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Posts Tagged ‘Communications’

In today’s day and age of e-mail, Blackberrys and text messaging, business environments are relying on technological advances to facilitate communication. Certainly, operations have become more efficient. However, are interactions becoming more effective as a result?

Continuing to develop interpersonal communication skills is never something that should take a back seat. Simply put, how you communicate is just as important – if not more important – than the product or service you are trying to sell. In our rapidly changing and fast-paced business environment, building relationships is critical to the success of any business. For small businesses in particular – that may not have a formal communications function – every individual in the business is a part of the communications effort.

From the Experts:

1. Pay attention to physical cues. Experts say that when you meet someone, you have just ten seconds to make an impression on them. Elements such as eye contact, a firm handshake and a calm speaking voice are all part of the communication you are delivering or the interaction you are facilitating. Keep checking the other person’s non-verbal cues as well to adjust your approach, mirroring their style – are they friendly or formal? Do they appear open to closer talking or prefer to have more space between each other? By answering to these questions in real time and adjusting your physical style appropriately, you can easily make a potent first impression.

2. Employees come first. Meet with employees one on one at regular time intervals. Experts recommend weekly meetings and advise both parties to come prepared with updates or issues for discussion. This is a perfect time to discuss career path strategies for your employees as well. You can also take the time to inform employees of any performance issues that have arisen, giving them time to mark improvements before any formal reviews.

3. Take advantage of presentation training. Group speaking skills are critical, and especially important for small businesses looking to grow referrals and network in their industry or market. In addition, be able to effectively communicate to employee groups to build credibility and ensure consistent messaging about your expectations.

4. Be careful with emails. Know the difference between what messages can be delivered via email and what must be discussed in person. As a rule, save more emotional matters for face-to-face discussions. On the flip side, learn how to become more succinct with your e-mail communications to ensure you’re delivering the facts and outlining appropriate action steps so that everyone is clear on your requests. A good rule of thumb: write the way you speak and remember that longer is not necessarily better.

5. Use logic to construct your communications. Whether speaking or writing, state the facts to support your opinions. Avoid limiting your credibility by using statements like, “I feel.” Instead, use goal-oriented language and avoid unnecessary storytelling.

Nonverbal communication has been defined as communication without words. It includes apparent behaviors such as facial expressions, eyes, touching, and tone of voice, as well as less obvious messages such as dress, posture and spatial distance between two or more people.

Some major areas of nonverbal behaviors to explore are:

Eye contact Facial expressions Gestures Posture and body orientation Proximity Paralinguistics Humor

Eye contact:

Eye contact, an important channel of interpersonal communication, helps regulate the flow of communication. And it signals interest in others. Furthermore, eye contact with audiences increases the speaker’s credibility. Teachers who make eye contact open the flow of communication and convey interest, concern, warmth and credibility.

Facial expressions:

Smiling is a powerful cue that transmits:

Happiness Friendliness Warmth Liking Affiliation

Gestures:

If you fail to gesture while speaking, you may be perceived as boring, stiff and unanimated. A lively and animated teaching style captures students’ attention, makes the material more interesting, facilitates learning and provides a bit of entertainment.

Posture and body orientation:

You communicate numerous messages by the way you walk, talk, stand and sit. Standing erect, but not rigid, and leaning slightly forward communicates to students that you are approachable, receptive and friendly.

Proximity:

You should look for signals of discomfort caused by invading  space. Some of these are:

Rocking Leg swinging Tapping Gaze aversion

Paralinguistics:

This facet of nonverbal communication includes such vocal elements as:

Tone Pitch Rhythm Timbre Loudness Inflection

Humor:

Humor is often overlooked as a tool, and it is too often not encouraged . Laughter releases stress and tension. Obviously, adequate knowledge of the subject matter is crucial to your success; however, it’s not the only crucial element. Creating a climate that facilitates learning and retention demands good nonverbal and verbal skills. To improve your nonverbal skills, record your speaking on video tape. Then ask a colleague in communications to suggest refinements. 

Seven ways you can boost sales and thrive in the new economy
#2: Boost your risk-busting communications skills

In the new economy that is emerging around all of us, one of the key shifts we’re seeing is in the area of buyer motivation. Today, from consumers to corporate clients, the people who make the decision to buy have one big question on their minds: “how can you help reduce my risk?”

There are all kind of reasons why people share that preoccupation, but it does not have to be a barrier preventing you from reaching and exceeding your sales targets. So far in this series looking at ways to boost sales and thrive in today’s market, we’ve talked about how leveraging who you know can help mitigate that sense of risk.

Today, let’s look at the importance of what you say and how you say it.

For any buyer, being preoccupied by risk is all about coping with uncertainty. They have a range of worries: “what if I buy this and it wastes my time and money rather than solves my problem…what if it doesn’t perform the way I expect it to…what if I simply make a bad choice?” As a sales professional, I’m sure you recognize the corrosive danger of those “what-ifs.” They’re all rooted in a fear of the unknown. You have to make it your #1 job to address those fears head-on, by communicating with your customers clearly and credibly with messages that meet their needs.

Personalize your message
Earlier, I shared with you tips on how you can ask leading questions to find out if they’re going to need additional things from you. Today, let’s look some more at what you can do to better meet the needs of your customers. Get to the heart of what is going on inside their business as well as in their minds. Sell to that need by being as personalized as possible. Not only does this help you as the salesperson to always be thinking of your customers by name, it also generates better results at the buyer’s end—particularly when risk is on their radar.

In one consumer study, a group of buyers were asked to rank the effectiveness of a range of marketing vehicles that were each designed to reduce risk (e.g., money-back guarantees, free samples, word-of-mouth testimonials, and brand-based messages). The research results were summed up nicely by Doug Hall in his 2003 book, Meaningful Marketing. “The data shows that real, first-person experience is order of magnitude more credible than manufactured marketing methods… Personal experience is the most real and reliable method of reducing fear.”

