Interpersonal communication is something most of us do on a daily basis, although we may not be aware that is what it is called.

Interpersonal communication differs from other forms of communication in various ways. It is also very important in development.

The following list outlines what interpersonal communication is and what some of the characterizes are. It also explains why we need it.

1. What is it?

Interpersonal communication involves a close group of participants. It is basically the everyday conversations you carry on and it includes speeches, general friendly exchanges, arguments and basically anytime you speak to someone.

2. How is it different than other forms of communication?

Interpersonal communication involves face to face encounters. You are talking in person not over a computer, phone or through written information. You can get immediate responses.

You are also able to benefit from body language. You hear a voice where you can pick up on different dialects and speech patterns.

3. How does interpersonal communication vary?

The variances in interpersonal communication involve the people and situations. You communicate differently with someone you know well verses a stranger. You will have different topics of conversation when talking to your preacher or your best friend.

These variations make interpersonal communication flexibility important for difference circumstances.

4. How do we use interpersonal communication?

We use interpersonal communication for a variety of reasons. You use it to learn new information, such as when asking questions. You use it to share information, such as when telling a story. You use it to define yourself, such as when giving a speech.

You also use it to fulfill the natural need for contact with other people. Interpersonal communication is how we develop from infant to adult. We learn about different cultures and languages through interpersonal communication as well. It gives you a human element, a real nature that other forms of communication can not provide.

5. Why is interpersonal communication important?

Interpersonal communication is important because you need it to develop throughout the stages of life. You get so much from interpersonal communication.

You learn, teach and get an identity through interpersonal communication. You also share with others who you are. You need interpersonal communication to learn how to pronounce words correctly, how to speak properly in certain situations and how to communicate in general.

Interpersonal communication has taken a back seat to other forms of communication in recent years. More people than ever are using the internet to exchange information and make contact with others.

We must also be sure to keep interpersonal communication in our lives. Without it babies will never learn to talk properly and we can never expand our language abilities through learning form others speech. The spoken word should never have its importance underestimated.

Peter Murphy
http://www.articlesbase.com/advice-articles/interpersonal-communication-secrets-that-work-every-time-10453.html

Technorati Tags: interpersonal communication, interpersonal conflict, Interpersonal Skills

Interpersonal Communications

Very few of us never have contact with the outside world or other people, and as a result, there is a relationship that is created whenever we interact with someone else. As time goes on, that relationship can remain stagnant, or as in the case of a love or dating relationship, that relationship can grow and flourish. But the real key to any meaningful relationship is effective interpersonal communications between two people. That statement is every bit as true for interpersonal relationships as it is for business relationships, and also for the marital relationship between a husband and wife.

Effective interpersonal communications cannot be stressed enough, especially in a marriage relationship. In today’s world where both husband and wife are holding down at least full time if not part time jobs, things happen during the course of a normal day. But it is only at the end of the day when two people are relaxing that effective communications can take place. It doesn’t matter how mundane, since even in mundane conversation you can learn a lot about another person, understanding what is important to them, what irritates them, and things they find enjoyable.

Suppose your partner is depressed about something, whether financial stress, job pressures, or anything else. How much time do you give to your partner to improve the mood? If your answer is “none or not much”, you are running the risk of your relationship starting to deteriorate. The breakdown of a relationship does not happen overnight, but it is all these “missed opportunities” to show care, understanding, and support that all add up over time.

Respect is a key ingredient of any relationship. If you do not feel you can trust someone, your communications with them will be brief or nonexistent. There is no real relationship there. That type of relationship may be fine for the checkout clerk at the grocery store, but how many people have that kind of relationship with their spouse? The real answer to that question will probably scare you, but you have control over that and the fate of that relationship, even your marital relationship, rests squarely in your hands.

Trust is another key element of any relationship, which goes hand in hand with respect. You need to feel you can trust the person you are communicating with. If you don’t have a level of trust with that person, even your spouse, then your communications will reflect that lack of trust. You won’t elaborate on things you say, you won’t go into details, and you will subconsciously leave out information that may leave you vulnerable to a future rebuttal or even attack from the other person.

