Content Written By: April Wilson, Ryan Winter LLC contributing writer
How to Successfully Communicate and How It Can Help You Win
This isn’t something new or that you haven’t heard before, being a good communicator is vital to success. Vital for success in North Florida real estate.
Success with your friendships, romantic relationships, working relationships, business clients, partners, etc. all depends on good communication. Remember, North Florida title companies or title companies in Jacksonville, FL. and around the state can help you with these skills. US Patriot Title has events every month that can help you hone skills in the real estate field.
The problem is, many people are not good communicators. This is because, according to a helpguide.org article, “Effective communication is about more than just exchanging information. It’s about understanding the emotion and intentions behind the information.” This requires more skills than just talking. Being a successful communicator requires listening skills, empathy, integrity and emotional intelligence.
Skills Behind Good Communication
Why is listening, understanding, honesty and emotional intelligence the most important parts of communication? Much of communication is about responding — the right way. The only way to contribute effectively to a conversation is to listen first, build an understanding around the other person’s dialogue, be honest about how you feel, emotionally connect with what they are trying to say, and then you will have an appropriate response.
“Real communication involves purposeful exchanges between all interested parties. If you’re doing all the talking, you’re not maximizing opportunities to create reciprocal understanding or expand the reach of your thought leadership.” Founder and CEO of WordSmithRapport, Karima Mariama-Arthur wrote in a Forbes.com article.
Listening Skills
Stopping, being patient and allowing another person time to express their thoughts is tough to do. As it’s famously said — patients is a virtue. It is not easy to take time away from your own thoughts and give that time to someone else, but it’s an important part of being successful at communicating.
Founder & CEO of EmailAnalytics, Jayson DeMers quoted in a Forbes.com article that a study broke down daily communication as:
● 9 percent writing
● 16 percent reading
● 30 percent speaking
● 45 percent listening
“Yet, most of us are terrible listeners. The reasons vary, from being distracted by our own internal monologues to superimposing meaning on what’s being said before we allow others to finish,” DeMers said. To be blunt, we do not give people our time or patients to express their thoughts. If you want to be a good communicator, taking this time to listen is key. “Instead, try this: focus on the person speaking, and verbally play back a summary of what was said to make sure you understand, before proceeding to build on the conversation with additional points,” DeMers said.
In addition to listening to other persons words, listen to their body language. Read how they are behaving as they speak with you. Body language can tell you a lot about what the other person is trying to convey — how they feel about what they are trying to explain.
DeMers found this information in a study from UCLA. He said that the study “suggests that as much as 55 percent of the meaning in face-to-face interactions is conveyed non-verbally. Don’t just practice awareness of your own body language. Analyze specific cues — such as posture, expressions and gestures — being made by others when they’re speaking.”
Being a successful communicator involves so much more then just exchanging words back-and-forth. Help guide.org explains how important understanding Another’s persons emotions can help you better communicate with them.“Effective communication is about more than just exchanging information. It’s about understanding the emotion and intentions behind the information. As well as being able to clearly convey a message, you need to also listen in a way that gains the full meaning of what’s being said and makes the other person feel heard and understood,” the helpguide.com article said.
One of the reasons many people are not good listeners is because it is easy to only listen in order to reply. Truly listening and hearing someone is more than just waiting for the opportunity to speak. An Entrepreneur article has an explanation from an expert on why it’s difficult for people to be good listeners, ergo good communicators. “We are trained to listen to reply,” says Virginia Phillips, author, speaker and coach at Academy of Entrepreneurial Excellence. “But if you can listen to gather data about another person’s situation, perspective, and personality, you can apply a greater level of emotional intelligence and increase your chances to influence the conversation and the individual.”
Empathy
Once you learn to properly and completely listen to others, you can then begin to understand them. You can focus on understanding how they feel and what emotions they are trying to express with their words.
Understanding how another person feels will help you to communicate with him better and will help you respond with helpful solutions.“The ability to genuinely strive to understand another person’s perspective is a vital skill you should call upon often,” a Forbes.com article said.
Integrity
Being honest with how you feel, being honest in your response to others, I’m being honest with these solutions you can provide, are all important when it comes to successfully communicating.
In a Forbes.com article The author explains what an expert has to say about the need for integrity and good communication. The expert said,“True integrity requires learning to be yourself – the same self – at all times and with all people.” The expert continues to explain that, “Great communication requires that you “lose the attitudes” you put on like a coat from your closet and learn to exist as the same authentic and integrated person in the presence of everyone else in your life.”
Once you are true to yourself and real with other people, they will trust you and communicate more openly with you. This opens the door for more open and honest communication.
The other key for communicating with integrity is to follow through with what you say you are going to do. People should be able to rely on the words you say. Speaker, writer and entrepreneur Josh Steimle quoted Leonard Kim. the founder of Influence Tree, in a Forbes.com article. Kim says, ““In order to do this, you have to show compassion and empathy, and talk to the other party like they matter to you. Because guess what? They do.”
Steimle adds that your behavior should reflect your words. If you don’t do what you say you’re going to do, then people will not trust you in the future. That is bad for business.
Emotional Intelligence
This brings us to the final good communication trait: Emotional IQ. Being able to emotionally connect with people Is key to successfully communicating with them.
Entrepreneur.com quoted Cindy Tetro who is a high and cofounder of the women pet council. The article explains that Tetro says “the best communicators have an emotional IQ, or the ability to understand and influence the emotions of ourselves and others.” The article goes on to quote Tetro: “‘Learn to read people and situations so you can navigate the complexities to find positive outcomes,’ she says.”
It’s important to have emotional awareness because not only does this help you to navigate a conversation, it also helps you avoid upsetting others. The expert a Forbes.com contributor wrote about, Pamela Maier, a personal counselor was quoted in the article saying, “Help is only “help” in the eye of the receiver. People can become upset if the “help” you provide isn’t helpful for them. As you provide something others didn’t really want or weren’t expecting, they become annoyed and you consider them ungrateful.”
This is why it is important to have emotional awareness. If you are providing advice or help to someone, you want to make sure that they actually need and want the advice and that it is actually helpful to them. Otherwise, it’s a waste of time and annoying to everyone.
Effective Communication and Your Business
As a Realtor, your success relies on effective communication. Your clients are relying on you to fully understand their needs and to successfully communicate with them. If you are a good communicator — meaning you are a good listener, you are empathetic, you have integrity and you are emotionally intelligent — you will be able to more easily help your clients.
Kevin Markarian a Forbes Real Estate Council writer expands on this idea. “Before, during and after a transaction, critical to your success as an agent is communication with your client. Your client is involved in one of the most significant financial commitments of a lifetime. You’re in the ideal position, of course, having been through the home buying or selling process previously. Share what you know. The moment your client is left wondering about any detail, you open the door to a change of heart that can materially impact your business,” he said.
