Who is your “audience”? And what is your responsibility to your audience?

Who is your “audience”? It’s whoever listens to you....

• A salesperson’s audience is his or her prospective customer.

• The audiences of business owners are oftentimes their employees. Other times, their customers are their audience.

• Restaurants are filled with many different audiences — all eagerly waiting to hear “tonight’s special is....”

• If you’re telling a joke, your audience is composed of your associates.

Sometimes your audience isn’t in front of you. Television and radio personalities speak to a vast, unseen audience — but they’re there.

If you're attempting to verbally communicate with someone, you are a "speaker". And speakers, by definition, always have an audience.

Now, what is your primary responsibility to your audience? Speakers have one primary responsibility to their audiences: not to waste their audiences’ time.

Whoever they are, whether you're entertaining them or informing them or motivating them, never waste their time!