As an insurance agent, do you feel you communicate well with your clients? What about with your coworkers? Sometimes, information, ideas, opinions, and more can be lost in translation if you do not have effective communication. What if you wanted to convey that your agency can offer the best group benefits in Louisiana, but your business insurance customers have trouble understand why? This is where your services could truly suffer if miscommunication continues to occur. To fix this issue, you should make an effort to have stronger communication. This will help others better understand you and your products, which can ultimately build trust and respect, something everyone wants. You do not want to cause conflict or frustration in your professional relationships. This is why you should take these effective communication tips into account so you can boot business and better connect with those you care about:
Listening Well Listening means understanding the information being communicated and understanding how the speaker feels about it. You should make the speaker feel heard and understood, create an environment where everyone feels safe to express ideas, opinions, and feelings, and relieve negative emotions.
Using Nonverbal Communication When we communicate things that we care about, we do so mainly using body language, such as facial expressions, gestures, eye contact, etc. The way you react to another person tells them about how you’re feeling. This is why you should learn to use open body language and adjust your nonverbal signals according to the context.
Managing Your Stress If you allow your stress to overwhelm your life, it could have a serious effect on your communication skills. It could inhibit your ability to think clearly, creatively, and act appropriately. To relieve stress in order to avoid miscommunication, you should recognize when you are becoming stressed, take a moment to calm down and be willing to compromise.
Having Better Emotional Awareness Emotions play an important role in the way you communicate with insurance customers and your coworkers. The reactions you have emotionally affect both how you understand other people and how they understand you. This is why being emotionally aware can help to avoid frustration, misunderstandings, and conflict, allowing you to remain motivated to communicate clearly and effectively. Effective communication requires both thinking and feeling. The goal here is to find a healthy balance between these two elements. Discovering this can then improve relationships within your agency and help strengthen teamwork, decision-making, and problem-solving. The more effort and practice you put in, the better your communication skills will become to help improve your business!
Authored by: Carmouche Insurance Inc., which was established in 1975 in Napoleonville, LA by James A. Carmouche as an Independent Insurance Agency serving the Assumption Parish Area. Over the years, the agency has continually grown, now serving three separate locations – Gonzales, Napoleonville, and Houma. The agency’s daily operations are now overseen by Jim’s three sons, James P. Carmouche, Charles M. Carmouche and Peter T. Carmouche. With over twenty employees serving clients, the agency is fully dedicated to providing stellar service and affordable coverage to the state of Louisiana, as well as Arkansas, Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, Tennessee and Texas.