Engage your audience: The one way to get them on side

Ever had that feeling that your point is just not being heard?

Once a week Mr.C, the kids and I go for “Family Breakfast”. This week my son needed to do his maths homework while we were waiting for food to arrive. His head was in maths when my husband said: “Mate, we have got to sort out your handwriting”.

(For context – his teachers over the last year or so have said this is something he could do with working on)

The 11-year-old immediately went on the defensive and the usual bickering then ensued.

The outcome? Our son won’t be changing his handwriting any time soon. My husband is frustrated that yet again he’s not been heard. And in a few weeks time, the same thing will happen again. In short – no one benefits and nothing changes.

Getting someone to buy into your point is something we have to do every day, whether you are on air, on screen, on stage, in a meeting, or just trying to get the other half to empty the bins.

And this one technique never fails: start by acknowledging your audience’s reality.

You know yourself that no one is going to change your mind about anything if they start talking to you while your head is in something else. And if you’re anything like me, my head is constantly in something.

Acknowledging the reality of the person you’re talking to allows their brain to come to you before you start getting into what it is you want to ask of them.

At Home:

So if my husband had taken this tack:

“Is that your maths homework? How are you getting on with it?”

He would have engaged our son immediately. And after listening he may have been able to weave the conversation to something like:

“You know your teachers were talking about you improving your handwriting? Have you been working on it at all?”  

“It’s just I can’t help but notice that you’re still struggling to get it neat – is there anything we can do to help it get better?”

Yes, it takes a little longer, but it has great results.

In Work/Life:

I had a builder that wasn’t answering my calls once, we had discovered a leak as a result of some work he had done, and I needed it fixing. He wasn’t returning my calls, and then I left this message:

“Hi. I know you’re likely to be super busy and the last thing you want is this old work to come back to haunt you, so if you could give me a call we can get it off your plate and out your hair as soon as possible”

He called me before the end of the day.

In Presentations:

On stage you often see comedians start their sets by commenting on the location, whether that be the room itself or whether that be the town.

You can do the same in your presentation with something called a “Yes Set”. This is a simple technique that encourages the audience to agree with you too.

“I know you want to get home on time today”

Audience brain: “yes”

“And that you have seen a lot of people today”

Audience brain: “yes”

“So let me get straight to the point…”

Audience brain “yes”

On Air:

The challenge is that you can’t see what your audience is doing, so really you are guessing as to their reality at the moment they are listening!

Sometimes it’s safe to assume. Often acknowledging your listeners’ reality is in capturing the time of day and the sense of the day. Saying hello and letting them know where they are, also acknowledges that that is their reality (eg “this is station FM / the pod podcast”).

Taking the time to introduce a topic with the listener experience is a clear way to ensure you are acknowledging their reality.

Rather than saying “There is a survey this morning that says meat is bad for you, so we have an expert here to talk about the challenge of getting people to stop eating it”

You might say “Imagine you are happily tucking into your favorite food, for someone to tell you that it’s significantly worse for you – would that stop you from eating it?”