effective communication

Successful Certified Legal Nurse Consultants know that being nice always pays off with your attorney-clients, subcontractors, vendors and employees. Being nice in no way implies that you are weak or have to kowtow to someone else’s whims, nor does it mean you’re always agreeable or a pushover. Being nice can mean that you have the ability to deliver an unpleasant message or opposing viewpoint while coming from a place of professionalism rather than emotion or antagonism.

In your CLNC^® business, whether you’re working with attorney-clients or subcontractors, it helps to have a consciousness about the way you express your dissatisfaction, dissenting opinion or tough message. Your behavior becomes part of that message and to be in control of your message, you have to be in control of yourself. When you’re not, people don’t hear the message and will often discount it because of the way they’ve perceived the delivery or even worse the messenger, no matter how you intended it.

Effective communicators know how to balance the message and the delivery. They don’t deliver bad news with a smile but with equanimity. They don’t disregard the feelings of others or put too much into how others feel about them. Instead they care more about the message itself and don’t load it with unnecessary baggage. Sometimes this means being nice, but more often it means being effective. You know when you’ve achieved the perfect balance when you “nicely” tell someone off and they thank you for it.

Take a moment to reflect on how you deliver your messages. Do you prefer to be “nice” and always relatable, rendering yourself and the people around you ineffective by failing to deliver dissenting viewpoints or tough messages when needed? If yes, you might need to redefine nice.

Do your messages get dismissed by others because they are laden with inappropriate emotions? If yes, learn how to detach from your own junk and the emotional responses of others.

Do you balance the art of nice and effective? If yes, congratulate yourself on achieving that balance but don’t strain your shoulder patting yourself on the back quite yet. Each new day will offer you a plethora of opportunities to choose between “nice” or “effective.” Be sure you choose wisely and consistently.

Success Is Inside!

Successful Certified Legal Nurse Consultants know that one of the tricks to effectively communicating with attorney-clients is to recognize the different forms of communication necessary to get a point across. One of the best methods I’ve found is this: explain the issue in plain English, then explain it again using an example and finally, explain how the example illustrates the point you just made twice.

I call this my “3-Ts” method of effective communication: “Tell’em, Tell’em again and Tell’em what you told them.” Repetition works. That’s why you hear an 800 number or “One day only, Sunday, Sunday, Sunday” repeated over and over again in a commercial. By repeating, they make sure the message is conveyed.

The first time you break down the complex issue into plain English and explain it to your attorney-client, he will mentally process the information on a theoretical basis (or think about his golf game). The second time you explain it, use a relevant example, which takes it from the theoretical world to the practical world, especially if it involves an example similar to the attorney-client’s case. Finally, the last time you tell him what you just told him, you explain not just the example, but the application. By this point, if you’ve done it correctly, you’ve effectively communicated a complex issue. If you’ve done it really well, the attorney may even be able to use your explanation in deposition or at trial.

The next time you’ve explained something to an attorney-client and been met by a blank look, quickly switch to Vickie’s 3-Ts to “Tell’em, Tell’em again and Tell’em what you told them.” You’ll see that look turn into a smile of enlightenment. Just don’t make me have to tell you again.

Success Is Inside!

A study published in Speech Management shows that when meeting someone for the first time, 62% of a person’s effectiveness can be attributed to voice and delivery and only 38% to content. In persuasive speeches, such as a sales pitch, delivery accounts for a remarkable 76% of the presentation’s effectiveness, while only 24% is due to content.

Delivery is the way you talk – your speech mannerisms, the sound of your voice and even how you change your posture as you speak. What you say is important, but the way you say it affects listeners as much as three times more. Your voice is a vital communication tool for your legal nurse consulting business. Effective communication is essential to interviewing successfully with attorney-prospects and for assuring your attorney-clients are fully present when you communicate your opinions on a medical-related case.

