You probably don’t talk to children in the same manner as you talk with adults. Your conversations with close personal friends are likely more intimate than those you have with professional colleagues.
Well, the same holds true for the language you would use to speak with corporate executives as opposed to their employees.
You need to identify the audience you’re working with and the environment you are working in, and then adapt your language and approach accordingly. The areas you focus on and the phrasing you use with end users won’t be the same as those you use with the decision-makers.
You need to understand who your client is and be very clear on what your message to that client is.
The words you use to attract the buyer – the company or the corporation – may be precisely the right words to persuade them to sign on for your services. You may offer them statistics about how poor feedback costs companies a lot of money, how aspects like ineffective meetings waste company time, or how poor communication and personal issues lead to low employee retention rates.
But, these are not the same words you would use when delivering your service to the end user. You don’t want to portray them in a bad light. Essentially, you’ve got two clients. The language that you use to sell your service at one level should be different from the outline of the training that you distribute to the staff.
It’s very important to have that awareness. What is going to motivate and excite the end user – the staff member – does not have the same value or criteria as what inspires the person who is signing the checks. You need to have the flexibility to understand what’s important to both groups and then separately speak to each group in way that motivates them.
The end result is the same for both. Ultimately your objective, and obligation, is to help to improve the company. And you are making life better for the person that attends your course or workshop.
If, for example, you know you can help companies improve the effectiveness of their staff meetings, you would present this to them in a different manner than you would to the employees who conduct and attend those meetings. Everybody wants to participate in more effective meetings, but everybody also wants to blame the ineffectiveness of their meetings on someone else.
In the language to promote the course to the company, you might cite statistics about how ineffective meetings waste X amount of money. You can even evaluate the cost of meetings. One unnecessary meeting could cost an organization thousands of pounds. Then you would sell the specifics of what’s covered in your course.
During the course, your focus wouldn’t be on the cost of meetings to the company, it would be on how employees can make sure meetings stay on track, how to handle confrontational situations or deal with difficult people. The focus would be on making the best use of staff members’ time and talents.
So you are, in essence, presenting the same thing – in this example, a course or workshop – to two different audiences. But, you can certainly structure your language and approach so that it meets with everybody’s approval.
Bernadette Doyle is a small business marketing expert. Get more tips and advice at http://www.clientmagnets.com
Adapt Your Language To Close More Sales