Seven Best Ways to Communicate with Confidence

Have you ever been in a room full of business professionals that you have never met prior and you pondered on who to approach and what should your conversation be to make a good impression? Many of us never take the time to actually plan out what will be the basis for our conversations and interactions at these kinds of events. We generally go along with the flow of our thoughts, feelings, experiences and we tend to gravitate to the people that we feel are more like us, who we should talk to and are easily approachable. By doing this unconsciously, we limit ourselves and miss out on many great opportunities that could have been consequently rewarding – moving us to new levels and platforms.  In this article, I explore seven best ways to communicate with confidence that will help you and others to build strong and meaningful business relationship ties. 

Here is what it means to communicate with confidence:

1. Have good intentions and a friendly approach:

To be a confident communicator, you must demonstrate that you are sincere, genuine, trustworthy and open-minded. It is also imperative that you focus on and express matters that are of common interest to you and the other parties you are interacting with. People are comfortable with people who are like themselves. Spend the first few minutes asking questions after introducing yourself. Get a feel of the other parties’ attitudes, likes, dislikes, backgrounds, experiences, career, goals, personality, etc. Once you get a general idea, you can find the commonalities and expound upon them. The other parties will like and appreciate your presence because you have certain elements in common that they can relate to.

2. Make your physical appearance express authenticity:

Physical appearance matters greatly. Look the part you want to represent. Others will receive what you are saying more easily, if you are coordinated well with your outward appearance. Physical appearance notably has to do with dressing, grooming, poise, posture, gestures and body language. The senses appealed to mostly are – sight, smell and touch – as in a confident hand shake. No one takes pleasure in a person talking to them who has bad breath, bad perspiration, a terrible body odor or even a perfume that misses the mark or is too powerful to  tolerate. Business attire should be worn at business events to communicate that you are a business professional and serious about what you represent. Your body language should be poised, yet comfortable and relaxed. Teeth and nails clean and hair well groomed. Eye contact while talking is also a must. Excuse yourself if you need to flatulate, excessively cough or sneeze – demonstrating proper manners and etiquette. The parties engaging in conversation will respect you even more; you will leave that necessary lasting impression and certainly open doors for possible future communication and interactions.

3.Demonstrate care and compassion:

Others are more likely to listen to what you have to say and in turn share their feelings, experiences and concerns with you if they think and feel that you are caring and compassionate. This is your opportunity to express your concerns and empathy towards situations and occurrences that are popular and warrants this reaction. You can also demonstrate care and compassion by becoming vulnerable – sharing information of overcoming some difficult and trying situation.  Being vulnerable is not a weakness, it shows that you are honest and strong enough to show others who you truly are. Trust is also birthed out of vulnerability and if you can gain someone’s trust, you are on the road to the greater good of positive receptive influence.

4. Express knowledge and competence:

To express knowledge and competence you must be able to present facts, not assumptions. To deliver factual information, you must be very clear, analytical and unbiased. Be ready to give answers to questions regarding the information you are presenting. Don’t share information if you are not able to respond to many questions when asked. Your only end result of the knowledge deficiency in this regard would be to look absolutely stupid and certainly not taken seriously. So if you are going to present information to show forth your knowledge and competence know your subject matter well.

5. Be Current:

Have you ever talked to someone that all they talked about was the past over and over? I am sure you enjoyed hearing about the many stories from the past, but on a whole you can only tolerate and entertain the past within reason that you can connect the dots of the past to how it relates to the present and future. Having current information to talk about to others empowers you to communicate with confidence and generate responses from others. Others will readily show interest especially if you are talking about subject matters that are impacting them or their society as a whole in some way, form or fashion. This exchange and sharing of information exposes each others’ problem solving skills which is a necessary component for building strong business relationship ties.

6. Move around and interact with various individuals:

There is nothing that shows more confidence in your communication as your ability to move around the room and interact with many different individuals regardless of race, color, gender, age, creed, religion, profession, etc. Your ability to communicate and interact with many different folks using the approaches listed above, will give you a very distinctive and competitive edge. This broadens your horizon for reaching your goals for networking, marketing and building strong relationships. 

7. Volunteer if opportunity arises for open participation:

This is a great way to get the attention from everyone in the room. I am sure after you leave a business event you reflect back on the many people you never got the opportunity to meet or make an impression on. This reinforces the fact -If you get an opportunity to volunteer, say or do something in front of everyone, give it your best shot. See this as a great opportunity to network and introduce yourself to everyone in the room.  Others that you did not get around to in the room will in turn start to gravitate towards you to talk and engage, now that they are aware of your presence and who you are.

Written By: Iodelle A. Chinnery