Check out Google. Enter the search term “communication”, and click on the “Images” search tab. Count the number of ears that are featured as opposed to mouths, megaphones, speakers, etc. We say “I’m all ears…” but you wouldn’t know it from the walk we walk. It’s all talk! It . . . → Read More: The Ears Have It]]> Share/Bookmark

Lend me your ears

When Shakespeare penned the words “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears…” in Julius Caesar he did his share to perpetuate the tradition that confuses great oratory with great communication. That tradition has done more to damage our understanding of good communication than almost anything else.

Check out Google. Enter the search term “communication”, and click on the “Images” search tab. Count the number of ears that are featured as opposed to mouths, megaphones, speakers, etc. We say “I’m all ears…” but you wouldn’t know it from the walk we walk. It’s all talk! It should be “I’m all mouths!”

Let’s turn that on its ear.

Meaning begins with listening

Great communication always starts with listening, not speaking.

Meaning is a value ascribed to incoming data by the listener. You can have the most polished speech, the cleverest PowerPoint slides, the latest technology broadcasting the newest numbers, but if your listeners don’t find value in what you are broadcasting, it’s just noise.

So how do you shape your message so that your audience hears it as information; as a communication they value? As you prepare your ad campaign, keynote speech, or blog content, how can you ensure you will be heard?

You start by listening. Begin by finding out what your audience values; what would make them tune in and turn on.

Here are 4 questions you can ask before you put your message together:

1. Who is your listener as a person? The most effective communication always has an emotional thread. By getting to know how your audience feels about your topic, and about their world in general, you will be more likely to strike the right emotional chords and have your message resonate more deeply. Even the largest audience consists of individual human beings. Get to know them.
2. What are their needs and desires? This is basic market research. Everyone in your audience wants something. If you can hitch your message to those desires you will have their full attention.
3. What keeps them up at night? As well as desires, we all have fears. While this aspect of understanding audiences has a very dark history (just think of the history of  how popular fears framed as anti-Semitism and racism have been fanned into holocausts in the last 150 years), it remains critical to know what problems and stresses your audience is dealing with. All successful business messages connect because they promise to solve someone’s problem.
4. Can you share the ride? Sometimes it makes sense to share a cab ride with someone if you are both headed in the same direction. In business communication, you can get a lot of mileage by finding out where your audience is headed (or would like to go) and connecting their journey with yours.

All communication is an act of translation. It’s like speaking in a foreign country: it doesn’t matter how articulate you are in your language, if you don’t understand your audience’s language, and translate your message accordingly, your audience will be hearing gibberish.

I help businesses and organizations get the mix right. People and systems working together to produce remarkable results. Check out my website to learn about the different ways I can support your organization.

There’s more! Looking for success in your small business? Read my Small Business blog at Small Business Fundamentals (www.smbfundamentals.com).

Too shy to leave a comment? That’s cool. +1′s and tweets are appreciated too!

What are you selling?

If nothing, then you are not in business. If only commodities, then you won’t be in business for long.

“But wait,” you say “I am a service provider. I don’t sell commodities. So I guess I’m safe.”

Sorry. A service alone is still a commodity. In the brave new world of social business, anything is a commodity to the extent to which it is a) a transaction that consists only of the exchange of a good or service for money, and b) reproducible in every important way.

So a service which is repeated over . . . → Read More: The Social Market: Relationships, Stories, and Desire]]> Share/Bookmark

What are you selling?

If nothing, then you are not in business. If only commodities, then you won’t be in business for long.

“But wait,” you say “I am a service provider. I don’t sell commodities. So I guess I’m safe.”

Sorry. A service alone is still a commodity. In the brave new world of social business, anything is a commodity to the extent to which it is a) a transaction that consists only of the exchange of a good or service for money, and b) reproducible in every important way.

So a service which is repeated over and over again, where the narrative arc ends completely when money changes hands, and which can be replicated by any competent professional the world over, is a commodity. And commodities have no place in the social marketplace.

The antonym of ‘commodity’ in this paradigm, is ‘experience’.

An experience in the context of social business, begins before the customer comes into direct contact with the business, and lasts long after the core transaction has taken place. And each experience is unique.

