The area of communication you can start improving on is:

Setting

The result of your communication evaluation test has shown that the area you need to improve on is:

Setting

There are numerous different settings where your communication can take place. For that reason, it is a subject worthy of discussion. It is easy to get caught up in spending time working on your message, developing your sales skills, mastering the subtleties of communication and then after all that preparation finding that you have delivered your message in the wrong setting causing you to lose impact. Awareness is the key factor here.

I have listed below some examples of different settings that you may find yourself in when sharing your message:

- In a board meeting
- Across a table in a café
- Sitting on a barstool in a pub
- Standing in front of 2,000 people at a conference
- On a couch in somebody’s room
- In a car discussing a new idea
- During a lunchtime talk at work
- In front of a small group at a networking event
- Speaking at an outdoor event
- Recording a video for a product
- Conducting radio or TV interviews
- Shooting a social media video

As you can see, we could keep going for all the different scenarios that occur throughout your life. The key, therefore, is still being able to communicate with impact, regardless of what scenario you are in or be able to communicate a change of setting. Both are just as difficult to do as each other.

What you can do to improve today?

To immediately improve this area of communication, I encourage you to raise your awareness. At this stage, this simply means - Understanding how the setting can impact the result of your communication.

When I explain it like that, it suddenly feels a lot more important right?

Another useful note here is to always plan ahead, and do not be afraid to change the setting if you feel it is noticeably affecting the impact of your interaction with the other person. Simply press pause and relocate or reschedule. You are better off rescheduling than losing a deal because of an argument occurring on the table behind you annoying your prospective client.

For example, when I host a ‘Communicating With Impact™’ live event, nailing the setting is essential and planning ahead becomes a science.

I will personally visit the setting months in advance to ensure it is ideal for the live event.

Then the day before the event with plenty of time to spare, the entire team hits the event room to ensure the setting is ready for the message that will be delivered to hundreds of delegates the next day.

A little tip here - ensure your team are well versed on communicating with impact, otherwise you will spend your time teaching them, rather than focusing on your presentation.

What you can do to improve ALL areas?

Now improving one area is different from total communication mastery. This is because I refer to this area of communication as a ‘component’. This component is then made up of additional ‘sub-components’.

You can see this clearly in the following diagram:

As you can see from the diagram, your result is just one component out of 38 components. This diagram is the complete system - which I refer to on live events as ‘Dr Ro’s Total Communication Mastery System™’.

I know what you are thinking, Woah! I just thought communication was about talking confidently in front of people.

This is what most people think. And this is because communication is fundamentally not taught. Not taught in schools, not taught in companies and not taught as a complete system like this anywhere.

For example, to truly master your setting. You will need to learn, practice and regularly implement the following sub-components:

• Distractions
• The Room
• Flow

Make a note of these, as you will then know what to next focus on after you have improved on setting.

What if you don't improve?

Remember I said, this skill is not taught - certainly not to the level it deserves. Think about it, we are taught to read, write and speak. This is very different from being taught how to communicate with impact.

Let’s look at the everyday impact poor communication is having on your life. 

Using your result as an example - Setting.

Have you ever been in a scenario where you have tried to sell your product/service, given a talk, attended a meeting or been a part of a family gathering and felt like you lost impact? 

Maybe some of these ring a bell:

• You’re pitching a client and the noise from the air conditioner keeps frustrating you.
• You’re delivering an important speech to a group of people but the lighting is too high and the temperature is too warm which leads to people walking out.
• You’re talking to a social group, and find yourself having to stop and start regularly losing the impact of the story.
• You’re regularly choosing the wrong place for communication, for example, a sales pitch in a busy Starbucks.
• You are on a zoom call and either you or the people you are speaking to have visual distractions in the background.
• The people you are speaking to on a zoom call have their microphone unmuted and it caused disturbance to you. For example, when we run my CWI Live events we have a tech check to make sure each attendee understands how to use their equipment and to keep them muted initially.

Now imagine if you had improved your communication...