Art of communication key to business success

In sales, your income depends on your ability to communicate. Passion, commitment and preparation are keys to success. But if when you speak you sound insincere, disrespectful, aloof or caustic, it doesn’t matter how many keys to success you have in your favor; the bank is not opening.
Communication is about more than just uttering words. You can practice, plan and prepare, but if you talk with the wrong tonality or use contradictory body language, you’ll still get doors shut in your face or phones slammed down.
The art of effective communication covers a wide array of topics. For now, let’s focus on tonality.
The trick to overcoming this typically unintentional mishap in communication is to listen to yourself present, which is something nobody likes to do. “I can’t listen to myself. I hate my voice.” When I hear clients say that, I wonder if their prospective customers feel the same way. It’s precisely why you should listen to yourself. There’s a fine tonal line between confidence and arrogance, empathy and condescension, directness and abruptness. One will make you money; one will cost you money. Do you know which side of the line you are on?
Record your calls. Practice them with changes in tone and word emphasis. Find the manner of communicating that best conveys the message you want to get across. It’s easy to do. Most cell phones today have a voice memo option, and computers have microphones.  If not that, then most phones have voicemail. Call yourself, and record your 30-second commercial. Listen to yourself, make changes, and call it again — and again and again. Repeat this process until you become comfortable with a communication style that works.
The biggest complaint I hear with this process is, “But it will sound scripted.” My response is that it only sounds that way because you haven’t practiced it enough. Consider such big-name actors as Jack Nicholson and Clint Eastwood. It’s fair to say that, in their movies, they memorize scripts, right? But when they tape the movie, do their lines sound scripted? Not at all. The difference is memorization and rehearsal. They learn their lines so well that they can even ad lib somewhat and still stay on track. If they were to look at their director, script in hand, and say, “But I don’t want to memorize this because it will sound scripty in the movie, and people will be turned off by that and won’t listen,” what do you think the director’s response would be?
In addition to tonality, your recordings will reveal any number of communication faux pas that can be remedied with attention. One such component is clarity of speech. An example of this is speech that comes too slow or too fast. Another is speaking with an accent or dialect that would be difficult to understand. It would be worth your while — and respectful of your intended audience — to listen to yourself and practice making adjustments so that your communication can be more effective.
Speech props are another component. These are unnecessary words commonly used as filler while your brain reaches for something else to say. Fillers like “uh” and “um” serve no purpose in communication and should be eliminated. Another mistake is the incorrect use of “like.” If you want to sound professional, then it’s important to critique yourself, remove the tonal barriers from your presentation and practice becoming comfortable with the enhancements.
When I was a kid, we played a game where we’d listen to radio stations and, based on the voice of the disc jockey, try to guess what he or she looked like. As adults, it’s common to form a mental picture of the person you are talking to on the phone.
In person, the picture you form of an individual goes deeper than what is observable. People you talk to are always picking up signals and trying to determine your sincerity, honesty, believability and confidence. In business, that picture can make or break your success. What picture are people forming when they listen to you?