For business leaders everywhere, communicating clearly and developing your key messages are some of the most important things you can do. While having uniformity in your message, in other words message discipline, is vital, knowing who your audience is can impact the way you deliver that message. In Episode 11 of Can You Hear Me, we take a closer look at how understanding your audience can determine whether you achieve a successful outcome or miss an opportunity.
CYHM Episode 11
Rob Johnson [00:00:07] For business leaders everywhere, communicating clearly and developing your key messages are some of the most important things you can do while having uniformity in your message. In other words, message discipline is vital. Knowing who your audience is can impact the way you deliver that message. In episode 11 of Can You Hear Me? Podcast, we take a closer look at how to deliver that message to various stakeholders and how it can allow for a successful outcome or a missed opportunity.
Eileen Rochford [00:00:39] Hello, everyone, I'm Eileen Rochford, CEO of the marketing and strategy firm The Harbinger Group. Welcome to another edition of our communications podcast, Can You Hear Me?
Rob Johnson [00:00:49] And I'm Rob Johnson, President of Rob Johnson Communications. On this podcast, we like to talk about the most pressing communications issues that communications companies face today, and this week we want to talk about knowing your audience when delivering your message.
Eileen Rochford [00:01:04] We're not talking about knowing your audience as a branding discussion. This isn't about buyer personas and all that great stuff that's critical in marketing. Today we are discussing this from an interpersonal perspective. In other words, who are you talking to, really? The people in your various audiences as you go through your job and your life and so internally, that might be members of your C-suite. Maybe it's your board of directors, depending on the job that you hold or the employees on the team that you manage. And externally, you have a bunch of different stakeholders from obviously the customers or clients that you deal with, vendors and partners you interact with, and so on and so forth as the media, as a conduit to reaching the public.
Rob Johnson [00:01:47] Yes, and later on in the podcast Eileen, I’m going to get into specific audiences. I kind of outlined eight of them where you are not going to come up with a different message for each one of them. You have your central message, right? But you need to be nuanced about the way you deliver it to them.
Eileen Rochford [00:02:05] And how you understand the individual needs of each of those audiences, of course.
Rob Johnson [00:02:10] Indeed. Well, if you listen to this podcast, you know, we like to share good ideas of others when making our points. And there is one example of that. It's coming from Dean Brenner, who is the President and Founder of The Lattimer Group, a communications and leadership coaching firm in Connecticut. He talks about being in a presentation with someone who's leading it that clearly hasn't customized the discussion for the particular audience and feels like it is one size fits all. And Eileen, I know you have an anecdote about something like that a little bit later as well. So, we're kind of teasing ahead to some of the things that you're going to hear as we sit here and tell you what we want to talk about right in front of you. Latimer suggests that when tailoring your talking points, you should consider several things among that business context. In other words, did their company just experience a significant increase or decrease in the stock price? Has the leadership team been consistent, or have they had a lot of turnover? You need to make sure before going into that meeting, you understand with whom you are meeting and the issues they have dealt with on a business front in the last several months or a year. The next thing is cultural context. Are there nuances of body language or tone of voice specific to a region or a country? And what kind of speaking style works best assertive or deferential, direct, or tactful? You have to ask yourself who am I talking to? Where do they live? In the country and if they're out of the country, what are some of the customs and cultures that they deal with in their particular country? The next one is personal context.
You really need to think about your audience's gender, race, age and status within the company. Are they going to be more receptive to a message that addresses a problem or one that presents an opportunity? And once you've gotten into that particular meeting, Brenner says there are a couple of things you must do. First of all, have a game plan for how you will elicit new information. Will you try to build five minutes at the beginning for introductions and small talk? Which I always find pretty effective, especially when we're dealing with things on Zoom and WebEx and the virtual platforms. Or are you going to cultivate your active listening skills and again tease ahead? If I may Eileen, we're going to talk about that a little bit later too, it's not good enough to just present and have people digest what you're talking about. It's crucial for you to be a good listener too, and we have a few ideas about that coming up later in the podcast as well.
Then, Brenner says, reflect now that you had this new information that you've learned. You need to think about how to incorporate it into your speech. So, you are teeing it up at the beginning you're saying, hey, nice to meet you. What do you do? Then someone tells you about their family or their kid's soccer game on the weekend. You know, it is possible to use some of that to personalize it as you go through your speech, presentation, or pitch. Whatever the case may be, everything you've collected at the beginning is useful not only to get to know people, but also to be able to reference it. And when you do that, it makes people always feel like, oh gosh, he or she was listening. They care about what I'm doing. They're talking to me. I'm relevant. So those are really important things to consider when someone brings something up at the beginning of a conversation.
