Immediately Improve Your Communication Skills With These Simple and Easy Techniques

Improve your communication skills with these simple and easy techniques!

Great communication skills are extremely valuable for both work and life with countless benefits. They will allow you to excel in your career (there’s a reason why almost every job asks for “excellent communication skills”).  They are critical for happy relationships.  Great communication skills allow your voice to be heard and help you get to where you want to be in life.

But learning to communicate well is not an easy task. It’s a continual and challenging process. The best communicators are always practicing and working on their communication skills.  There are countless variables that someone must adapt to when communicating with the diverse people of the world we live in. Communicating well takes time, effort, and practice.

The results are worth it, though.  People with great communication skills stand out, especially when there are many people who are not great communicators (I’m looking at you poorly written emails, typos in important text, and crazy relationship drama).

Thankfully, even the hardest jobs have tricks that can make them easier. That’s why I want to share some super simple and easy techniques you can start using RIGHT NOW to immediately improve your communication skills.

Best of all, ANYONE can do these.  Let’s begin!

Simple and Easy Techniques to Improve Your Communication Skills

Use Someone’s Name (or Formal Name) When Talking to Them

It doesn’t get more simple than this. Use people’s names often when talking to them!

Our names are such an important facet of our identity and trigger sub-conscious cues when used.  Using someone’s name can generate feelings of closeness, trust, confidence, or other positive feelings. It will automatically make people like you more and be more likely to side with your ideas or cause.

This is best demonstrated by some examples.  Imagine the following conversations.

Co-worker: I’m heading out. I’ll see you tomorrow!
You: Good-bye, see you later!

Customer Service Rep: Hello, this is Pam from Customer Service, how can I help you?
You: Hi, I’m having an issue with this device I ordered from your company.

Spouse: I was thinking we should go out to that new restaurant that opened on Friday.
You: That is a great idea, let’s do it!

The above examples are the ways most people would respond. By making one simple change to add someone’s name to these responses, the communication becomes more powerful and effective than before.  For example:

You: Good-bye, Roy! See you later!

You: Hi Pam, I’m having an issue with this device I ordered from your company.

You: That is a great idea, Stanley, let’s do it!

It may sound stupid crazy that this works, but it really is that easy and it works wonders!

You don’t want to go overboard with it, just use the person’s name once or a couple times within appropriate parts of the conversation and you’ll reap all the benefits.

Lastly, this technique works best when used with a person’s first name, but if you’re speaking to someone where first name usage is not appropriate, use the formal name instead. This is generally their title and last name.  Mr. LASTNAME, Doctor LASTNAME, Senator LASTNAME, etc.

Ask People About Themselves

People love to talk about themselves when given the opportunity. Express an interest in people’s lives, families, activities, the things they do and love, and you’ll grow closer to them in minutes than you ever could otherwise.

This is as simple as asking someone about how their day is going.  Use open-ended questions to help ensure you can keep the conversation lively.  It can be asking someone their opinions on any variety of topics.  It can be asking them to tell you more about a topic you know they are interested in.

Keep in mind also that interest can be genuine even if you’re not particularly interested in what the person tells you. Just because you’re not interested in the topic talked about doesn’t mean you can’t be interested to hear what others have to say.

Showing interest in others, regardless of the topics discussed, is a critical step of being a great communicator.  Plus, you never know what great things you may learn in the process by lending an ear.

Show Appreciation and Give Thanks

We live in a world of constant criticism.  People are so quick to point out the bad and wrong, but how often do we take time to thank people or tell them we appreciate them?

Rarely.

Good behavior is just sort of expected without any reward or praise. Unfortunately, this creates a culture where the people who do bad or wrong get all the attention and help while those who are doing good mostly go ignored. Over time, this can create all types of unease and discontent for those individuals.  It reinforces bad behavior and tempts good behavior to slowly disappear because no one ever takes time to recognize it.

We might be able to change this overnight, but we can make people feel good about themselves by working appreciation and thanks into our everyday conversations with others.

Tell people how much you appreciate them!  Give exuberant thanks to others! Even if it’s a simple favor or something that someone was planning to do anyway, let people know you are so thankful for them and all they do.

By working this into your everyday conversations, these people will grow closer to you and your voice will sound louder than it had before when it matters the most.

Start Practicing These Techniques Today!

You might have noticed a trend with these techniques.  They all revolve around building and fostering a connection with others. Sure, there are aspects of great communication that rely on more objective aspects like mastery of the language, proper grammar, or appropriate body language, but these interpersonal aspects of communication are just as valuable.  They also happen to be the most easily overlooked.

We’re all people after all who want to be treated with respect and kindness, and we all deserve that.  By practicing these easy techniques in your conversations, you’ll be able to connect more deeply with others than ever before because you’re showing people you care.  When it’s important that your voice is heard, it will sound loud and clear.

This is not the end-all guide to communication, however, it’s just a super easy place to get started.  These techniques have been a great benefit to me and they will be a great benefit to you, too. They will also help build you a solid foundation to build further communication skills on top of in the future. Give them a try and see what benefits they bring you!

Last but not least, I would love to hear your thoughts!  Does anyone have their own super simple communication tips or techniques that have worked well in your life?  Share them in the comments so we can all learn from each other.  Thank you for reading and take care!

Yours Truly,
– Mr. Happy Work

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Suzanne
Suzanne
5 years ago

This is so true! Your advice is exactly how to communicate better. People love to hear their name and talk about themselves. So just those two things alone will engage someone more in the conversation. Awesome article!

Nicole
Nicole
5 years ago

Great advice for anyone trying to up their communication game. All of your tips should enhance anyone’s level of conversation.

JOHN MULINDI
JOHN MULINDI
5 years ago

Very easy and practical ways of improving communication. Actually when you start a conversation by asking people about themselves, they are likely to be more interested in conversing with you than when you talk only about yourself. Thanks for sharing these useful tips.

Steve
Steve
5 years ago

Thanks for this. It’s sound, practical advice that can make an immediate difference in the way one communicates with others. Good stuff.

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