Upfront Communications

There are many different types of speeches that we can give: humorous, informative, motivational and of course, ones that are designed to get your audience to start thinking a particular way. This last type just may be the hardest type of speech to give.

Where Do You Start When You Want To Persuade?

At its very heart, persuasion is the art of getting your audience to see the world the same way that you do. As all of us speakers know, no matter if you are talking at a graduation or a business gathering, an audience is not a single entity – it’s a lot of different people sitting there who all have different opinions on any given topic. Your job as a speaker is to win over as many of them as possible.

Pick Your Problem

John Coleman is an author and a former U.S. national speech champion who knows a thing or two about how to build a speech that can persuade. Coleman points out that before you can have any hope of persuading an audience, both of you need to agree that there is a problem in the first place.

As obvious as this may seem, you could talk until you are blue in the face and it would all be for nothing if your audience didn’t agree with you that there is a problem. In order to get your audience to agree that there is a problem that needs to be solved, you need to do three things:

• Isolate it & limit its scope
• Make it urgent
• Make it significant

You Have To Keep Them Isolated

Have you ever heard that phrase “You can’t boil the ocean”? When it comes to persuading an audience it applies – you need to make sure that you pick a problem that you can actually do something about. Scope down a bigger problem (“world hunger”) to something that your audience can do something about (“hunger in our town”).

Run!

Well, don’t run but you do want to convince your audience that they need to take action. Just talking about a problem isn’t enough to cause your audience to actually agree to DO anything. Somehow you are going to have to light a fire underneath them so that they will end up taking some action (that’s why it’s called “persuasion”!).

It’s Only A Problem If It’s Significant

Assuming that you’ve been able to convince your audience that there is a problem, your next step is to make sure that you bring it home – you’ve got to relate the problem to their lives. This is going to require that you have an understanding of who your audience is so that you can describe to them how this problem is going to affect them in terms that will motivate them to take action.

Final Thoughts

Speeches that persuade are not easy speeches to give. However, as with so many things in life – it’s the ability to do the hard things that make us more valuable. If you take the time to understand how to prepare to give an effective persuasive speech, then you’ll have a powerful new speaking tool and you’ll be able to intimately connect with your audience and make a lasting impact in their lives.

Here are a few powerful persuasion techniques:

- Use clear communication, fluid speech and right choice of words. Persuasion starts with confidence in your speech. Of course, all these will show that you are certain of what you are offering, and that you are believable. You also need to project that you are likable so that you can persuade people even if you just met them the first time.

- Establish rapport with the audience.  Being likable will make you become more believable and people will trust you more. The more they can trust you, the easier they can be persuaded.

- Do something nice to them first. People usually reciprocate when good things are done to them and this can also be one of the secrets of persuasion. Persuasion can indeed be easy if you are persuading someone who feels he/she needs to reciprocate with the good thing you have done to him in the past. You could give the whole audience a copy of your book or e-book or have a fun prize under someone’s chair.

Wishing you all the best with your persuasion skills!

All of us are looking for ways to improve our time management in the workplace.

In part this stems from the ever-present more/less challenge:

• How can we do more with fewer resources?
• How can we get more done in less time?
• How can we create bigger results with a fraction of the effort?

Comprehensive solutions to this problem are elusive. Still you can achieve results by taking aim at interruptions, the ‘public enemy number one’ of good workplace time management.

Reclaim Control over Your Time by Minimising Interruptions

Every time you’re called on to stop one thing before you’re done and switch to another you lose valuable time. Since interruptions are constant for most of us, the sheer volume of time lost can be incredible. To get a good sense of how time disappears when we’re interrupted imagine we’re discussing a new car. Beautifully designed inside and out, the car has been brought to market with an odd feature – every time the car stops for any reason it empties a quarter of a litre of petrol from the bottom of the  tank.

Imagine what it would be like to drive in that car. You set out on a journey with a full tank of petrol. Traffic is heavy so you make many stops not just at stop signs and red lights but because cars are stopped in front of you. Perhaps 3km later you’ve made more than a dozen stops – 4 litres of petrol have been poured out along the road. Most times, by the time you reach your destination you are down to less than half a tank. More often than not, if you’re headed out of your immediate area, you can’t get where you’re going without stopping for petrol one or more times on the way.