Eileen Rochford [00:05:43] That is great advice. I really appreciated that article that Dean Brenner wrote. I think it was a few years ago, but completely still relevant today, and he's getting some great SEO out of that baby. I put it in the show notes for sure.
So, knowing your audience, isn't just telling them what you think they need to know. I think you guys are getting the idea. Of course, the active listening component I'll just share, in my opinion, is the most critical part of knowing your audience. The preparation that you put in advance before you even walk in the room is crucial. You have to do the work to properly address their needs, goals, current state of affairs, all of those things in order to prepare a message that they are actually going to hear because in every interaction, there are barriers to effective communication. We experience them every day in every interpersonal communication or business communication.
One big barrier to a message being received is the mindset. I encounter a lot of these mindsets, or at least this is what I hear in business interactions, whether with clients or panels that I'm on, webinars that I participate in, things like that. People often share “This doesn't apply to me, or she does not understand our business.” Their situation is totally unique. How often do we hear that everyone seems to think their situation is totally unique, Right? Or even along the lines of “They don't care about me, they don't even know how I feel.” Imagine all those barriers that there, just built-in, you know, they're baked into how people think. So, walking into every situation and having those impediments already and being prepared for how you're going to address them can be the whole difference between an effective presentation or an interaction that just, you know, completely falls short, as we talked about in our intro.
Rob Johnson [00:07:46] Yes, “This does not apply to me, though.” That's all you hear as the communicator, right? So, if you're sitting there and even if they don’t say it, but think internally, “that doesn't apply to me.” You need to be able to say in your pitch or presentation, here's how this applies to you. You need to think more in depth about this, how it applies to you. So, in case they are thinking that, you have a way to say, “now this does apply to you.” Then I understand your point, Eileen, about the people that feel like their situation is totally unique. But we are talking about communications here. So, oftentimes I hear people say, “Well, what's your sector?” And I'm like, It's communication. They're like, “What is it, healthcare, insurance, food service?” And I understand there are certain things you need to be hyper-focused on for your particular industry, but as we talk about communication here, it does apply. You know, it isn't totally unique because there are communication issues that may be unique to you, but there are so many of them that are general.
For instance, if you use better practices here, you're going to have more success there. Then I don't know how I feel. Again, that's back on you. That's about preparing and making sure that you do know how they feel. And there are certain ways that you can get that information in advance. I know you've employed them before.
Eileen Rochford [00:09:12] Definitely, and I'll tell you why I highlight preparation as the number one predictor of whether or not you are going to have a successful interaction as a communicator or communicating with your team interpersonally, making a formal presentation, any of those things. It is because when you gain a deeper understanding of your audience, you ultimately accomplish several important things. This is getting back to the biases, and preconceived notions that people walk in with, even when they don’t know it, when they sit down in front of you or when you are meeting on Zoom. But I can tell you from having this experience time and time again, the “This doesn't apply to me” mindset is deeply embedded in our brains. So, as a communicator, as a presenter, as a person who is trying to influence, your number one goal when preparing your messaging is to break through that immediately. So that the rest of the time you spend together isn't hindered by that thought of “this doesn't apply to me.”
This is what happens when you put in the preparation in advance. By doing so and reflecting on your gained knowledge of these folks and their situation, you are demonstrating respect for them, for the people you're communicating with. Because, you are not coming in with the one size fits all message that may or may not have direct relevance for them, right? And feeling respected is critical. It is the core to effective persuasion. If the recipient of information does not feel respected and heard, it is going to be impossible to persuade them and bring them along with you. Therefore, demonstrating that you have done the work to understand their situations also enables them to more easily connect with you. I think you were alluding that to that, too, Rob. The connection is key. They want to engage actively. They will look at their phone or do all those other distracted things to not actively engage if they are not feeling a connection to you, particularly at the onset of your communication.
This preparation also paves the way for them to openly listen without the hindrance of judgments. And again, those are just baked into how we think, and we often have no idea. So as someone who is going to make a presentation or someone is going to have a meeting with their small group or team, just know those things are flying through people's brains at every given moment. Making what you have to say relevant to them at the start, is essential and you will have a far more productive interaction. So obviously people are asking what steps you can take to understand your audience better before the meeting or presentation starts? That's preparation. I'm going to tell you two ways that you can do that.
