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In the words of Dale Carnegie, "Fill your mind with thoughts of peace, courage, health and hope."

Seven Types of Listeners and Tips to Better Listening Skills – Part 2

The “Whatevers”

These people remain aloof and show little emotion when listening. They give off the impression that they could not care less what you are talking about.

Tips

If you are a “Whatever”, concentrate on the full message, not just the verbal message. Make a point to listen with your eyes, ears, and heart.

If you are speaking to a “Whatever”, dramatize your ideas and ask questions of the person to get his or her involvement.

The “Combatives”

These people are armed and ready for war. They enjoy disagreeing and blaming others.

Tips

If you are a “Combative”, make an effort to put yourself in the speaker’s shoes and understand, accept, and find merit in his or her point of view.

If you are speaking to a “Combative”, when he or she disagrees or points the blame, look forward instead of back. Talk about how you might agree to disagree, or what can be done differently next time.

The “Analysts”

These people are constantly in the role of counselor or therapist and they are ready to provide you with answers even when you have not asked. They think they are great listeners and love to help. They are constantly in an analyze-what-you-are-saying-and-fix-it mode.

Tips

If you are an “Analyst”, relax and understand that not everyone is looking for an answer, solution, or advice. Some people just like bouncing ideas off other to help them see the answers more clearly themselves.

If you are speaking to an “Analyst”, you might begin by saying “I just need to run something by you. I’m not looking for any advice.”

The “Engagers”

These are the consciously aware listeners. They listen with their eyes, ears, and hearts, and try to put themselves in the speaker’s shoes. This is listening at the highest level. Their listening skills encourage you to continue talking and give you the opportunity to discover your own solutions and let your ideas unfold.

Tips

If you are an “Engager” keep it up. People truly appreciate this about you.

If you are speaking to an “Engager” take the time to acknowledge their attentiveness. Thank them for their interest in you and your topic.

****What other ways have we dealt with these listening styles? Post your ideas so we can all have more tools to work with.****

For more ideas to communicate more effectively. Check out Dale Carnegie's Skills for Success.

Seven Types of Listeners and Tips to Better Listening Skills – Part 1

Exceptional listening skills and the ability to persuade others to your way of thinking make the difference between good and great teams. Pure listening builds trust, credibility and respect. One reason is because when you fully listen, instead of trying to compose your response, the result is a relevant and on-target response. What you say is proof of how well you listen.

The “Preoccupieds”

These people come across as rushed and are constantly looking around or doing something else. Also know as multi-taskers, these people cannot sit still and listen.

Tips

If you are a “Preoccupied” listener, make a point to set aside what you are doing when someone is speaking to you.

If you are speaking to a “Preoccupied” listener, you might ask, “Is this a good time?” or say, “I nned your undivided attention for just a moment.” Begin with a statement that will get their attention, be brief, and get to the bottom line quickly because their attention span is short.

The “Out-to-Lunchers”

These people are physically there for you, but mentally they are not. You can tell this by the blank look on their faces. They are either daydreaming or thinking about everything and anything else but what you are saying.

Tips

If you are an “Out-to-Luncher”, act like a good listener. Be alert, maintain eye contact, lean forward, and show interest by asking questions.
If you are speaking to an “Out-to-Luncher”, check in with them every now and again and ask if they understood what you were saying. As with the “Preoccupieds,” begin with a statement that will catch their attention, and be concise and to the point because their attention span is short.

The “Interrupters”

These people are ready to chime in at any given time. They are perched and ready for a break to complete your sentence for you. They are not listening to you but focused instead on what they want to say.

Tips

If you are an “Interrupter”, make a point to apologize every time you catch yourself interrupting. This will make you more conscious of it.
If you are speaking to an “Interrupter”, when they chime in, stop immediately and let them talk, or they will never listen to you. When they are done, you might say, “As I was saying before…” to bring their interruption to their attention.

****What other ways have we dealt with these listening styles? Post your ideas so we can all have more tools to work with.****

For more ideas to communicate more effectively. Check out Dale Carnegie's Skills for Success.