The interruptions we allow during our workday have exactly the same impact on our productivity that the strange car’s engine and petrol leak have on its fuel supply. Every time we stop short in the middle of something some of our progress and momentum evaporates. What is the fuel we’re leaving behind on the road? The time it takes to stop and transfer our attention and then start again and refocus our attention. Make no doubt about it, these stops and starts are as costly as the ones on our imaginary car. If you’re interrupted 5 times in 30 minutes your actual productive time in that half hour may be 12 minutes or less.

Cumulatively, interruptions steal major portions of our workday. Projects take longer to finish. Progress is harder to make because we’re always responding to someone else instead of choosing our own path and schedule. To beat this problem and improve your time management in the workplace you need to claim some uninterrupted time. When you’re ready to do so, hang up a do not disturb sign, turn off your email program and your phone and create a cocoon in which you can perform your work without being interrupted for at least part of the day whenever possible.

Things Will Carry on Fine for the Short Time You’re Unavailable

It is almost heresy in the 21st century to suggest being deliberately unavailable. Our technology and our culture are totally focused on the opposite impulse – being available all the time to everybody. But except in a very few cases being unreachable for a bit doesn’t impact the end result. Think honestly about how many of the interruptions you allow in any given day were so time critical that a short delay in your participation would have made a difference.

You may be in the habit of being always available. You may like being always available because it gives you a voice in everything that’s going on. But would a delay have been a true problem or just an unusual, maybe somewhat disappointing, experience?

The fact is that cutting yourself off for a bit can yield big dividends to your time management in the workplace by putting you back in control of your time. Ignore everything, except the project you are working on immediately, for half an hour to an hour regularly and watch how much more you get done in a day or a week. That cocoon may very well grow on you.

It is easy to state that everyone interacting with customers should be thinking of customer service and acting promptly and politely. But what does that mean? In one sentence, we could characterise this as treating our customers as we would want to be treated. Going a little further, here are a few components of a great customer service attitude to improve the interactions between employees and customers.

At any given moment you, your clients, and employees are dealing with one, or another, challenges in life. No one has escaped from this life untouched by problems, both big and small. The clearer this is to us the easier it is to be kind to others. But if we are also dealing with our own “issues” how is it possible to do this? It is not easy, it is a learned skill. It must be practiced and practiced until it becomes habit. This habit needs to be policy and employees need to be encouraged daily until the habit is developed.

Customer Relationships are built on this knowledge. Why people act a certain way is can often be based on their level of life challenges at a given moment. This includes both employees and customers. We cannot solve all their problems nor should we, but the fact that a person might be struggling in their personal or professional life needs to in the back of our mind whenever we deal with people.

There is nothing as memorable as a person’s kindness when we are in a difficult situation.

Help your clients to solve their immediate problems (pertaining to your business!) and they will be satisfied. Give them reason to smile and they will be impressed. Do it every time they contact you and they will never leave you. Client loyalty is a reflection of the level of care they perceive they are getting from a business. This does not mean we sacrifice our profits and productivity. It means that we increase our profits and productivity. Happy employees work better and exhibit higher levels of company loyalty when dealing with customers and happy customers will return and tell their friends.

Use a pleasant tone in person and over the phone. Gestures and tone can convey more than the actual words used, and over the telephone gestures cannot be seen, so tone is even more important. Customers can identify the mood you are in by your tone, which can consist of your pace, volume, inflection, intensity and attitude. Notice how none of these have anything to do with the actual words you may be saying. Adjusting your pace to that of the customer and changing your volume to ensure the message is heard assist in communication and will present a more favourable response from the customer. Maintaining a positive attitude and using inflection and intensity in your voice can also help you “connect” with the customer and stand out as giving superior service. Remember, service is often measured by how the customer perceives the entire experience. Pleasurable communication with those waiting on you heightens the experience. Above all, smile as you communicate. Even over the phone, a smile does wonders.

Like your tone, gestures play a part in your communication, and thus your success with customers. How do you feel when you walk into a place of business and those working there fail to even look up and acknowledge your presence or greet you? Without saying a word, they have conveyed a message to you, and not a very positive one. Have you ever stood waiting while two employees continued on gossiping or discussing personal matters, seemingly not caring whether you did business there or not? How did that make you feel? Actions speak louder than words, and if you act badly, customers will remember it. Employees should be taught to treat every customer like the boss. Would you stand around gossiping if the boss walked in and wanted something? Would you be disrespectful to your boss? If your boss was on the phone, would you put him/her on hold to take another call, especially a personal one? Without customers, there would not be any jobs, and in that light, the customer really is more important than the boss and should be treated as such.

