined plan for what we expect a presentation or a meeting to be like. If you deviate too far from the audience's expectation you will not fit in with their internal schemas making it harder for them to interpret the situation. Fit in with their expectations (which you need to find out in advance) and you score extra credibility points.

10. Think - make sure your planning process is very thoughtful. Think about how your audience would view your message or materials and consider their reaction. Thoughtful preparation, taking into account the audience's point of view, is much more valuable in credibility terms than, say, having nice looking slides.

© 2002 Graham Jones info@thecredibilitypyramid.co.uk