“The greatest concubines in history knew that everything revealed with nothing concealed is a bore.”
—Geoffrey Beene
I know, it’s kind of racy for my usual stuff, but bear (or should that be “bare?”) with me…
One of the things I talk a lot about at The Educated Authority is how to build a connection with your audience, because without that sense of connection you can be quickly and freely replaced by a Google search.
Sounds like a tremendously tenuous business model, doesn’t it?
One of the key tactics in creating that connection is to present an image of yourself to your audience. You’re not pretending to be someone else like an actor, but you are emphasizing (and de-emphasizing) certain aspects of your life and personality in order to present a carefully-crafted and curated image.
One way that you create this image is to be very strategic about what you reveal about yourself and what information you withhold.
Don’t tell them everything. You want people to have questions about you: how you do what you do, etc. These questions will be very useful in building up interest in you. Audience members will talk about their questions, and ask each other what they think. You may be uncomfortable with this aspect of the overall strategy; that’s okay.
I can assure you, it’s far better to have people wondering about you and talking about you than it is to have nobody wondering about you and talking about you.