I could not resist sharing this with you when I came across this set of ideas which apply to both verbal and non-verbal communication (body language) in the same book I mentioned last week. The book (which I highly recommend you buy a copy for your sales library) was written by Ferdinand Fournies and is titled "How to get better results from your employees!
Coaching for Improved Work Performance" and is available at: (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0071352937/qid=1058293293/sr=2-1/ref=sr_2_1/002-6382085-7484030) and I must say that this is one of the most practical "how to" books I've ever come across.
Understanding How Communication Really Works
Mr. Fournies writes that "The problem is not a hearing problem. The problem is that there is no similarity between electrical or electronic communication and the communication between people.
In the first place, the mind thinks at least six times faster than we can speak, and because the mind thinks so much faster, its primary function is a reactive function. Of course, the mind receives the information transmitted, but the information is received so fast that the mind reacts even before the message is completed." This maybe why we interrupt others who are speaking or why we are thinking other thoughts while someone else is speaking.
"You can demonstrate this reactive principle yourself by saying to a number of people, "Say what comes to your mind when I say something to you." Then you say a single word to each of them, such as black, up, or hard. The responses you will most likely get will be white, down, and soft, but no one will respond with the word you said. In fact, you can say any word you chose and they will never repeat what you said. If you said to them dot dot dash dot their response might be "you are crazy."
"This means if you have an idea in your head that you want to communicate to someone else, the worst thing you can do is to put that idea into the most precise and correct words you can think of and speak them. Because as soon as you say these words, the listener will hear them, but think something else. Because the mind is primarily a reactive instrument, successful communication is a function of thought transmission, rather than information transmission. Therefore, if you have an idea you wish to transmit to someone else, you must say or do something that will cause that idea to appear in the other person's head as a reaction to what you said or did."
"For example, let's say I wanted you to be frightened, and I said to you; "Be frightened! Be frightened! Be frightened!" Obviously, you will not be frightened, so I will improve my diction and say the same words even louder. Is it likely that you are going to be frightened? More likely, you are going to wonder what kind of nut I am, and why am I carrying on this way."
"If I recognize that communication is thought transmission however, and I want to transmit the thought fright to your mind, I might wait until you are relaxed, sneak up behind you, and yell as loud as I can, "Boo!" or I may approach you with a glass of water and stumble theatrically in front of you to make believe I'm going to spill water all over you. In both instances, you would probably jump out of your chair."
"In neither instance did I say the word fright to you. I did something in front of the thought called fright so it appeared in your head. I used thought transmission."
"If you recognize that communication is thought transmission and not information transmission, you will realize that your communication efforts must be directed to doing or saying something in front of the thoughts you want to appear in someone's head."
"The simple fact of communication is that when you are talking to others, the only things you can be sure are working on the subject you are talking about are your brain, your mouth and maybe their ears. If you want to know what a person's brain is working on, you have to make sounds come out of that person's mouth."
"Rather than making the sounds come out of your mouth (telling people all the things you want them to know) you must do or say something to make the sounds come out of their mouths. That something is ask questions the answer to which, is what you want to tell them."
For example I might state or write "It appears that the majority of you readers have been salespeople for a long time; therefore I assume you have been doing that thing called selling or prospecting or cold calling for a long time. The question that occurs to me is this: Realizing how important time is to you sales reps, I wonder why you would want to take your time to read this newsletter and spend it on a subject that you obviously have been doing for many years.
Then you would tell me all the reasons why you should spend time reading this newsletter or about these subjects, and your reasons would be exactly what I would have told you.
"The major difference is that if we were writing or speaking the thoughts would have come out of your mouth or via your writing rather than mine. Moreover, because you did that I would know those thoughts were in your head. Viola! I have been successful at transferring those thoughts from my head to yours."
Now your assignment is to think up questions that will cause your prospects to communicate to you the answers or results you want to hear.
