Effective communication in business

What is Effective communication?

Communication is more than just exchanging of information. Effective communication can be in two ways: it is how you pay attention to gain the full meaning of what is being said and also to make the other person feel heard and comprehended.It helps to deepen your interconnections to others and improve the team work, problem solving and decision making. It enables you to communicate the difficult messages without destroying the trust.

Effective communication is essential tool for any business owner. Your success at getting your point across can be the difference between sealing a deal and missing out a potential chance. You should be at a position to explain the company’s policies to customers and clients, at the same time answer their questions about your products or services. It’s critical to communicate effectively in negotiations to make sure you achieve your goals.

Communication is also important within a business as it helps to promote a good working relationship between you and your staff which in turn improve efficiency and morale. The company’s culture is shown in the nature of the office communication and business should hold on effective communication.

How to communicate effectively

Have a communication plan

• To clearly define communication methods, it may be a good idea to have a communication plan. A well defined communication plan supplements your company culture. Good communication strategies and mission statement will help clearly to define the goals of the business. It will also identify communication methods, define desired outcomes and account for future adjustment. It will be important to create a feedback system to measure the success of the communication tactics.

Effective messages

• Using appropriate language in a message is important to its clarity. The communication should be clear as possible, direct, honest and memorable.

Take considerations

• Look at your communication methods and make sure there are no barriers

Know your audience

• In a business set up, understanding your customer’s roles and how they fit into your business ladder is important to creating effective communication. This information will help you adjust communications and better connectivity with audience.

Choosing the right communication platforms

• Choosing a right platform is vital component to effective communication. It’s mostly advisable to use many platforms in communication especially when you want to pass an important information to your potential customers.

Importance of effective communication to business

• Builds strong relationship-Communication helps business owners to build strong relationship with their outsourced suppliers and providers. By outlining your expectations and company requirements, your business can change many issues.
• Cultivate teamwork-If your business relies on team work, proper communication is the key to efficient collaborations. Everyone needs to listen to your ideas and specific business needs and goals. If you communicate clearly with your employees, they will respect you. As a result everyone will contribute to the growth of your business.
• Enhance establishment as business authorities-Through proper communication, the business owners are able to establish themselves as industry authorities. For example a business owner may send out a newsletter that addresses a common problem. At the end of the newsletter the manager will present the company’s solution to the problem. This form of communication helps the business build trust.
• Employees and managers get return-Proper communication benefits both the management and the employees too. Whenever there is a change of the company’s policy, everyone must understand the reason why the changes were made, hence providing feedback to the members of the company.
• Effects of poor communication in business
• Decreased productivity-High productivity is the target of any business, as it is the component with which employees discharge their tasks. Poor communication causes a break down in productivity. Even if you communicate with your employees, if they have poor communication among each other, productivity is affected.
• Regular mistakes-If the employer in a business has poor communication skills, chances are that the employee can misunderstand his expected duties. Similarly, if the employee lacks good communication skills, they are less likely to seek for clarification. Therefore, poor communication leads to misunderstanding and misinterpretation which leads to mistakes being done in the job.
• Low moral-When business employees receive information that is poorly communicated, or are unable to communicate effectively among them, they can suffer from low morale. This can lead to confusion which affects their self esteem. This can contribute to the job not being done properly, affecting the productivity and service delivery to customers.

Therefore, effective communication contributes highly to the success of business.