Message in a Bottle?

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These thoroughly modern techniques are increasingly significant to the way we all do business, but frankly – what’s new is old. No matter the method, the goal is the same as it ever was: communicate often and broadly to reach clients and colleagues with the information (or inspiration) they need.

But if you aren’t communicating well, you might as well be stuffing a note into a bottle and sending it out to sea. Without the skills to communicate in a manner that is effective, engaging and useful to both clients and colleagues, your message is just bobbing uselessly on the waves of a giant ocean.

Shared experience and information have long been the backbone to successful businesses. In a world where the click of a button can multiply the process exponentially, the art of personal communication has adapted and in some cases, withered on the digital vine. We might be “speaking” more, but is our voice being heard, is our message being articulated with the nuance it requires?

Whether it be B2B or B2C, what was crucial decades ago is crucial today: P2P – person to person. Human interaction – online, via email, over the negotiating table, on a sales pitch – is and always has been the fabric that binds our connections and builds our businesses. Without it, we become as cold and impersonal as the keyboards we type upon. Communication, and specifically, effective communication, is the steady current that moves our ideas from “talk” into reality.

The skills we utilize as communicators are far more important than the methods we use to communicate. Bolstering our techniques, honing in on our individual strengths and weaknesses, understanding how are behaviors affect our message – these are the ways we uncork the bottle and truly send our best out into the world.

Is your message in a bottle?