There are some basic things that you should do if it is a situation where you do not know the people, say this is not your team and you are going to meet them, perhaps for the first time. You have to do the basic stuff, right? If it is a larger group, then you will only be able to get bits of information such as, their titles or their roles within the organization, things that are general. But all of that helps inform the information that you prepare so that you can link it to the role that they play. If it is a smaller gathering, I always do this. I look into their work experience and I find everything that I can about them that exists, so, the company website and places like LinkedIn. Who do you have connections in common with? You might ask about those folks. Do all of that due diligence. The more you know about them and the more that you can cite things that may be connections to them, the easier your interactions will be. Another thing that I suggest you do is to consider sending a mini survey to the participants, so say they often will be getting up in front of groups of any size from five to 30. Sometimes, we send a mini-survey in advance, and we do that through Google forms, but you can do it however you like. You know, if you use something like SurveyMonkey or Constant Contact, there are a million ways that you can do this. We send a mini-survey to learn as much as we can about the individual situations of each participant. That is going to inform all the material we present and it is super effective.
Let me give you one example of what that looks like to kind of get your head around it. We were brought in to conduct a workshop with about nine participants. A very hands-on two-day workshop to help foster executive presence and presentation skills for these rising mid-level managers at a telehealth company that was exploding. These mid-level managers were great at their role in their organization and they had real potential for moving into leadership positions. However, they were not perceived to be as professional and as effective by the leadership team as they needed to be to be able to advance, right? So, one person, rather in the C-suite, recognized this was a barrier to their success and reached out to me. We had a conversation about the situations facing each of these individuals, and we had all the basics for conducting this workshop. But what I realized was every one of these folks had a very unique situation. Three of them were English as a second language learners. They had all come from different countries, so they didn't even have that in common. I needed to really get at the heart of what was impacting every one of these folks. So, our survey was constructed. It took them about 10 minutes to complete this, but it was constructed to get at things like what's their level of comfort with presenting? How much experience do they have presenting? What types of environments do they most often present in and to whom are they most often presenting? What do those situations look like? What do they feel they're good at or bad at? In general, a lot of different aspects of business. I wasn't just asking them about presentation skills and comfort and expertise or lack thereof. All of these pieces of information helped us form that picture of what we really needed to get at during this interaction for each person to walk away feeling like they’d actually learn something that is going to make a difference for them in their business life.
At the onset of the meeting, getting them to feel this dedication of two days of my time is 100 percent going to be worth it. I need to sit up in my seat, interact, engage and make the most of this that I possibly can. So, after we collected the inputs from this mini-survey, we put it all into the charts and graphs. The first eight slides of the opening of the whole experience was feeding the information back to them. Not just to say this is what we learned, but we followed with, “Great so this is everything that you told us, and now this is how the entire workshop has experienced together. It has been constructed to address all of the things that you've cited as important. All of the things that you told us are deficit areas, et cetera, et cetera.” So I have never had a better experience than this one, with the participants being so eager to engage and each person was heavily overloaded with work, just had far too much to do, but they still separated from their day to day. They were completely engaged with the experience and then the feedback that they gave us after the workshop specifically cited how effective it was, because we had bothered to learn about their individual situation. So just one example of how preparing in advance and the usage of a tool like that really can make a huge difference.
Rob Johnson [00:18:26] I really like that, Eileen, because what you are doing, you are not only finding out what their specific needs are, which is going to help further the engagement which you just alluded to, but it's also going to put a little on them as well. It's going to say, what are your priorities? Think a little more deeply about what's important to you?
I can tell you in several instances of some of the clients I've worked with, one of my favorite things to do is not the pre-survey as you're talking about, which I think is a brilliant way to get in there and to really understand their needs, is during the presentation. Obviously, you come in prior to a presentation, whether it's a survey or not, and you're saying, where are your issues? Where do you need help? You talk about that and tailor it. However, during a presentation, sometimes at the end, I will leave a blank page and I will be working with someone from the marketing department for one of my clients. It will say, priority. So, it may be one sector of the business here for this midcap financial services firm and it will say priorities, then it will say benefits like what's the benefit of that priority? And then it will be a factor, a figure, a number to back it up. Then, we start talking about this and you would be surprised at the difficulty really smart people have sometimes. When it comes to articulating what those priorities are, let's put them in order. Let's give it like in, let's give a proof point. At the end, let's give a statistic that backs it up. Why is it so important? Once they get talking about it, once you make them think, you put it on them a little bit and ask them to share those things, it can really be a productive conversation.
