Objective: Conversational skills in business communication are of particular importance and various factors are responsible for establishing correct relationships in business. The purpose of this study was to identify the factors affecting the communication of sales managers.
Methodology: This study is a descriptive-analytic one of cross-sectional type. The statistical population of the study consisted of sales managers of food and beverage companies in Guilan province, 90 of whom were randomly selected out of 176 individuals. First, based on a review of the existing literature, a conceptual model of conversational skills was designed. Then, in order to determine the content validity, the hypothetical model was presented to a group of 10 experts. The data were collected via a questionnaire of conversational skills in business communication. Initially, the questionnaire consisted of 8 factors and 70 indicators. It was corrected by a panel of experts, yielding 7 factors and 42 indicators. Then, the questionnaire was distributed to the process owners. The reliability of the questionnaire, using Cronbach's alpha in SPSS, was found to be 0.917.
Results: The result was the presentation of a model with 4 factors (individual, social, interpersonal, and emotional ones) and 20 indicators (expression of speech, insult avoidance, communication skills, etc.).
Conclusion: The results of this study show that conversational skills are highly important in business communication and achieving the obtained indicators can be useful in the sale and success of business managers and companies.