Who is Your Audience?

It is not you.

Yes you have made yourself shiny. New haircut, new clothes, and gleaming shoes. You have created a slick website, worked the social media sites, and sent email blasts.

New speakers and presenters commonly make the mistake in thinking the audience cares who you are. They don’t. Your audience only wants to know what you can do for them. The want to know what you can provide for them that will satisfy a need or desire.

Could you possibly convince an audience of your viewpoint or call to action if you think  you can persuade because you are shiny?

Let me backtrack. Your audience does care that you are a trustworthy source of information. That you are ethical and have values. The real reason that you have filled seats is because audience members  are looking to have a need satisfied.

Sound easy?

It’s not. It is work.

Your role is to decide who your audience is. Why did they come to hear you speak? What benefit do they think they will gain from listening to your presentation?

Envision the audience. Their demographic, patterns, and habits. Spend some time with a pad of paper and brainstorm. Ask lots of questions and scour the Internet. When you have finished you should know your audience intimately.

Lifting your gaze from the shiny you, to the audience you now know intimately, creates and environment where you can connect to your audience.

And to let you in on a secret –for me, the object of this blog exercise  — is to keep me on track and focused on who my audience is. But likely…you don’t care.

Tags: benefit, call to action, ethics, new speakers, persuation, trust, values