We have addressed tone and actions as important ingredients to successful customer service communication, but what about the actual words you say. Naturally you will not use foul language or belittle customers. However, many people politely and innocently use language that detracts from a positive experience. What is the difference you feel when someone tells you, “I can’t,” “I won’t,” or “I shouldn’t,” as opposed to someone saying, “Let’s see what we can do.” Which focuses on solving the problem? Which makes you feel more positive? Which would you rather hear, “I don’t think we can do this,” or, “This is what we can do.” Substitute the positive rather than focusing on the negative for greater customer service.

Finally, do what you promise. If you do not follow-up and do what you promise, you will be remembered for poor customer service. For a company to succeed, everyone must be accountable for their promises. Even if you cannot provide the final solution, you can follow-up to make sure no one has dropped the ball. Lack of follow-up gives the customer the impression that you do not care if his problem is fixed or not. The customer will consider you irresponsible and ungrateful for his/her business. People give their money to businesses and companies that make them feel good about spending their money. Never forget this. Customers have many choices, and they will spend money where people appreciate their business. The company that has a continuous commitment to provide outstanding customer service that is evident by the words, attitudes, and actions of everyone employed there will stand out above the competitors in the essential area of customer service.

No matter what you sell or manufacture; from fertilizer to real estate, from preschools to restaurants, you are first in the business of providing solutions for people. These solutions need to include how the person feels when they walk out the door, and you must always keep that in mind.

An individual can genuinely have a memory lapse where he/she truly doesn’t recall having said a certain thing. It happens to the best of us at some time or another! Memory lapse is a perfectly explainable psychological occurrence. Why? Because, we do so much in any given day, only the important issues tend to sink into our long-term memory — and sometimes even these fail to do so — everything else is ‘in and out’ fast. According to experts, people remember what’s important, interesting, necessary or rewarding. These are the ‘want to’ or ‘have to’ remember things.

One does not remember what’s unimportant, uninteresting, unnecessary, unrewarding — the ‘don’t want to’ or ‘don’t have to’ remember things. I have a tool to analyse the want/don’t want weight in my life. I just set up a line where I write the headings, “0% – Don’t want or Don’t have to” at the top left end of it, and “100% Want or Have to” at the top right end. In the middle top I write “50% – Indifferent”.

If you find you have a problems remembering certain situations, list them under the appropriate heading. Ask yourself, “How much do I care about this?” The “want or have to” things are exactly what the words represent. I want more money, so I’ll remember my overtime. I have to get my report in or I may lose my job, so I’ll remember the deadline. These are needs or “feel good” things. On the other hand the “don’t want” or “don’t have to” things are: I don’t want to go to that boring meeting, so I don’t remember the date. I don’t have to take messages for a peer, so I won’t write down the information. These are the no needs or “feel bad” things. How important is this job? I want it because… or I don’t want it because…

The “indifferent” point at 50% means exactly that — doesn’t matter either way! I couldn’t care less whether I miss this meeting or not! It’s not important or necessary to my job. To get a constructive analysis, one needs to see the effect of the issue either to the left or to the right extreme. For example, ask a question like “what if it was at 0% (if I didn’t do it), what would happen?” Or, “what would happen if this situation was at 100% (if I did do it)?” Therefore should I do this or forget it?

You may use this to analyse someone else’s forgetfulness to see how important or non-important a situation may be to this person. He/she forgot the picnic Saturday — couldn’t have been very important to him/her. Everything received in the brain is automatically either filed or discarded according to the various degrees of “want” and “don’t want”.

Or a matter could be totally drowned by another pressing issue. I remember a friend calling me at work one day about something that was totally outside of business when my mind was immersed in the production problems of the day. She began to tell me she had finally completed the French translation of a game she had invented and asked me if I wanted a copy. I responded in a way that showed no particular interest one way or the other. Her next statement carried the sound of puzzlement in her voice but she did not elaborate. We concluded the conversation in a normal manner. After I hung up the phone, I thought about her response and wondered why she had sounded despondent. I kept thinking about this, trying to trace anything that might have been conducive to it. After a couple of days, something else triggered the fact that, months before, we had had a conversation about her project when she had asked me if I could translate the game for her. I had no time and had had to decline. I had said to her at that time “… when you get it done, I’d like to get a copy.” Even though there was some genuine interest at the time, I forgot all about it.