Many times, especially in a marriage relationship, the three key elements of a relationship (communication, trust and respect) slowly start to erode over time. It is typically not a conscious thing, but it can happen if both spouses are not aware that they need to keep all levels of these elements at peak values consistently. So what happens as these components start to degrade? That relationship can develop into an abusive relationship. This is particularly difficult in a marriage relationship – when the checkout clerk at the grocery store abuses you, you can report them to their management or you can just decide to shop somewhere else. But in a marriage relationship, it is not nearly as clear-cut at that, nor nearly as simple. The marriage equivalent of “shopping somewhere else” is divorce, which although being a very drastic step, is sometimes the best solution for both parties when the respect, the trust, and the interpersonal communications have degraded to the point where both parties are unwilling to put in enough time and effort that will be required to rebuild those elements.

Take care of your relationships and understand how you can improve them on a regular basis, and those relationships can grow and flourish over time, where you can gain comfort during the dark times and share your joys in the good times.

Jon Arnold
http://www.articlesbase.com/relationships-articles/how-to-improve-your-interpersonal-relationships-94793.html

Technorati Tags: interpersonal communication, interpersonal communications, interpersonal conflict, Interpersonal Skills

Here is an article I came across by Leanne Hoagland-Smith on Interpersonal Skills.Have a read as she has some interesting ideas.

Do you have strong interpersonal skills or what some call essential people skills? These skills are considered to be soft skills within the training and development industry.

Unfortunately, interpersonal skills are not actively developed within the K-16 educational process as much as they should be. There are 3 core competencies for individuals with truly extraordinary strong interpersonal skills.

The first competency is Goals. Having the ability for consistent goal setting and goal achievement is critical for personal, professional and organizational success. Goal setting is not actively taught within the K-16 educational system.

From my experiences, I believe that less than 5% of all adults have and use a proven goal setting system along with the necessary goal setting tools to get to where they desire to go. Having the competency of how to set and achieve goals is frankly irreplaceable.

Attitudes are the second competency within this triad of essentials for personal and organizational success. Great positive attitudes equal great positive results.

Some has said that attitudes are habit of thought. This is a simple, but revealing definition. Attitudes are the foundation for success. If you believe or think you can do something, you will do what is necessary to turn that belief or thought into reality. On the opposite side of the coin, if you believe or think you cannot do something, you will give up without even trying.

In the early 1950Â’s, the term self fulfilling prophecy was born. Attitudes are our self fulfilling prophecies. These habits of thought directly affect our self esteem and so many other parts of our personalities. Because attitudes are thoughts, you can choose them and use them to your advantage.

Finally, the third competency is Self Leadership Skills. Many strong interpersonal skills reside within this third competency. However there are some external personal skills such as time management that are also within this competency.

Self leadership skills are all about you as an individual leading yourself. How do you cope with failure or with success. How do you handle all of the challenges that you As you look towards your future, take the time to add new fuel or G.A.S. to your existing strong interpersonal skills. I believe that you will be truly amazed by the results.

Do you some simple, but honest ideas in how to improve yourself? Then you might be interested in the Three Missing Pieces for Organizational & Personal Success a combination e book and e workbook at http://www.processspecialist.com/e-books-htm This easy e book focuses on helping you with the 3 key areas of setting goals, understanding attitudes and self leadership skills.

Technorati Tags: communication skills, communication skills training, Interpersonal Skills

Here is an article on ways that you can enhance your interpersonal communication skills by By Joel Seah.

Our communication with others usually starts with our thoughts, resulting in words, tonality and body language. There are many ways to define “thoughts”, and one of them is how we use our senses internally.

We use our senses outwardly to perceive the world, and inwardly to represent experience to ourselves. When recalling experiences, such as a time you went to the beach, what appears in your mind first? Maybe a picture of the beach would appear. Perhaps you hear the sounds of the waves and children playing, or the feeling of how relaxed you were just sitting by the sea.

When you ask a group of students to describe their form teacher, you could get a variety of answers. One student might recall the hairstyle and dressing first, followed by the teacher’s voice, and how he or she feels about the teacher’s lessons. Another might first recall that the teacher has a very deep and powerful voice, followed by how the teacher always makes the class feel interesting, and lastly, how the teacher looks.

This method of taking in and storing information in our minds, through our five senses (Seeing, hearing, feeling, taste and smell) is known as Representational Systems in Neuro Linguistic Programming. Having different preferred representational systems is also one reason why we encounter difficulties in getting our messages across to others sometimes.

If you are a visual person whose dominant sense is seeing, you will likely speak in a manner that include many pictures and visual words. A kinesthetic person on the other hand, will speak with many feeling words. Also, they will find it easier to relate to feeling words as compared to visual words.

