Special Delivery

For important conversations, a smooth delivery matters. Jerky and discombobulated communication in strategic conversations diminishes your overall chances of success. To smooth out your delivery in important interactions, follow five conversational delivery tips.

Delivery Tip #1: Practice your delivery if the conversation matters.

Replicate the conditions of your future conversation as much as possible and rehearse for important conversations. If you can’t replicate the conditions exactly, don’t skip a rehearsal. For a smooth delivery, you must speak your words out loud, and not just say them in your head. The benefit of hearing your own words cannot be overstated—the ear, after all, is the final judge of smoothness. Almost everything sounds good in your head, but almost nothing comes out smoothly the first time. Get your first time out of the way in practice.

Don’t Fall in Love With Your Message

Even the class clown knows that when a conversation is important, you prepare for it. Preparation is to effective communication like loud is to rock concert—it’s just plain obvious.

But something funny can happen during the preparation phase: We end up falling in love with our message. Once we get the introduction just right, line up our evidence perfectly, and conduct a few flawless rehearsals, we can end up falling head-over-heels in love with our message. U + message = luv 4 ever.