The way you communicate inside and outside your business will ultimately determine how successful you are. Let’s explore why and how you can harness the power of good communications for your business.

What you will take away from reading this article…

  • You will understand what is good communication and why it’s important for your business
  • And finally, take away some top tips to get good at communicating in 4 key areas; sales, self, management and recruitment

What is good communication?

In the simplest form, good communication is about conveying a message to another effectively. 

For the purpose of this article and the topic of good communication in business, this is still relevant. However, it is worth exploring that further.

Good communication in a business should be about fostering a good relationship with both colleagues, suppliers and customers. It should be about motivating and inspiring others. 

Professor Mehrabian determined the 7-38-55% communication rule over two experiments he conducted in 1967. So although when we think about communications we often talk about written and spoken words, it is more common for someone to judge us on our actions and reactions during delivery.

In the midst of a global pandemic it is harder to see Mehrabian’s rule in practice as body language and facial expressions are hard to read or judge via online means (particularly when the wifi connection freezes a screen!).

So when it comes to being good at communicating, there are 4 key areas we want to discuss; sales, self, management and recruitment.

Your communication style will have an impact on all these areas and you will see below we have given you some top tips to get started.

Why is communication important to your business?

There are two broad types of communication for a business; internal and external.

It doesn’t matter if you have a team or not, good internal communications starts with you. It should also include employees, contractors and suppliers.

Even though 89% of people believe that effective communication is extremely important, 8 out of 10 people rate their own business’ communication as either average or poor (source: Project.co).

And as a business owner, your employee or supplier engagement starts with you. So, are you communicating effectively?

External communication comes down to your marketing, sales and customer service. At any one of these points in business, an organisation can come unstuck with poor or bad communication.

74% of people have stopped dealing with a company and moved to a competitor due to feeling the company was disorganised (source: Project.co).

Would your external communications stand up to scrutiny?

We have recorded a 4-part video series on Understanding Communication Styles focusing on sales, self, management and recruitment. Watch them again below.

What is your communication and behavioural type? 

Here at ActionCOACH, we use the DiSC assessment, published by Wiley, which is a non-judgmental tool used for discussion of people’s behavioural differences. This is a fantastic tool to discover your own strengths and weaknesses and ideal for managing teams.

A massive thank you to Matt Ewer for the session we had yesterday on DISC!  Brilliant, informative session.  Highly recommend this and we at Reach I.T. Management will definitely be taking some actions on the back off this.  Just fabulous.” – Debbie O’Dell, Reach IT.

Book a free coaching session and find out more about DISC today.

Communications: Sales

  • It’s important to communicate to people how they like to be communicated to instead of just mirroring your own expectations
  • Review your materials and website – is it talking to your potential customer in the way that would suit them?

Communications: Self

  • The way you like to communicate is typically the way you come across in business, will this resonate with your audience?
  • Start by understanding what your own communication style is to understand how you like to operate, how does it come out in stress, in excitement and how do you like to be motivated?

Communications: Management

  • You can use different communication styles to get the best out of your team
  • How can you get more out of your team and drive productivity with communications? What works for one is not always the same for others. So make a note of everyone’s differences and see how you can adapt your management style to match

Communications: Recruitment

  • Most teams reflect the personality of the business owner because we tend to recruit people similar to ourselves
  • However, to have a successful business, you need people in the right roles with different skills and personalities
  • Consider what communication styles will suit each role before recruiting