How To Dramatically Improve Your Communication Skills In 5 Minutes 🆙

Communication is much more difficult than people think. There are professionals such as advertisers, copywriters, politicians and writers who base their business entirely on communication, and not all of them are capable of doing so.

Anyone can say the emotions they feel, describe something and talk to the people around them. In any case, how effective is your communication really? And how much of what you say is actually helpful in getting your message across?

There is a rule applied in the world of sales called "Kiss vs Kill" (Keep It Simple, Stupid or Keep It Long and Longy) which basically means keeping communication short and simple, instead of keeping it excessively long with the risk of " killing" the message you wanted to communicate.

To better explain ourselves, let's do a example:

A novice seller is likely to put off the potential buyer by talking about unimportant details while, on the other hand, a good seller would make sure to select and communicate the essentials in the shortest possible time, making everything much easier and closing the door. 'agreement.

How can this help you in everyday life?

The example we have just given shows you the impact of your communication on other people: it influences their decision to trust you, whether they like you or not, whether they buy from you, whether they help you, etc.

Here are some simple techniques you can use in 5 minutes to greatly improve your communication skills:

1. Focus on quality (rather than quantity)

The first step to greatly improving your communication skills is to focus on quality.

If you can, try to remove all interspersed words like "Well", "Umh", "Aah", "So", "That's it", "Really", "Really", "Later", etc.

These words do not give value to the conversation since they do not mean anything. In fact, they lengthen the conversation and therefore it takes much longer to get to the point.

Ad exampletake the following speech:

"What did you do this summer? Well, I had fun: I went rock climbing for the first time with some friends and it was actually harder than I thought."

And compare it to this:

"What did you do this summer? My friends and I went rock climbing, it's my first time and it was much harder than I thought."

You can see how the second version is shorter, but the information it conveys is the same. Also, the tone used is more confident and sophisticated.

Instead of using these words that clutter the conversation, try using pauses to increase the effectiveness of your speech.

2. Emphasize your speech with pauses

Using pauses is a very effective way to emphasize speech and is better than filling the conversation with unnecessary words. Pauses allow you to highlight the various parts of the message you are trying to get across and make your communication that much more powerful.

Don't be afraid to take a few short breaks from time to time, instead relying on the middle layers to avoid awkward silences.

Here is a small example, based on the same sentence we used earlier. This time, however, we used the breaks to our advantage.

“Some friends and I went rock climbing. It was my first time, and it was a lot harder than I thought."

The next skill is probably the most important to be able to strike up a conversation. If you can get the hang of it, you'll be able to have endless conversations with just about anyone.

3. Choose topics with lots of talking points

This is a fundamental technique of the most experienced conversationalists, since it allows you to never run out of topics of conversation.

Let's take as example the following phrase:

"I live in Milan, but I always wanted to move to the suburbs, because I love nature and I hate being with so many people."

There are 4 different themes you can link to:

You can talk about what it's like to live in the suburbs
You can talk about the first time you visited a big city.
You can talk about the connection you have with nature.
You can talk about being an introvert and how being in a crowd bothers you.

When the conversation dies, it's probably because there are no other interesting topics to talk about.

So when you have the option to move the conversation between topics, try to pick one that you're interested in talking about. Also, remember to give the other person space and the opportunity to talk about several topics at once. If you don't provide them with ideas to start talking, the conversation risks stalling.

This skill develops with practice.

here's another one example:

"I like going to the gym. It gives me great satisfaction when I see improvements.”

From this sentence, you can explore three different topics:

You can talk about the gym.
You can talk about something else that gives you satisfaction.
You can talk about the improvements you've seen lately

4. Don't ask too many questions

Think about the last time you had a job interview. Probably the first thing that comes to mind is the unsettling wait, the anxiety, the tension and a whole series of sensations that are definitely not pleasant.

A common mistake most people make when meeting someone new is going into "interview mode." They start bombarding the person in front of them with question after question, risking making them uncomfortable and making the conversation one-way.

When you ask a question, you don't share anything about yourself, since all you're doing is asking the other person for information. By doing this, you do not create any connection with those in front of you and this gives rise to the feeling of discomfort.

You want to make sure to share information about yourself as well so you can bond and break the ice.

5. Use statements instead of questions

The last piece of advice we give you is to replace some of the questions you would like to ask with affirmations.

When you make claims, you share information about yourself. Pay attention the next time you go out with your closest friends and you will notice that most conversations happen through affirmations. Of course, from time to time someone also asks a few questions to move the conversation forward, but most of the sentences are observations, thoughts, and opinions.

Let's see together a type of affirmation that can help you get to know a person:

cold analysis

Cold analysis is a great way to use affirmations to get to know someone you just met.

It is based on making an observation about the other person to get a response and is a creative and personal way to replace a trivia question.

It works like this:

Instead of saying "What do you like to do for fun?"

You can say "You seem like a fun person, I bet you have interesting hobbies."

It is a fantastic trick that usually takes the interlocutor by surprise. The conversation can evolve in three different ways:

You're wrong and he corrects you: "I'm not very funny, I spend my days sleeping."
You're wrong, but you intrigued him: "Not really, what made you think?"
You are right and you establish a relationship instantly: “Yes, I like to have fun: I love to dance and sing. What did you deduce it from?"

Each of these three scenarios gives you more talking points than the simple question, "What do you like to do for fun?" It's a personal approach that allows you to share a lot of information without the need to ask a question.

Riepilogo

Here's a quick rundown of 5 simple tips you can use to dramatically improve your communication skills:

Focus on quality
Emphasize the speech with pauses.
Choose topics with lots of talking points
don't ask too many questions
Use statements instead of questions.

Remember that communication is a skill that everyone can learn with the right teaching material. But the best teacher is once again the experience that one accumulates when he puts into practice what he has learned.

Apply these tips and you will see that your communication skills will improve.