Are you guilty of
boring your clients with communication that simply doesn’t cut it? It’s a
common problem but there are a few things to look for which might tell you if
you’re guilty.
There are many reasons people in business can be guilty of joining
the throngs of the world’s worst communicators. It’s not always a problem with not
communicating at all (which is pretty widespread) but also one of communicating
poorly when you do so. The trick is to
make sure you engage your intended audience in the ways that work for them –
not you. You need to deliver your message in a way that responds to the
recipients’ preferences if it’s to be absorbed at all. There’s little point in creating
a regular communication vehicle designed to support your business development ambitions
if at the other end, no one much wants to read it.
Be relevant
First, make sure you’re communicating something that’s
relevant to their interests. If you don’t know what their interests are, you
ought to ask them. A simple online survey is one way of doing this (but you
might be disappointed with low response rates). Alternatively, a trusted
network of clients might offer you some honest advice about the sorts of things
they’re most interested in. However you do it, you need to ensure you always
ask the question “what’s in it for them.”
Avoid jargon
The bane of much professional communication is jargon. You
and your professional colleagues might be familiar with the secret code phrases
and acronyms of your profession, but your target audience may not. Keep your
jargon for your professional society meetings but when talking to clients and
potential clients, use a common language. In this country, English is pretty
handy.
Speak like a person
Have you ever read an opening line which sounds like it was
written by a committee, a bureaucrat or a lawyer? It might start like ‘XYZ
Services is pleased to announce that…’ but
readers may not get much further than the opening sentence before the boredom
factor kicks in. Would you ever pick up the phone and talk to someone is such a
tortured, formal language? If you’re a lawyer, you might but for the rest of
the world it’s not the way we communicate. So why is it that when we work on something
written, we instinctively adopt an overly formal or clinical turn of phrase? If
you actually want to communicate with your audience, my recommendation is that
you read it aloud to someone first and see how long they stay interested. When their eyes start to dart around the
room, or start to close, you know you’ve got a problem.
Be visual
Humans are highly visual beings but too little is made of
visual devices in business communication. I’ve seen so many newsletters,
corporate brochures or e-zines which are packed with lengthy narratives which
few people will ever read. But they will look at pictures, they will think
about charts and graphs, or flow diagrams, or highlight boxes. And when using visuals, don’t shrink them down
in order to fit your text onto a page. Start with big visuals and captions. Any
space left over is where you can put your narrative.
Keep it short
We’re all time poor. Keep your messages brief, and once you
think you’ve done that, make them briefer still. Long narratives might look
impressive or give you some sense of comfort, but bullet points and short
paragraphs are better. If they want to know more, they can contact you (isn’t
that the point anyway?)
Fear of being
different
The herd instinct in corporate communication and business
development is alive and well. Too often, the basis of your communication which
talks about how your business is ‘unique’ or specialised and why you are unlike
your competitors, makes you look and sound as if you are exactly the same as
your competitors. Don’t believe me? Try
this: copy a selection of competitor business marketing collateral and remove
all reference to individuals or company names or logos. Could you simply insert
your company name into a rival’s material and no one would really know the
difference? All too often, that’s exactly what happens. The herd instinct might
provide you with a sense of safety (“but this is how everyone does it”) but it
won’t do anything to set you apart.
Ask a third party
Yes this is a plug but you are likely to be the worst judge
of your own material. To you, it’s familiar and to you, every word has been
preciously crafted to represent your business in the best possible light. But you
are unlikely to have the sort of perspective that a third party can bring. If
you’re at risk of boring your clients to death, you might need someone else to point
it out to you. In the nicest possible way, of course.
