Verbal speech plays a key role in almost every important human interaction.

There are some exceptions (interactions on the Internet, to name one), but talking is usually what clinches any prior written communications.

For example, if you’re looking for a job you frequently have to provide a résumé or fill out a job application first. But these are just “weeding” tools that enable the hiring company to winnow down the pool of applicants to a manageable size.

The applicants who make the cut are always invited to attend a job interview, and that’s what gets the winner his job.

So what’s the company evaluating during the interview?

Numerous vital criteria, but we can tell you that one of those factors is not the candidate’s technical skills. All the candidates already have the technical skills to perform the job. If they didn’t, then the company wouldn’t be wasting its time interviewing those applicants in the first place.

So you’re not being interviewed to determine your technical qualifications. Instead, it’s your personal characteristics and communications skills which are being evaluated.

This means that getting hired for a good job depends mostly on how well you communicate and whether or not you’re more articulate than the other applicants.

The company is trying to determine how well you’ll interact with co workers, customers, partners, managers, officials, the media, and so forth. How hard they’ll evaluate your skills here depends on just how much communication the new position requires.

So does the best candidate get the job? Not necessarily.

We’ve seen many talented individuals over the years who were forced to settle for jobs that were below their talents simply because they were inarticulate.

We’ve also seen many individuals who ended up in jobs that were above their talents simply because they were effective communicators. (This is especially true in politics, by the way.)

The ability to communicate effectively is ultimately more important in the business world than raw skills in other areas. And therefore your status and income will reflect your communications ability (or lack thereof).

So what does all this have to do with success with women?

Everything.

The Similarities Between Career Advancement And Dating

As far as communication ability is concerned, dating works much the same way as corporate career advancement.

Think of dates as being the equivalent of job interviews. When you chat up an attractive member of the opposite sex, you’re effectively interviewing for the job of being that person’s mate.

Your looks will of course be one factor in impressing women (just as your résumé will be one factor that gets you an interview). Your personal grooming also counts for a lot whether it’s a job or a girlfriend you’re after.

However, what’s far more important is your ability to communicate with confidence. This matters a great deal not only when you’re asking for dates but also during the dates themselves.

And once you’re in a relationship, how well you communicate with your partner is vitally important for keeping that relationship on a steady footing.

Therefore it’s crucial that you learn to be a better communicator at all stages when dealing with women, including how to stop sabotaging your dating efforts with the wrong approaches.

Getting better overall results with the women in your life is mostly a matter of better communication. And you don’t need to be a silver tongued snake charmer to do it, either.

And why is that? In sports, you may have heard that in a game between closely matched teams, the team that wins is the team that makes fewer mistakes.

Simply make fewer communication mistakes than your male competitors and you’ll be way ahead of most other men out there.

Communication Statistics That Might Surprise You

As you might expect, a test tube of your blood that you leave with a physician provides him with far more information about you than the obvious, “Hmm… it looks red.”

After all, there are a zillion tests that can be performed upon a blood sample that will tell him all kinds of highly personal medical details about you, many of which you’re not presently aware.

In a very similar way, your conversations are like blood samples in that they too reveal a great deal more about you than you realize.

Speech researchers have examined this topic in numerous studies.

One of the most remarkable findings is that when you speak, less than one tenth of the message you convey comes from the literal meaning of the words that you use.

More than one-third of the message conveyed comes from how you say it (your tone of voice, your cadence, how loudly you speak, and so on).

And more than one-half of the meaning of your message comes from nonverbal cues (your posture, your facial expression, your body language, and so on).

So not only do “actions speak louder than words,” but also your tone of voice and your visual cues speak louder than words too.

All those hours you spent working out exactly what you were going to say during an important conversation with an actual or prospective girlfriend (or wife) were partly misdirected. You should have spent far more time practicing your delivery and your body language.

But you’re not sure how to best practice your delivery and body language, you say?

We highly recommend Toastmasters International (or their local equivalent in your area) which will provide you with at least rudimentary public speaking skills. You may never have to address an audience of women who are prospective love partners, but your one-on-one communications proficiency will be greatly improved if you’ve mastered your fear of speaking to a crowd.

(You’ll also enhance your career prospects, by the way, if you can lead meetings and other corporate gatherings with expertise and confidence).

Another excellent venue for improving your delivery and body language skills is a good acting class. Don’t worry about attending a fancy academy with all the best instructors. Even a simple class at your local community college will do.

There’s a sideline bonus to acting class: While learning to act, not only will your communications skills improve, but you’re also likely to meet an attractive woman or two who dreams of being the next hot starlet.

Develop both public speaking and acting skills if you can find the time. The effort you invest will more than pay for itself.

Believing (Or Not) In “Nothing!”

In a relationship, you’ll have seen the “Don’t listen to what I say, listen to how I say it!” phenomenon many times.

Perhaps she was giving you the cold shoulder, had an angry look on her face, and had her arms crossed as well (as if to signal “Stay away!”)

And perhaps you then asked her, “What’s wrong, honey?”

To which she answered, “Nothing!” in an angry tone of voice.

1. Would you have taken her words at face value and assumed that nothing was wrong (just as she’d said)?

2. Or would you instead conclude that she was royally pissed off about something (since all signs except the literal meaning of her words seemed to be saying “You’re in deep trouble, Mister!”)?

If you were even the least bit sophisticated about women, you’d have known that option 2 was (and is) the correct answer.

But women are rarely so obvious as that.

Instead, women are like skilled politicians and can be particularly oblique when they speak. And they do it for exactly the same reasons as our “beloved” public servants: so that you can’t hold them accountable.

If a woman says something and you take offense, she can claim that you drew the wrong conclusion. She can claim that wasn’t what she meant (even if it was, and she was merely testing the water).

The same dynamic holds when it’s you who’s doing the talking. You can say “all the right things” and still fall flat on your face if you don’t deliver your lines with the appropriate tone of voice, cadence, facial expression and posture.

Your delivery will be crucial and that can take quite a bit of practice to master.