Get ahead by speaking up – whether it’s face-to-face or on a phone call.

In the digital era, we communicate incessantly and yet are often afraid to talk. Instead, our lives hum to the sound of vibrations and pings. At dinner with our family and friends. Ping! In the bedroom with our lovers. Ping! And, according to Ms Sherry Turkle, author of Reclaiming Conversation: The Power Of Talk In A Digital Age, even at funerals. Ping!

“We remove ourselves from our grief and our reverie and we go into our phones,” said Ms Turkle at a 2015 Ted Talk to promote the book. What’s more, according to research carried out by Ipsos Mori for Deloitte in 2016, the number of device owners who made at least one voice call a week fell from 96 to 75 per cent over the previous three years.

So why talk? “There’s huge scope for misunderstanding in a textual communication that could be cleared up with a face-to-face or phone conversation,” says Ms Catherine Blyth, author of The Art of Conversation. “A face-to-face conversation is a multi-channel exchange of information. You get the sound of their voice and the expression on their face. You’ll see or hear when they’re obviously embarrassed, or when they’re clearly losing interest. You can make a connection, you can laugh.

“Get on with others and you will get on in life, and enjoy it more. Good talkers get dates and win contracts. There are countless adventures between minds, out there, waiting to happen, in each encounter, each day of our lives.”

So let’s talk again. In real life. One to one. Face to face. Or even just over the phone. Allow Ms Blyth to show you how, with this expert guide to making conversation.

“Email is brilliant for getting bodies of work from one person to the next. It’s an excellent postal system,” says Ms Blyth. “But if you want to discuss something or reach a conclusion about what to do next, then why not pick up the phone?”

Here are some tips for how to have a successful phone conversation with someone you’ve never spoken to before:

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1. Establish the reason why you’re calling before you call. And have it very clear in your mind what the best way of getting it is.

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1. Show your courtesy by respecting their time and ask if they’re available to talk.

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1. Be clear about who you are, why you’re calling and why it’s beneficial to them that you talk. Once you’ve established the purpose of the conversation and why it’s relevant to them, there will be a clear connection between you both.

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1. Get them to say “yes”. Getting someone them to say “yes” to anything automatically makes them more agreeable.

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1. Be nice and amusing, warm and interested.

The philosopher Epictetus famously said, “You have two ears and one mouth.” Follow that ratio. This is as true in life as it is in a having a good conversation, whether on the phone or face to face.

“People often make the mistake of thinking that conversation is a performance,” says Ms Blyth. “They mistake conversation for broadcasting, when it’s more like a dance with another person. If you put all your emotional energy and curiosity into listening to them and learning about them and what their words set off in your mind, you become far less self-conscious. It’s about demonstrating you’ve attended to another human being.”

Active listening is how you visually and verbally demonstrate to the other person that you’re actually listening. It is not only incredibly flattering, it also allows you to clear up misunderstandings in real time. “Summarise the points that they’ve made, just to make sure you’ve understood them,” says Ms Blyth. “Demonstrate you’re listening by nodding or smiling or making affirmative noises. Or even more useful, say, ‘OK, if I understand you correctly what you’re saying is…’ Then you’re giving them the opportunity to say, ‘No, that’s not what I meant.’ Or they’ll say, ‘Exactly.’ And they’ll feel delighted because you’ve demonstrated that you’ve heard what they’ve got to say, which is what everyone wants: recognition.”

“Pat Kavanagh, the literary agent who was married to Julian Barnes, wielded colossal power, even though she was quite shy,” says Ms Blyth. “She knew how to wait in silence. If a publisher rang up with an offer for a book, she would not respond. Nature abhors a vacuum. People would blether on, and that’s a very good information-gathering strategy. It’s a way of controlling the conversation without having to do anything.

“Teachers are taught the ‘think time’ rule, in which they are encouraged to wait longer than the usual one second for a response from students. By allowing three seconds they were able to get a far greater quality of response in children they thought of as slow and, therefore, stupid. It turns that they’re thoughtful and have interesting things to say.”

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