As a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant preparing for interviews with attorney-prospects and presentations to attorney-clients, you should analyze your voice to discover where it needs improvement. Do you whisper or mumble? Do people constantly ask you to repeat yourself? Do you find yourself using your parent or cell-phone voice in normal conversation? Do you sound interested or bored? Do you race like a runaway train or buzz along in one endless sentence after another, providing no opportunity for the attorney to speak? Do you needlessly punctuate your speech with ahs, ems, hmms, sighs, “like,” “I mean,” “you know” or other fillers? Or worse, do you always sound like you’re lecturing instead of engaging?

Most of us are not aware of how we sound to others. If we were, we might talk a lot less. I’ve appeared on radio, television and DVDs enough to know all too well how I sound. This process has taught me that the best way to learn your own verbal “ticks” is to record a conversation and then listen to it. Use your digital camera, a video recorder like the “Flip” or, if you don’t have video available, use a simple voice recorder. Try and forget the camera/recorder is on, relax, be yourself and just speak. You can do this on the telephone, in a mock interview with a friend or spouse or simply in a casual conversation.

Now assess whether you sound like one of these:

• The Dying Swan fades out at the ends of sentences – losing all sense of command. Sometimes the dying swan doesn’t even close a sentence and just tapers off in mid-thought. Instead, punch those final words for closure. You’ve spent your nursing career learning how to draw conclusions – do it now in your conversation.
• The Flatliner speaks in a monotonous, boring rumble. Open your throat and your mouth. Imagine placing your voice forward, varying the pitch – from occasional high notes to more frequent low notes. Vary the volume too. When appropriate to what you’re saying, raise your volume. Occasionally, if you’re imparting information that can be done with a conspiratorial smile, use a brief stage whisper – your intended audience will lean forward to listen. That’s when you know you have them.
• The Valley Girl pitches up at the end of sentences, as if questioning. “After the meeting, we went to lunch?” “We ate the best Mexican food?” My legal nurse consulting fee is $150.00 per hour?” An upward inflection indicates hesitancy or a question. Most statements should be made with a downward inflection at the end to suggest certainty and confidence. At the end of a sentence, lower your pitch while still sounding confident.
• The Mumbler sounds like “We’re goan to see-um layer.” This usually results from lazy lips and running words together. Like stage actors, you must practice “biting” the words out. Form your vowels carefully. Own those consonants. Speak with the authority of a Certified Legal Nurse Consultant and slow down if you have to.
• The Whisperer sounds like the shyest person on the planet, but being shy is not an excuse. Having a “soft” voice is not an excuse. Open your mouth, inhale deep into your abdomen and speak up. Pretending you’re on your cell phone in a noisy room is a great way to overcome speaking too softly.
• The Artful Dodger leans back when she’s challenged on a point or unsure of her position. She leans forward when confident but fidgets when verbally cornered. Practice sitting still with a slight forward lean.
• The Conjurer waives her hands in the air while speaking like she’s stirring up the spirits. Keep your hands in your lap unless it’s really, really important to wave them around. Also, keep them away from your face and don’t hide behind them (the attorney can still see you).

Recording yourself makes all the difference in the world. Using a video recorder will let you hear what you really sound and look like when you speak. If you consider the time you’ve spent rehearsing your script for an attorney-prospect interview, you need to spend at least as much time, if not more, energizing the instrument that will deliver those important words – your voice. Chances are you concentrated more on content than delivery and it’s delivery that will prove determinative for your legal nurse consulting business.

Read those percentages at the top of this blog again. Now, focus your attention on your verbal delivery. Record your networking introductions and your answers to common attorney interview questions. Listen to the recordings and honestly assess what you can improve. Re-record it until you sound the way you want to sound – a highly confident, skilled and valuable Certified Legal Nurse Consultant with your nursing experience and education backing you up. You have the confidence – you just need to be confident about it.

Take care of your voice as much as you care for your laptop and iPhone^®. With only a little practice this important marketing tool will gain you instant credibility, visibility and profit while you achieve your CLNC^® goals. Ignore it and you might never realize how many attorneys you’ve lost through poor communication. Even one is too many, so start tuning up your voice today.

Success Is Inside!