To your point about people that were overextended that might not be fully engaged in your conversation. I find that in the same way, sometimes with some of the clients when they start off like Hmm. And then once you really dig in with them there, you find out what those priorities are, and then they have to articulate them clearly. Then they may push back on each other and say, no, I think this is more important than that. It really is a great exercise. And what you want to do, as you know in any engagement, is making sure that people are fully invested in it.
Eileen Rochford [00:20:46] Absolutely. You just had me thinking about a great article that was published in the Harvard Business Review, not more than a week or two ago, that was talking about continuous learners. The section of the article that your comments just reminded me of was the usage of progressive questions. I'm thinking, wow in advance of interactions like of the type that so many of us have on a daily basis, even formal meetings with your teams. Sending some progressing questions to them in a Google form or whatever version, again, you might get some really interesting insight like I'm thinking about what if you're about to embark on a slight restructuring of your department and you need people to really understand how it's going to work and their roles in it? Maybe you send progressing questions in advance and get some feedback on things such as, you know, what would your role look like if artificial intelligence was infused, or a robot was involved? You know, questions that just kind of make them stop and think, I'm at the big picture level. It is really interesting to gather input like that before a meeting of that nature, you open up with it. There are just so many ways that you can get people's input ahead of time and reflect it back to them so that it's not only interesting or relevant, but you know, they just feel like, boy, they care about what I think, you know,
Rob Johnson [00:22:28] Really, on a basic human level, caring about what you think. And, hey, my input mattered. Hey, I'm going to listen because they might bring up something that I said. You might listen a little bit more intently. And I think those are really important factors when you're talking about this sort of thing.
Eileen Rochford [00:22:45] Absolutely.
Rob Johnson [00:22:47] So I want to dig a little deeper into what you said earlier, Eileen, about some of the audiences who the audiences are internally, externally. And again, here we're not suggesting that you have different messages for each one of your various audiences. We're talking about understanding how to deliver that message, that consistent message that will be interpreted by them. For instance, depending on what kind of company you run, or you work for, you could have as many as eight audiences, and I talk about this with my clients all the time. First of all, internal, the most basic one. We talk about it all the time is employees. Getting them to buy in and understand what you are trying to accomplish is vital. If you don't get buy-in from your employees, from the other people in leadership, you're going to have a very hard time pushing out, pushing it out externally. So, when we talk about internal and external comms, you know, people go, Oh, internal, I get it external, I get it. But really, it starts with internal because as a company, you have to be unified in what you're saying to the public. And if everybody internally gets it, you're going to have a bigger chance for success. The next audience is the board and the shareholders. I kind of put I put them together, although you could separate them if you wanted to. You have to be able to clearly communicate your vision to them because, as you know, they have considerable influence, especially the board, and you will want them and need them on your side and shareholders by virtue of being a shareholder. They also have considerable influence. The next audience is your clients and your customers. This is more outward-facing now. The first couple of groups were more internal. Everything you do! We know the existence of your business need to be done with your clients and your customers' overall experience, top of mind, everything else you do, all the work that you put in has to be done because you want the outcome for your customers and your clients because that's going to be very public and that's going to make or break you as a company. Their overall experience has got to be one of your top priorities. And then. Sometimes you might be in a business where you have to adhere to some of the rules of government agencies, some of you might have government compliance that you have to keep an eye on pretty intently. So you must respect the power that the government wields here. And you need to make sure that your message to whomever that is is clear and is concise and is and is credible. Then you have the media, all boy, the media. This is where I made my bones for years. This is the external audience the companies spend the most time worrying about for obvious reasons. Eileen, I think we could do a whole podcast on best practices for this. But for this discussion, you've got to control your message, especially when you get into the media. So if you're giving, you know, if you're doing brand building, that's one thing you tell everybody how great you are, and that's it. And I don't mean to oversimplify brand building. What I'm saying is you're not getting pushback on varying points of view other than yours in the public domain. And you might have some people that might want to challenge your message. So the media you have to understand. Here's my message I'm going to stay on message. And I understand that people are either going to disagree with that message. They are going to be in a particular story that's been written or broadcast or somebody is going to be trying to knock me off my stride a little bit in the media. So that's the one that most people spend time on for obvious reasons, advertisers. If you are spending money on paid media, I just said a second ago when I was talking about branding, this is your golden opportunity to define your company on your terms. I think everybody knows that. But it's one of the audiences that you really have to think about, especially when you're putting forth marketing dollars and sales dollars to do that. Then you have thought leadership. Here, we're talking about presenting at a conference or a seminar where you are front, and center and you're seen as a subject matter expert. And this is your opportunity to be in front of that audience. You were talking about it before Eileen, you know, going on a webinar, going before an audience, and making sure that you know who that audience is. What's going to make them say, I'm going to sit up and listen here. I care about this, and it's a golden opportunity to build what you're trying to build for your company when you can say. Eileen Rochford, the CEO of The Harbinger Group, is our featured guest today or is on this panel. That just helps you. And so you need to make sure that that audience is tended to as well. And finally, the public, their opinion of you will be shaped how you based on how you handle your messaging with some of these other groups, especially the media, because having spent years in the media, it is a conduit for the public, as we said before, and it can drive public opinion. So this is really important to understand the public is being shaped by what's being done, you know, customers, clients, advertising media. So you can see that by the time that you have dealt with all of them, that's shaping your public perception from from the public.