A point to remember is that representational systems are not mutually exclusive. It is possible to recall a scene, and include the sounds and feelings simultaneously, though it is quite rare for all to be used together all the time. Most of us tend to have one or two representation systems that we prefer when thinking.

Also, it is possible to develop and improve. For example, a person who is mostly visual might have difficulty learning music initially. However, with practice, they can also develop the audio aspect of their representational systems.

So to conclude, if you want to build rapport with others and get them to understand you easily, take responsibility for the way you communicate and use words that are suitable for their preferred representational systems.

By Joel Seah

Of course there is so much more to having great interpersonal communication skills and if you use what Joel has told you in this article you’ll be well on your way …

Technorati Tags: communication skills, communication skills training, interpersonal communication skills

The ILO (International Labour Office) estimates in its latest Global Employment Trends report that up to 50 million jobs will be lost by the end of the year, that the financial crisis has also become a jobs crisis – that is 210 million people out of work – and does not include the working poor.

Only a matter of months ago the crisis was a labour and skills shortage. Now it is a jobs shortage crisis. It is not too hard to see that these are two sides of the same problem.

There is little about business today that resembles that on which the way we work is based. In the late 1800s to early 1900s – the genesis of our present labour systems – the majority of workers had to fulfil tasks, broken down to the level that would give employers the most control and lowest costs. The rationale for low costs was workers who performed repetitive functions would need limited training, could be quickly replaced, also quality could be controlled and work output could be monitored against production targets, meaning they could be supervised by people with limited supervisory training.

Such a system was possible (not necessarily successful in human terms) because workers supplied time and labour (easily transacted), because they were inclined to stay with employers, because goods were homogeneous (a little training could go a long way), and because competition was limited (lower costs trumped quality and features). This treatment resulted in workers becoming entrenched in certain tasks, certain processes and restricted by the titles and job descriptions that classified them. Employers, unable to find job applicants with a like-for-like match to their job description lamented the skills shortage, while perfectly, but differently, qualified candidates were overlooked.

As work conditions changed, the employment system became more difficult to maintain. It has been propped up with tools that makes employment more a matter of process than of management, as employers wait for these processes to do their thing: for competency-based assessment to deliver perfect employee/job fit, for performance appraisal to bring people in line with expectations, for bonuses to spark motivation and loyalty, for feedback boxes to make people feel included. Managers who are not trained in the sciences behind these processes can only administer them. Employees too wait, to feel more valued, to be provided opportunities, to be know jobs are secure.

Worse, this fundamentally flawed system adds costs that cannot be justified in difficult economic times. Predictably, HR expenditure is one of the first to be reduced in times of economic pressure, leaving confusion over what processes will continue or disenfranchisement over the hypocrisy of the “greatest asset” rhetoric.

If these are not the times to significantly overhaul the current systems of employment, there is no other. When the economy turns, recovery will be stalled by a deflated workforce, large tracts of workers without recent work experience, whose last jobs are ones no longer in demand, and who have been unable to update skills, and organisations without the systems and facilities to engage a workforce with anything but a short-term mentality.

In Fortune magazine September 1994, William Bridges wrote about The End of the Job. “As a way of organizing work, it is a social artifact (sic) that has outlived its usefulness.” Traditional work systems produce the very workers who are eliminated when organisations face pressure: the unempowered, those lacking skills to be flexible, those who get the job done rather than work on outcomes. Bridges argues that it is not just certain jobs in certain industries that are disappearing, it is the need for jobs themselves, “trying to use outmoded and under powered organizational forms to do tomorrow’s work”.

Many organisations are hamstrung in their ability to employ what they really need because they spend time and money in employment-related activities they don’t understand, are unable to quantify in cost and have no expectation of return on the investment.

New labour market-wide employment methods are urgently needed. Our list of changes includes:

1. Making it easier for people to work as independent contractors. Independent contractors are self-reliant, taking responsibility for maintaining their own skills and knowledge and the contexts in which they can be applied. Independent contractors are a valuable source of specialised expertise and can be engaged as needed. For this, for bearing the costs of their own expenses and for not being paid statutory entitlements, contractors will command a higher fee. Treatment of contractors – suppliers like any other – is not always positive if the organisations create an “us” and “them” culture. To unions who do not have jurisdiction over commercial work contracts, independent contractors are effectively scab labour and in some states and industries, legislation has been passed that forces independent contractors to be subjected to employment laws.

