Hey Ambitious Professionals! It's Linda Raynier of lindaraynier.com guiding you
to a career in life you'll truly enjoy and in today's video I'm going to teach
you four key steps on how to improve your communication skills whether you're
talking to just one person or a whole group of people and so that you can feel
natural at ease and confidence
as a career strategist I've had the honour of being able to help numerous
professionals land their dream job offers and so if this is something that
you're interested in working with me one on one I can definitely give you details
about that at the end of this video in my line of work where I work with
corporate professionals and help them to advance their careers a common topic of
discussion is communication if you struggle with communication then this
may also be you where you're in a situation where you're talking to people
and you find that the conversation is very unnatural it's forced and it
doesn't really go anywhere and you find that the other person is struggling to
hold their interest in you and you feel that there's something wrong with you
because of the way that you're communicating to them and this can
easily happen in a situation where you're at a let's say networking event
and you have to talk to a group of strangers where you just feel awkward
you feel unnatural and you're not able to really develop any connections with
anyone so today I'm going to teach you four steps that will really help you to
improve your communication skills whether you're in a social setting or in
a professional setting and so that you can feel more confident and at ease step
number one listen intently now I know what you're thinking how can
communication be about listening when really it's about talking you assume
that to improve your communication skills it's really about your ability to
speak right well yes and no the key thing about communication is that if
you're able to listen intently to the other person and you're able to hear
what they're really saying beyond the words that are coming out of their
mouths you're gonna be able to have more value to add to the conversation because
you're gonna be able to say something that is beyond what it is that they're
just talking about at a surface level listening intently doesn't just mean
using your ears and hearing what the person is saying it's really being able
to get a sense of what they're feeling it's being able to get a sense of really
what they're trying to express and wait maybe what they're not trying to express
as well so it's really about using your intuition as well being able to read a
person hear the words that are coming out of their mouths but also hear what
it is that they're really try to mean when they're talking about that
and whenever you can really do this exercise where you're really extending
yourself in a way that you're really listening and paying attention to
someone they can feel that off of you and automatically they feel that you're
more engaged with them and they're more likely to share and to talk to you and
to feel comfortable around you and that is a key part to being a good
communicator step number two respond with phrases that relate to what that
person is talking about you can start off with phrases such as that's
interesting because I can relate because that's true
because starting your conversation with these types of words shows that you're
interested and engaged in the other person and so if you want people to be
engaged and interested in you when you're communicating with them you first
have to give that energy saying things like that's true because etc etc etc
shows that you can relate and you can validate what the other person is saying
and that is what as human beings we're all looking to do to be validated to be
heard by other people and to feel connected to those that we're talking to
step number three to improving your communication skills tell stories after
the because part of your conversation tell a story that relates to what that
person is talking about the story obviously has to have a point and it has
to be something that is in relation to what you guys are discussing as I always
say a good story follows the same pattern as a movie think of any good
movie you've watched and when you can break it down there are actually three
key parts to the movie and I call this SAR an acronym that stands for situation
action and results the majority of the movie is made up of this situation the
setting up of the story getting to know the characters their stories their
situations the things that they're dealing with the issues that they're
having to go through and the situation the setting that they're in the second
part of the movie is the action where the good guy fights the bad guy so
you're actually seeing what are the steps that that guy is
taking or that girl is taking to resolve the initial situation or the problem
that they're dealing with and the third part of the movie is the shortest in
length and it's simply the conclusion or the result what ended up happening when
you can learn to tell your stories using this type of structure it's going to
make the other person feel more engaged more interested in you and in your story
and it's going to help you to prove the point that you're trying to make as well
and finally step number four to improving your communication skills
practice this is something that so many professionals seem to overlook when
they're going to any networking event or meeting people for the first time and
they know that they're gonna have to meet these people and talk to these
people and that is to practice practice ahead of time what you're going to say
if you had an important presentation to do at work you wouldn't just walk into
the meeting and just be unprepared and talk on the fly you would want to
practice ahead of time well in other professional and social settings it also
doesn't hurt to practice ahead of time you want to have your stories ahead of
time prepared so that when you do go ahead and communicate them they're more
fluent they're more fluid and they come off more naturally without thinking
through and developing your stories you won't succeed in your communication so
work on your communication skills by practicing on your own time and then the
next time that you have to go into a group meeting or group conversation or
just a one-on-one conversation you'll be able to communicate in a more natural
and confident way so there you have it my four steps on how you can improve
your communication skills whether in a group or individual setting now if
you're someone who's been searching for a job for a while you've been looking
you've been going on interviews but you just haven't been successful and you
realize that you need one-on-one professional help
then feel free to reach out to me head on over to my website lindaraynier.com/standoutgethired
feel free to read through the page fill out the
application form and if I feel or my team feels that we're a potential match
then we'll reach out to you directly and we'll take it from there if you like
this video then please give it a thumbs up subscribe share it with you
friends thank you so much for watching and I will see you next time