Communication Skills Training: A Practical Guide to Improving Your Social Intelligence, Presentation, Persuasion and Public Speaking

by Ian Tuhovsky

provides huge opportunities in terms of effective communication.

It’s sometimes enough if you start a sentence with: "It’s just as if…" to make someone’s mind “click.”

“A good speaker forms his message the way it fits the other person's world. He uses language compatible with their metaprograms, changing the shape of information in advance and making sure that they will be able to understand it easily.”

People with a “TO” metaprogram are focused on their goals, while those with a pattern of “FROM” are focused on the problems to avoid. The former ones motivate themselves more easily when they have an image of something positive in their minds, something they can achieve, a success they can reach. They are attracted TO this image. On the other hand, people with “FROM” metaprograms motivate themselves by being constantly aware of what bad can happen if they do not execute a particular task. They motivate themselves using fear and are pushed away FROM the negative images.

How can you specify this metaprogram in another person? The most helpful question might be, "How do you know you've done your job well?" People with the internal authority will say they rated it themselves, while those with an external authority will indicate the confirmation from other people.

- Nominalization – Changing a verb to a noun, reducing the whole process to a single thing or event. "I’m down.” How did you down yourself? This question also helps to regain responsibility for the process.

Anticipating that you will probably want to try it in practice, I have prepared a few questions for you that will allow you to test this model on another person. To each symptom, you will find three questions that correspond to a particular type of information. When you manage to convince someone to do this experiment, in any case, do not tell this person anything about eye movements or about anything that is really the subject of this "research". Simply say that you want to ask them a few questions.

Do on Bas

You can use this in all varieties of different professional and personal situations. So don’t ask, “What would you do?” or, “How do you come about…” Instead, ask about certain situations from the past, using this format: “What happened, how did you react, how did you resolve it or how did that turn out?” With this simple yet powerful upgrade in your communication, you are going to feel like a sorcerer or an oracle. You will be surprised to see how often people do exactly the same things they did in the past.

Remembering a name and then using it early in the first conversations is one of the best ways to make a great first impression. By using the name of the person who you just met, you will make them feel important to you. By doing so, you can easily open the door to creating a special relationship with that person.

There is no such thing as a bad memory for names. If you do not remember them, it means that you do nothing to remember them. Decide that from now on you will start doing something in this direction. Recall that undertaking whenever you expect to meet someone new.

1. Prepare the material, but do not memorize it.

Modulate your voice. Your vocal cords are a tool which can do absolute wonders, when used properly. First of all, make sure that you speak clearly. Remember not to speak too fast, because people may not follow. The best idea is to record yourself on a voice recorder and then listen to yourself speak several times over. It will give you insight on what you can improve upon in your style of speaking. When performing in front of people, you need to change your voice frequently to evoke different emotional states in your listeners, which will keep them from getting bored or distracted quickly.

You can speak loudly at first, only to start whispering a moment later to make them curious.

Give motivation. Without it, people won’t need to listen to what you say. They need to know why this knowledge might be useful to them.

Refer to your personal experiences.

Tell stories. Not only from your own life, but also those found or heard from someone else. Stories can be used to invoke various emotional states in your audience.

Ask for feedback. Ask your audience what you did well and what you could do better during your presentation. It is best to do it during an individual conversation with the participants; you can also ask them to send you an email with the feedback. This is the best way to learn, because you get the opportunity to look at yourself from a completely different perspective. The audience noticed the things that you did not notice and their opinion is the most valuable source of knowledge that will allow you to develop your skills.

Open up to people. Listen to them carefully and take notes in your mind to remember what is important for them in their life. Ask them interesting questions. Let them tell you about their projects, passions or dreams.

This is an incorrect assumption. The ability to listen is MUCH more important here. Be sincerely interested and you'll make the impression of a trustworthy interlocutor.

8. Be honest. Authenticity is a rare feature which can help you to establish fruitful professional relationships. Do not try to build a network of contacts based on a personality that is not really yours or one that is pretending to be someone else. Working together with someone who thinks that you are someone else than you really are is not the best idea. I’m not necessarily talking about just saying that you’re a rocket scientist when you’re really a clerk, but rather telling someone things just to show yourself from a good angle, but far from the actual truth.

Have a neat record of your contacts. Just a simple spreadsheet in Excel is enough. Divide it into categories so you can quickly find the person you are looking for. Save all the relevant information: name and surname, phone number, e-mail address, web sites, and if necessary, any additional comments. Add a small photo of that person if you can.