2. Human resources must become qualified (currently there is no minimum qualification) and that qualification must include business, finance or economics. The role – and if HR do not want to change then another profession will take over – must be more than administrators, guardians and do-gooders of employment. HR have long complained they are not taken seriously but many given a “seat at the strategy table” squandered the opportunity. A SHRM (US-based Society for Human Resources Management) survey reported that 83% of the HR respondents believed interpersonal communication skills was academically valuable to their careers, and only 2% of respondents believed the same of skills in finance.

3. Employers and workplace laws alike must allow greater mobility of workers in, out and around organisations. Employee retention is not often well thought through; in attempting to hold on to knowledge and stave off costs of recruitment, employers frequently invest in maintaining a status quo. The potential talent base becomes limited as does the ability to respond to changes (except, ironically, through redundancies). When inevitably they do implement change it is usually reactive and the disruption, insecurity and instability drains the organisation of energy and confuses its purpose.

4. Employers and workers alike need to treat all work forms as being as, if not more, valuable than full time, permanent positions. Portfolio careers means undertaking work in multiple jobs and across industries. Employers will benefit by being more adept at using talent when and where it is needed and employees will be less dependent on one employer. There will be a double-benefit as employees have more opportunities to gain on-the-job skills but the costs of doing so are spread.

5. Imagine if employee work histories were as transferable as results between educational institutions. Sure, this information will not be perfect and would be subjective. Hiring, for starters would be a very different process with this information and not just reliant on the CV, the reference check and how well the candidate jumps through the hoops set up for them.

Real leadership to make real changes, not just another round of quick-fixes, is needed now.

Isabel Wu
http://www.articlesbase.com/management-articles/no-more-jobs-we-cannot-afford-746928.html

The Internet has become a necessary means of communication in modern times. When speaking about communication, one does not necessarily refer only to interpersonal relationships, but also to mass communication. This type of relationship stands at the basis of online communication.

It is only natural that users should try to find the best web hosting services currently available on the market. Their search for proper hosting will normally include the best price offer, as well as other criteria usually presented by such service providers. For instance, some of the most common criteria are the technical parameters of the web server and the area of services available.

The technical support offered by the web hosting company may seem an unimportant problem, but it should form an area of serious consideration when choosing one’s hosting provider. The web server is one of the key elements for the success of an Internet business, as it directly determines the accessibility of the site and the way in which it works.

Technical problems may occur in implementing the site, or other malfunctions. It is highly important that those in charge with site implementation deal with them as soon as possible. Any delay may cause traffic or, worse, client loss. Technical support is available 24 hours a day and seven days a week, provided, as a rule, by the web hosting company. This also should be an important criterion in choosing one’s hosting provider. If this support is not an aspect covered permanently, one should take into account jetlag. Avoid virtual communication problems by making sure that the employees in charge of the site administration have good English skills.

Many countries in different regions of the world are building such an infrastructure that would correspond to the demands of the Internet. They have still to reach the level of the United States of America concerning web hosting. Anyway, should the country in which your activity takes place be not one of the most developed in this area of expertise, it is obviously more acceptable to choose an international hosting provider.

You should compare the equipments and the servers a local provider can offer with the ones offered by an international provider, before you make a fast decision. They should be able to handle an increased amount of traffic. There are obviously some advantages in working with local web hosting companies, one of them being the same currency. Nevertheless, overall, the best solution is a specialized international provider.

A website is not by itself an objective. A professionally designed website can increase one’s business by increasing the sales accomplished by means of traditional sales channels or online sales. It also consolidates the company’s image on the market; it offers a more direct, more personal means of communication with customers, potential customers, employees, collaborators and suppliers.

For far too many companies this option in a new one, but an online alternative remains an attractive solution. Professionally designed and implemented, a website could become an indispensable tool in the growth of your business. Most hosting providers offer complete solutions for a successful presence online: Internet domain registration, web design, web programming, or the adaptation of open-source solutions: Linux or Windows web hosting.

Amelie Mag
http://www.articlesbase.com/web-hosting-articles/proper-web-hosting-a-fundamental-for-good-business-development-125017.html

Interview questions come in many forms and serve many different purposes. Some are used to get to know you, while others are used to gather information. Technical interview questions are used to test your logic, reasoning, and problem-solving skills. The key to answering these types of questions is to relax and to not over-think. They are most commonly in interviews that involve getting a job that will require you to come to draw logical conclusions on a daily basis. Computers and sciences areas will have these types of technical questions.

