Know your Audience

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle” - Sun Tzu, The Art of War

There are broadly 3 types of learning styles- Visual, Auditory, and Kinesthetic (movement). It helps to know the learning style of your audience so we can craft our speech accordingly. 

Visual Learners: Tend to focus on things they see, they visualize and learn through seeing pictures and graphs. 
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​Auditory Learners: Those who tend to understand and absorb a message better through hearing the information.

​Kinesthetic Learners: Those who can relate to movements such as when you ‘act out’ a scene or a message. They need to engage in an activity in order to grasp a concept.

​Above gives an overview of each learning style but this is not to say that if you display the style of a visual learner then you are not an auditory learner. We may possess more than one style but one would  usually dominate.

When speaking to a group of listeners, it is also unrealistic to assume that your audience all possess the same dominant style. Which is why it is important to vary our speech to cater to all styles. This will be covered in my next blog, stay tune.