To be a good verbal communicator you will need the following qualities:

• Clear speaking voice

• The ability to speak at the correct pace. (Too fast and the audience can’t take it in. Too slow and they get bored.)

• Confidence to talk to a range of audiences, from one individual to a large gathering of strangers.

• An understanding of how non-verbal gestures can affect and influence an audience's reaction.

• Good listening skills, so not to talk over someone else or interrupt them, and to be able to listen and take in replies to respond to them as necessary.

• The ability to use a variety of tones in order to engender interest in the listener.

This can occur either in a formal or informal manner:

Business meeting such as an Annual General Meeting, (AGM) or an interview between an employee and employer.

Lunch with customers or potential customers or just the passing of an instruction from one employee to another.

Face to face communication offers a number of advantages:

• It allows for immediate feedback.

• Information can be passed on quickly.

• It encourages greater co-operation among employees.

• Participants may be unskilled and may find verbal communication, especially to large audiences very daunting.

• Poor non-verbal communication can be counter-productive for a business.

In the last 100 years the telephone has become the most popular method of fast and direct communication. The benefits of the telephone include:

• The immediate passing of information to another person.

• They are easily used and universally available.

• An immediate reply can be obtained

• The service is relatively cheap.

• The rapid increase in use of mobile phones has made them even more flexible as mobile phone users can be reached at any time in any place.

DISADVANTAGES OF USING TELEPHONE

• The sender of the message cannot see the non-verbal reactions of the recipient

• No formal record of conversations is kept, so it may prove difficult to prove what has been said at a later date.