How to Communicate Effectively with Anyone, Anywhere – A Review

I have a strong belief that everything happens for a reason. I’m not a religious person, anything organised can give me the shivers. But I reckon that generally when we need something, the universe delivers.

And this is exactly what happened with NYU Prof. Dan Bullock & NYU Prof. Raúl Sánchez book How to Communicate Effectively with Anyone, Anywhere, illustrated by Rod Sánchez.

Now let’s just back up a little. I love communication. It was part of my degree that I did over 2 decades ago, and forms a massive part of my job.

And the better we are at communicating and ultimately understanding others, by being able to adapt our communication style to our audience, the stronger our delivery and the more we are able to connect with people and grow our businesses.

Communication really is key.

So when Dan got in contact and asked me if I’d like to read his book, I jumped at the chance. Also, he’s in New York, so that alone got me excited – if you’ve been following me for a while you should know I LOVE New York.

This book came to me just as I was crafting a year’s series of workshops on Communication for a local PR company and it gave me lots of juice to add to my presentations.

I want to pick a couple of my main learnings from this book for you, but if you’re interested in communication and how to improve your communications,  go and grab this book.

Connecting with the audience

Now, I love public speaking. I wasn’t always this way, it used to terrify me. But if you give me a stage and a mic, I’ll be there sharing my stories and little bits of wisdom.

So this first chapter on “Public Speaking from the World Stage” was perfect for me.

It helped me think about how I could hook my audience straight away. By either starting with a question, amazing fact, story, compelling observation or, if appropriate, an inspirational quote. These openings help build curiosity and anticipation – perfect if you want an audience on the edge of their seats listening until the end.

Question: ‘What if you could market your business in a way that felt good to you?’.

Amazing Fact: ‘Campaign Monitor’s research in 2021, found that 10% of businesses are going to decrease spending on email marketing, even though it’s research also discovered that email marketing has the highest return on investment for small businesses’.

Story: ‘I have been lecturing for over 5 years at the MSc & MA level at two universities that I couldn’t have attended with my “A” level grades. This often shocks students, but it just goes to show that life experience really does trump academia’

Compelling Observation: ‘Brexit is one of the worst things to happen to the British Isles’.

Inspirational quote: ‘Be yourself, everyone is already taken’ -- Oscar Wilde.

The book also reminded me that an effective presentation should be a call to action. That as speakers we need to make people think and feel things.

And this next bit blew my mind!

Have you ever heard of ‘neural coupling’? Dr. Uri Hassoan and his team at Princeton University discovered that storytelling in presentations brings us together. And that when you are telling a story the brain regions in your audience’s minds ‘light up’ to mirror the sparks and activity in your brain.

And other subregions of the listener’s brain ‘lit up’ before the same activity in the speaker’s brain.…as if the audiences were predicting the story while the presenter was speaking!

This literally has blown my mind!

Connecting in the digital sea

Because as we read above, email marketing still has the highest ROI of any other form of marketing, so getting it right is key!

And one of the key points I took from this was mirroring the communication style of the person you are replying to. In much the same way that you might mirror someone’s body language, tone and pitch in a job interview.

Dan and Raúl introduced me to 4 reader communication styles. Expressive, Driver, Amiable and Analytical – see the image by artist Rod Sánchez for more details.

But it really has made me stop and think when I’m sending an email to make sure it mirrors the person I’m sending it to.

I have been told numerous times in jobs about my sparse email style – I’m clearly a driver. And it takes work for me to slip in the more amiable style. But,  actually, I’ve realised that if the person emailing me is also a driver, they will value my directness!

Overall, this book has some fabulous nuggets of wisdom. It’s packed full of advice, which can be a bit heavy at times, but I’ve taken some gold from this. Honestly, there are plenty of books that I get to the end of and wonder what on earth I’ve learnt. This book is one I’m going to be referring to again and again.

For more, check out www.globallycommunicate.com.

Thanks Dan and Raúl!

Photo by Volodymyr Hryshchenko on Unsplash