Typically, technical interview questions don’t have a right or wrong answer. The interviewer is interested in your logic skills and the thought process that you go through on the way. Your communication and analytical skills are what this part of the interview is all about. The best way to approach technical interview questions is to engage in a dialogue with your interviewer. There is no way to know what sort of question may come your way, but the best way to prepare is to practice doing riddles and brainteasers to keep your skills sharp. Know the field you are entering well, so that the technical questions are not difficult to answer. Make sure your logic skills are fine tunned and you will do well with the job interview. Management positions, for example, require quick but complete thought processes and good Interpersonal Skills.

Technical interview questions are usually logic questions, which include probability questions. It is helpful to have the ability to do basic mental math with decent multiplication, estimation, and division skills for some of these questions. This is because sometimes they will require that you give an estimation that is at least near the actual answer so that the interviewer can see that you are capable of reaching this type of answer. Common starter jobs, for example, working a cash register, will have technical interview questions that pertain to customer service and how to handle an unhappy customer. You should also be able to make change without using the cash register’s answer just in case there is a malfunction with the equipment.

About.com features a section with links to technical interview questions on the web as well as tips to answering them. Practical problem solving techniques are a necessary skill to possess in order to ace the interview to get a good job. The more you put into preparation, the better your chances of being hired.

Keith Londrie
http://www.articlesbase.com/self-help-articles/show-your-skills-with-responses-to-technical-interview-questions-50732.html

It is a well-understood axiom of the business world that there are two ways to improve the bottom line of the business.  Stated simply, those two ways are to make money or to cut costs.  Now no business can cost cut their way to profitability.  But by the same token, waste and excessive internal costs for any business can eat away any profits that business is enjoying.  So to get ahead in a competitive business environment, both methods must be employed.

When a business turns its eye to cost cutting, there is a stated or unstated business objective that the business owners will discover significant bleeding of revenues that are going on within the systems of doing business.  So if those systems can be improved to eliminate that waste, the business would literally make money from the inside out because the overhead of the business would drop so dramatically.

The usual progress of such a cost saving campaign by a business is to find “the low hanging fruit” first.  By that we mean that in order to satisfy the demands of management, middle management will identify superficial savings in hopes of satisfying the requirement.  Hence switching from disposable cups to mugs or cutting back on break room amenities often go on the chopping block first.

Sadly, while there may be some superficial savings to be found in such places, the significant introduction of efficiencies for any business lie at a deeper level and take a more in-depth process of locating problems with how things get done internally.  The methodology of finding these “money pits” within a business is often called “Process Improvement.”  The concept of process improvement is to diagram a particular business process from inception to completion and document the stages it goes through, the handing over of authority for the process and to pin point places where inefficient methods are causing excessive cost in executing that process en route to the final stage of process completion.

Routinely, the areas of business structure that most often identified as being candidates for a process improvement examination are…

*         Excessive overhead between departments.  Departments within a business are notorious for taking on the atmosphere of a fiefdom and becoming resistant if not suspicious of other departments in the same company.  When that happens, department managers will introduce paperwork and unnecessary processing to cause “work” to move to his or her department from another or for completed jobs to continue along their path.  This excessive overhead can be costly at the department level and bog down the business as a unit enough to actually reduce the profitability of the organization.

*         Communication problems.  A business process moves through the organization as each department or entity adds value to the process through to the completion of the job.  However if communications between departments or people along the process chain are flawed, a process can grind to a halt and wait for hours if not days before the missed communication is discovered and the work is put into the cycle to be completed.  This slow down or break down in communications can be a tremendous drain on the company.  To correct the problem, modern tools of communication should be reviewed so each significant person along the chain is quickly made aware of work that needs to be done and can signal to the next agent that their step is complete and that the process is moving to the next stage. 

*         An inefficient IT infrastructure. Out of date computer programs that are not integrated with each other cause needless work to be done to take data from one system and moving it into the next computer program only to be entered again at the next stop along the chain.  Standardization and integration of data and systems will introduce huge efficiencies to the process.

By streamlining the process of moving a business requirement from inception to conclusion, we can remove much of the inefficiency and waste that has become inherent to that process.  We can introduce up to date integration designs both at the IT and process level to quickly move the process from one department to the next upon completion.   The outcome is a streamlined organization that is no longer “bleeding money” due to inefficiencies and as such is making money “from the inside out”.

