Life and Career Skills

Communication skill is an art that can only be perfected by putting it in practice. It is definitely true that no matter what you are trying to convey, it is the skills to do it that counts. No matter how good the idea is, sometimes it fails to attract attention of the target audience because of poor communication skills.

It is said that, in general on average a persons attention span lasts for about 30 seconds, it means that you have got only 30 seconds to put your point through and grab the attention of the listener to keep him or her focused to what you are trying to convey. The best example in practice are the T.V commercials. They last for only 30 seconds, the advertisement must get it's point across in 30 seconds before the audience looses their attention, and the truth is they do work. If you look carefully you will see that the good advertisements put their point in an interesting and entertaining way, with carefully chosen words, pictures and music.

The skill to communicate your message in 30 seconds can be applied to your interview skills, your business presentation, public speaking or even to writing a business letter or sales pitching. The trick is to identify the objective carefully, understand the mindset of your target audience and then design the message to convey with clarity.

Here are some points to communicate your message in 30 seconds:

• Be very clear of your objectives and goal

• Do home-work about your target audience

• Make your ideas compelling

• Choose words and sentences carefully.

• Leave some space to improvise

First step is to know you objective. Think about what do you want to convey? What does your audience want from you? You must have a single clear cut-objective, if you have more than one, you should organize your objectives with the important ones first. The important objectives are those which are most attractive to your audience the other objectives can be conveyed later. This will give you a chance to improvise while you are conveying your message through. Also make sure that everything you say must reach to some conclusion. Some times putting everything in a straight- forward way might not be a good idea, to make it clear you may want to say it in “what do you think about this?” format. You can even add humor to your speech, but that might be dangerous. Some people might find it funny and others might get offended by it. The bottom line is to keep your listener engaged.

Do your home work carefully, find out all you can about your target, make a list of what they want, and what you can give them. One of the critical part is choosing the correct words and sentences. You should not sound over confident or arrogant. If your target is not used to heavy vocabulary, they might find you intimidating or even offensive. Keep your sentences short, precise and interesting. All your sentences should be linked by an idea with each other. Try to find out words that your audience wants to hear. People always start to predict and assume before you have even finished. You may use this to your advantage. Try to focus on your speech in such a way that your audience predicts or assumes what you want.

To succeed one must have good marketing skills, and should not be completely depended on technical talents. There are people who are average in their skills but as they are able to communicate what they want, they succeed. Practice well and you will succeed.