Business Communications
BUSINESS IS ALL ABOUT COMMUNICATIONS
What is your voice saying about you?
Today, people expect more than ever. It doesn’t matter whether you are the president, executive director, owner of your company, king of the hill or the commander in chief. As business professionals, we know that it is our expertise, our intention to offer a quality product or service, and our customer service skills that affect our clients and future prospects.
We work hard and keep working hard to maintain that edge and to keep abreast of our competitors. If we want to rise in our field, we not only have to know our business, we have to communicate it to everyone inside and outside of the business.
Business is all about communications.
The problem is, there is no cookie-cutter approach to communications. How we speak to clients, prospects, employees, employers, investors, vendors, co-workers and associates varies tremendously. Navigating through all of the daily business communications can be as dangerous as driving in snow through rush hour traffic.
So what happens when we don’t have hard and fast rules to follow? We shut down and begin to speak in a manner that is based on official rhetoric, words that are contrived, filled with jargon, and the message has the corporate stamp of approval. Most importantly, the trend shows that it is our language that keeps us at a safe level of conformity also known as mediocrity! We are missing the simplest form of communication of all.
Our voice is one of the most powerful tools that we all have available and most professionals don’t have a clue as to magic they encompass. Have you tuned into American Idol this season? Part of the entertainment includes the contestants that have absolutely no talent and believe that the judges are incorrect when they are eliminated. We, the viewers, are all amazed that these people can not hear themselves when they sing. Unfortunately, this denial runs true for many people who speak.
Speaking is a learned behavior.
Like most of our behaviors we learned to talk from the adults in our early life. We have been speaking in the same manner, at the same rate with the same force for our entire lives. So it is easy to understand why most people do not know that it is their voice that inspires, informs, motivates and persuades, not their words!
The common belief presently held is that the power is in public speaking. The misconception here is that people actually believe that there is a difference between public speaking and speaking one-on-one. This simply is not true.
In business we are always presenting or persuading others to hire us, approve our budgets, sponsor our projects, buy our products or services, give us a raise, present our ideas at a staff meeting, etc. It is estimated that there are 100,000 presentations made in this country every day and 90% of those presentations are made one-on-one. The fact remains that all speaking is public speaking and our voice is either advancing our reputation or it is sabotaging our success.
A monotoned, high- pitched, speed demon will never relay the same message as a melodious, confident and articulate individual would, even if the words were exact. It is our voices that demonstrate our intentions and it is our voices that embody our personalities.
Even after all of the e-mails have been sent, it is our voice that will always introduce us first and it is our first tactic to creating a favorable impression. To accept any low standard of the use of our voice is to compromise our ability to communicate.
Your voice creates relationships.
Picking up the phone, talking at a networking group, presenting your business to a corporate client or simply connecting with old clients can be an “affair”. If you want to connect with people, you have to get their attention.
Once you have their attention, make the conversation relevant, vivid and compelling. Whether you like it or not, you are in the entertainment business and you are always “on stage”. If you do not find a way to keep people’s attention someone or something else will.
Pam Hillyer, with Vocal Intelligence, offers insight and techniques that you can use and implement into your every day speaking. It takes some time and practice to be more expressive and to be more authentic. All you really need is to be you. It is never about being someone else which is what most of the rhetoric offers today, rather it is about connecting, really connecting with others and experiencing the magic of conversation.