The food service industry is in many ways a microcosm of what goes on every day in sales—top performers are well rewarded when they provide more than just a product…they provide an personalized experience. For example, the most successful servers out there know that the best way to earn the most tips is by building a personalized rapport with their customers. The good ones will start by introducing themselves by name to a table of guests. The really good ones will recognize their returning customers and address them by name. Why? Because they have learned what all top-ranked sales professional know: people like it when they hear or see their name pop up in what you are communicating to them.

To apply this to your line of work, think of all the ways that you communicate with your customers. From face-to-face meetings, to email, to direct marketing material. Look for opportunities where you can to include the customer’s name in your message. Newsletters, estimates and direct-mail pieces are all good places to start. But exercise good judgment! First, find out whether they’re more comfortable with being referred to on a first-name basis. Second (and this is really important), don’t overuse their name, otherwise you’ll sound corny and even less impersonal than a form letter.

Anticipate rather than just react
Risk-busting communications means that you need to do more than just react to buyer hesitation. Don’t panic. Stay in control.

Of course, this requires that you think ahead about objections that a customer might have and prepare good responses. When you’re talking about your product or service, always communicate the benefits of what you’re offering ahead of the features. Just as important, be generously empathetic in acknowledging a customer’s objections. That helps to put their mind at ease and demonstrates to them that you genuinely understand their position they are in.

The extra effort you put into your communications pays off. The credibility of your message grows. By demonstrating that your top concern is finding a solution to what matters to them (rather than being just motivated by making your commission), you close the gap between a customer having objections and making the decision to buy.

Choose the right tools and measure relentlessly
As with all investments, the time and effort you put into risk-busting communications is best spent when you also make a point of measuring your results. Your audience you want to reach plays a significant part in determining which tools you should use (e.g., websites, e-newsletters, direct mail, cold calling). No matter the mix that you choose, be sure to include some kind of metric so that you can track your response rate and fine-tune your message when necessary. The results of your efforts will pay for themselves several times over because your messages—particularly those that are fine-tuned to address specific needs that your customers have—will be seen as purposeful, relevant and timely. In other words, they’ll sit up and take notice.

As a sales trainer, as I meet professionals and business owners of all kinds across North America, I remind all of them that no matter what title they hold in their organization, they are all sales people. In good times and in bad times, everyone in an organization is responsible for the messages they communicate to their clients. Moreover, it is up to each of us to decide what kind of sales person we want to be.

By investing a little bit of time and forethought, you can emulate the business habits of the top-10% sales performers out there. Be empathetic, be responsive to the needs and objections of your customers, be focused on personalizing your message. With time and persistence, you’ll find that you’ll have a winning communications formula that can top the sales charts in any market.

A practical approach to improving your business communication skills. Faculty director Peggy Smith introduces the program. Visit www.pcs.udel.edu

Product Description
The express purpose of this book is to assist you, the reader, in developing quality cognitive and interactive communications skills that will become the fundamental building blocks required to further enhance a strong and rewarding competency level pertaining to, but not inclusive of, back-to-basics communications in any field of expertise. The contents of this book are a compilation of years of highly interactive seminar and field experiences presented by the au… More >>

Empowering Verbal/Non-Verbal Communications: By Connecting The Cognitive Dots

Marketing communications is one of the most talked about topics in the world wide web internet today. Obviously, as the term implies, it is simply communicating to people anything that pertains to your brand, products, or services. There are a lot of ways to do this. The best way to do the job greatly depends on the target audience you want to reach. One way may work best with a particular group of people, while another type of audience can be reached effectively using another way. Whatever way is used, it must go hand in hand with the rest of ways employed to communicate your brand.

With the advancement of technology come also broader and better avenues through which you can bring the message to people regarding your brand. The ancient way of communicating your message to clients and target audience was limited to radio advertisements and TV commercials, billboards and prints. But momentarily, the picture has changed. Now the internet has opened unlimited ways so you can creatively and effectively reach your clients and target prospects in no time at all, at a cost that is unbelievably cheap, yet with higher potentials of accomplishing your goals. Using the internet you can now transact business anywhere in the globe without really going there. You can also take the challenge of competing in the international market.

Some of the most popular marketing communications tools nowadays include blogging like that of WordPress, micro-blogging like Twitter, podcasting, email marketing, and SEO of Search Engine Optimization.

Email marketing is among the most popular tools used by most companies and business organizations today. It brings so much convenience and saves more time for other tasks because with just a few clicks on your mouse you can send emails to all of your clients and prospects whose email addresses are on your list. However, you need to be careful in doing this because just like its older brother – the snail mail, emails too can sometimes find their way to the trash bin. To prevent this from happening, your message must reflect creativity and relevance so that recipients may find them interesting. It must be as concise as possible and readable at one glance so it will not steal your readers’ time and consider your email boring.

Blogging is another great breakthrough in marketing communications. Unlike its older brother – the personal diary which you try to hide for in there you keep some secret thoughts, a blog is meant to be published and read. Readers also have the freedom to react, interact, and express their approvals or disapprovals of certain issues you publish. Marketing experts have found blogging as a potential tool in communicating your brand to people because of the many opportunities to connect with your regular customers and target clients and establish a good relationship with them.

Finally, micro-blogging is another latest awakening in today’s marketing arena. It is like a younger brother to blogging and a cousin to SMS. Like SMS, micro-blogging allows you to send short messages or short blogs to your followers, in your situation your clients and prospects. Your purpose is to update them with your latest products or services, latest deals and offers, and to make your presence always felt. Indeed, modern marketing communications tools give marketing a whole new look.