Saturday, September 15, 2012
Credibility is KEY!
When speaking to an audience you must have many source characteristics conveyed. One of the main characteristics you must express is credibility. If you don’t express credibility, how do you expect to sell your audience on what you are talking about. Sure you can be fun and interactive in front of a crowd but you have to persuade the audience you know what it is exactly you are talking about. The book states that there are two ‘dimensions’ of credibility, expertise and trustworthiness, and they say you must have one when presenting. However I feel you must carry out both when it comes to public speaking. You need to sell to the crowd not only what you are talking about but you need to sell yourself in a way. The audience must trust you as a person, because if they don’t they are most likely not going to pay attention to what you are saying let alone have good vibes from you. I look at it not only marketing a subject, but a person as well, someone who presents and sells it.
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I think you could possibly get by in a speech by possessing one of the two dimensions of credibility the book presents, but agree that you would need to have both in order to be truly successful as a public speaker. But I also think that expertise and trustworthiness go hand in hand. In order to be considered an expert in a field of study a person would also need to be trusted that his work and findings in which he is a expert are truly his own. For instance, I find it hard to believe that you could be a leading expert in astrophysics in you are believed to have not completed any of your own experiments. Maybe this isn’t as easy to link in other topics but I would think the premise would still hold true.
ReplyDeleteI would also argue that to establish well credibility, you need to have a great first impression. What I mean with that is that you need to be well known and even known-well. No one is going to even consider your words or even trust what you have to say unless you are known by meaning well or even well-known to mean well. It could go one or the other but it needs to be both. For example. I could go into a class and do a presentation on getting students to sign up to register to vote and speak about the importance of voting as a young-adult and even being a college student. The students most likely will not know who I am, there for that immediately cuts out 80% or more of them to either not listen or care about what I have to say. But if I successfully establish my credibility with them the first time, then I will be well known to mean well about my message and they will be more willing to listen to what I have to say and trust me from there. I have noticed my success rate to improve when speaking to classrooms full of students if I simply explain about myself before speaking to them about delivering my message. They need to trust that you are as close as to an expert.
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