Your Bad Communication Is Sinking Your Business
5 rules to make your communication as an entrepreneur powerful, effective, and meaningful
The way you communicate is the #1 indicator if your business will fail or succeed.
During the almost 10 years I’ve been in the communication business, working with big corporations, small businesses, and solo hustlers, I realized that most people are not good at communicating with their peers, employees, and customers.
It doesn’t matter if they’re big CEOs or new entrepreneurs; when I bring up this matter during consulting sessions, I usually hear the same answer: “I’m just not good at it.” And sometimes, I also hear the unforgivable old excuse: “I don’t need to be good at communication, I have other people to do that for me.”
While both answers could be true, it doesn’t matter what kind of business or position you have; good communication is essential if you want to succeed at whatever you want to accomplish.
In any type of business, if you’re not communicating well with the people around you, you’re probably not making decisions as well as you could. You’re likely not getting good negotiations and investors, your colleagues’ and employees’ performances are poor, and your clients are not sticking around.
Remember, a business is only as good as its conversations are.
The good thing about communication is anyone can get good at it.
I came up with a five-rule guide I’ve crafted during the last few years that have made my and my client’s communication with anyone simple, easy, and powerful.
1. Learn to listen by relating
Learning how to be a good listener takes time, and sometimes it can even make you feel drained out of patience.
A good way to start is by constantly pushing yourself to see and feel what the other person is telling you, to really imagine it.
Let’s say my employee Suzie was supposed to come into the office tomorrow from her vacation in a remote place with no internet, and she needed to start working on an important project the very next day. But suddenly, I get a phone call from her telling me she had just gotten to the airport and was informed that her flight back home was canceled.
She won’t be able to come on the agreed day, and since she doesn’t have internet, we will have to move a lot of things around.
When she tells me that, I immediately picture myself in an airport after a long day, waiting to get to the comfort of my house, take a warm shower, pet my dog, get in my comfy bed. I also picture someone telling me I won’t be able to do that because my flight got canceled. Instead, I will have to stick around in an uncomfortable airport — and just like that, in that second, I can relate to the way she felt, and I can give her an understanding and authentic solution-based response.
Practicing this will help you become an empathetic person, and it might also help you expand something we don’t sometimes use: our imagination.
In today’s world, there is nothing more refreshing than an empathetic colleague, boss, or friend.
Another good tip to be a good listener when you’re feeling out of patience is to breathe mindfully, deep breaths if necessary.
This will help your brain get oxygen and decrease the heated feeling of wanting to interrupt the other person to say something.
Remember that real communication is two-way, and other people want to be heard the same way you do.
2. Be mindful of your non-verbal gestures
Years ago, I heard from colleagues and employees that I looked angry or unbothered when they wanted to approach me. Most of the time, that was not the case, but the truth is my facial expression could be saying that without me even realizing it.
After I was made aware of this, I thought back to all the people that I also perceived as angry, annoyed, or sad, and I remembered how difficult it felt to talk and communicate with them, to stressfully question myself about how they would react to what I wanted to tell them.
When we perceive someone having a negative emotion, we instantly put a barrier between that person and us — it’s human nature to want to protect ourselves from uncomfortable situations that may lead us to get hurt.
It’s not wrong at all to show our vulnerable sides when we want to, especially when we need support from the people we are closed to. However, when we plan to engage in an effective and professional conversation, we need to be mindful of our non-verbal gestures.
A good brain trick to achieve this is to read the expression of the person next to you and then immediately use that as a reminder to ask yourself what your face is saying, making you aware of what you want your gestures to communicate.
This will also help you read people easily and be ready with the approach you will have with them if contact or conversation were to happen.
3. Organize your thoughts
After you’ve been an empathetic listener and aligned your non-verbal gestures with what you want to communicate, it is important to organize your thoughts, so every word that comes from you comes clearly and understandably.
Before we start talking to someone, we should always know what we want to achieve, and to do that is necessary that we put our ideas in order of importance and impact, we should always start with the most important point we have; remember that after some time most things lose the big impact they had at the beginning, and communication is not different.
Clearly communicating your thoughts will make your words powerful and easy to understand. To not undermine that power, you should avoid being repetitive and preachy; most of the time, people already know when they made a mistake and don’t need someone else constantly repeating the same, making them feel worse.
Instead, try to focus on solutions for the problem while helping them learn from the experience.
This will also help you to be considered a powerful leader and a non-judgmental, understanding person.
4. Don’t leave your feelings behind
If it ever occurred to you that communicating your feelings is a sign of weakness, it’s time for you to see it from a different perspective.
Our feelings have an impact, and that impact can be translated into how we communicate.
Saying to your business partner you feel left out when they don’t include you in important decisions not only explains the problem but the effect that the problem is having on you, helping you convey a stronger message than just arguments or complaints.
Every time you feel insecure about sharing your feelings while communicating, remember that as sentient beings, most humans experience all kinds of emotions and feelings on a daily basis during our entire life, making your point have a profound impact and making it more relatable to understand.
5. Make sure you understand, and you’re being understood
One of the main problems in communication is assumption. People tend to assume that after they communicate something, their message has been understood by the other party; what makes this matter worse is that sometimes the other party doesn’t ask any questions to clarify the doubts they may have.
A good way to make sure you understand the other person is to repeat what you understood from what they said, not repeating everything they said but what you understood, in that way they will add or correct if you missed something important.
This will also help you be seen as an attentive, secure person who does their best effort to care about what someone else is trying to communicate.
Remember, everyone likes to be understood, so they will probably be happy to help you understand.
On the other hand, to make sure you’ve been understood, you need to ask the questions and make yourself open to clarify any doubts; just like we checked above, it’s always easier for people to approach you if you give them the sense of being approachable.
Making your communication effective will make you a better leader and help you run your business in a strategic and profitable way.
