Effective communication is an essential component of an entrepreneur’s skill set. It has to be. And if you’re like I was before I made “the leap”, you’re probably thinking to yourself right now: “Heck, I’ve been working at my current profession for (x) years. I KNOW how to communicate. No problem!”
Not so fast…..
1. Are you a Defensive Person?
In my case, I was pretty “blunt” back in the day. I would not hesitate to say exactly what was on my mind, whether or not it was, objectively, the right call. Like most of my colleagues in the corporate world, I was playing defense. Company politics often dictated that I had to. I worked hard my entire career to earn my spot, and it was quite the lucrative spot at my “peak”. I had gotten what I had want-ed. Now, I had to keep that spot, and protect it from all comers.
I quickly, if not immediately, realized that the communication style that got me through my life as an accountant would NOT fly as an entrepreneur. I couldn’t be as blunt as I had been. There was too much to lose by potentially saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to the wrong person and costing my company a big opportunity.
2. Every Word Mattered
On top of that, I had to learn the value of communication to my business. Every word mattered. Every intonation and inflection in my voice was relevant. Every hesitation could have been a deal breaker. Every word I printed had to reflect my true thoughts and ideas.
Multiply this collection of thoughts by EVERY communication I had with my employees, my clients, my vendors, my customers, my prospects, all the way down to the man or woman on the street, so to speak. You start to realize the value of effective communication in a hurry.
3. What are their pain points?
I could sit here and tell you all the features and benefits of my products/services. The whole nine yards. And at the end of that monologue, where mine was the only voice in the picture, you could tell me that you had no interest whatsoever.
Why? Because it’s not what you wanted. And if I had made listening to you a priority, and had afforded you the opportunity to tell me what you had wanted right off the bat, I would have known that. In a broader sense, I would have known your pain points, and what problems my product or service would solve. And I would have been able to craft my pitch to the exact issues upon which you would have placed the highest value.
4. Communication Technology
Whether intentionally or not, the technology that permeates the world in which we live has transformed how we communicate by leaps and bounds. “Dating myself” alert: When I first started my professional career, and I suspect this may hold true for you too, most professional communication was executed via phone and face-to-face interaction, and for the adventurous among us, fax. Email was just coming into play, which began other online forms of communication, as well as text/SMS messaging among the myriad options we have today to communicate with each other.
Case in point: For my jewelry business, I remember having to calling on a critical vendor for a rather urgent matter pertaining to my Hong Kong distribution center. Getting no answer, I left a message, then called back the next day to follow up. Still nothing. This went on for days. Furious at what I had perceived to be rude, unprofessional behavior, I sent a terse email about the matter. Five minutes later, I found a confused, defensive reply email in my Inbox. When I had explained that I had tried to call, the other party had indicated that they “pretty much never take calls”, adding that email was a much more effective way for that person to communicate.
I was aghast. How was this even possible?
But upon further review, I took a step back, and realized that how this person chose to communicate with others wasn’t up to me. From that point on, we had a very effective, fruitful email-only working relationship. And from that, I learned to cover all of my bases from Day One. If I need to reach someone, first I call. Then leave a voicemail. Then I email ABOUT the call. Then I call about the email about the call. You see the pattern. If, after a few days of this pattern, there’s still silence on the other end, then I guess, as the saying goes, they’re just not that into me.
5. Efficient vs Effectiveness
And if you’re an entrepreneur who has international clientele, as I do for both my jewelry and my wed-ding businesses, the choices you have for communication are godsends in terms of efficiency and cost-effectiveness. If, for example, I was working with a wedding couple who wanted to get married in Hong Kong but live overseas, I have the option to not only communicate via email (one of the few ways that doesn’t cost much and is not impeded by differences in time zones), but also through phone, Skype, or other means. This ensures that we’re all on the same page, and that nothing gets lost in literal, or cultural, translation, which would be the last thing that anybody planning a wedding would want to hap-pen.
6. A Reflective
You must realize that, how you communicate is reflective of how you want others to view you. I’ll never forget a workshop I had attended, and the presenter beat it into our brains that “whatever you do, try to let the people around you feel happy, too.”
I’m an upbeat person, and as such, I try to keep my communication as upbeat as possible, even if the message involved is inherently negative. This approach has generally served me well, even in the face of the occasional obscenity-laden (and in the age of email, ALL CAPS) communication strategy employed by the other party in the dis-course.
So, learn to not judge other people but instead, to appreciate the good things around. You will gain respect in return.
