Know Your Audience – Knowto whom you are speaking, but do not talk up or down to anyone. Treat everyone’s time and position withrespect.
Within the framework of communication, probably themost important aspect to effectively share information is context. According to the Oxford Dictionary, Contextis the circumstances that form the setting for an event, statement, or idea,and in terms of which it can be fully understood and assessed. While working with clients or coworkers, weneed to understand their context before we can begin to expect real communicationis taking place.
As consultants and sales professionals we generallyhave a desire to share information which we believe will either make ourcustomers’ situation better, or as least to clear hurdles which may be delayingprogress. If the recipient is distractedby other circumstances or priorities no matter our level of sincerity we willnot produce the desired results. Inorder to be effective communicators we must understand and know our audience.
Sometimes, our audience is the wrong audience. We can provide relief from a situation butour audience has no authority to put our information in play. Or, our audience may have delegated the issuewe are addressing and has little knowledge of the issues at hand. In every case, understanding who our audienceis, or should be, increases the likelihood of our communicating the correctinformation to the correct recipients. Only then can we be effective agents of change.