Advice from communications expert
According to Stephanie Scotti, a communications expert, if you first connect with yourself and think okay I’m the right person for this message and I’m the right person to be delivering it, I can make this happen. You craft a message that truly reflects your point of view, how you see the world and having those two pieces together make them believe in it.
What you about to say is to help your audience understand it and that is when you connect with them in so extremely powerful way. It is important for people to understand the message and that makes the biggest difference.
Before you prepare the speech to ask yourself four questions
The first question is, Who is my audience? What that allows you to do, is to start developing a common language with them. Are they technical people? Are they executives? Are they a cross-section of the organisation? Find a common language and not just demographics, you are really want to understand who is in the room.
The second question is, Why are they there? Is there a pain point? Is because they were told to be there? Is it because they have to advance the ball in some way? Now you have a language and you have a purpose.
The third question is, What do they absolutely need to know about this topic? Will they find interesting what would you find particularly interesting? If you ask yourself, even if you do not think you know the answers straight away, they will soon emerge.
The fourth question is, How can I talk about this? How can I talk about it in a way that makes sense to them? That is your framework, you know whether it is a problem, consequences or solution of past, present or future. Whatever works for you best.
Presentation profiling identifies three kinds of speakers as business leaders
The first one is the experts, the persons that only want to do what is expected. It is to report out content with no interpretation. It is like a mind meld within their head.
The interpreters, will take data and interpret it to give meaning to the audience.
The catalysts, the persons who just totally disrupts the status quo. That creates havoc in the organisation. It would be somebody like a Steve Jobs who everybody loves him but in those moments he disrupted everything we know today.
Typically business leaders think they supposed to be catalysts but many times they actually need and want to be a subject matter expert or an interpreter. One is not better than the other as it is just knowing a profile that they can fit in a certain time. Suddenly they know what to do and that boost confidence incredibly.
Starting with the mindset
Starting with the mindset and understanding your purpose is exactly what you must be doing before everything else. If you have a strong desire to be a better communicator contact us directly to connect you with one of our coaches for a free consultation. Contact us now! +353 83 88 44 773 info@koteve.com
