5 Ways To Savvy Up Your Verbal Communication Skills
When you pick your nose, it gives me the signal; you're not interested in talking.
I try to keep my fingers out of my nose when I talk to others, but I have a terrible habit that sabotages my conversations.
It's my ADD brain.
If I don't focus when someone talks to me, my mind races with thoughts, at the end of their spew of words, I heard nothing.
All I can remember was what I was thinking about.
I blame them if it's a drive-by talk. This is when someone drops by and starts talking when you're in the zone on another activity or thought.
You might not have an ADD brain, but you likely have a few bad habits that sabotage your verbal communication.
Here's how to fix them.
Show up to your conversations.
If you show up late, it's assumed you don't care.
If you early, you're on time. If you're on time, you're late. If you're late, it's bad business.
If you show up to an important meeting and look like a slob, it's unlikely you'll be taken seriously.
How you show up to a conversation matters. It preps your brain for the discussion to follow.
Imagine you grab your phone for an important sales meeting. You're three minutes late.
You have a partially eaten donut protruding from your mouth. As you dial the phone, a few drops of glaze dribbles on your keypad.
The other party answers the phone, and you mumble, "Hi."
You didn't show up. You had other things in your life that took priority.
Now imagine, you take a nice cold shower to wake you up.
You put on clothes that make you feel confident. You review your notes and agenda.
You call into the meeting, and the other party answers.
You reply,
"Hi Judy, It's nice we have the chance to speak about (TOPIC) today. How's your week going? Fantastic. Here's the agenda for today's call."
As you engage, you smile. The other person feels your smile on the other end of the phone.
You showed up.
If you're going to have a conversation, show up, so it fits the type of communication you're going to have.
Either actively listen or don't listen at all.
There are two types of listening, listening and not listening.
My mom is the worst at it. I thought my ADD was bad.
We'll be talking, and as I finish my sentence, she'll jump to a completely different topic.
Or, you'll talk with her, and she'll give you the I don't give a shit stare. It's the stare when someone looks right through you.
She's not listening!
Here's how to actively listen:
make normal eye contact.
listen to what they're saying.
confirm your listening with verbal cues (mmm hmmm, yea, right, etc.)
ask questions to clarify unclear things.
briefly recap what they said.
To have great conversations, you have to listen actively.
Get clarity and guide the conversation by asking questions.
Let's paint a picture of two different conversations; it's between a Manager and her team member.
Conversation 1:
Mmmm hmmm. Got it. Yup. Sure thing.
Conversation 2:
"Okay, Manager. To make sure I'm on the same page, you want me to reach out to Client A as they seemed upset with yesterday's order?"
"Great, I'll give them a call right after this. Have you noticed any other clients who have been upset? I can call them as well."
Conversation two: The team member is taking the initiative and going deeper into the conversation, which will have a more significant impact on the team.
With this attitude, she'll likely grow in her role.
Ask better questions, and watch your conversations flourish. Don't sit idle being a yes woman.
Clarify and engage with your questions.
Pause to think and gather your thoughts.
I'm a perpetual talker. I hate silence.
I talk fast.
There are many conversations where my brain is out thinking my mouth, which leads to my mouth, trying to catch-up.
I'll stumble on words, lose my thought, or even worse, say the wrong thing.
One of the best things you can do, when verbally communicating, is to pause.
Not the awkward I'm ignoring you pause. Just a brief pause so you can gather what you want to say.
Two ways to practice your verbal communication skills.
As you develop your verbal communication skills, there are two tools you should be using.
The first is Grammarly, which helps you with your written communication. After using this tool, I find myself using "this" a lot.
"This" is vague and unclear. A part of excellent communication is being clear and concise. When I use "this" word, I fail at that.
When you use Grammarly, notice the trends in how you write. You likely use some of these bad habits in your verbal communication.
The next tool is Orai, an app that coaches me on my verbal communication and public speaking skills.
For example, it showed me how fast I talk by counting my words per minute while giving me a word per minute goal.
It's also helped me focus on pausing, which has led me to articulate my thoughts.
In a world where written communication is dominant, we need to improve our verbal communication skills.
These skills will help us succeed in every aspect of our lives and build deeper connections.
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