Make phone calls like a professional - The absolute basics

The voice

Our voice carries the message that we want to convey on the phone. Facial expressions and gestures are not at our disposal.

For our conversation partner to be well-disposed towards us, our voice must be convincing and trigger good feelings. But it can only do this if we feel comfortable.

If our throat scratches, our diaphragm is bruised, or we are in a bad mood, our voice will give that away. The success of a telephone call stands and falls with a balanced and natural voice.

Often our voice becomes higher and overturns when we are excited or anxious. This can be extremely disturbing and unpleasant for our conversation partner. We must, therefore, make sure that we enter the conversation in a calm and positive mood.

This requires a little preparation and practice.

Our voice always sounds most natural when we are relaxed and expect something good. To trigger these expectations, communication experts often recommend smiling during the phone call.

The smile signals to the brain that everything is okay, and the situation is pleasant for us.

The problem is that we often forget to smile during the phone call because we have to concentrate on what we want to say.

We can solve this problem by being positive even before the phone call and by tuning our voice to this positive attitude.

Before we pick up the phone, we should, therefore, think of something we like very much and which makes us feel comfortable. If you love chocolate, imagine eating a piece of it. Say, "Mmmmm, that tastes good." Smile while you say it.

The vibration of your lips when you say "Mmmmm" has a calming effect and puts you in a more relaxed state. In combination with the thought of something that makes you feel good (chocolate), this effect is even more substantial.

The smile is another vital part of the exercise. When the nerves tell the brain that our face is smiling, the brain interprets this to mean that we seem to feel comfortable and expect something good.

Our mood rises.

The relaxation and positive expectation are inevitably transferred to our voice and immediately makes us sound more confident and pleasant.

If you consciously apply this exercise before every telephone call, it will soon become a habit you don't have to think about anymore. Once the pattern has been established, you will always be able to make phone calls with a smile in your voice and achieve better results than ever before.

The body

The emotional feedback loop between our body and our voice is not only available to us through the vibration of our lips.

An upright sitting posture leads to better and deeper breathing, making your voice sound more open and free. However, it can still happen that we get upset during a phone call, and we bend forward involuntarily, which, in turn, has adverse effects on our breathing and, thus, on our voice.

Of course, you could also lean back and maybe even put your feet on the desk. This would make you more relaxed, but since this is a so-called boss pose, this posture soon makes us arrogant and know-it-all.

We should avoid this at all costs. Nobody likes to talk on the phone to someone who sounds arrogant and stuck-up.

It is, therefore, better to stand up from the start.

The psychology of words

Thousands of books have been written about communication and misunderstandings in communication. To cover the whole topic here, exhaustively, would go beyond the scope of this article. Besides, you wouldn't be able to memorize every single communication hack anyway.

I will, therefore, limit myself here to the two most essential tips on the psychology of words.

Firstly, the same thing applies to phone calls as to life in general: Avoid "you" messages (you wanted to have the report ready by three o'clock) and use "I" messages instead (I'll have a problem if the report is not prepared by three o'clock).

The first message says that the other person has done something wrong. The second message says something about your own condition.

The second important tip is to speak concretely. Don't say, "I don't see a problem," but rather, "That's okay."

In the first case, the brain only understands "problem" and does not hear the word "no." At the end of the phone call, your conversation partner will, therefore, in the worst case, have the unconscious feeling that there is an unsolved problem. However, you wanted to communicate precisely the opposite.

Conclusion

You can do a lot of things wrong on the phone at work without even suspecting it. But just a few little tricks can make a big difference. You just have to know what to look for.

1. with the right thoughts and a few practice sentences, you can make your voice more pleasant and trustworthy and win over your conversation partner.

2. you can intensify this effect if you pay attention to your posture.

3. the use of concrete language prevents misunderstandings that arise on an unconscious level with your conversation partner.

Keep these three absolute basics in mind and then develop your skills further. Telephoning will continue to be an essential part of your professional life, so try to become as good at it as possible.