In a way, technology has made us lose practice, and above all power, when it comes to communicating with people. Communication is perhaps the most essential part of any relationship, whether we’re talking about business relationships (sales), leading groups or influencing large audiences through a talk or presentation.
In a previous article we looked at the 3 communication skills every leader needs: self-communication, face-to-face communication and communication with large groups. Ultimately, a company’s success or failure also depends on how it communicates with its users.
1. It’s not about you
People often get lost talking about themselves or about what they find interesting, but the person on the other side may find it pretty boring or useless. Remember that people tend to like those who listen to them and care about their needs. Understanding the needs of the people you communicate with gives you the power to influence them.
2. Listen
The first step towards effective communication is to listen more than you talk. That holds for every kind of communication, including sales, where salespeople win more sales by listening to their customers than by talking.
You can’t solve someone’s problems or concerns if you can’t listen to them. But we aren’t taught to listen properly. If you’re thinking about your answer while the other person is talking, you’re not listening; you’re getting ready to say what you want to say, regardless of what they’ve told you.
3. Ask the right questions
If you don’t ask the right questions, you’ll never get the right answers. If you listen carefully, and analyse and process all that information, you’ll find a way to ask the right questions and get the answers you need to move forward. That’s one of the basic principles of selling.
The reason so many recruiters couldn’t find water if they fell out of a boat is that many of them already have canned questions for every candidate. Most of them aren’t really listening to you; they’re waiting to hear what they expect to hear, and in most cases they forget to ask the right questions.
See also: 3 terrible job interview questions recruiters should stop asking right now
The best interviews, or sales, come from curiosity and a natural desire to know more: digging a little deeper and making the other person feel comfortable, so that they can gradually take off the masks so many people wear.
4. Tell stories
I can’t remember who said that success belongs to people who know how to tell stories. In fact, a trick most TED speakers use is the three-story trick. If you look closely, all the talks are similar in structure: between 15 and 25 minutes, and three stories.
James Altucher often says that he had to tell his daughters a story every night when they went to bed. What his daughters didn’t want to hear was a lecture on why you shouldn’t steal; but through a fun story you can get that same message across, adapted to the person or audience in front of you, so that it really lands.
Look at one of the companies that spends the most on advertising, Coca-Cola: it has never tried to sell you Coke on its taste or because it’s on special offer. Every ad tells a story.
In the same way, when Microsoft and Apple started out, they didn’t sell computers but everything you could do with a computer. Adapt the story.
5. And adapt the message
In a technological age like ours, there are many people who are genuine tech geniuses, and I’m sure they sell excellent products or services, but they forget to adapt their message to an audience that isn’t as passionate about technology as they are.
Every week I hear lots of business ideas, and I often have to make an extra effort to understand what people are trying to tell me. Other times I get emails that leave me wondering, when I reach the end: “Does this guy want me to buy something from him, or does he want to buy something from me?”
You know what you’re saying and what you mean, but the people you’re sending the message to don’t always know. Even the most complex things can be put in very simple terms.
The Microsoft vs Apple case
There isn’t a single passionate tech expert who will tell you Apple computers are worse than Microsoft ones. Quite the opposite: they’ll tell you Windows is crap. But Microsoft won the personal computer battle, even though Apple built the best personal computer there was. The mass-market computer buyer really wants a cheap computer and doesn’t see much difference between one and another. In that sense, Microsoft simplified its message (or rather, didn’t complicate it).
6. Laughter and humour
Laughter is the best way to put people at ease when you’re communicating. If you make someone laugh, they’re more likely to like you. If someone likes you, you’re more likely to sell them something. Laughter takes people away from the sense of danger, and humour makes them feel comfortable.
That’s why most speakers always look for a way to get the whole room laughing. Not all of them manage it, because sometimes it comes across as a bit forced.
7. Get to the point
Don’t ramble, and don’t branch off too far from your main message, because you’ll lose the attention of that person or group. Think about the information you need to share and try to make it land clearly and forcefully. Some people like to go round in circles in their conversations. As a rule, listeners prefer straight lines.
8. Be patient with questions
We’re all ignorant, just not about the same things. In the same way that I sometimes ask people to explain something to me as if they were explaining it to an eight-year-old, be patient when someone doesn’t quite understand what you mean. Don’t get irritated because you’re asked something you’re tired of answering.
I’ve often seen people get carried away when they know about something and see someone else get it wrong. But never stop being humble: remember that we’re all ignorant about a great many things, and we want others to be patient with us when we’re faced with something we don’t quite understand.
9. Don’t get defensive when you’re asked a tough question
Take a deep breath, pause, and try to answer the question politely, but don’t get defensive when the hard questions come. If you don’t have all the details, calmly say, “I don’t know the answer to that.” And if you’d rather not answer, say so politely, with a smile. But never get indignant, because people will think they’ve found a weak spot or that you have something to hide.
Further reading
Featured image: Technepoiesis, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
