You know more than your audience
Confidence. It’s a tricky customer. Too much of it and we can make people cringe. Too little and we do ourselves a disservice.
In business it can be difficult to know quite where to pitch ourselves. We don’t want to appear to be over the top. Likewise a shrinking violet leaves us worrying about their abilities. After all, if they are not confident in themselves, why would we be?
For me, if I am buying the services of an expert then I expect to feel that I am in good hands. I want information, advice and guidance from someone who knows that subject better than I do. Particularly if that subject is my health! Just now I am seeing my own Osteopath for a stiff shoulder. Yesterday was my second visit and she told me I needed to see her again so I booked.
Now had she asked me if I wanted to return I might have wavered. I may have wondered if I really needed to come back and hand over my cash. I might have dithered and said I’ll see how I go.
Then of course it may have got worse again because the work on my shoulder wasn’t finished. Perhaps I would even have concluded that Osteopathy doesn’t work…
In business, our confident vibes transfer to our customers/patients and builds trust that they are in the right place and dealing with the right person.
Nerves can sabotage your message
When I used to work with the team at a Teaching Faculty, some of them would get quite worked up before their lecture. Some would pace, some would shake a little and some wouldn’t be able to eat their lunch because of their nerves.
I found it surprising when they were experts in their field. In every case they had delivered similar lectures many times over and they knew their topic inside out.
But how would I cope in their place?
When the British School of Osteopathy asked me to run a workshop for them, I felt nervous but accepted. I put together my Powerpoint presentation and I practiced. It was truly awful. I kept drying up, couldn’t remember what my point was and I got myself in a right old tizzy.
As the day drew closer, my confidence wavered. I wondered if they knew all this stuff already. I wondered if they would roll their eyes in boredom and leave the room. The gremlin on my shoulder whispered in my ear and told me I was rubbish. My nightmares grew vivid and I woke up in a cold sweat convinced that I was delivering my presentation in the nude whilst stuttering to an audience who weren’t listening!
It’s NOT about you; it’s about them!
Finally, I practiced enough that it began to flow properly. The cold stone of fear that had lived in the pit of my stomach began to soften.
Then I got a flash of inspiration.
I realised that it wasn’t about me. I finally understood that those attending wanted the information that was in my head. My job was to get it across simply and interestingly. They needed that information and my duty was to impart it.
Once I turned my focus onto them and off myself, my whole attitude changed. Once I made it all about them, I became calm and centred.
And that’s my advice to my clients when they say they couldn’t possibly go and give a brief talk to a local group. I tell them, “It’s NOT about you; it’s about them!” and mostly they can make that shift.
There are people in your community who are in pain. They don’t know that Osteopathy could help them. They probably don’t understand anything about what you do. So if you make it about them and not about you, what a difference you could potentially make to their lives.
By the way, the presentation went very well as have others since. Fortunately, for them, I also remembered to get dressed before I left home!
