How To Successfully Begin a Conversation In Business
Dr. Lund shared that men in general and women
in business settings (so men all the time, and women mostly in a work setting
only), want to know three things before they are willing to enter into a
conversation with you:
1. Is
what you want to talk about going to be painful?
2. How
long is it going to take?
3. When
you are done talking, what do you want from me?
If they don’t know these three things up front,
they will make excuses to avoid your
call or to avoid talking to you on the phone.
The same applies if you come into contact with them in person. He shared
that your manager or boss in a work setting will always want to know those
three things in advance of agreeing to a conversation as well. The reason he
gave was that men and executive women always want to know the exit to the
conversation before they feel safe engaging in it.
So for example, if you are calling a client,
the very first thing you may want to say
is: “I realize how busy you are so I will only need one minute of your time to let you know about __________.” This way the other person knows it will be
quick and painless and that you just want to give them a few facts on the call that will only last a minute. Now they can
relax and listen to you as you share the
requested info. Otherwise, without knowing if the call will be long and
painful, they may try to make an excuse that they can’t talk right now, etc.
Same thing goes for a sales team. They call a
prospective client and the first thing out of their mouth needs to be something
to the effect of, “I realize that your time is very valuable so I will only
need two minutes to schedule a time for a second call where I can do a
10-minute demonstration of our ___________.”
Same advice applies for approaching your
manager or boss to set up a meeting. Let them know if it will be painful, how
long it will take and the end result you are asking for – they will be much
more apt to schedule a time for you.
How to successfully conduct a conversation in
business:
Dr. Lund shared some amazing tips on how to
better understand the way we interpret communication from others. He also revealed some very interesting
statistics on this topic. He said that when someone else communicates with us,
the way we interpret their message is based on the following three things:
55% is based on their facial expressions and
their body language.
37% is based on the tone of their voice.
8% is based on the words they say.
Dr. Lund said that these percentages above are
the averages across both men and women together, but that if you looked at
women alone they would even give greater weight to the facial expression and body
language and even less on the words. This tells us that it is critical that we
become very self-aware of how our body language is speaking to others as well
as the tone we use. One thing I always recommend to people is to keep a small
mirror by your office phone so that when you are on the phone talking to people
you can look in the mirror because it makes you more aware of the facial
expressions you have, which makes you smile more, which in turn ends up coming
through in your tone of voice over the phone. It works wonders on how well you
come off on a phone call, trust me!
Success in business is greatly impacted for
better or worse by the way in which we communicate. Happiness in our personal
lives is also greatly dependent on this very same skill. If you don’t believe
me just ask any married couple! Becoming
a good communicator takes practice and consistent attention and effort on our
part, and it is a skill that we cannot afford to overlook. There is no doubt
that we can all benefit from Dr. Lund’s tips on how to better approach people
when we begin a conversation, as well as his advice that we “don`t communicate
to be understood; rather, communicate so as not to be misunderstood.”39