5 Tips for Running an Effective Online Presentation

1. Agenda: Prepare your agenda on a PowerPoint slide in advance and load it into your meeting. The agenda will create a visual reference for you and your audience. It’s a good idea to use the annotation tools to highlight and check off items as you go.
2. Invitations: Use the virtual meeting technology to send invitations. Invitations provide a link and the audio information necessary to attend the meeting. And invitations allow attendee’s to add the meeting to their calendars, ensuring they’ll join on time.
3. Speakers: Create a schedule for your speakers and manage the transition from one speaker to another verbally, much like a radio broadcast. Assign someone to keep track of time and to announce time frame intervals via the chat tool, timer tool, or verbally, depending on what is available.
4. Communication: Use the audio and the chat to encourage dialogue and allow attendees to comfortably provide input. Ensure each attendee is connected to the audio and can both hear and be heard.
5. Technology: Use the features of the virtual meeting room to enhance the meeting experience. For example:
• If you’re working on files, share the application and view the document together in real time.
• If you’re referencing websites, use the web share feature to view the website in real time.
• If brainstorming is on the agenda, use the chat to effectively manage the process in a quick and organized manner.
• If you’re developing a process flow, use a whiteboard and the drawing tools to demonstrate the ideas together and save it for reference at the conclusion of the meeting.

By the Numbers!!

if
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
Equals
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26

then

K + N + O + W + L + E + D + G + E
11 + 14 + 15 + 23 + 12 + 5 + 4 + 7 + 5 = 96

H + A + R + D + W + O + R + K
8 + 1 + 18 + 4 + 23 + 15 + 18 + 11 = 98

Both of these are important, but on a scale of 1 to 100 what’s most important?

A + T + T + I + T + U + D + E
1 + 20 + 20 + 9 + 20 + 21 + 4 + 5 = 100

How to Get Your Team Members to Stand Up and Lead

To win in today’s market, team members have to step up and be ready to take a leadership role. It is not easy to instill leadership abilities in others. It’s very important to also understand that some people do not share the same goals and aspirations as you might. Keep an open mind and learn to use different techniques to inspire different people. Here are a few ways that you can inspire your team members to stand up and lead.

Challenge – Issue a challenge - (In today’s market environment, you probably have many challenges to issue!) Some people need a specific challenge to motivate them. By laying down a challenge you also create a very clear and measurable goal for the staff member to achieve.

Appeal to more noble motives - Many employees can think that their work does not make a difference. By appealing to a noble motive, you can increase morale while also setting higher standards for your staff members.

Be sympathetic - Never tell a person they are wrong. Rather listen and be empathetic to the other person’s ideas and desires.

Evidence - Back up your ideas with proof. By providing evidence you can give instant credibility to your ideas. If you have evidence, even staff members coming in from a totally different perspective from yours will take notice.

Listen - Listen to what your staff members have to say. Some employees may not have aspirations to reach top corporate positions; rather they are content if their opinions and ideas are valued.

Ask questions - Instead of giving direct orders, ask questions to guide your staff members to think through the issues – and come up with solutions themselves.

Make your staff members feel important - And do it sincerely. Faced with the market challenges today, your employees must be reassured that their contribution and leadership DOES have a huge impact on the company’s survival, stability, and growth.

Attitude Control in Tough Service Situations

Here are 8 tips that can help you control stress and worry in tough situations:

Live in “day-tight compartments".
The professional with a commitment to service seals off each interaction with a customer. Don’t allow past successes or failures or future anticipated success or difficulties influence current performance.

Don’t fuss about trifles.
A “trifle” is something that is insignificant in comparison to other things in your life. When we are focused on trifles, you lose perspective. Keep the big picture in mind and that will help sort out the trifles.

Cooperate with the inevitable.
When the situation you are concerned with is inevitable and in fact, will take place, utilizing this principle gives you some control over the emotional aspects. By cooperating with the outcome, you are making a conscious choice.

Decide just how much anxiety a thing may be worth and refuse to give it more.
This decision is yours to make and often it clears your mind. This helps you find ways that you can improve on the situation, or let it go and move on.

Create happiness for others.
This principle appeals to your nobler motives. It is difficult to sustain a negative attitude when you are doing something good or helpful for someone else.

Expect ingratitude.
In your job, you provide many diverse services and help to others. When you do so, the natural thing to expect in return is some signal of gratitude for your assistance. This expectation is often not met. If you do receive heartfelt thanks from someone, you should count yourself lucky you are dealing with someone who is a grateful person. You shouldn’t let ingratitude deter you.

Put enthusiasm into your work.
Enthusiasm is the positive energy and sustained effort that keeps you driving toward your goals. Making a decision to have a positive outlook can be critical in enjoying your job and working with your internal and external customers.