Eileen Rochford [00:28:09] Yeah, no question about it.
Rob Johnson [00:28:12] Well, I know recently, Eileen, you had an experience as we're talking about all these different audiences with a situation for someone who didn't customize a pitch to you, and you understood as a communications expert you saw how ineffective it was. And that's one of the reasons that we said, hey, we want to talk about the subject in a podcast because it really, really affected you. Why don't you tell people about it?
Eileen Rochford [00:28:41] Absolutely. Happy to so! In our neighborhood. There's been some just, you know, violence, I guess, is the best way to describe it. No one thankfully has been hurt, but there's been a lot of random shootings. I don't know if people would call it random when we're told that its largely gang interaction driven. So, it's random.
Rob Johnson [00:29:08] Don't worry, It's gang related.
Eileen Rochford [00:29:10] OK, Yeah, no. So, it's random in the sense that the times of day vary. There are shootings happening within a block of me, two blocks of me. The most recent one was between two cars, and it actually happened in the intersection in the corner where my house is located. And so, these are happening, you know, at an increasing level. It's interesting in the city of Chicago, shootings like that unless someone is hurt, it is treated as damage to property. So, in terms of the crime statistics that get reported, because in so many of these instances, people aren't being hurt, you're not seeing the Uptick in violence in the data. So that's kind of an interesting thing that people may or may not know. So, it's it was this development continuing development disturbing enough that we asked our alderman to meet with the neighborhood, days after this most recent act of violence that took place at 2:50 in the morning, there was automatic gunfire, spraying as many as 30 gunshots and directly in front of my street or my house. And in the middle of the street, it's where you know it started in my house and continued about half a block up until the car that was shooting sped off. So think of all the houses and people inside those houses who are, you know, in some very serious danger, potentially when that happens. This is a very emotional time and, you know, elements of trauma for sure. You know, you're terrified, woken up in a terrified state at that hour. People who experienced this all the time, I can't even imagine the pain and lasting impact on their lives because this is an isolated incident directly to me. But it was bad enough, just the isolated incident. So we asked the alderman to come, and there were 150 or so, some estimated 200 people who came for this discussion with the alderman about the situation of escalating violence in the neighborhood. And hats off to her for agreeing to come and to interact with her constituents on such a real level just on our street corner. This wasn't professionally organized inside with speakers and security; it was just come on out and everybody's at the same level. I would be blocked off the street or so. It was a very unique situation, but. Here's what happened. The type of responses that the alderman gave to the questions that were posed about this escalating developing situation were really, I don't want to say that they were canned. They did have that feel. But the issue was more that she wasn't actually hearing what was behind the questions. She was providing facts and information about processes in city government here in Chicago, processes related to resource allocation when it comes to the Chicago Police Department issues or recent information about the mayor's city budget that passed and elements of that funding. The questions were about what's being done to address this right here right now situation and the answers that were given or either about process, which is when you hear that as someone who's been through, you know, somewhat traumatizing experience, that's so raw and reset and all you're hearing about are facts, figures process, current state, if you will. Things like, oh well, resources aren't allocated here because these aren't air quotes. Real violence acts because people aren't being hurt. In no way does that address the question. She also provided lots and lots of information about violence interruption programs that are just at their infancy and being introduced here, either in this word or in the city. Those things are going to take quite a long time to take seed and everyone in our neighborhood. I don't think I can say, everyone. You can never say that, but largely the majority are in favor of moving in that direction. Meaning, of course, police don't prevent crimes addressing the systemic issues that are at the root of crime incidents. That's that makes all the sense in the world, right? Nobody debated that. But you can't just talk about the long term when you're talking to constituents who are in a situation like this or any other, frankly, in my opinion. You have to be able to