Waters: How East Valley business owners can establish effective communication
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John Waters
By John Waters, principal of Waters Business Consulting in Scottsdale | Guest Commentary
Communication is important to run an effective company. Your team’s ability to properly communicate with customers and other employees is important to the reputation of your business as well as your bottom line. Companies that communicate make more money by establishing better customer relationships and helps you and your employees dispose of bad processes and make good ones.
A good Arizona business needs strong communicators and strong communicators are molded with constant practice. Improving communication at your company is a necessity so here are a few tips to mold stronger communication. These tips will make the entire team better at running a profitable business.
Purchase the right technology
Before we get to strategy it is important that you supply yourself with the right tools for improving communication. An efficient company is able to relay messages from one person to another quickly and clearly as possible. Two-way radios are the perfect tool to streamline communication at your business.
Two-way radios create instant communication for every employee with on push of a button. The crew at the conveyor tunnel can talk to the team in the front without having to go to each other multiple times a day.
Two-way radios are a reliable tool for communication according to Stewart McClintic, corporate account manager at HQ98, a two-way radio dealer in Arizona.
“Local businesses often use radios because of their straight forward set up and use,” McClintic said. “Push the button and get a message out to your team. You don’t have to do a phone number or leave your station to communicate with your team.”
Implementing the use of two-way radios is a great first step to improve your team’s communication.
Take an active interest in your employees’ growth
Check-in on employees often to see how they are doing at their job and in their life. How often you do check-ins depends on how big your company is but every owner should take an active interest in the growth of their employees. Small businesses should individually meet with every employee weekly. Large businesses should hold individual meetings once per month.
Meetings are an excellent way to personally know your employees. They can help you learn about their strengths and weaknesses as well as discuss how both the employee and you — the owner — can build a strong working relationship.
No one is more valuable to your company than your team so take some time to talk with them. It is a tiny amount of time that leads to gigantic gains in the future.
Meetings should establish clear expectations on improvement for the company and how well everyone met those expectations set during the previous meeting.
Your meetings are also about establishing a more personal connection with your team members. Remembering a birthday or another big event in an employee’s life can go a long way in creating a strong relationship.
Conducting productive and individual meetings with your employees will help them improve as people and employees.
Group meetings with the entire team are also a necessity for business owners. Group meetings should be conducted once a week if your company is small and once a month if you own a large company.
Peer accountability is the most important value you should take from this meeting. You and your employees have goals and you must hold each other accountable to them. It is important for you and your team to know how everyone is performing.
Peer accountability means that successes are more likely to be recorded and failures are more likely to be noted if everyone is in the same room and talking to each other.
Everyone must be involved and engaged during group meetings. Incentivize asking questions and politely pose a question to any employees who have not verbally engaged during the meeting. Meetings should be a safe and intellectual environment. No one should be afraid to speak and no one should be ridiculed for saying something incorrect.
We want to improve communication in our company and that requires an environment where people feel comfortable to speak.
Do more than just verbal communication
Verbal communication is one of the least used forms of communication. The 7% rule founded by Dr. Albert Mehrabian in 1971 shows that communication is 7% verbal and 93 percent non-verbal. Effective communication is more than words. Active body language is an essential component of communication.
Employees interacting with customers should give direct eye contact, stand up straight and communicate with the customer using a genuinely upbeat and professional demeanor. Customers will be a patron of your business if your employees want to help them and answer their questions.
Owners should also take this advice to heart when communicating with their employees. Employers keep good people if those people feel like they are being listened to. Take the time to talk to your employees and listen to their suggestions and concerns. Listening to them will improve your business.
Good business owners understand that strong professional relationships create strong businesses. Strong relationships require trust and you establish trust by listening to your employees.
You can only grow your business if you hire and keep the right people so listen to them and watch your company grow.
Good communication can create a successful company. Find ways your team can work to communicate more efficiently in ways that benefit your employees and your business. Finding the right methods and techniques to improve your team’s communication will lead to a happier workplace and a more profitable business.