Now, months later in this unexpected and out of context phone call, I did not recall our previous discussion. Why? Because the degree of importance to me was low. It needed her to jolt my memory. So if you do have memory lapses, do yourself a favour and analyse why it might be.

We are all overwhelmed with information and mental ‘stuff’ in this generation. If it is important, make whatever efforts you need to do to remember – such as write it down in your diary or outlook calendar (not a piece of paper which you might lose!). If it’s not important, well, just let it go. We can’t do everything!

Many employees, even with degrees, often seem to lack many basic skills required to do a good job. Some companies are even plagued with having uneducated personnel particularly in areas where new skills are constantly required in order to be competitive in business.  This often results in new employees needing to be hired.

“Hard” skills include economics, accounting, information technology, strategic planning, etc.  While “soft” skills are the human relationship skills that include: emotional awareness and management of mood, the ability to create an atmosphere of trust and growth, taking actions that result in a deeper level of commitment and integrity, and discovering the ability to connect to others effectively. In sociological terms, soft skills refers to the cluster of personality traits, social graces, facility with language, personal habits, friendliness, and optimism that mark people to varying degrees. It complements hard skills, which are the technical requirements of a job. Both hard and soft skills are crucial in any organization, particularly when it comes to dealing with customers on any level.

As the company grows, soft skills training become more important because the responsibility of leading the company also grows and changes. Outstanding leaders of the organisation are often not the most talented at technical skills, but they are the ones who have learned to be good judges of talent and excellent at nurturing the best in their employees. Effective leaders in every department find that training staff in soft skills creates a deeper commitment to their job.

In general, workers that have been up-skilled in general “people skills” are able to do their job faster, make less mistakes, and this, of course, contributes to the company’s bottom line. An advantage of skill-based training is that, the results are measurable in increased productivity. As the organisation begins to function in greater harmony, the business accelerates. It is a very pleasant side effect that these soft skills attract committed and enthusiastic customers.  Customers who interact with organisations that have strong and effective leadership become an additional sales force because they also convince their friends and acquaintances that the company’s expertise is worth paying for.

Why should businesses spend money on soft skills training? Simply because staff that have the right skills to do an exceptional job are more productive and give your business the competitive edge. Trained staff tend to contribute more in the workplace as well and that leads to better team work and a better quality of service for every customer . It’s a fact that a well trained workforce can have a measurable impact on performance and the bottom line. Businesses must keep changing their work practices and infrastructure to stay ahead of the competition and keep up with the global marketplace, ensuring that employees have the skills to cope with  new markets and have the latest skills specific to their own industries. These result in greater benefits and productivity for the company.

Company management want to know that the money they are spending on training is well spent and that they are getting a sufficient return on their training investment (ROI). Regardless of the size or type of an industry or business, effective training does have a measurable impact on performance and the bottom line. According to a research study (Source: Smith A., 2001, Return on Investment in Training: Research Readings ), productivity increases while training takes place, the staff who receive formal training can be 230% more productive than untrained colleagues who are working in the same role. Improvement factors include increased productivity where the training staff can do their job more rapidly, deliver increased  level and quality of service and increased efficiency.

Training also provides a cheaper solution to the company because investing in the company’s own workforce saves a great deal of money and time in the long run. Achieving accreditation and business awards can make the company well known in the marketplace  and give them a great reputation. Improved employee retention is another very important factor which saves significant costs as losing one competent person  can be equivalent to one year of pay and benefits.

Today, smart businesses are looking to training and soft skill development as an investment rather than an expense. Over time, companies that are consistent with soft skill training see growth in turnover, higher profits and reduced costs, innovation and higher levels of staff motivation and enhanced loyalty. Above all, the main reason to train is to improve the company’s bottom line. The investment in training consists of the cost of the training and the time spent by the personnel from their jobs. By measuring the effect on the company profits before and after training, and then comparing with the costs of the training, a company can determine their return-on-investment and measure, over time, how these have positively affected their company’s bottom line. We are still in business after 15 years, training hundreds of thousands of staff, simply because businesses have done the ROI for themselves and come to the clear conclusion that delivering soft skills training for their staff does substantially improve the bottom line of their business.