bridge the two. So, she didn't bring the right messaging because she didn't ask questions in advance of the people who were the organizers of the event in terms of what will people want to hear? We provided questions to her in advance, so she had every opportunity to kind of dig a little deeper, learn a little more. It just left a very hollow feeling pretty unsatisfactory, I think, for most people who are listening. I learned some new things, but it was an almost an hour and a half of question and answer period or a period of question answers where the basic question of as Alderman, what are you specifically going to do right now to fight for whether it's resources or things as simple as keeping our street lights on, which had been off for more than a week, 10-12 days, actually getting them back on in a timely manner because little things like streetlights, speed bumps, all that has everything to do with the likelihood of crimes happening in any neighborhood, wherever. But she all she talked about was the long-term game. The long-term view processes nothing that would make any person listening for that hour and a half feel any better. And there's one more thing that I want to highlight here that I think is really critical, and this is a key learning. Everybody can take away from today's episode, and that is leading with empathy. In any situation. Leading with empathy. So, there were multiple opportunities in this 90 minute period where the alderman could have responded immediately to a question with response grounded in, I'm so sorry that you endured that experience that had to have been so traumatizing. She would get to that point, 5-7minutes later. Right. And so, we were talking about this at the start of this episode. You need to address the things that are on people's minds. At the onset of your communication with them so that you remove those barriers, you don't see it five minutes into an answer to a question, especially not when it was an empathetic response that really was warranted for the question. So leading with empathy isn't just a catchphrase. It's actually listened to the words that people are saying in questions in situations like this and think about what are you hearing? What is their pain underneath that question? Is there worry about their children? What is it? And start there.
Rob Johnson [00:37:36] Those are instincts, and I have a couple of thoughts about what you're saying here. One of them is politicians, and I don't want to paint them all with a broad brush because there's all different types. There are often so over rehearsed that you could ask any question and they're going to give you what answer they want to give you. Now, on a certain level, I think communications experts would find that a little admirable because I know oftentimes when we deal with our clients, we're like, If you're in a situation like this and you get knocked off stride a little bit, you need to acknowledge. But first you need to acknowledge the concern, which it sounds like this person didn't do, but then talk about what's a winner for you, where you want to, the space you want to talk. So, so on one hand, I can understand that philosophy. On the other hand, though, it's sort of like being tone deaf because you're talking about a very specific issue and people have been traumatized. And then she's talking about the long game and violence, interruption and things of that nature. So I think this is I think this happens to politicians a lot. Eileen, I think that they are so over rehearsed. And they have been given one, you know, stay on this tiny path right here and do not veer from it. And it doesn't matter what question anybody from the audience asks you, this is how you're going to answer it. And when they do that and when they appear so disconnected from the conversation, from the give and take, they lose credibility.
Eileen Rochford [00:39:01] No doubt. Now I will say that. She may have brought some of her own. Heavily overlaid on her responses, her own perspective and bias to a degree. I think for in this in our ward, there's violence at different levels and it's not like it happens. It may happen every day and I'm not aware of it, but there are shootings where people die. This happens all over the city of Chicago. Sadly.
Rob Johnson [00:39:32] unfortunately at too high of a rate.
Eileen Rochford [00:39:35] Sadly. Yeah. So and it happens here in this ward. So she's experienced situations where people were maimed for life. People have died. This was not one of those situations, and I get that, but it's heading in that direction. And so the mindset of the people who were her audience over those 90 minutes was, we don't want that to happen here, and it's terrifying that it is. It's heading that way. Of course, I think the mindset that she brought to it was not one of understanding and validation of the feelings of the audience she was addressing, but rather well, this wasn't an event where someone was maimed or killed. Kind of what's the big deal.
