(This is the second of four posts about quickly gaining buy-in to your message. If you missed the first post, click here)
You’ve opened your story and your audience is leaning in to hear more. You’ve created tension and the cortisol is pumping through their bodies.
Now it’s time to develop a bond with them. This is the point where you begin to earn their trust.
How Do You Do That?
Create the release of oxytocin in the listener.
This neurotransmitter is released when you hear a sensory-rich and emotional story. It creates trust and human connection.
The way to do this is to share your struggles, strife, or setbacks. Tell about a time when you faced a challenge that you could’t overcome by yourself.
This is not the time to talk about your accomplishments and your successes.
When you tell others about your difficulties, you create empathy. Audiences have thoughts like:
“I’ve been there”
“I can relate”
“Sounds familiar”
These reactions also lead to the belief, “If this person is willing to share their difficulties, I can trust them.”
This isn’t a conscious thought, it usually occurs under the radar in our subconscious.
Why This Works
This is important because you’re showing the audience that you’re like them. We tend to trust people who are like us.
When you’re in a leadership position, this is vital. It strips away titles and positions, and creates a human connection.
In the last post, you read about my boss telling me, “You’re a lousy speaker. And your stories suck.”
Here’s the backstory to that incident:
When I was six years old, I got in trouble in school. My punishment was that I had to stand on my desk during nap time. All my classmates would see me.
I stood on that desk for 45 minutes. When I stepped down, I thought, “Never stand in front of people again. That was awful.”
For the next twenty five years, I never volunteered to stand in front of people. When work duties forced me to, I was terrified people would laugh at and humiliate me.
I’d buried that incident for decades, until I boss threatened to fire me because of my poor speaking skills. Now I had to deal with it, or lose my job.
When I share this story with audiences, I hear feedback like,
“I had something similar happen to me.”
“My third grade teacher embarrassed me”
“My bad experience makes me fear making a mistake every time I speak.”
This story bonds me with audiences. They trust me when I tell them, “That experience is the reason I’m an author, trainer and speaker today. I know the pain of embarrassment, humiliation and regret. My purpose is to help you avoid that pain. I want to help you succeed without going through the time, money and emotion I did.”
The Oxytocin Impact
At this point, I’ve earned a higher level of trust with the audience. I’ve been vulnerable enough to share a painful memory which sets up my ‘WHY?”
Oxytocin is now flowing through their bodies. They’re open to new ideas and taking action that will improve their lives.
They trust you and you’re in a position to trigger another emotion. This one will encourage them to take action.
You’ll read about that in the next post.
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Earn Trust With One Simple Step In Your Story
ultima modifica: 2022-11-22T16:24:59-05:00
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Michael’s mission is to help leaders, managers and sales professionals communicate with more confidence, impact, and influence. This passion is born from his own communication difficulties early in his career.
Fortunately, he discovered that public speaking is like riding a bike, swimming or driving a car - it’s a learnable skill. Once he discovered this ‘secret’ he became a voracious student of the craft. He took courses, studied some of the world’s best speakers and storytellers and continues to study presentation and business storytelling skills.
He is hired by companies and organizations, leaders, managers and sales professionals, and TEDx speakers to help them become more confident, impactful and influential communicators.
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