Pompy
http://www.articlesbase.com/business-opportunities-articles/making-money-from-the-inside-out-719654.html

“Think thoughts that make you feel good. Think thoughts, say words and do things that resonate with who you really are-with that broader, wiser, securer part of you. Then your feelings of well-being, your feelings of worthiness, your feeling of value become very real to you. Then you have something to offer the world.” Abraham-Hicks 1/8/91

The Law of Attraction states that whatever you focus your energy on will grow larger. That which is like itself is drawn. So, let’s look at this in the light of world events. Are you focusing on peace or are you focusing on war? Are your conversations of world events leaving you feeling good or bad? Are you putting your focus on what you want or on what you don’t want? Notice where you are putting your attention.

Let’s take this a step further. Take a moment to get centered and quiet. Now ask yourself: “What do I want?”, “What do I want for this planet?” Notice what words, pictures, and feelings come up for you. Whatever comes up notice if you feel good or bad when you think of what you want. Focus your attention on the aspects that feel good. Bring the essence of what you want into your internal experience. For example: if you want peace in the world, focus on feeling peaceful yourself.

Do you treat yourself with unconditional love and compassion, or do you beat yourself up with critical thoughts?

Do you spend time with your kids in joy and play, or do you spend time nagging and yelling?

Do you create a positive connection with your partner by being open and listening fully, or do you hold on to your opinions until the bitter end?

Focus and acknowledge the times that you choose peace over conflict. Focus and acknowledge when you experience peace internally and in your external world.

“If we are going to experience peace we need to notice each act of peace, however small. As we notice and ignite our sense of internal peace, our actions then reflect peace and those actions will influence the whole. If we are going to experience world peace we must start with ourselves and BE peace.” –Sarah Hartzell, founder of Circles of Ten Women for World Peace.

I recently joined a local Circle of Ten. As a group we focus on outrageous acts of peace. We are supporting each other in remembering how to focus on peace rather than discuss our fears about war. Circles of Ten is a grass roots, peace activism, and leadership training movement whose intention is to facilitate personal, interpersonal and global peace.

The idea is to energize what you want. Create a clear vision of what you want and begin experiencing this internally. Then begin attending to it in your day to day life. Then broaden the vision and attend to where you can find this vibration in the world.

Lynne Morrell
http://www.articlesbase.com/motivational-articles/the-key-to-peace-197688.html

If you are a sales person, have you gone through any real sales training? Do you really need it? Many sales persons do, because there are many people who don’t understand that selling implies two parties. It is a dialogue. The customer and his or her needs is what drives the conversation and your sales approach should always be customer-centered.

Every person has a sales approach he/she consciously or unconsciously uses every single day, and probably you are the same too. But are you really ready to look at your sales talk up close? If you are, are you ready to assess yourself? You may be able to spot your strengths and weaknesses, and change your sales talk for the better.

The first thing that you have to really understand is that you need to start using your natural skills and your knowledge, and sell more by creating compelling dialogues with your customers. “I already do that,” you are probably saying to yourself and it’s likely that you do. But are you really keeping up with the changes that are occurring everywhere around you – customers, competitors, markets?

The days when you could rely solely on product knowledge or technical expertise are long gone. The Internet is a massive free and convenient source of information, giving customers more information than ever before. Salespeople face a tough business climate in which they need to win all the good deals that are out there.

In the current environment, products which were once all the difference are the equalizer now and they don’t really count as much as they used to. So we must say without a shadow of a doubt that sales must be client-focused now instead of product-focused.

Instead of talking about products, your role is to communicate a message in which you add value, provide perspective, and show how your features and benefits apply to and satisfy your prospective customer’s needs.

Most salespeople (unfortunately for them) use the same model for selling that has been the predominant selling model for decades. Few really realize that times have indeed changed. If you were to ask 100 salespeople whether their approach was customer-centered or product-centered, what would they say?

Most salespeople are absolutely positive about the fact that they know their customers’ needs. They truly believe they are customer-centered. These beliefs are actually the biggest of their enemies and they keep them from making the changes they need to make in their sales talk. You need to constantly strive to perfect yourself, and this is true for any field of activity.

Some salespeople use their charisma and they rely on their Interpersonal Skills and charm. Others are technical experts, substantive in content but weak in customer focus. There are the “killers,” always rushing to the close, often at the expense of the relationship.

These characterizations of sales types are extreme, but they set the context for thinking about how salespeople approach sales. Whether you belong to one group or another or not, review your technique and begin a real sales training if you think that’s the case.

Ben Franklin
http://www.articlesbase.com/sales-articles/improve-your-skills-for-sales-success-today-134674.html