Are you leaving money on the table?

How much is too much money to lose? Think about this… if you are not including people with disabilities and the elderly when communicating your ideas or presenting your material, then you are most definitely leaving money on the table.

The Ontario Chamber of Commerce suggests that in Canada alone, the disposable income of people with disabilities is approximately $55 billion annually! Can any of us really afford to not tap into such a significant market? Especially when doing so is not just about money, but also about being a good corporate citizen, a good person, as well as making sure that we are using our platform to make everyone in the audience feel welcome and included, feel like they matter.

No doubt, going down that path and embracing the idea of speaking more inclusively will involve more work, but the payoff is well worth the effort. Wait until you realize how doing so will keep your entire audience more engaged and feeling cared for!

Not only will you create an environment of inclusion, but you will also make yourself stand out from the competition. When people talk about you to friends, colleagues, and relatives (potential clients and prospects), and you know they will, how do you want to be thought of? Wouldn’t you rather have them raving about how you went the extra mile to create a presentation that was accessible, regardless of anyone’s disability, and how it might have been the very first time that one of your audience members attended a talk, and truly felt included?

Failing even one person in our audience is already one too many! You must ensure that you take the time to create presentations and materials that cater to as many types of disabilities as possible. With just a little more effort and making a few tweaks when preparing your content, you have the ability to truly connect at a much deeper level with those who hear, see, or perceive things in a way that is different than your own…

Not everything is always as it seems

You must always keep in mind that there are many disabilities out there that are not noticeable. Learning styles, vision, hearing, mobility or cognitive issues, sensitivity to noise, colour perception deficiencies, etc. The list goes on and on. It may not be possible to address all of these considerations every single time, but being aware and adjusting your delivery can make a world of difference to those who are generally left out, and may have felt unheard up until they were in THAT room, listening to YOU.

Think of the amazing impact you could have over those who have felt slighted in the past. Imagine how they would feel about a professional communicator who made them feel seen for a change.

You can bet that they would have great things to say about such a speaker or trainer! I don’t know about you, but given the choice of how I want to be remembered, it is definitely as someone who has touched everyone in the audience in a positive way. So, the next time you are tweaking your material for your next presentation, do your audience members with disabilities – and your business – a favour: take the time to really look at how you can improve to include!

Research shows that people who are dissatisfied will tell many more people about their experiences than those who are satisfied. A dissatisfied audience member might easily tell between 9 and 15 people about their experience coming to listen to you speak. And approximately 13% of them will tell more than 20 people about their problem. Along the same lines, McKinsey goes as far as to say that 70% of buying experiences are based on how the customer feels they are being treated. How are you making your disabled audience members feel?

Imagine that kind of publicity associated with your name or your brand.

Now imagine any of that trending on social media.

It’s those we leave dissatisfied that are unlikely to reach out to us for future opportunities. It’s those same people that might also convince others to avoid us altogether. It’s all of these people’s money that we potentially leave on the table, every time we’re not being as inclusive as we otherwise could be. We’ll drill down deeper into this topic in a future post.