- "Speak English Fluently: How to Answer the Phone."
One of the biggest challenges
when it comes to speaking English fluently,
especially for people who are getting started,
you're just learning the English language,
I remember one of the things
that scared the heck out of me
was when I had to pick up the phone and talk to someone.
It's bad enough that English is not your first language,
especially when you are in school
or you are in a business setting,
you're dealing with people.
You don't have that face to face interaction.
It means that you don't have your body language,
you don't have your facial expression into play,
so now all you have is your voice,
then it makes you very, very nervous.
So today I'm gonna give you five tips that will help you.
When you're answering on the phone,
how do you speak with clarity, conviction, and power?
So tip number one.
Now one of the things that you wanna do is,
you wanna smile when you are on the phone.
Sometimes, we don't realize this,
but we can get too tense and too serious,
so what I like to do is actually have a mirror
right next to me.
So when I pick up the phone, I'm talking to somebody,
it always reminds me to smile.
If I look at my facial expression and I'm not smiling,
chances are my tonality is too serious.
So I wanna kind of be nice and be friendly, right?
And just remind myself.
Tip number two, always have an introduction
that you practice.
It depends on what you do and depends on where you are.
If you are running your own business
or you're just a student, either way, doesn't really matter.
When you are speaking on the phone, you wanna have
a greeting that you kind of memorize and practice.
So you might say something like this,
as simple as hi, this is, your name.
So in my case, hi, this is Dan.
Kind of casual, informal.
Hi, this is, your first name.
Hi, this is Dan.
Very simple, or if you're in customer service,
in customer support, you're in business
and you might use your full name.
So your first name, including your last name,
and then you might end with a question.
So it sounds something like this.
Hi, this is Dan Lok.
What can I do for you?
That also works.
Another thing that you could do,
which is usually how I answer my phone
is actually using my first name, last name,
and then speaking.
So it sounds something like this.
Dan Lok speaking.
Then right there, they know they're talking
to the right person.
Now I'm not talking about your best friend calling
and say, "Hey, what's up, brother?
"What's up, sister?"
That's not what I'm talking about.
I'm talking about in certain setting that you are required
to speak clearly and professionally.
That's what we wanna do.
So Dan Lok speaking.
Boom, proper greeting, practice it multiple times.
Tip number three.
How you say it is more important than what you say.
Tonality, it's very, very key
when you're talking on the phone.
Your native language, if English is your second language
or third language, your native language
might have different tonality.
So you need to learn how to communicate,
have the proper rhythm.
So let me give you a simple, simple example,
just what we did right there.
Let's say, what can I do for you?
Just one line.
I'm gonna do it three different ways.
Comment below and you tell me
what message am I communicating?
What I am I saying?
What emotions am I using?
So first one.
What can I do for you?
Do you hear the difference?
It's the same line, but how you say it
is very, very important.
So when you're talking on the phone,
sometimes you wanna pay very close attention.
Sometimes you want to not say certain words
and certain phrases using your monotone, right?
The language that you always use.
If you speak Korean, you speak Japanese,
you speak Indonesian, it doesn't matter.
You can see people who speaks with an accent,
which I do, I still speak with an accent, but that's okay.
The important thing is people understand
what you're talking about.
Tip number four, slow down.
Speed kills.
I know when you get nervous, what do we do?
You speak faster instead of slowing it down.
You almost subconsciously don't want people
to hear what you're saying because you're embarrassed that,
oh, maybe I will sound stupid.
Maybe they don't understand.
So instead of slowing down and being more clear,
you do the opposite.
Now you're speeding up so to make sure they don't hear you.
Don't do that.
When you practice and you wanna speak fluently, slow down.
You notice when I am doing videos,
if you watch my other videos, I slow down,
especially on the phone.
I listen, I ask questions, and I slow down.
And that's how you speak with confidence
and conviction and clarity.
Don't just speed up and say you get nervous,
no, slow down.
Take a deep breath, it is okay.
And if the other side, they don't understand,
you can repeat yourself and just say it again
and there's certain words, and I still,
there's certain words that I pronounce
that may not be 100% accurate.
I will slow down and repeat it again
and do it again and that's perfectly fine.
Tip number five.
If there are words that you are struggling with,
that you're struggling with, maybe certain words
that are a little bit longer in English language, right?
In English language, see.
Slow it down, practice it multiple times.
So you can take a word that you're struggling with
and just say it again and again and again.
And you can even go to Google,
you can type in Google Translate and just click the voice
and you can hear, oh, this is how I would pronounce the word
and you say it again and again and again.
I used to do that, practice it hundreds of times
because you wanna get rid of the fear.
Instead of not using the word, that,
oh, that's the word that I'm saying it wrong.
No, use the word, practice, and then use it.
And after awhile, you get the confidence
and boom, now you have a new vocabulary
that you could use in the day to day conversation.
In term of speaking English, on average,
we use about three to 5,000 words, all of us,
again and again and again.
So by adding more words to your day to day use,
kind of your treasure box, it expands your context.
I believe when you're learning English,
it's not just learning the language,
but you're learning the culture.
I've been very fortunate.
I immigrated to North America when I was 14 years old,
and my first language was actually Chinese Cantonese.
I also speak Mandarin 'cause my mom is from Taiwan.
So I'm a mix between Hong Kong and Taiwan.
So Cantonese is my first language.
My second language is Mandarin,
and my third language is English,
and I'm glad I learned the English language
because now by doing business internationally,
but just doing business in North America,
by understanding a new language,
I also pick up a lot of new philosophies,
learning about the culture, how business is done
in a Western world.
So then I have the best part of both worlds.
I understand the culture from the East
and also combine the management, the thinking styles
in the West, and this is how I conduct business,
and that's how I run my life because I learned a language,
and now I'm able to expand my wisdom
and expand my knowledge base.
Does that make sense?
So those are the five tips.
Now if you want to learn more about communication,
I teach what I consider a world class,
probably the best class in the world,
a virtual program on communication,
on how to talk to people on the phone,
how do you overcome the fears
and what do you need to say and how do you need to say it
in order to speak and communicate your ideas on the phone?
Not just giving you the skill set,
but how to turn that skill set into an income stream.
If you wanna learn more about it, click the link below
and check out my free training.