When you’re connecting with someone 1 on one, the secret to great results is to be others focused.
Ask questions, be interested, listen, occasionally express an honest and sincere compliment.
Like outlined here.
If you’re doing this to promote something, the goal is not to share benefits or (sell) what you’re doing at all. (yet)
You’re just listening and looking for an opening where you might be able to give an effective invitation.
AFTER someone goes to the presentation – this is where the benefit driven communication kicks in and hopefully, whoever is giving the presentation you send people to, knows how to do this well.
Another place benefit driven communication is key – is whenever you have a chance to speak to a group of people.
As a speaker, your job is to speak, which makes it a little more tricky than it is in a one on one situation.
- You can still try to know your audience a bit ‘in general‘ so the words you say will be relevant to them.
- You can ask questions of the group to keep them engaged.
- You can give compliments.
All the same things you do in 1 on on 1 settings but with slight variations.
The one thing that’s MAJORLY different when speaking to a group is, you’re the one doing most or all of the talking.
This is where one principle will help you more than all the others.
Strive to be 100% benefit driven in your communication.
Everything you say, story, metaphor, quote, etc – has to be of benefit to the people you’re speaking to or you’ll lose them.
If you can imagine your audience saying…
“So what? Or ‘What’s the point‘ or ‘How does this benefit me?” you’ll know you’ve veered off on the wrong path with your communication.
We all have a tendency to want to talk about things that matter most to us.
The problem here is, if what we’re sharing matters to us – and not so much to the people we’re speaking to – we’ve slipped into selfish communication and this does not work well in group settings.
You can certainly share things that matter to you – just make sure you do it in a way that makes it clear how what you’re sharing, also benefits the people hearing your words.
Benefit-driven communication.
A simple key to greater influence.