Why your name is not enough
Not properly citing your credentials is a missed opportunity to influence people
One of the biggest mistakes people make when communicating with others, is that they forget to properly say who they are.
Who you are may seem obvious to you, but it won’t be to your audience. Your name is not enough. Don’t just presume your audience will know you, or see you as a credible person worth listening to. You need to spell it out to them.
Even within small professional networks, such as an office environment, your audience will lack detailed, relevant knowledge about your skills, experience and the value you bring as an author of a factual story. They will certainly know less about your credentials than you do, so you need to share them.
That’s even more pertinent when publishing your content to a public forum, as most of your audience will know little about you.
This highlights the importance of authorship.
So before you even begin crafting your message, take time to think about how you present yourself as the author, and why your experience and credentials makes you someone credible to listen to. And be sure to state them somehow.
Related to who you are, is what is your point of view?
By that, we mean, from which perspective are you telling your story?
For example, a report into insurance fraud will read very differently if written by the perpetrator of the fraud compared to the victim. Or if authored by someone from within the insurance industry, compared to a champion of consumers who pay the premiums.
Being clear about who you are, your qualifications to tell your story, and the perspective from which you are telling it, engages audiences.
On the contrary, being vague about who you are as an author will confuse your readers and viewers, who will subsequently lack confidence in you and your content.
Remember too, that we are not just defined by our professional status.
Beyond our roles, we are colleagues of others. We are also children and friends of others. We may be parents, partners or spouses to others. We may be patients, victims, activists, curators, motivators, fund-raisers, leaders, followers, hobbyists, pet or property owners.
The list will go on, but the point is that each provides a status, insight, experience and qualification to author a factual story.
When you start to craft your story, set yourself up to succeed by thinking hard about how and why you are qualified to tell it. And share that with your audience, who will respect you for it, and be more willing to listen to you.
If you state at the beginning of your presentation or report that you have an intimate involvement with the story to follow, what you subsequently have to say will impact and convince much more.
And as for who is now talking to you?
My name is Matt Walker: Head of the Factual Storytelling School. And you can find out all about me in the video below:
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