Once the why, what and how of your message have been established, it’s time to reflect on who your message is for. 

It’s always worth spending a few minutes thinking about how best to approach the audience you’re sharing the communication with as this can have an impact on the tone of your voice, the language you use, and your body language while you are communicating.

One of the best ways to decide how best to proceed is to put yourself in the shoes of the person or people you are going to be talking to and tune into their ‘WIIFM’ – ‘What’s in it for me?’ It’s natural for anyone who hears information to think about the implications it has for them as an individual first – both positively and negatively. 

For example, consider a patient who is contemplating the benefits of taking a regular medication when it may be causing side effects that might be seen to outweigh any gains. Or a team member who is being given the chance to train to deliver a new service while they are still expected to carry out the other tasks assigned to them. 

Alternatively, your audience could be a local stakeholder such as a practice manager, who is rationalising the benefits versus perceived increased workload of getting the practice team behind the Community Pharmacist Consultation Service. 

Some positive WIIFMs for the above situations are suggested in Table 1, below.

In any given situation, the WIIFM for your audience could be quite different, so tweaking the content of your communication and the way you deliver it would be worthwhile in helping you to attain buy-in. 

Many people make the mistake of developing a standard communication that they use time and time again. When we are enthusiastic about sharing information or getting our views across, it can be so easy to bombard others with lots of information. However, most people can only absorb a certain quantity of information, which means that only a certain level of information gets through. 

In terms of great influential communication, three really is the magic number. So, if you have identified a lot of compelling WIIFMs, select the best three and use these initially. You can always keep some as a back-up.

By using this approach, you can often identify potential barriers people could raise before your initial conversation and consider ways to help them see the benefits of your proposed actions.

Think about the knowledge the person or people you are talking to already have about the area or issue you are discussing. Delivering your message via an explanation that is too basic could come across as patronising, while at the other end of the scale, you may turn someone off totally by using acronyms or going into unnecessary levels of detail. 

It may well be that you have to communicate the same message to different audiences, so bear in mind that their WIIFMs may be different too and tweak your communication accordingly.

Now it’s time to think about how best to structure and share the information you want to communicate to your audience. The good news here is that there is still only one number you need to remember – three. Breaking your message down into three well defined parts will help the receiver take in all of its contents, including the middle – the part that often gets forgotten. 

The other key way of getting your message across is to summarise its components throughout to ensure it has the best chance of sticking in the other party’s memory. Again, this will probably feel a little uncomfortable or over the top when you first do it, but it will become more comfortable with practice.

Providing a summary also tells your audience that you’ve come to the end of a section, which helps them to organise their own thoughts. And it gives them a natural opportunity to ask questions about what you’ve covered up until that point, instead of having to wait until the end, by which time they may have forgotten what they were going to ask. You want them to go away with a clear message, and this is a tried and tested way of getting information across to others effectively.