Creative Connections & Client Communications
What do you bring to the Consultation?

Aside from knowledge of astrology, there are three major, personal dimensions that the astrologer brings to the consultation experience: Communication Skill, Life Awareness, and Authority.

Communication Skill How the astrologer communicates is crucially important. It is what people hear, feel, and remember. It says so very very much about us: our intelligence can be assessed through our thoughts, word choice, grammar, etc.; our mode of communication establishes the acceptability of what we say; the imagery within our communication expresses much of our inner world, our subjective identity. All of these dimensions work together for communication style and impact.

Ask yourself these evaluation questions; this list can tell us a lot about ourselves and how others see us:

1. In your communications in life, how critical are you with your observations and words? How right do you have to be? How argumentative are you? How do others see you in terms of how you present yourself?

2. How supportive is what you say, in the main, to others? How many compliments do you offer to those around you on any given day?

3. Normally, how carefully do people listen when you are speaking? How often are you complimented on your perceptions? —How well do you listen before you communicate? What do you listen for? Do you know where you’re going when you start to speak, or are you just nervously filling time? What about hogging the conversation … is this a defensive maneuver or ego-aggrandizement?

4. Can you be heard easily and clearly when you speak, or is there only a weak voice-signal? Do you mumble? Where do your eyes go when you are speaking? Do you smile while you talk?

5. How free of astrological jargon is your consultation presentation? What does jargon do for you; is it that you don’t have enough to say otherwise?

Life Awareness In an astrological consultation, what we know about life is so much more important than what we know about astrology. The planets and measurements are keenly important guidelines into the human condition. We follow a guideline or the synthesis of several into highly individual life situations. What do we say about what we see to drive the client-discussion? How do we alert the client and ourselves significantly to the considerations brought forward?

The planets do nothing. They reflect the fact that people do. People DO life. Astrological analysis allows us to share that activity.

Ask yourself these evaluation questions:

1. What do you really know about parent-children interaction dynamics? How many books have you studied on the subject? –What about sexual molestation recovery? Divorce pains and adjustment? Parental love expression, management and punishment? What about the balance between mother and father influence –how much can you talk about on this subject? What is the astrology that guides us into those considerations?

2. What about the nature of frustration, the development of anger, projection and displacement? To what degree does parental emulation –repeating the parental model—condition adult relationships? What are the symptoms of this?

3. How efficiently do you spot symbolisms –situational and personal—repeating throughout life development? What do they suggest? What do you do with that information?

4. What about your skill at summarizing emotional constructs and their significance for individuals? How do you use this bottom-lining procedure to motivate someone, to free them, empower them? How does word choice help?

5. What do you know about divorce laws in your state? Basic Real Estate maneuvers? Depression? Impotence? What about symptoms of, say, ten major diseases; your articulation skill with cancer concerns?

Authority We all need affiliation with authority –it makes a safe; we all need to express it to a high degree –it makes us valuable to others; we all need to adjust it to social experience –this makes us acceptable.

Our clients need to know that we know what we’re doing, NOT that the symbol-lore of astrology is going to regale them with meanings of life’s mysteries. Our clients need to know that we can be illuminating and helpful guided by the process of astrological analysis. –My last client yesterday telephoned this morning to say “Thank-you” again, and added that he had left the consultation with a feeling of “empowerment.” He couldn’t have said anything better.

Ask yourself these evaluation questions:

1. Books represent knowledge. –How many books do you have? How well organized are they? What about showing them impressively in the room where you do your astrology work? How many new ones about life behavior do you add monthly?

2. How smoothly organized are you from the first telephone call for an appointment to seating your client at your desk? There are so many ways your speech and demeanor can express authority and security. Make a list of them for yourself. Are you getting off on the right foot?

3. How organized are you with consultation pace and length? How much of that time might be you showing off? –Remember, no one can really concentrate much past 1.25 hours. If you’re going that long, analyze if you’re wandering in content, perhaps wasting communication, waiting for something to occur in conversation to rescue you. –My average consultation time is an extremely efficient 43-46 minutes. There’s much to be said for the skill of knowing what’s important.

4. Authority can easily become intrusive, coercive, surly. How do you complement authority with humor, with graciousness? –How do you manage “having a bad day”? How successful are you with transferring authoritative insight and planning stratagem into your client’s supply of strengths?

All the questions above are large questions. They’re most significant, because the answers –the subjective discussion they inspire– define so much about the astrologer, how she or he appears to others, and the stature of work that the astrologer will do.