Back to regularly scheduled programming.  Once again, Congress is spinning its wheels, the economy is in the tank, and the presidential campaign is going on…and on.  So I might as well get back to communication. 

Before I got diverted, I was blogging about trust and credibility.  They are high on the minds of audience members, according to a study done a few years back.  So the question is how do you establish those noteworthy feelings in the audience as you’re talking about your company’s prospects, or the future of ice mining in Patagonia, or caviar stocks? 

As I said in the first post, there are both verbal and non-verbal components to these issues.  I’ll start with credibility.  How do you establish credibility in the minds of the audience with your content? 

The good news is that the audience has granted you provisional authority just by sitting down and listening to you.  So all you have to do is confirm their hope that you’re credible.  That’s an easier job than starting out with a skeptical audience. 

Couple that with the fact that audiences begin by asking why – why am I here, why is this important to me, why should I care – and we can begin to sketch out an answer. 

Ask yourself, what problem does the audience have for which my expertise is the solution?  Then, spend the first part of your speech talking about that problem.  That will answer the 'why' question and it will establish your expertise. 

The trick is to show that you know more about the problem than the audience itself.  You do that by telling some good stories that show you understand the emotional aspects of the problem.  Then, offer a few well-chosen statistics that demonstrate that you’ve got your facts down.  That’s a matter a doing the right research.  Best of all, involve the audience in scoping out the problem – let them tell you how they see it, and listen hard.  Reflect back the best parts to them, and you’re home free.

Do all that, and you’ll establish credibility – as long as you don’t screw it up with non-credible body language.  I’ll talk about that next time.  It’s tricky.