How to Build Trust with Your Audience…

This information help out a bit to know what do as a speaker. Thanks.

My comments here are largely relevant to business presentations, but I think apply to the wider practice of public speaking also.

Building trust is often a simple matter of letting your audience know, without ever seeming deceitful, or arrogant, that what you are giving them is the simplified version of events, but that that doesn’t mean you haven’t got the wider picture in mind throughout.

This is often a simple matter of just making lists. Devices like saying “Now we know A, B, and C have been an issue for a long time. While advances are being made on A and B, however, I’d like to focus on C, which I think is our biggest opportunity for change”. In this statement, the audience won’t feel as though you’re purposely avoiding A and B, but will just respond to the authority with which you’ve stated that C is what you think is the best option.

The nature of a presentation is such that there’s only so much detail you can relate – same in other kinds of speeches. But it’s important the audience know that those things which you ignore, have only been so because you’ve got everything under control. And listing – the most direct way of ‘ordering’ things, is a great way to do that.

Perhaps an easier still way to gain trust is to admit one or two minor mistakes you’ve made. This again creates the impression that you’re not keeping things from your audiences. If, again particularly in business, you later have to be economic at with the truth at some stage in the speech, for the good of your business, the audience will be far more likely to trust you in this.

this is really quite good informartion but what about if you are in secondary school and you want to engage your audience what do you do???

How do i show a bad situation as a good opportunity?

Rhiana,

engaging a younger audience is often a bit of a minefield. the mistake a lot of people make is to assume that what makes children concentrate is purely giving them a lot to look at and being very animated. to an extent, this is accurate, but it certainly isn’t enough. the main thing that children appreciate (particularly in secondary school) is honesty, from their speaker. children are guarded from so much in their early lives that by the time they’re secondary students they’re massively keen to get past things.

the teachers to whom kids respond the least well are those who box themselves off from the students too much – because subconsciously this registers to the children as being ‘part of the problem’, so to speak; that is part of the system that’s oppressing them. let that audience know something about you that perhaps they shouldn’t – nothing big, nothing significant, really; just something that shows you’re human. my own best teacher in school was only really respected so much because the whole class knew that he smoked. obviously, this is a ridiculous reason, but i think it provides a useful example – a teacher who smokes can’t be part of their perceived “oppressive system”. (note: my advice isn’t ‘start smoking’, though – beginning to sound like it). On a smaller scale, just telling them you’ve messed something up, if you do so – letting them know you’ve forgotten a worksheet etc. It genuinely will help in future, because they’ll feel like you’re levelling with them

Daran

Anonymous,

I actually think my answer to Rhianna applies to this as well. Bad situations are always good opportunities – at least in some respect. When things go wrong the person responsible is shown to have weaknesses. Too many businesses make too much of the idea of strength – sometimes it’s important to show a weakness; particularly ADMITTING one, because it makes you trustworthy. Someone who says they’re responsible for something going wrong, is someone you know won’t lie to you about problems in the future. This is a massively useful thing for your superiors to know, in a company – that they can rely on you for the facts, not the watered down versions of events manufactured to put you in your best light.
Separately, but equally important, is the fact that a bad situation is an opportunity to return to a good one; to recover. Again, this is a great thing for a superior to see, because it shows there’s a safety net for when difficulties arise (you)

Daran