7 Ways to Improve Your Communication Skills

by Anne M. Bachrach (USA)

You don’t have to be an amazing orator to be an effective business communicator, but you do need to have communication skills that are finely honed. If you’re an entrepreneur or a business team leader, your livelihood or your paycheck could depend upon your communication skills.

When you talk to a business owner who has effective communication skills you simply know it.

That person is:

  1. Succinct
  2. Clear
  3. A Good Listener

If you are not certain whether your communication skills are as effective as they should be, or if you know they are lacking, here are seven ways you can easily improve your business communication skills.

  1. Be complete in your communications. There is no room for being vague when you’re speaking with a client, a potential client or a team member. Don’t leave the conversation hanging to the point where the individual has to fill in the blanks because you haven’t given all the pertinent facts. Being succinct and direct is always ideal.
  2. You need to be clear. This goes hand-in-hand with being complete. If you are delivering a communication and you are stumbling over your words, backtracking to fill in the blanks of the earlier part of your conversation and being unclear you need to take a step back and work on your communication style. When you see the eyes of the listener glaze over or if they stop taking notes, you can rest assured they aren’t certain where the talk is going and they too have lost track of it.
  3. You need to consider the feelings of the individual to whom you’re speaking. With whom are you speaking? Is the person on the same page or at the same level of information for the discussion you’re having? Make sure there is no information asymmetry as that will put the listener at a disadvantage and he or she may feel you’re withholding information.
  4. Offer concrete details. If there are steps in a process or in a project that cannot be wavered from you need to offer those concrete details and back it up with examples. A concrete detail will leave nothing to chance and will help clarify the overall message.
  5. All your business communications need to be correct. This is especially true if you’re communicating via email or other written forms of communication. There is no place for spelling or grammar errors. Don’t take shortcuts or do ‘shorthand’ in your business communications. Every written communication you send should be as factually accurate and as grammatically flawless as possible. If you don’t trust yourself to deliver this high level of correctness, hire an editor to proofread your business communications. Spelling and grammar errors may make the reader mistrust the other information you are conveying.
  6. Look at every business communication as a way to build relationships. Off-colour jokes and misinformation will not build relationships, and it might even cause the listener to erect mental barriers that will prevent him or her from truly listening to the rest of your conversation.
  7. When you are an effective communicator, you are helping grow the business or your own company. When you have a lack of communication or a roadblock to open lines of communication, the organisation may collapse.

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To know more about Accountability Coach Anne, click HERE

Source: iCN Issue 36  (Using NLP in Coaching); pages 22-23

About Anne Bachrach

Anne Bachrach is known as The Accountability Coach™.  She has over 23 years of experience training and coaching.  Business owners and entrepreneurs who utilize Anne’s proven systems and processes work less, make more money, and have a more balanced and successful life. Anne is the author of the books, Excuses Don’t Count; Results Rule!, and Live Life with No Regrets; How the Choices We Make Impact Our Lives, No Excuses!, and The Work Life Balance Emergency Kit. Go to https://www.accountabilitycoach.com/Landing/ and get 3 FREE gifts including a special report on 10 Power Tips for Getting Focused, Organized, and Achieving Your Goals Now.  Join the FREE Silver Inner Circle Membership today and receive 10% off on all products and services, in addition to having access to assessments and high-content resources to help you achieve your goals so you can experience a more balanced and successful life (https://www.accountabilitycoach.com/coaching-store/inner-circle-store/).