You want to be taken seriously? Speak seriously!

We recently went to a networking event and saw the following, which makes all of the sense in the world. If you are 55+, do you want to be taken seriously when you speak to top management and executives? Not relegated to being the “grandpa” in the room? Or the “nice uncle” in the room? Or worse, discarded as the “old irrelevant guy” in the room?

Do these six things:

1. No minutiae – Don’t go into the bushes with details, keep it executive level. Not general. Executive. There’s a huge difference. Executive-level talk is about big blocks, strategic ideas, or big tactics.
2. Exude confidence – Stop with the hemming and the hawing.
3. But know your stuff down cold – If you speak with confidence, you need to really know your stuff. Not only does knowing your stuff sound way better, you won’t get shot down by someone else, which would really put a dent in that confidence.
4. Have rain-making conversations – Speak about how to improve the business: its sales, its margins, its culture, its footprint, whatever your area is, be the improvement in the room
5. Stop trying to impress – trust me, it shows

We also have these three (very personal) suggestions:

1. Keep to your lane when speaking confidently – if you are in marketing, know your marketing stuff down cold and speak confidently about marketing. But don’t do it about, say, operations, or tax policy. You’ll get shot down.
2. Ask questions from other experts – Asking questions does three things:
   1. It engages your counterpart
   2. It shows that you have the ability to learn from many other areas: you are an asset
   3. Asking puts you in a (tiny) leading position, you’re the one asking
3. Shut up and listen – when the other person answers, shut up and listen. And listen with the intent to learn, not to rebut, or to “best” them.

Listen, learn, become better