Short By One Vote Because I Didn’t Know My Audience
Today I want to write about what happened at university. I was at the Annual General Meeting for my Japanese club at university and for the last two weeks, I’d been priming myself for the event. I was set on nominating myself on being treasurer, primarily for the reason of having something good-looking on my resume.
There was a pretty big turn out; the executive committee were all at the front of the room, going through the proceedings. After all the administrative stuff had been gone through, the fun started.
First, peopled voted for the president and vice-presidential positions. As soon as the new vice-president had been celebrated and sat down, the officer called the nominees for treasurer to stand up and walk to the front.
There were four of us. Two of the guys were friends of mine. The former vice-president, who I’d been studying Japanese for 2 years with, made me give my short speech about why I should be the new treasurer first.
Out came my prepared stuff: I’d studied Japanese for 15 years, I was a freelance writer who clients from overseas so I could manage money well, I had important ties with the executive committee of other university clubs, etc…
I went out of the room and called the next guy in. As soon as all four of us had made our speeches, we nervously waited outside as we anticipated the result, each hoping that we were about to be congratulated.
I was pretty confident but alas, I was apparently short one vote from handling the finances of the Japanese club. The guy who got it was the second guy right after me.
He looked pretty flustered right after his speech. He said he froze up there and didn’t know what to say. Yet, he got the position. I didn’t ask him why, but as the proceedings continued, I pondered as to why this might have happened.
Then it hit me. I didn’t actually talk about what I would do about the club. As fun-loving as the people who were part of the club were, they ultimately wanted someone who put the club before themselves first to make sure that it continued to run as effectively as it did. I crapped on about how good I was yet I left out some stuff that I had prepared earlier about how the finances would be managed well by me since I knew the ex-treasurer well.
It’s like how I’m writing for you guys right now. I know who you are, or so I’d like to think I do. I told a story to draw you guys in and put you in my position and now I’m tying it in with the moral to the story so that there is a link back to Internet Marketing (pretty clever, huh?).
Know who you’re talking to. It doesn’t matter if you have the best message in the world, it ain’t the best if it isn’t conveyed properly to the right audience. That’s right. It’s not just about what you say, it’s about how you say it too (are you guys OK with me using “ain’t” just then?).
Tags: Japanese club, know your audience