Second question first...

For me, people skills are critical. Even for the parts of my business that don't require actual eyeball-to-eyeball contact, I'm still doing business with human beings.

To answer your first question, here's a tip I got for anyone wanting to be more comfortable talking to strangers...

Practice talking to strangers. Put yourself in situations where you can engage in chit-chat with new people with nothing on the line.

One fun way to do this is going to restaurants and chatting with the waiter/waitress. Talk about the weather, how busy or slow the place is, what they like on the menu, whatever. Look at them and smile. Remember their name and use it. Unless you've done it, you might be amazed at the reaction.

Too many people look right through the person waiting on them. They bark orders, talk to them without looking at them, and so on. Spend a few minutes treating them like human beings, and watch them light up.

Oh, yeah, the side benefit is likely to be a level of service that exceeds your expectations. You become a person, too. Rather than simply waiting on you, your server will want to "take care of you."

Every time you do it right, you get a little more comfortable talking to strangers.

I do agree people skills play an important role in our life. Not only practice talking to strangers, in fact, we need to practice consistently talking to parents, sis & bro, relatives, colleague, strangers and so on.....make use of it.

On top of that, we dare to share with our experience, happiness, sadness & everything

It will helps to get better and rapport relationship bet others and also can get a good advise from them too. Somehow, the good deal started from there thru the trustworthy....of course business will grow significantly.

The more communicate the more you get

I went through a sales training program many years ago and it stressed the importance of getting other people talking. People are interested in themselves. Get them talking, you listening. That changed everything for me. I used to think I HAD to do all the talking. Once I took the pressure off and developed some good conversation starters, I found that they would talk like crazy. It helped me relax and then I was more comfortable. One of my favorite questions to ask is, "beside working, what else do you spend your time doing?" Works like a charm. They start talking about what they're passionate about.

What a good thread. Second one in a row I've read that had a nice post by John McCabe.

My little contribution is just that the more you do something, the better you get at it and what you do the most is what you get really good at. (Let me suggest enjoying life.)

People pick complete time wasters like developing their arguing skills, computer games, feeding their egos, etc. Stick to something that is at least a little bit useful.

best wishes, lloyd
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you can provide some of the work each day and always evaluate their work. tumbuhkan good communication and always gave him the award

you can start with smiling , im sure it'll catch the attention, and from there you can start a very casual conversation.:-)

"The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People" by Stephen Covey is to me by far one of the best, most comprehensive books about developing people skills along with many other personal improvements.

I suggest Dale Carnegie's book "How to Win Friends and Influence People"

He has shared many stories of personal accounts where using/remembering someone's Real First Name,
Showing genuine interest in people and offering true & sincere appreciation resulted
into great long term profitable, joyful relationships and friendships.

Wish you best,
Mohsin

I loved both of those books (Carnegie, and Covey). I also like Anthony Robbins.

You could be a topnotch finance analyst or the best in your field, but if you don't know how to open your mouth in front of people or can't even be friends with a dead crustacean, well, you're business is still going to get clients - thanks to your good employees and your irrisistible product - but your rating will not go up past the fifth floor of your 100-storey building. :p


Go, grab Dale Carnegie's "How To Win Friends and Influence People" and religiously practice what it preaches.

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