Shitty Rough Draft

Abstract:

                In today’s business world, every channel of communication is carefully planned and there are several thoughts and ideas behind every email, advertisement, and product. The ability to adapt to your audience is the key to make people understand what message you have to deliver. Cultures, nationalities, gender, age, and personality is only a few attributes to consider before deciding what kind of communication would be most efficient when it comes to make it easier for the counterpart of the conversation to understand. When talking to a group of elementary kids, people adapt and talk with a more informal and “everyday language” compared to if they are in a meeting with the dean of their University, where a more formal and professional language would be more appropriate. Clear communication is the key to share information efficiently between the sender and the receiver. By adapting the style, provide credibility, and know your audience; the message can be structured in different ways to better apply to the person receiving the message which will ease the understanding of the information.

Body:

                  One of the most important parts when it comes to clear communication is the style of it. Most often, there are four different styles used in order to persuade the listener and the styles are analytical, intuitive, functional, and personal. In the analytical style of communication, facts and data are very important and the conversation is most often filled with numbers which makes it more informative than other styles. No emotions are included in the content which means personal values and beliefs are excluded from the conversation and it is only the actual facts that are being presented. This kind of style is useful when there are a lot of emotions involved in the argument and by only focusing on the facts, it will increase the odds of the conclusion to be “correct” instead of involving bias to the argument. Instead of focusing on the facts, the intuitive style focuses on the big picture rather than specific facts. This style is great to use to get a bigger understanding of a problem or scenario and the importance of the facts do not play a big role to persuade that picture. (Mark Murphy)

The third style of communication is functional communication which is built on a step-by-step method to make sure nothing is left out of the communication. This kind of style is popular to use when it comes to timelines, processes, and plans since they cover everything that needs to be covered. The problem with the style is that if the receiver of the message is more into intuitive or personal communication, they will most likely lose attention because it is too many facts to keep their interest up. The fourth and last style is personal communication which is about emotion and building a relationship with the people you are communicating with. This style is perfect if you want to build deep relationships and it works as glue in a group to keep everybody together. Personal communicators may have a problem when they interact with analytical communicators since they want numbers and not feelings to describe a situation. (Mark Murphy)

The knowledge of which kind of communicator your audience is should affect how you approach that person and the presented material should be adapted to the audience to keep his interest and make it easier for him to understand. According to Gerald Graff, the importance of explaining why something is important and why we should care is essential to keep the interest of the audience. By adapting to the audience’s style, the communicator can keep them interested by changing his or hers way of communication. If the audience is analytical communicators, the sender can interpret more facts and statistics to be more credible and trustworthy and when the audience is personal communicators, the sender can focus more on building a relationship rather than confusing the audience with statistics.

In the interview with Johannes Beck, CEO of Melonboard, he explained how important it is for him to adapt his communication to his audience. Since he knows his target market is teenaged guys in college who lives a couple of miles from campus and work three or four times a week, he knows that the best way to communicate with them is most often through a intuitive style of communication because these people are rarely interested in stats about the board and they are not interested in building a deep relationship with the seller. If he would have applied another style of communication, he would not have been as successful as he is.

By looking at the artifacts Johannes sent me prior to the interview, it is clear that he is not only adapting his style but also his language to make it more understandable for his target market. Instead of sending out long manuals with formal language, Johannes sent out a short email regarding tips and tricks to help his customers to maintain the condition of the board but also to keep it safe. The email is structured in a way which makes it very easy and fast to both read and understand which applies to the lifestyle of his customers. The emails are also very transparent when it comes to explaining how and when the customers will receive their board and why there might be a delay in the delivery. As an example, one email explains that the delivery of the board is two weeks late due to a delayed transfer payment to the factory but as soon as the transfer is completed, the boards will be shipped to Shanghai Airport and then by air to each customer. This kind of emails are very transparent and gives the customer greater understanding of how much logistics are involved in the process of getting the board to their front door and it gives the customer more knowledge about the reason behind the delay.