Communication Skills Power

In the world of food, it’s said that they first bite is with the eyes. Well, when it comes to meeting new people, a first impression is a lasting impression, and it’s important you make a good one.

After that, you have to work at holding their interest. Let’s look at some steps you can take to ensure you do just that.

1. First impressions count

When you meet someone new, they’re going to size you up before you even open your mouth. So, be sure to bathe, shave (whether it be your face or legs - depending on your gender), apply some aftershave and anti-perspirant and maybe some cologne or perfume.

Pick out a nice outfit; something appropriate for the situation you’re going to be meeting people in, and that is in style. After all, going to a business forum in a suit twenty years out of date is not going to impress people.

As to the situation; if you’re going to a beach volleyball party, long pants, a shirt and a tie is a tad too fancy. So, dress appropriately.

2. Body language

Nothing says “I don’t want to talk to anyone” like sitting off in a corner, your shoulders hunched over, and your arms crossed. To get people interested in talking to you, you need to be out among the crowd and make your body language open to others.

3. Your face

This goes along with body language. If your eyes are cast down to the floor, if your expression is blank and without emotion, that does not signal friendliness to others.

So, paint a small smile on your face, and hold eye contact. Don’t go overboard! A huge ear to ear smile might be seen as forced and downright creepy. Also, holding eye contact too much can be seen as you trying to intimidate anyone you talk to.

4. Be friendly

Speak in a steady, even tone. Don’t whisper, and don’t raise your voice - at least not without reason.  After all, if you start telling an interesting story, you’ll want to give inflection to your voice to make it a really entertaining tale. But, with new people who don’t know you, you don’t want to chance scaring them by going overboard.

5. Ask questions

There’s nothing in the world people like more than talking about themselves. So, ask people about them; and then pay attention to what they say. If you ask good follow-up questions, it shows that you’re paying attention; people like that.

6. Be prepared to participate

Yes, people like to talk about themselves, but eventually they’re going to want to hear from you. So, do a bit of prep work. Study current events like politics, movies, pop culture and be ready to talk about them.

Do you have some amusing stories to tell? Have you just returned from a vacation, and can talk about where you went and what you did? People always enjoy a good story.

7. Don’t monopolize the conversation

You may have a ton of jokes and funny stories to tell, but come up for air once in a while. Let other people talk.

Along those same lines, don’t talk about just one thing; that can get dull.

If the other person brings up another subject, don’t feel the need to steer the conversation back to what you were talking about before; be flexible.

Holding the interest of others can be a challenge, but it’s not impossible. Pay attention to your appearance, your body lanaguage, and how you converse with them. Do all these things, and you have a good chance of being a success at interacting with new people.

Getting people to pay attention to what you say: ah, now that is a challenge every school teacher, advertiser, and director of marketing has been trying to figure out since the dawn of time. Anyone who has ever been in a position of authority will realize this can be difficult. So, if you are faced with this problem, what are some of the methods you can use to defeat the poor attention span of your audience?

Well, first realize the root cause of the problem. In our modern, high-tech high-speed world, people are bombarded on a daily basis with all manner of images - sights and sounds come at them from iPods, TV, radio, the Internet, and so on and so forth. So, if you stand before someone and just try to speak in a flat monotone voice - something like what Ben Stein did in the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”; you are going to have the same affect on your audience as he did on his students. You are going to put them to sleep!

So, how to liven them up? Step one, figure out what sort of audience you are going to be speaking to. After all, if you talk to a bunch of senior citizens, they are quite a different group to some high school seniors. For that matter, highly gifted students are quite different from a group of “special needs” students. So, you must tailor your talk to your audience. Also, speaking to a group is different to speaking to an individual.

Next, look for ways to relate what you are talking about to what is important in their lives. Let us take the example of the high school students. You want to talk to them about the importance of learning to write. Oh, can’t you just see their eyes rolling back in their heads as you try to sell them on that? If at all possible, have some sort of audio/visual presentation. These days, just about anyone can do a PowerPoint presentation. So, make use of that. By giving them things to look at, you can stimulate attention.

Also, don’t preach. Involve your audience and speak on their Level. So, when talking about writing, talk about books that are of interest to them. Don’t drone on about the classics, use recent books that they would like to hear about. If you are talking to minority students, maybe mention how Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. had to write out his famous “I Have a Dream” speech in order to learn it. Maybe show a clip of the speech. The moral here is: make what you are saying relevant to your audience. Make them care about what you are saying.

If you are trying to get someone to a reprimand or a  Warning, avoid being confrontational. Appreciaate your Audience’s point of view.

There is also the issue of the time and place of your talk. If you give your speech early in the morning or late in the day, people might be tired. Also, if they are hungry, they will be less likely to pay attention. If the room you are in is very hot or cold, your audience will be uncomfortable and not inclined to listen to you. If you can, make sure you are speaking in an area where there are few distractions and the ambience, temperature etc is pleasant.

Finally, there is the old classic rule about leaving them wanting more. Often, the best way to catch people’s attention is with humor. A few jokes, at the right places of your speech can help to keep your audience focused on you. If you’re an entertaining and interesting speaker, people will be more likely to listen to you throughout what you have to say.

Many people around us fail to respect us. Some people use us and take advantage of us, while others talk and behave with us in ways that offend us and hurt us. However, when people fail to respect us it is our own fault. It’s our fault because we have failed to establish boundaries for these people. Setting boundaries is one way to get people to respect you.

The first thing to determine when someone is disrespecting you is; are they intentionally doing this or are they just not aware of your boundaries? Knowing the answer to this question will help you to decide how to respond to get the results you desire. If the person is not aware of your boundaries the solution can be as simple as making that person aware of the boundary. However, there are many people in the world who don’t care about the boundaries of others. These people become a little more problematic to deal with.

Nonetheless, in boundary setting it is vitally important for you to determine what a boundary is for you. Sometimes we confuse boundaries with a pet peeve. A pet peeve is something that gets on our nerves, something that is really not a disrespectful behavior directed toward us, but that just rubs us up the wrong way. Take for example the person who just talks to hear themselves talk. This is not really a disrespect of your boundaries, although it can drive some people crazy. Unfortunately, there just happens to be people in the world who just talk to talk, with not much useful to say. This then becomes a matter of acceptance or, if it bothers you that much, one of avoidance.

Once you have determined the difference between a boundary and a pet peeve you need to consider any consequences of boundary setting with those not used to you setting boundaries. More often than not, when people violate our boundaries it’s because we have let them and when we try to establish them after the fact, these people may themselves take offense, which in turn can result in a negative response.

The thing we have to weigh out in establishing boundaries is the value of our boundaries verses the value of the relationship. Some people will over react to your boundary and it then becomes an issue those individuals need to resolve for themselves, if you are serious about your boundaries and the resulting respect you will gain. But this can affect your relationship with that person. To gain respect from others you must have respect for yourself, and in so doing you may have to take a stand on those grounds. Moreover, gaining respect from others has nothing to do with them liking you.

Now that you have determined that it is necessary to set a boundary you may want to practice what you will say to the person. Because setting boundaries is often touchy ground you will want to make sure you say the right thing. This does require a degree of sensitivity to the other’s feelings while at the same time establishing the desired boundary. This can be tricky. Setting boundaries is not always easy and therefore you might want to find a friend you can trust to help you with what to say.

Next, set up a time with the person you want to talk to about setting the boundary with. The time you select should be a time when you can have the other’s attention, a time when they are able to listen to you in explaining what is bothering you. In these types of communications your lengthy explanations are not necessary. It is best to get right to the point as soon as possible.