An experience is the product of a unique interaction between equal players. In the social market, the focus is on the unique relationship between the buyer, the seller, and the environment. That particular relationship cannot be reproduced and is becoming the new USP (Unique Selling Proposition). Social tools, especially those focusing on place (like FourSquare or Facebook Places) create the opportunity to customize interactions for both the buyer and the seller.

An experience is a story. The traditional models of acquisition and retention are losing their definition. Through digital social channels, we become aware of brands long before we click a link or walk through their doors. We are made aware of them through the conversations of those we trust, through targeted ads, and through the directed stream of data that flows around us. Sites like TripAdvisor, Yelp, and the shaped offerings and reviews from sites like Amazon provide a near-global conversation about brands, which those brands can participate in, but not control. At mid-transaction, the story continues as business and consumer exchange information, and successful businesses attempt to create a remarkable experience with each visit or purchase. Then after the sale, the digital threads connecting consumer and business remain sticky and elastic. Follow-up, follow-through, return-incentives, and CRM all lose their distinct post-purchase roles and flow backwards and forwards to sustain the relationship and the experience of the brand for as long as possible.

In the social market, desire becomes more nuanced. In 20th century marketing, brands would try to speak to our desires for acceptance, status, fulfillment. But the whole experience had a tawdry one-night-stand feel to it. As soon as you purchased that object of desire: the house, the nicer car, the bigger TV, something akin to post-coital depression set in until the credit-fueled dance of desire started again, focused on a new fetish. In the social market, the seductions still continue, but there is nuance and a deeper commitment. Apple probably understands this better than any other brand. The combination of beautiful objects and a tribal-cliquey sense of being part of a special community is masterfully handled by Apple. Our desires remain, and brands will still seek to fulfill them, but the pace must be slower. The nature of the fulfillment must be richer. As Apple knows, it can’t just be about stuff any more. And I think it is just the beginning. There are deeper and more subtle desires that brands can connect with and act as partners in fulfilling: the sense of belonging, the sense of making a real difference in our communities and globally, a spiritual dimension… In my memory, the Body Shop perhaps best understood and exploited (not necessarily in a bad sense) this. But they were before their time. Lululemon is close. But there will be many more: successful businesses will find ways to act as partners in shared stories that address our needs and desires, and weave together the social, the commercial, the emotional and spiritual into extended, and profitable, shared experiences.

The experience must be truthful. If there is one thing for which tolerance is evaporating rapidly, it is deception in the market. And sustainable relationships and real experiences cannot be built on lies. It will be interesting to watch as the marketing, PR, and branding universe adjusts to the truth that whatever else consumers will demand, it is… the truth. Punishment for deception will be swift and many times fatal, as the social networks (including many of the consumer rating sites like TripAdvisor or Yelp mentioned above) spread bad news at a speed with a reach we have not seen before.

I help organizations improve communication through leadership & management-level workshops & coaching. Check out my website to learn about the different ways I can support your organization.

There’s more! Looking for success in your small business? Read my Small Business blog at Small Business Fundamentals (www.smbfundamentals.com).

Too shy to leave a comment? That’s cool. +1′s and tweets are appreciated too!

I have a client who owns a cooking school, and for whom I am helping write website content. Her customers are mostly women, between the ages of 35 to 70. They hear about her cooking classes from friends who are current or past students, and they usually attend in pairs or groups. Here is a conversation we had:

Me: I see your web designer has included a Twitter icon on your banner. Are you planning on using Twitter as a communication tool?

My client: Yes, I was planning on using Twitter. My web . . . → Read More: If You Must Tweet, Choose Your Tweeter Wisely]]> Share/Bookmark

Guest post by Maeve Maguire

I have a client who owns a cooking school, and for whom I am helping write website content. Her customers are mostly women, between the ages of 35 to 70. They hear about her cooking classes from friends who are current or past students, and they usually attend in pairs or groups. Here is a conversation we had:

Me: I see your web designer has included a Twitter icon on your banner. Are you planning on using Twitter as a communication tool?

My client: Yes, I was planning on using Twitter. My web designer says he can write tweets for me. He uses software that enables him to pre-plan and book tweets so that he can write, say, two weeks’ worth of tweets in an evening.

Yikes.

Does anyone else feel uncomfortable with this arrangement? My client is willing to hand over her company communications to her web designer—whose expertise is in web design, not communication or cooking—and pay for the service. What bothered me most is she isn’t the first client to tell me this.