Do the very best you can.
It can be difficult to deal with criticism, especially if you feel it is underserved or hurts your self-esteem. One way to put criticism in perspective is to ask yourself if you are doing the very best you can with what you know and are able to do. If the answer is an honest ‘yes’, that helps to not take the criticism personally. If there is room for improvement, you are taking responsibility for your performance.

What are some of the toughest customer service situations you've encountered? How did you reslove them?

Resolving Customer Complaints


Unfortunately, complaints are a necessary part of doing business. Until a perfect product, organization, or company is invented, you are going to have to deal with negative issues from your customers. It is inevitable that problems will arise, and just as certain that some people who complain will be hard to please.

Having a process to resolve complaints helps assure that you deal with the emotional and practical aspects of the issue. Here is a process that can help in that regard.

Greet
Always answer the phone or greet people in person as though you are happy to hear from them. Begin in a friendly way. This is easy to say, but can be difficult to do. You need to be able to “live in day-tight compartments” and separate previous negative experiences from this customer contact.

Listen
You often get the same kinds of complaints, so it becomes challenging to really listen to people. Give them an opportunity to vent some of their frustration. Be empathetic. Listen for facts and feelings. Resist the temptation to start responding too quickly. Show signs of active listening, like brief interjections or clarifying questions.

Questions
Ask questions to clarify the concern. Again, you need to resist responding until you understand people and their issues.
Elementary questions capture the basic facts of the problem. This gives us an opportunity to take some of the emotion out of the complaint.
Elaborative questions gather more details. This gives the customer a chance to expand on their issues and feelings. These questions should be relatively short, to encourage the customer to talk more.
Evaluative questions help you gain an understanding of the severity of the issue, in the mind of the customer. This is also where you evaluate what will satisfy the customer.

Empathize
Find a point of agreement with the person. This does not necessarily mean that you agree with the complaint. This is where you show the customer that you heard and understood their concern, and you recognize that it is important to them.

Address the Issue
Now that the emotional issues have been addressed, do everything in your power to resolve the practical aspects of the complaint. Take responsibility for the actions of your organization. This is your opportunity to turn a lemon into lemonade. People who have their problems successfully resolved tend to continue to do business with you.

Test Questions
Ask questions to test how well you have resolved the emotional and practical sides of the complaint, which makes it easier to end on a positive note.

Follow Through
Often, complaints cannot be resolved completely on the first point of contact. If you need to get back to the customer, do so quickly and thoroughly. Even if the complaint has been resolved, create a reason to contact the customer again. For example, find a way to give added value. Also, look for ways to solve the root cause of problems within your organization.

What ways have you found help successfully resolve customer complaints?

Asking for a Referral
How do you ask without feeling or sounding pushy or aggressive? You want to maintain a good relationship, and you want to create win-win-win scenarios. Having a simple, conversational process helps know what to say and how to say it. The most important aspect is to remind yourself of the benefits of asking, then just ask.
Here is a five step process you can follow:

Step One: Remind the customer of their specific benefits.
If you know these benefits, this becomes very easy. Paraphrase something they told you or relate something you know based on your own knowledge or experience. Ask for their agreement, in a conversational way.
Step Two: Describe your customer profile.
Briefly describe the range of challenges faced and benefits received by your customers. This may remind your existing customer of opportunities they are missing. It will also help them start to think of other people.
Step Three: Identify a benefit for giving a referral.
How could your current customer (or anyone) benefit from referring this person to you? Identify the value it creates for this person, not their company, the prospect, or you. Try honestly to see things from their point of view.
Step Four: Suggest they already know someone.
Provide examples of people or job positions that could benefit from your offerings. Make it easy for them. If you have a specific person or people in mind, mention them by name. Give a variety of names and positions, and talk slowly so the person has a chance to think. Listen.
Step Five: Ask for an introduction.
Ask your contact if he or she is willing to give you an introduction before you contact the new person. This will help make the process even friendly and open the door wider. Consider asking them to send an email, make a phone call, or introduce you personally at a networking event. You could even suggest a conference call.
Follow Through:
Before you contact this new opportunity, we might want to conduct some additional research to make certain you have value to offer. This allows you to put your best foot forward with this contact. Research on the person, the organization, and the industry can save valuable time for everyone.