How to use a smile to make your communication more effective.
Can you do a fake smile? Can you do a good smile? Are you able to use them in the adequate situation?
Work on your communication skills in order to succeed and reach your goals. Use your smile as a powerful business communication technique. How to communicate more effectively at work through a big smile.
It is really interesting how effective can be a smile talking on the phone. It is really amazing for me that we can hear and notice it. When someone is smiling, his/her voice is somehow different and you can feel peace and harmony in the communication situation. In contact centers for example, it is more than important to start every conversation with a smile. It makes conflicts less probable, because the person at the other side of the phone feels openness and warmth, and that there is a nice person listening.
Anyway smiling it is not only important when you speak on the phone. Smiling should be part of your communication strategy in every face-to-face situation. Smiling is a part of the nonverbal communication that is strictly linked to the paraverbal communication (voice sound). For this reason it needs to be congruent even more with your message, if not, the risk is lack of competence and the last result is that it is hard to believe what you say.
Start with a smile every presentation, meeting or conversation, introducing how nice it is to see the persons sit there with you. It is a short and easy warm-up that warms your voice and the atmosphere around you. This could be a communication way you can apply in different situations of your business and private life as well.
You don’t have to smile throughout your meetings though. Smiling should be congruent with what you are saying, so if it does not fit, don’t smile. Use a smile to make your communication more effective.
Remember that we have almost 200 types of smile, the real one (real means “emotional” one) starts with the muscles around the eyes, not with the lips. So if you do not want to quit smiling saying something negative, you can use a “fake” smile that helps you avoiding a too serious mimic, which can give to your verbal communication a dramatic meaning.
A smile is not important for the persons around you receiving it, but also for you. It is not a secret that when you smile you feel better, even though it can be a little bit difficult at the start, but then it is interesting how the effect can be contagious.
Just another tip: check your smile in front of the mirror. Sometimes we think that we are smiling, but we are not, so it is important to improve our self-awareness. Rehearse also a fake smile, a nice smile, a happy smile… and use them to improve your communication style!
Do you think that smiling is an effective communication strategy?