What’s your communication style?

Grant Leboff: One of the points that you make in the book that I thought was really interesting, is you say; it's not just about what you say but about how you say it. Explain that for us a little bit more.

Warren Cass: Has this ever been so obvious when you look at world politics right now. We seem to have lost the art of diplomacy. Sometimes we have difficult feedback to give people, and there's a way to do that. You know you can you can just come out and aggressively and say it, or you can actually soften the blow and be constructive and be compassionate and empathetic and all of those things, while you deliver a message and get the outcome you want. So when it comes to influence, remember it's about affecting an outcome. It's about moving an issue forwards without having to force it. And so how we deliver a message is vitally important. It's of course important what we say too, but how we deliver it is massively important.

Grant Leboff: And of course developing your own communication style with a personality and saying the right way is so important in influence and in the online world generally. How do people start to develop that, especially if they are new to this world?

Warren Cass: Well that's a brilliant question. This is a really big topic and the complexity is online because we're with online you can't do a psychometrics test and understand the personality style of the person you're opposite. So if we were face to face - in the initial part of any new conversation - I'd be making some sort of assessment or judgment that is this person more analytical, are they introvert / extrovert, are they probably more task focused or people focused, and from that I could possibly understand where you would fit on say a disk profile and, therefore, maybe just the way I communicate with you. So we both get the most from the conversation. Online, of course, you can't do that. There are indicators around the way people write, you know how quickly they get to a point. How verbose they are, how many descriptive, flowery words they might use... and I suppose the simple bit of advice would be; become a student of people - that starts with knowing yourself, and when you're when you are student or people you can quite quickly pick up on their communication style and how they prefer to receive information. And the key thing is to try and adapt your behaviours to be as efficient as possible in relation to theirs.

Grant Leboff: And what about, with mass communication? So if you're talking to one person, having a conversation with one person online, then you can start to pick up on some of these indicators as you said. What about when you're talking to a bigger audience than that online? So in terms of a blog or in terms of a message that's not for one but it's for a community? How do you then start to look at communications styles?

Warren Cass: Well the interesting thing here is, one size doesn't fit all and you will never please all of the people all of the time. So I think the key thing for this is to really understand who your audience is and try and write for them. So if you've got a very clear indication of who an ideal client is, actually sit and profile them. What do they look like, how old are they, what are their influences and try and write in the style that you think that they would respond to. But you're never going to please all the people all the time and you were a fool if you try. Best thing to do is to actually break down your audience, if at all possible, and start to write in the style of the subsections of your audience would be my advice, but just be authentic. I mean ultimately what you say is important and how you say it is important. But think of the values you want to be known for? Have somebody proof read your work and ask if those values come through. Simple tools, tips and tools like that will help.

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