Like most of us, my career path has taken me in several different directions throughout my work life. As you may know, I began in the science realm, as an operational meteorologist, and then somehow in 20 plus years, ended up in marketing. Yes, these two professions are very different, yet they have some surprising similarities. These roles highlighted one trait in human behavior that I would like to address and share my observations; our desire to impress others verses teaching others what we know. Let me explain.
Both a science field and marketing are professions where once you become a member of them, you get immersed in a lot of concepts and technical jargon that only someone in the profession, or close to it, can understand. Now, by no means are these the only two places this exists. In fact, most professions have the same knowledge of understanding that encompasses them. However, in my experience, I feel that both of these two professions fall victim to what I’ll call the “desire to impress” factor, and this exists because of the misunderstandings of the fields.
Meteorology is easy to misunderstand, right? Meteorologists often have a similar
level of education as an engineer, are paid to make predictions of the future, and are not always correct. Who would not misunderstand a meteorologist? Plus, since most people took at least some level of earth science in school, they might have trouble imagining the complexity of meteorology. But did you know what you learned in grade school only scratches the surface of meteorology? So, you can image that there are a fair number of meteorologists running around this world that believe no one understands them, or they might feel unappreciated. To combat this, when many meteorologists are given a “stage” whether in real life, or virtually, they take the opportunity to show off how smart they are, or how complicated the atmosphere can be. Now, there are also plenty of individuals that don’t mean to impress, it just happens. Typically, on a daily basis, they are talking within their circle of colleagues and they use their specific lingo, acronyms, and concepts of understanding. Then, when they step out on the “stage” they suddenly forget their audience has changed. It has changed so much that the audience likely has very little understanding of what they are talking about. For whatever reason, there are a number of individuals that either on purpose, or by accident, miss the mark with their audience and talk right over them.
The marketing profession has a similar outcome when given a stage.
Before the dawn of the internet and digital marketing, the profession was pretty straightforward. I am not saying it was easy, in fact it may have been harder to know if you were doing anything right. And now, the technical jargon that surrounds marketing has exploded with the internet. First, there were websites and all the technical knowledge around creating one, getting found on the internet, and building a visitor experience. Then, email with all its vocabulary and strategies for creating and automating arose in popularity. Finally, social media and how you turn engagement into revenue is driving new marketing programs. And those are just the beginning, as digital marketing now encompasses anything not in the physical world. Of course, it is not just about digital, but it led to strategies such as inbound marketing, content marketing, and account-based marketing, to name a few. But, just like in the meteorology field, when marketers are presented with a “stage” (and a stage could range from their non-marketing colleagues to an actual audience with a stage,) they feel the urge to impress, or just forget who their audience is, and they might as well be speaking another language.
This might sound like a simple concept, but then why do we find our colleagues (or even ourselves) trying to impress our audience? Well, the most obvious answer is we are trying to impress others, and by using our area of expertise (whatever it is) we can accomplish this pretty quickly and easily. Whether we are trying for a promotion, recognition, respect, or in front of a large audience, we feel the need for fame. As I mentioned, meteorology and marketing tend to suffer from the respect issue for the reasons mentioned, so I feel this is the reason I noticed it so often in my own career. I have witnessed it time and time again in both of these professions. Colleagues of mine are presenting to an audience and you can quickly see the audience lose interest and then the whole message is lost.
The solution is how you approach your audience when preparing a speech or just preparing to open your mouth in a meeting. First, always think of your audience. Do they know what you are going to talk about? And not just the main content but the jargon, acronyms, etc.? If the answer is you are not sure, then don’t be tempted! Instead, use this, and every chance you get, to educate your audience! That simple change in mindset will completely change your delivery of what you are about to share. And your audience will appreciate you delivering a message that they understand. Don’t believe me? Think of a situation were everyone else knows something except you. Like it? No, of course not! Some of us might even get anxious or begin sweating. The same thing happens when you overshoot your audience. They probably will not start sweating, but they will likely shut you out and will also be too afraid to ask questions because they will think others in the room might understand, so their question might be stupid. While trying to impress, you made your audience uncomfortable, and thus, you did not impress.
Instead, if you try and predict the level of understanding of your audience before you begin, or as you prepare you will bring your audience along with you as you explain your message. Note: The first time you are in front of a new audience there is a little bit of guess work in trying to judge the right level of education, so you might need to be prepared to adjust as you speak. Asking questions at the beginning of your delivery with this new group can help you gauge that level of understanding. Once you have spoken to the group a few times you will begin to know what level to aim for. For example, when I speak as a weather expert, I talk to mostly professionals managing snow removal of roads and runways, airport operations, utility supervisors, and traffic operations. For each of these groups, I know how much they likely understand about weather, and where to set the bar. The same is true in my marketing job talking to others in the company.
The only pitfall of this approach is you do not want to undershoot them and deliver your message below them. You do not want to come across as condescending! Also, if you are talking beneath them, you are likely explaining things they already understand, and thus, they will get bored quickly.
You can always tell if you are on target by looking at your audience….and this can be live, over a web conference software with video, or even in marketing by looking at the data. Does your audience look engaged? Then you are hitting the mark! Are they asking questions? Smiling? Nodding? Reading your emails? Great! One thing I have learned in a live talk is no matter how engaging you are, someone can always fall asleep in your presentation, so don’t let one or two people throw you off, because remember someone could have had a late night or just not do well sitting still listening to anyone talk.
Even though I have been talking about meteorology and marketing, this can apply to any of us when we open our mouths, or even type a message. Try to remember that your audience would rather be taught than see how smart you are. The end result will be that they will respect you more if you educate them.
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