How to Establish a Relationship With Your Audience

Who is your audience, and more importantly, how do you establish a good relationship with that audience? Hi I’m Kristin Polito, and we’re going to explore who the audience is and why that role is important, and how you can establish a really great rapport with your audience.

Many entrepreneurs when they’re first developing their elevator pitch or they go and meet with stakeholders that we’ve described, that we talked about in our last session, think that the audience is going to be very judgmental of them. So we go in with these preconceived ideas. You have to keep in mind the audience is neutral, they’re not going to be for your business or you, and they’re not going to be against your business or you, but they have a neutral capacity to absorb the information that you’re giving them about your business.

When you establish good dialogue and they continue to ask questions, that’s a really really good thing. As I mentioned in the past, you really want to do some homework on who your audience is, what their roles and their professions are, how this can be a good segue or bridge to what you would like them to know about your interest, maybe in terms of investment purposes, in terms of being a perspective client, or even a potential business partner to your business. So establishing a good rapport, a few minutes of conversation is really critical to developing of the right audience. As your audience asks you more questions about your particular business, maybe it’s the financial information that’s involved, maybe more meticulous detail about your products or services, what does your competitive environment look like, you know where do you see your business growing within the next 3 to 5 years, this is a prime opportunity for you to take the pitch to the next level and ask for a separate appointment. Either the opportunity to take that audience to lunch or for coffee, and it gives you a little more airtime in describing your business and what you need from that audience in terms of leveraging your business in the future. As we close, keep in mind that your audience is always neutral. This doesn’t mean that they’re going to judge you or your business negatively, it really means that they don’t know that much about you or your business. Your job is to basically turn their neutrality into a call to action, and to create a positive engagement between yourself and your audience.

About Kristin Polito

Kristin Polito is an accomplished executive and business academic, with a myriad of experience developing enterprise initiatives and marketing campaigns, strengthening positioning and industry standing, and boosting revenues. She knows competitive landscapes and has set drive improvements to enterprise-wide strategic plans, new business development opportunities, product development enhancements, and program delivery. She has worked extensively in the venture capital space with biotech, hi-tech, telecom, and a host of other start-ups.

As a SCORE Mentor, Kristin brings with her the resources of more than 50 additional mentors with a full range of expertise in almost every area of business and non-profits.