“Know your audience.” It’s the first rule of good communication. Whether you are a novelist, a journalist, or a public speaker, you have to know the nature of the audience you are addressing. Misunderstand your audience, and they will turn on you. Sometimes viciously.

But there are unintended audiences as well, and the most sophisticated communication takes them into account, because they can turn on you too. Consider the following video. It was prepared by the USA Bid Committee, acting on behalf of the United States Soccer Federation. The Bid Committee works to secure a bid to host the World Cup in 2018 or 2022. The audience is the members of the World Cup site selection committee, members of FIFA, the world governing body of soccer.

But there is a secondary audience. You don’t bring in Morgan Freeman to narrate and include President Clinton, Mia Hamm, and Spike Lee only to reach a couple of dozen deciders. No, the audience is much larger, and there is a great lesson here for organizations of all sizes and purposes.

When I watch this video, I feel a surge of pride in my country. The secondary audience for this video is fans of the U.S. National team, fans of soccer, and fans of sports. If you read the comments on You Tube, you see the pride the video generates. As someone said, “You had me at Morgan Freeman.” The result of that pride is increased energy and excitement for the support of the bid and greater fan support.

Put this in the context of your organization. Do you share your communication and marketing materials within your company? Do you let your employees experience the pride of their efforts? They are your biggest fans, and when you prepare marketing materials, you have the benefit of reaching your secondary audience. The consequences of this are all positive:

1. Employees and staff can take pride in their accomplishments and see how they are valued through the representation of your product or service.
2. You reinforce the mission and vision of your organization internally. The Bid Committee’s message is simple and delivered in Morgan Freeman’s fabulous voice, “We are the world’s home away from home.” That’s America’s vision.
3. You give your stakeholders the language to speak about your company or organization. “The world is in us.” “Bring it to my country.” “My country loves this game.” “Bring the World Cup to the United States.”

When people take pride in their organization, they share that pride with friends and families. Your audience grows. No matter what size your business is, you can spread your influence further by ensuring that your employees have pride in their efforts.

We live in a world of muddled messages. Politicians step on themselves to clarify missteps. Sports stars crank up the non-apology apology machine. Employers alienate their staff by reciting lawyerly pabulum to avoid litigation. And parents demonstrate the opposite of what they tell their children.

We send messages we don’t intend, and we hear things that weren’t meant. This disease of miscommunication and misunderstanding is not new, and we all succumb at some point.

I once delivered a conference presentation on some of the greatest research the home improvement industry has ever seen. I’m not a bad public speaker, but on this day, the slides didn’t work, my mouth malfunctioned, and my knowledge of the research was less than golden. At the end, the entire audience was in the fog of confusion, but none of them were as confused as I.

It gets worse.

I was the host for the conference, and I had to follow myself to the podium to introduce the next speaker, who was a top-notch pro. Before I brought him up, I reminded the audience to fill out their evaluation sheets so that we could ensure the previous speaker (me) never cast shadow on that stage again.

We all have our horror stories, but we can all define our messages with greater care and avoid the unintended meaning. We can implement strategies to make our communication – whether marketing, advertising, or employee manuals – clear and concise and without ambiguity.

And if we can define our messages, we can establish ourselves as leaders. I once worked for a very smart, very direct person who became quite powerful in the corporation. His simple gift was that he could cut through all the crap and put his finger on the one or two most salient points in any strategy. That clarity, that ability to jettison the distractions, gave him a focus that made other people want to follow.  When he talked, heads in the room nodded up and down.

That skill is such a common experience among successful people that it underlies 3 of the 7 habits Stephen Covey identified in his groundbreaking “The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People.”  #2: Begin with the end in mind. #3: Put first things first. #5: Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

Define your message and you can become the leader. Your message may be a personal message that establishes goals and articulates strategies to position you as a team leader. Your message may be a corporate brand that states your values and vision as a business, making you an industry or market leader. The underlying keys to success for both internal and external communication are the same.

1. Listen to your audience
2. Keep it simple
3. Say it clearly
4. Use it consistently
5. Make it logical
6. Appeal to common sense