flyingrose

Perhaps no skill is more critical to having a peaceful, stress-free life than understanding how best to communicate.

From the page: "How to Handle An Argumentative Person - I recently found myself in a situation facing a person who was seemingly looking for an argument. I have my own theories as to why, but I have no specific knowledge of why this person wanted to argue with me. All I know is that before I knew what was happening, I found myself under "attack" in what should have been a safe place. I didn't know what was happening, and I lost my composure very badly. I was under a lot of strain, I was tired, and I just plain blew up in frustration at this person especially since as far as I could tell, the answer he was looking for was something we agreed on anyway. That gave him the feeling of the upper hand and he walked away believing himself to have won.

For whatever reason, some people are just looking for an argument, and you may find yourself facing down their barrel. Maybe you said something they misunderstood, maybe they didn't agree with the way you said it, or maybe they just wanted a fight and you're the last person in the room. In my experience, people wanting a fight will come at you hard and come at you fast, giving you little time to figure out what is going on and how to reply. Here are a few tips I'd like to share that you can follow when you find yourself in a similar situation against a contentious or argumentative person."

Although this article is about being an employee, the advice will also work well for dealing with clients.

From the page: "Here's what you can do to keep your boss off your back, so you can get the results than will make you both happy. (To make this less cumbersome, I will use the masculine pronoun when referring to your boss.)

1. Tell him what you plan to do. If you tell your boss what you plan to do, then he has the opportunity for input before you have invested a lot of time and energy. As much as possible, keep this part of your conversation focused on results rather than activity. "

While women do tend to be less thrilled about discussing money, I have many male owners of new businesses immediately wanting to cut prices if sales are slower than they desire.

Competing on price alone is NOT a strategy I can endorse. Do not be the cheapest as those buyers will often still complain even if you sell under your cost. I suspect many of them would still complain if you paid them to take it!

Let those customers be someone else's headache. Focus on value, customer service, quality products, free shipping if you can manage it - anything but just having the lowest price.

From the page: "Three Words Can Make or Break a Sale for Women - November 02, 2007 - By Kelly McCormick - Women have come a long way in business. Who would have considered that more women than men would graduate with college educations and that women would pursue professional careers in numbers far surpassing most expectations? The majority of demographers didn't see it coming. But even as optimistic as women have been about their own success, very few report feeling comfortable in their skins when it comes to selling. This becomes especially evident when women have to talk about money.

Three Words Can Change Everything

Three simple words can catch even the most seasoned female seller off guard�"and I am not talking about "I love you." The seemingly innocent words that send many female sellers reeling are rarely spoken aloud. These success-sabotaging statements include "fear of fees" and "slash the price." "

You know how much I am online. Perhaps they could have used just a touch more visibility?

I may be one of the few who feels just as connected online as off. From the page: "If bloggers and techies would rather meet in person, what chance is there for the rest of the world to prefer electronic meetings?

Don't get me wrong, I love to IM, SMS, Twitter and blog more than most, and in person I am extremely shy at introducing myself, but even for me there is something special about actually seeing someone in the flesh and spending time with human beings. I doubt very much the people attending Blog World are there purely for the content.

When you meet someone in person you feel more connected. Those connections form faster and last long after the event. I �oeknow” lots of people purely online but those relationships are a far more slow burn thing, even if it is easier to stay in contact that way.

I believe as our lives become more and more moderated by technology the need to have real world contact will become even more important."

From the page: "I'm sometimes distracted by too many project ideas. When the ideas pile up, my productivity sinks because I keep thinking about them, and multitasking slows me down. To keep focused, I evolved a mind trick called The Pickle Jar that, despite its hokey name, actually works for me. It got me through my thesis, when writing was the last thing I felt like doing.

The Pickle Jar is an actual glass jar that once held pickles. Next to it is a square pad of paper, about 4 inches on the side. To get unrelated thoughts out of my mind, I write down a brief synopsis down, fold it twice, and put it into the Jar."

More information for the empaths and Indigos among us.