One way of getting people to be comfortable with you is not to be too opinionated. Encourage people to voice their opinions and ideas. Show them respect by acknowledging their opinions and ideas. Do not disagree with them openly and don’t point out their mistakes even when they are wrong. They make take this personally and will not feel comfortable working with you. Whatever you do, try to find a common ground where everyone can agree.

Always be ready to praise or others when they do something good. People like they effort or contribution to be acknowledged or complimented. By complimenting others, you will win them to your side. Criticizing them will make them avoid you.

When you communicate with others, make sure the choice of words is pleasant and nice. Choice of words is crucial to ensure the message is properly understood. Tone of voice is equally important to. Rather than saying someone is wrong, try to find a middle path to solve the problem like saying ‘let’s try to explore other alternative’. This will save the other person embarrassment and he will not take things personally if the other ideas are better than his or hers.

Assertiveness can get people to work for you when you have the authority to do so. However, assertiveness can be used without being commanding. People will feel at ease working along with you. You need to be able to present your case clearly to people to win them over to you. With these characteristics, you should be able to influence people around you and make them work with you willingly.

Friends are not easy to come by. Genuine friends are even harder to find. Hence, making friends is not easy. Therefore, when we have friends we must put in effort to keep the friendship alive.

We can engage with people in various ways to attract and bring them closer to us. Smile is one of the easiest and most contagious methods. People like to see happy faces greeting them. When you smile, you transmit joy and happiness to them. It also symbolizes the gladness in you in meeting them.

Whenever we meet people, always address them with their name. Addressing someone by their name indicates our interest in establishing friendship with them. It shows we are taking interest in them and it will make them take note of our interest in return.

We need to relax whenever we are with someone. This will make them feel comfortable to be with us. Whenever someone is comfortable with one another, they will tend to get closer to each other. Friendship will blossom from here.

When we communicate with the other person, ask questions that will help them to open up and start talking. Nevertheless, do not ask questions that are too personal in nature. This will cause them to feel uncomfortable with our presence. Perhaps, they may even find excuses to walk away.

One of the crucial points in communication is listening. Be a good listener to the other person. Listen to what the other person has to say. Listen attentively. Respond appropriately. We do not need respond with words. Body language and appropriate gestures are good enough to show that we are listening.

It is always easy to make friends and maintain friendship if we have common interest. Try to find common grounds where you can share common interest like hobbies, etc. We can spend many meaningful hours or even days engaging with each other sharing knowledge and information on common interest. Whenever we spend meaningful time together, bonding will take place.

Whenever there are people who share their opinion, differences in opinion will surface. We need to learn how to respect the differences in opinion, as it is a positive sign that both people are prepared to share their ideas and thoughts. Explore the ideas that are put forward and perhaps, you can learn something new from it.

Always be generous with compliments. Give compliments when called for. Give it sincerely and people always appreciate positive feedback. Everyone needs feedback to improve and move forward in his or her life and career.

Generally, people like to join to social functions to meet fiends and associates. Make effort to keep in touch with them by inviting them to do be part of any social functions. The functions may not be parties. It can be any charity work, outdoor activities or even family outings.

Overall, we need to make effort to the flame of friendship burning as bright as ever and for as long as possible. Friendship is for life.

She took the effort to understand my needs and interest. She greeted me with a warm smile. She did not rush into asking what I want to buy. She started by trying to understand my needs by trying to understand what I want my house to look like.

Upon understanding my needs and interest, she used her superior product knowledge to recommend products which may meet my expectation. She further went on to explain the advantages and disadvantages of the products she recommended to me.

When she saw that I was interested in the products she recommended, she went further to tell me about discounts and promotions that the company can offer if I were to buy more than one unit.

After spending about thirty minutes engaging with her on the products she was selling, I went further to ask her how she manage to sell so well. She went on tell me about how she applied customer services principles what she learned in her business school. She shared with me how she was able to spot a potential customer who walked in. She uses the Pareto principle that 80 percent of her sales come from 20 percent of the customers.

She was very committed to make more sales. She recognized the value of time. Hence, she managed her time well to maximize her contact with her customers. She will take little time for lunch or coffee break so that she can serve more customers. This will allow her to serve more customers. This will give her higher probability of closing more sales that will bring in more income.

She also developed strategic alliances with her colleagues and neighboring outlets to increase her sales. She develop close ties with her colleagues and neighboring outlets so that they will refer customers to her and she will do like wise. This will help increase her sales and not miss out any potential customers. She developed this strategic alliance in a simple and down to earth manner. She will bake cookies and share with her colleagues and friends in neighboring stores to establish closer ties.

After have this discussion with her, I was thoroughly impressed with her and wished I could offer her a job in my company.

Work life is a major source of stress. Work commitments and datelines are really pushing office workers to the limit. These office workers will even stay overnight just to deliver their commitments. In some countries like Japan, there are people who committed suicide or died in office because of work related stress. Sometimes, personal life can contribute to stress. Financial constraints, children academic under achievements, sick family members and unfaithful spouse are some of the contributing factors.

Bringing these two major factors together can stress a person to the limit. Some people can manage stress better than the others can. Some can turn stress into something positive for themselves that motivates them to do better to overcome the problem. Some just allowed stress to overcome them and start to show signs of stress.

We can notice some signs of people under stress. Some of the signs are like being easily agitated and get angry. You will know if someone is stress if he suddenly gets agitated over minor issues which on normal days, he would not even notice it.

People under stress usually experience tiredness and exhausted. This sign is visible and can be seen by anyone.

Some will even fall sick due to stress. Some may experience stomachache, gastritis and even headache or migraine. They may even have to consult doctors to treat their stress related ailments. Stress does occupy their mind and thoughts. This may interrupt their sleep and cause frequent insomnia. Lack of sleep will cause drowsiness that may cause road accidents if they drive. Lack of sleep will also cause various health related ailments later on.

When some people are under stress, it can disrupt one’s eating habit. Some will eat less and some will eat more then they would usually do. Not eating their usual meal is bad for health. Looking at some of these signs of stress, most of them are detrimental to one’s health. It would be good for one to seek professional help to manage stress rather than treat its symptoms.