It got me thinking: The goal is to get more customers and earn money to achieve financial freedom which improves the quality of your physical, emotional, and spiritual life (or similar), yes? Can Twitter, and other social media, lead my clients to this goal?

Peter Shankman spells out the answer to my question in his (refreshingly) irascible article called, Why I Will Never, Ever Hire A “Social Media Expert. He writes, “We’re making the same mistakes we made in the DotCom era, where everyone thought that just adding the term .com to your corporate logo made you instantly credible. It didn’t.” In other words, including Twitter and Facebook in your communication strategy may be trendy, but it also may waste your time and money.

Shankman reminds us (in capital letters, to leave no doubt of his conviction) what good business is, “IT’S ABOUT GENERATING REVENUE THROUGH SOLID MARKETING AND STELLAR CUSTOMER SERVICE.” Then, in case anyone with a Twitter account or Facebook business page didn’t feel foolish enough already, he adds, “JUST LIKE IT’S BEEN SINCE THE BEGINNING OF TIME.”

He goes on to remind us that transparency, relevance, and excellent writing are what make marketing great. And, when you’ve nailed down a brilliant brand message, you deliver it in a way your customer can receive it. He says, “If you’re tweeting all your discounts, and none of your customers are on Twitter, then you sir, are an idiot.”

Social media works…for some businesses. Ask your customers if they use social media to learn about your service. If they do, only then consult a communications professional for advice on how to apply it to your business.

Twitter isn’t rocket science (you can learn how to use it, and the “pre-planning” tools, in five minutes), but if you use it, know that it takes time to do it well. If you choose to outsource this job, hire an individual who understands your market and your brand, and who knows how to tweet—in that order.

Read Shankman’s full article at http://www.businessinsider.com/why-i-will-never-ever-hire-a-social-media-expert-2011-5.

Maeve Maguire is a writer who specializes in online communications. She has been writing website content, technical documents, and marketing collateral for over 10 years for companies based in Canada and the UK. Learn more about Maeve’s writing services at www.describewriting.com, or read her blog about life in the Cowichan Valley at www.cowichandale.com.

Message from Clemens:

Want to become a Twitter ‘Power User’? Can you see the value of harnessing Twitter to fuel social media marketing for your business? Join Clemens Rettich for his 6-session online Twitter BootCamp.

Do customers always know what they want? No. Sometimes there are better ways of doing things that we haven’t thought of. Until we see the improvement, we don’t know there is a problem. The challenge is in building awareness. This very strong article helps you create a marketing strategy . . . → Read More: On Message: The Best of Business Communication – April 23]]> Share/Bookmark

Each week I bring together a few articles that add value to our work of becoming better communicators in business. Short on time? Watch for the *Must Read* where I think you’ll get the best bang for your reading buck!

5 Steps to Generate Demand with Content Marketing *Must Read*

Do customers always know what they want? No. Sometimes there are better ways of doing things that we haven’t thought of. Until we see the improvement, we don’t know there is a problem. The challenge is in building awareness. This very strong article helps you create a marketing strategy for products and services people don’t know they need yet. Read more…

Who’s The Hero?

In telling the story of your company, who is the most important character? Your customer. Learn how to make the customers of your business its heroes in the stories you tell. Read more…

Bite Your Tongue *Must Read*

Is a pregnant pause a powerful communication tool? You bet. You would be surprised what information you can collect simply by creating a moment of silence in a conversation!  Read more…

Turn Your LinkedIn Profile into a Slick Online Resume

LinkedIn is the most interesting social media site around. I have written about some of the developments there in the past. At its heart though, LinkedIn still retains its role as a powerful online resume for its members. This article shows us a great tool to take the resume-building piece to another level.  Read more…

Want to improve your communication with employees, partners, and customers? I help organizations improve communication through social media strategies and management-level workshops. Want powerful brand development? Try my online 15-week coaching program.

The number one marketing most businesses make? Failing to follow through and stay in touch. Great customers are customers for life, but if you don’t stay in touch, they will disappear. Read more…

I love this “Write about your target audience . . . → Read More: On Message: The Best of Business Communication – April 9]]> Share/Bookmark

Each week I bring together a few articles that add value to our work of becoming better communicators in business. Short on time? Watch for the *Must Read* where I think you’ll get the best bang for your reading buck!

