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Hi, I’m Bill Lampton, the biz communication guy, when I work with current executives, and those who are going to be executives, I always ask them one question particularly and that is, have you stopped to realize how important having good conversational skills can be to your profession. In fact, I say to them, if you boost your conversational skills, it’s very unlikely that you’re going to boost your business. Think of all the times when a manager, a supervisor, a CEO, a CFO, anybody in a leadership position has opportunities to do something other than just talk business. You get to a meeting early, you just sit there and look at your notes are, the agenda are good, you have a conversation with somebody, if you’re in sales, you want that break the ice skill of having a conversation, you go to lunch with people, again, they don’t want to just talk shop, there’s a time where you can share other information and interesting ideas to and we could give many more illustrations of how conversation can create bonds that will help build your business. I first became aware of this during my faculty days, and the Speech Communication Department at the University of Georgia, first of all, and our basic speech course, which I was teaching, among other courses, there was no segment of the curriculum which dealt with how to have a conversation, we were teaching people how to speak to groups, public speaking, we called it but we had no guidelines for holding a good conversation. So and every one of my semesters devoted one hour to talking about conversational skills. And it was quite often that at the end of that semester, some of the students would come to me and say, of everything we learned in here, learning how to improve our conversational skills was the most important. At the same time, and the Athens Georgia community were University of Georgia is located. Working through the continuing education arm of the university, I directed a nonprofit, excuse man, non credit course, it was also a nonprofit, a non credit course in the evening for adults, on how to improve your conversation, we had 30 people who signed up and who participated for one night a week for eight weeks. And once more, at the end of that time, there were people from a variety of professions who talked about how helpful that would be for them. So let’s think about some ways that we can boost our compensation. And, in doing so, boost our business. First of all, we need to be very well informed. I mean, you can have some tactics, but people want to talk about something. And so it’s up to us to be well informed as I’m talking to you. Now Football season is about to start high school, college professional football, you may not be a huge football fan, I happen to be and have been for a long time. But even if you’re not a huge football fan, it’s good to be informed about the teams that are going to be playing in your city and your state and your region. And be able to discuss it with your neighbors and also with your business colleagues. And to be well informed means to be well informed, as I said about topics you may not be particularly interested in. I’m not a baseball fan, mostly football, but you can be sure when the World Series gets close, I follow that because I know other people will be following that and talking about that as well.
So we stay well informed by at least keeping up with what we might call the top of the news. And on days, when I don’t get to read much in the way of news printed material, I’ll go to Google News at night and spend about 10 or 15 minutes, looking at all the categories in Google News, and finding out what’s happening in each one. So the next day, if I’m having a business meeting with somebody, and they bring something up, I’m familiar with it. So be well informed about your state, your city, your nation, the world athletics, academics, economics, the whole range, and then you will be far better equipped to hold interesting conversations. All right, the second tip, so that you can boost your conversation is not only to be well informed, but also to talk winning language winning topics. In other words, what I’m saying here is, people do not want to hear our sour grapes, our complaints. So it’s sort of a custom people will say when we get together with them, how you doing? Fact is they don’t want our medical history, then they don’t want an overview of our financial condition. They don’t want to know everything that we’re worried about or fretting about are angry about. What’s that? Musical from long ago that had such a long run? South Pacific and there’s a song in there talk happy talk, happy talk. Yes, that’s right. People want to talk happy talk, without being unrealistic. Stay on the bright side. That’s why my motivational speech for many years has been entitled to always push the up button. You see everyday we get up mentally, in our bedroom, we’re not in that bedroom, mentally we’re facing the days. So I’d say like, life is like an elevator and we can push the up button or the down button. Well, people don’t want us pushing that down button. So push the up button talk winning words, and ways. And then the third, very strong suggestion I would give you is if you’re going to be skilled at conversation, be willing to listen more than you talk. That’s not that simple to do. It’s simple to say but by habit, we want to be controlling the conversation, even dominating it. And yet, one of the great measures people will have of how well a conversation with us when one of the measures they will have is how many questions? Did that person ask me? And did? Did they show any interest in me? Or was that all about them? I remember when I first went to the National Speakers Association, there was one of the coaches there who gave us a great piece of advice that when we were trying to seek clients, audiences, speaking bureaus, and we began to talk with them about what we offer. One of the phrases we should use when they start talking is to pause and say, Tell me more. Tell me more. People will love it. And good conversational settings when we say tell me more when we don’t try to top their story by telling something we did. But we stick with their story instead. So keep these in mind. Keep in mind that if you boost your conversational skills, you’ll Boost Your Business. And if you want to talk more with me about this or any other topic related to communication, give me a call 678-316-4300 It will be a an initial call no investment on your part just your time. Tell me about your communication problems and challenges. I’ll be glad to discuss with you potential solutions
that I can provide. And then also I invite you to go to my YouTube channel which is the ID there is Bill Lampton PhD, go to my YouTube channel, where I have many instructional videos about business communication, naturally, the biz communication guy would so go to my YouTube channel, look for that subscribe button, push it and be ready for ongoing instruction, often interviews I’m hosting with top business leaders. And then too, I certainly of course, invite you to go to my website so you can check about my services. See what I offer, and how well it fits you. And then again, give me a call and let’s talk. Thanks very much for being with me today. I’m wishing you enjoyable, beneficial and profitable conversations and I look forward to having one of those with you. All the best from the biz communication guy