Rob Johnson [00:40:26] Well, and empathy. And that's really great illustration of the kind of the point that we're talking about. And I know before we wrap things up, we want to give some tips, but I want to tell another quick story about something very specific when it comes to messaging. Now this is a story about how a company that got it right and another one got it wrong when talking about the very same subject so early on in the pandemic. In the spring of 2020, companies were uncertain how COVID 19 and the business fallout would affect their staffing numbers. I think a lot of people, if you think back to that time, can realize what's going on in my organization. Organizations everywhere, they're assessing their needs with nearly everyone working remotely. There was natural anxiety about what those needs might be. So, let's focus on one audience for a moment the most immediate internal audience, and that is your employees. So, one of my clients did a very good job at the beginning about communicating with their employees. And when asked about whether there would be any staff reductions, in other words, am I going to lose my job? The firm's response? Paraphrasing was We're looking at all manner of cost savings at this point. Staff reductions are one of the ways to do that, obviously, but it is not our intent to have layoffs. But we have to look at everything now. That's a reasonable answer. You're not giving away the keys to the kingdom. You're not telling everybody exactly what you are going to do, but you're being honest, you're being transparent as much as you can be about a very sensitive subject like that. So fortunately for that client, they didn't have to lay anyone off. They had one of their best years ever. That's terrific. Conversely, another company of which I am very familiar with the inner workings spent weeks denying that layoffs remit. People would ask and ask and ask, and they tell everyone, we are fine. You have nothing to worry about nothing. Well, weeks later, there weren't layoffs. There were massive layoffs. So, think about that internal audience. You just lost 100 percent credibility with, but also the fact that it was handled so poorly that the details crept out into the public. So now their external audience knows how misleading they were. And that does not help your brand. I know this is a messaging discussion, but this is how it affected your brand. So that's one topic. Layoffs early in the pandemic 2020. One company that did it right who were as transparent as they could be and tried to be honest and one that just flat out lied to them. And that's why one of the first really good and one of them is not really good.
Eileen Rochford [00:42:57] And the first scenario where they were honest that demonstrated respect and we talked about that earlier is being essential in so many ways to being persuaded. All kinds of things are wrapped up into feeling respected and of course, feeling heard. And oh yeah, feeling like your needs, wants, etc. are incorporated into the messaging. That's it's just it's so basic, but it's shocking to me how often that gets screwed up, that it's so it's a great, great reminder of those two examples are excellent.
Rob Johnson [00:43:35] Well, thank you. Thank you. And I know right now you have we going to share some tips with everybody and they're a little bit different, but they are, I think, very germane to this discussion.
Eileen Rochford [00:43:45] Well, let's see. It's a bit of a recap in a few new ideas here and now I'll roll right through here again in advance learning everything that you can, whether it's another social platform or just your basic Google searches looking on company websites, so digging in as much as you can to find out specifics about your participants, especially in small group environments. That's tip number one, the use of Google forms of some type where survey type of any type, whatever format you're comfortable with gaining input that gives you insight into what's important to these folks. What do they need from you? What are their various biases or leanings that can affect how they'll receive your message? All that stuff you can accomplish so much by asking for input in advance. And you know, just being disciplined to do that and not rushing to create a canned presentation that you've given to five different audiences, you will be amazed at how much better the experience is after you've gained input like this from a survey, for example. Another way you can do that to learn more is maybe you use media monitoring or another tool. We use Cision, the communications cloud. It's really good to learn about all kinds of things in the moment or either recent or digging back into, you know, a little bit of their history, the organization or people. You need to know what's impacted them. You know, those events that have happened that are going to be relevant to any guidance that you give or may have had an impact on them that will create heightened sensitivities. All that stuff's important. You know, I call them breadcrumbs. You got to follow the breadcrumbs. Also talking to people in your network who may be connected to some of them or other people within the organization. Just see what firsthand accounts might you be able to get? I love doing that. Sometimes I've had received the best guidance and advice by taking the time and putting forth the effort to connect with actual people on my network who might know others at that company. Knowledge being cognizant of what's happening in our industry? Is it growing? Is it shrinking? Is it under governmental scrutiny? You know what? What are those other things that may be happening? Super important to educate yourself so that you can bake that into any other content that you present so you don't look frankly stupid. You don't want to do that. I want to know that you can stay alert. Stupid, right? Those are some tips. Obviously, this is a biggie. Just don't make any assumptions about anything. You don't want to go too hard in one direction on an assumption, because that can totally, totally backfire. And I always recommend that people just kind of be a little more either general or soft. You might have a clue from one of the best breadcrumbs or multiple breadcrumbs that you found, but don't assume that your conclusion is completely accurate because you're not them. That's just a bit of advice.
Rob Johnson [00:47:19] Great, great stuff, really.
