What’s interesting for your audience?

Grant Leboff: So Michael, one of the things that I thought was really interesting about your book is you talk about, what is in it for the audience when you’re answering a question. Could you tell us a bit more about how that works?

Michael Dodd: Yeah. It’s a really obvious thing, if you think about it. But it’s amazing how many people don’t do it, in answers which are more for themselves than for the audience. The really important point when you’re planning answers, and people should plan them often more than they do, is to think about what is it that’s really going to benefit this particular asker and often, there’s a wider audience, if it’s on television, or if the person is going to tell other people, or if there’s a live audience there. What’s going to help everybody who is listening. It may seem obvious when we’re talking about it now, but people often don’t think about it.

In particular, think about an example. It might be, here’s where you can get some information which will be particularly interesting to marketers like you, so that they can actually realize you’re hitting at what’s in it for me factor, and they’ll want more.

Grant Leboff: So what’s interesting is, one of the things that I think people often think about when they’re being asked questions is, you’ve got to think off the cuff and have the gift of the gab and whatever it is, and you talk about, and you mentioned it now, about planning and thinking about it, before you ever get anywhere near the interview, as it were.

So if you’ll think about what’s in it for the audience, what would you suggest that people start to think about, to try and make sure they tick those boxes and encapsulate the audience and engage them?

Michael Dodd: The ideal is to get your head in the mind of the audience, and if you don’t know who that audience is, then ask someone who does, someone who’s organized the event where you’ll be questioned, or someone who can shed some light on what that audience needs and thinks, because ultimately, what you’re trying to do is make sure that you’re dealing with the part of your agenda – because everyone’s got their own agenda – and look at the bit of that agenda which is most relevant to that particular audience.

If you do that in advance, then you know that your answers will hit the right spot for that particular audience.

Grant Leboff: I think you make another good point. I think one of the other things you talk about in the book is making sure you speak with someone pre-interview and actually find out who the audience is going to be, which I think many people just don’t think to do, do they?

Michael Dodd: No. They’re often beforehand, they’re thinking, “I hope the person asks me the right questions.” Sometimes, the person in your position here, particularly if we were having some kind of antagonistic relationship, which of course we don’t, but your job is sometimes to ask the wrong questions on behalf of your audience, because you’re trying to get out information from people watching this, people running small businesses, medium sized businesses, large businesses, enterprising people who want to know more about answering questions.

So I need to know what it is that can hit the right spots for them so that they’ll be wanting to know more.

There may be small changes to the spoken word in this transcript in order make it more readable.