Building strong relationships with your audience

Successful communication relies on a positive relationship existing between sender and receiver. Establishing your credibility and projecting your company’s image are two vital steps in building a positive business relationship.

Audience responses to your message depend greatly on credibility, and how much trust you evoke in others. With audience that don’t know you and trust you already, you need to establish credibility before they’ll accept your message. To build, Maintain or repair your credibility, apply the following characteristics:

·         Honesty. Demonstrating honesty will earn you respect from your audience

·         Objectivity. Show that you are able to distant yourself from emotion and look at a situation in all angels.

·         Awareness of audience needs. Let the audience know they are important to you and you care to know their needs.

·         Credential, knowledge, and expertise. Audience needs to know you have what a takes to back up your message. This will also make them feel comfortable as you are an expert in what you are convening to your audience.

·         Endorsement. An endorsement is a statement on your behalf by somebody that the audience accepts as an expert.

·         Performance.  Showing your audience that you have impressing communications skills is not enough, audience wants to be assured that they can count on you to get the job done.

·         Confidence. Your audience is likely to react positive to your message when they have confidence in yourself.

·         Communication style. Support your points with evidence.

·         Sincerity. When you praise be more specific and less ambiguous.

In addition, audience needs to know that you believe in yourself and your message. If you don’t believe in yourself or your message you will exude uncertainty in your audience.

When you communicate with anyone outside of your company, it is more than just a conversation between two people. You now represent your company and therefore you play a vital role in helping build and maintain positive relationships. Most companies work hard to promote their image. As part of this responsibility, the interest and preferred communication style of your company must take precedence over your own views and personal communication style

Sources:
Excellence in Business Communication 9th Ed (Textbook by John V. Thill and Courtland L. Bovee)

By: Isabel Salcido