Panic? or Profit?

Communication is a wacky thing. At times when you think you’ve been unbelievably clear about what you need – like asking your kid to take out the garbage – when you see the bins in the bathrooms still full you scratch your head and wonder why. Did they forget? Did they not realize today was garbage day? Then when you ask your kid what happened they say something like, “Oh, I didn’t realize you meant all the garbage. I just took out the bag that was in the garage.”
Good communication is a two-way street. It’s an exchange between the giver and the receiver. If the receiver isn’t tuned into the same station you’re broadcasting on, the chances of the communication being received as intended is highly improbable.
So, effective communication means being tuned in, asking the right questions, establishing relevance, then being clear in order to acquire a desired response; e.g. you wouldn’t ask a four year-old what they’d like for dinner without narrowing the choices. The potential combinations are endless, and at that age, the child will likely choose what’s familiar like something they saw on the last billboard you passed in the car. They don’t know the options. A four-year-old wouldn’t likely answer, “Let me see, it’s a toss-up between fettuccini Alfredo with a side Caesar and rocky road ice cream for dessert or Shepherd’s pie with cheddar’n’broccoli soup.” So you offer only a few choices with great descriptions to help them make a healthy choice and eventually learn more options.
Same is true for communicating our business.
Learning to communicate is not something that ends in school. We’re signed up for life. If we want to achieve greater results from our messaging, then we need to be acutely alert to what matters to our audience and give them just that. In this age of e-communication and down-right over-communication, cutting through the noise of thousands of impressions a day and making ours stick, is increasingly challenging. There are so many options.
How do you cut through the noise? Well, consider what Marshall McLuhan said in 1964, “Your medium IS your message.” Then consider how much thought you put into the last promotional product you purchased to advertise your business. The point I’m making here is that if the medium IS the message, then shouldn’t that marketing gift totally reflect who you are? Remember the last time someone gave you a pen that didn’t work? How did that reflect back on the company whose name was on it?
Welcome to the first edition of our weekly blog. It’s dedicated to sharing the fables and faux pas of communication that we see to help you Inspire Results on Purpose.
Succeed deliberately!
Jae M. Rang, MAS