Whether it’s in a business setting or a personal one, the reason many people cite for walking away from a situation or circumstance is that they feel they’re not being taken seriously.

While some of this blame can fall to other people’s perception of you, there may be things you’re doing that are decreasing the chances of being taken seriously. Pinpointing what you’re doing wrong is the first step to rectifying this persistent issue.

Here, people skills coach Frankie Kemp shares five reasons you aren’t being taken seriously:

Not enough charisma and not listening – This focuses on how the way one listens is key to presence and elevates standing. I cite Rosabeth Moss Kanter’s book, ‘Why you need Charisma’, in which she states how active listening increases your standing. It brings to mind a client from the energy industry who wanted a particular team member to speak up more in meetings. What he really meant is that this individual needed more managerial presence. Teaching him to actively listen, using paraphrasing, summarising statements and questions did the job. The Turkish proverb, “If speaking is silver, then listening is gold,” means that the one who truly listens actually shines brighter than those with verbal spillage.

Your body’s doing more talking than you think – I mention by acting and mime training and what I learned about performance from watching John Gielgud say nothing for 10 minutes! Sometimes it’s not what we say but what we give away without knowing. Our non-verbals can bring our point home or undermine it. A strong part of any actor’s training is how you support what you say with your body and studies show that we are more likely to trust and believe people when their gestures are congruent with words. So even on the screen, seeing hands helps increase sincerity and rapport with others.

Speech patterns – Uptalking, the habit of rising intonation as if asking a question, subverts gravitas. Caroline Goyder, in her book ‘Gravitas’, discusses the value in changing to falling intonations and downward gestures that project decisiveness, a technique used by skilled leaders to assert authority.

Pre-emptive put-downs – Frequently apologising or prefixing a suggestion with a phrase such as, “This may be stupid but…” Dr. Judith Baxter, a senior lecturer of applied linguistics at Aston University, calls this ‘double-voiced discourse’. The issue is that this thwarts your authority.

Package your point – Being able to make a clear succinct point in plain English is valued at the top. So instead of talking about ‘leveraging ecosystems to increase client take-hold’, refer to speeding up the sales cycle. Lower down the pecking order, people are echoing the obscure language around them as a means of security, something without necessarily knowing what is really meant. Spelling it out in simple, unmasked language indicates a level of confidence.