Today, people face multiple communication barriers affecting their personal lives and professional performance. In a nutshell, there is nothing complicated about communication. The inherent barriers, on the other hand, can make it difficult and frustrating. While your expertise can put you at the top of the heap, effective communication requires more than professional knowledge and competence.
Challenges typical for the digital era are, for the most part, associated with the lack of soft skills. Therefore, strong interpersonal skills are crucial for connecting with your audience and building rapport with clients. Any conversation or correspondence calls for a set of soft skills essential for successful business interaction. While often overlooked, communication skills rule the business world today. The following 10 tips can come in handy if you want to improve your communication skills and build strong client relationships.
1. Train yourself to avoid impulsivity
Managing your emotions and taking some extra time to think before you start speaking is the number one rule when it comes to working on your verbal communication skills. While emotions can be tricky, thinking helps to cut down on unintended repercussions that might be a result of unclear communication. Organizing your thoughts at any moment of the conversation can prove to be helpful, especially when it comes to impromptu discussions.
2. Structure your speech
To avoid awkward pauses and deal with the fear of looking unprofessional, it is crucial to prepare in advance. One of the popular ways to keep your speech smooth is by using visual aids. However, relying only on visual aids can also be damaging. Even if you are an excellent salesperson, there is not always time to write down your thoughts or to prepare visuals. In this case, it can be helpful to use scripts for structuring your speech and seamlessly direct a conversation towards a topic of your choosing.
3. Remember that nonverbal communication matters
While your marketing efforts can result in the unparalleled performance of your ad campaigns, adding a personal touch to converting leads into clients is priceless. With video and audio conferencing on the rise, most of the communication happens online. Therefore, your tone of voice is as crucial as your body language. Controlling both will be a great asset and will help to improve your communication skills.
4. Deliver information in a clear and concise manner
Using concise language can be a challenge, especially if the industry-specific jargon and terminology became an integral part of your everyday conversations. By avoiding complex and intricate sentences, you can get your point across in a more efficient manner. In a nutshell, keep your points short and laconic to remain approachable.
5. Practice confidence
Gaining trust and recognition among your clients is closely related to acting and speaking with confidence. Naturally, multiple factors can influence the power of your speech like the word choice, the tone of your voice, your body language, your competence, and knowledge of the subject.
6. Use call recording services
Call recording service can help you evaluate the performance of your employees or revisit any of your conversations to reflect on how your communication skills can be improved. With call recording, businesses can optimize and improve the performance of inbound and outbound calls. As an ROI-driven marketing platform, Phonexa offers the capacity to analyze the calls, train employees, and improve the performance of the business along with customer experience.
7. Keep the audience actively engaged
To reach this goal, you need to establish trust and get to know your audience. Building strong relationships and practicing mindfulness can help you keep your clients engaged at all times. Being a compelling speaker is only 50% of success. Driving attention to your points, engaging the audience through questions or suggestions, and picking up on the vibes is the art of successful client relationships. Empathy, in this case, is an ace in the hole since it is an essential element of interpersonal communication.
8. Reiterate the key points
To make the key aspects clear and help your clients retain the essential information, start and end your conversations with the key points. Alternatively, you can consider sharing a one-page file with your clients before the conversation takes place. Make sure that this file includes all the key takeaways for your clients’ convenience. This way, you will achieve greater clarity.
9. Be an active listener
A good speaker is always a good listener and vice versa. Naturally, one is not possible without the other. To build trust and connect with your clients, you need to listen to what they have to say and genuinely care about their suggestions, concerns, and ideas. Active listening is largely connected to emotional intelligence, a.k.a empathy. Being a good listener guarantees an in-depth understanding of any issue your client is worried or excited about. Besides, it comes in handy when you need to provide a thoughtful answer.
10. Practice public speaking
Surrounding yourself with different social scenarios outside of work or at work is a great way to hone your skills. The most popular approach is public speaking at any place you deem worthy. For instance, you can initiate giving a useful industry-related presentation at your office or online, take the initiative and become a speaker at a conference, or visualize yourself giving a meaningful speech. Practice makes perfect, and while positive thinking counts, it is the only fundamental approach to improving your verbal communication skills.