Eileen Rochford [00:47:21] They talked about the use of progressing questions. I think that's a cool idea to go back to and just remind folks the progressing questions that are referenced in the Harvard Business Review article that I'll post in the notes. That's a really interesting technique. You can either use it in direct emails to the folks you'll be working with or surveys or another means, but really getting them to think at a higher level is progressing questions that takes you out of the immediate in the concrete practical application of the situation. But it gives you insight into how the folks think and just opens up to a whole new avenue of ways to communicate with them. That's it.
Rob Johnson [00:48:07] Agreed. Those are good tips now that you've given people some very useful tips here and you've drilled down on a couple of things. A couple of times because it's something you want people to leave with and you don't want them to forget. I'm going to give you some tips now about how to be at your best. And I give this advice and presentations all the time toward the end of the presentation after we've gone through all the heavier lifting. And while some of this might seem obvious and basic, it really helps you get into your zone. So, this is before you start thinking about all the things that Eileen's talking about and all the preparations and the tools you can use. How do you prepare yourself? First thing is practice, practice, practice, practice. You were talking about preparation earlier, Eileen, make sure you have your pitch down perfectly, which you're going to make your thoughts clear and well-organized. And also, that means research a lot of the things we've been talking about in this podcast visualization. See the success and the buy-in if you expect to actually have it, visualize that. You're in person shaking hands, and hey, we got to we've got a deal or somebody giving you the green light to proceed on a project or something that you're working on. Now we get into some more of the things related to you, specifically sleep for people who need a fair amount of it. If you don't go into a presentation without enough sleep, if you're somebody who needs it and you're dragging. It's not going to end well. See if you're somebody who says, I need seven-eight hours of sleep, make sure you get it and make sure that you feel well, well, rested workout. So I think I can speak safely for both of us. I lean when I say working out as part of our daily routine, and I know for me it helps keep me refreshed, and helps me stay focused. And I think you feel the same way.
Eileen Rochford [00:49:51] No doubt absolutely working out before a big day, even if you think I going to get up and do that 10000 times more. So, give yourself another 30. Get in the workout.
Rob Johnson [00:50:01] Do it all the time. I just did it this morning to get up extra early, just so you know I could do it caffeine. Some people are like, Oh my gosh, I can't function unless I have one cup, two cups, three cups, whatever it is, whatever you need, if it's coffee, tea, you name it, make sure that if that's your thing, that gets you going, if that gets you sharp. Make sure that you're in your wheelhouse of comfort there and just
Eileen Rochford [00:50:25] Don’t overdo it.
Rob Johnson [00:50:28] Don't do seven cups of coffee, and then you're bouncing off walls and making everybody nervous. Don't, don't do. I'm not suggesting that, so I don't want your takeaway to be, Rob says drink or coffee.
Eileen Rochford [00:50:39] I've done espresso, so there's a lot to have other.
Rob Johnson [00:50:40] There's a sweet spot there. And if you've been drinking coffee long enough, you know where it is and if that's something you need, then great. And finally, this is another strategy that I use personally meditation. For me, it helps call me 20 minutes, calms me. It clears my mind. And before a presentation or pitch, it really works for me so that those are just a couple of things as you prepare to do all the things that Eileen was talking about in preparation for your pitch.
Eileen Rochford [00:51:10] Great advice. I'll toss in one more. Yeah, this is my fave and people just forget it. It's so basic. Smile because it will immediately make you more likable. First of all, and it also chemically in your brain does positive things. So even if you're forcing it a little bit put on that smile, it just does some pretty interesting things to our brain chemistry that helps us calm down feel better. It's weird, but true. And then the take deep breaths. Sometimes, even though I have a lot of experience presenting for no logical reason that particular day, I might feel like in the 20 seconds before getting up there, this surge of nerves. And if I take these deep breaths, just, you know, real. So it's like four beats in, four beats out. I do that three or four times and you're good to go. I mean, it's incredible. Those are different for you.
Rob Johnson [00:52:16] It slows everything down for you.
Eileen Rochford [00:52:17] Yeah. So I hope everybody has heard some good advice here. That's what we're always striving to do is to make the time you spend with those really useful and actionable at the end of the day thought-provoking, for sure. So that concludes another episode of Can You Hear Me? I'm Eileen Rochford, CEO of The Harbinger Group.
Rob Johnson [00:52:38] I'm Rob Johnson, President of Rob Johnson Communications. We thank you for listening once again, and we hope you'll join us the next time. In the meantime, you can listen to us wherever you get your podcasts, Apple, Spotify, Google Podcasts and more. Thanks for listening.