How To Build And Maintain Your Customer Relationships *Must Read*

The number one marketing most businesses make? Failing to follow through and stay in touch. Great customers are customers for life, but if you don’t stay in touch, they will disappear. Read more…

Writing Content is Not a Job for Sissies

I love this “Write about your target audience – not to them.” Spend more time describing your audience’s reality (of course you have to know audience first), and less time talking at them about yours. People will invest in your products, ideas, and services if you can demonstrate you really get how those things fit into their lives and solve problems they have. Read more…

You Can’t Crowdsource Loyalty: Why “Vote-for-me” Awards Should Die *Must Read*

One of my favourite topics: ‘get popular quick’ schemes in social media. ANYTHING that promises 1000’s of followers at any price, is a disaster. And businesses that use them don’t get it and should go back to social media 101. Customers and fans acquired in this way vanish as quickly as they came, and don’t respect you in the morning. Read more…

60+ Ways to Leverage & Use Twitter to Grow Your Business *Must Read*

Still wondering if Twitter has value for your business? Get over it. It has value. How much value is determined by your imagination and quality of execution (surprise!). This is a must-read article for over 60 ways to use Twitter in business! Read more…

7 Ways to Write a Better ‘About Us’ Page

Kill the stock photographs! Yes! This is an excellent article about writing ‘About Us’ copy, but I really went woo-hoo when I read the part about eliminating stock photographs!. Few things turn me off faster because they communicate a *complete* absence of character or credibility. Read more…

5 Signs You Need a Marketing Makeover *Must Read*

Do you know who you are? More importantly, are your customers clear about who you are? Are you in real conversations with them? No? Then you need a brand makeover. Want a diagnosis to see how healthy your brand is?  Read more…

Want to improve your communication with employees, partners, and customers? I help organizations improve communication through social media strategies and management-level workshops.

Branding matters; and really understanding how branding works can transform your  business. This is an excellent overview of 10 articles that will seriously add to your understanding. Read more…

What was the fastest-growing demographic of Facebook users last year? This article presents some . . . → Read More: On Message: Your Business Communications Weekend Read – Feb 19]]> Share/Bookmark

Each week I bring together a few articles that add value to our work of becoming better communicators in business. Short on time? Watch for the *Must Read* where I think you’ll get the best bang for your reading buck!

Small Business News: What’s Your Brand? *Must Read*

Branding matters; and really understanding how branding works can transform your  business. This is an excellent overview of 10 articles that will seriously add to your understanding. Read more…

16 social media statistics that might surprise you

What was the fastest-growing demographic of Facebook users last year? This article presents some interesting stats on social media use. In a world filled with stats you would think these things are easy to come by, but the really useful aggregations of data are surprisingly rare. Read this one. Read more…

5 Social Sites You May Not Have Heard About (Yet)

Hands up. Anybody burned out by the need to learn about yet one more social media site? Well, here are 5 more that might be the ‘next big thing’! Any of these look interesting to you? Read more…

7 Examples of Passive Voice (And How To Fix Them)

The passive voice in writing is a silent deadly killer. Learn how to deal with  this disease and produce writing that has greater emotional impact. If you don’t know about the passive voice, read this! Read more…

Top 8 Social Media Truths for 2011

Want to get social media right for your business this year? Read this.The best ‘list’ style posting I have read on what really matters in developing a social media strategy. Read more…

How to Measure the Growth of Your Personal Brand

“No one can choose NOT to have a personal brand.” This article raises a very good question: if you are actively managing your professional brand, what metrics will you use to know you are being successful? Which objectives and metrics matter? Read more…

Who Is Responsible For The Message?

Did you know English is a writer-responsible language, and some Asian languages are reader-responsible languages? Here is an explanation. Finding good international communication articles is a challenge, this site has some of value. Read more…

How to keep your customer retention rate at 100% *Must Read*

If you don’t have your customer retention game at 100% but are spending money on advertising and other acquisition strategies, you may as well be slapping a coat of paint on a boat that has a 6-foot gaping hole in the hull.This still seems to be the best-kept secret in business: customer retention can make you rich. Wondering if you are doing all you can to retain your best customers? Read this. Well written and practical. The one part I disagree on in this article is the ‘over deliver’ on service expectations piece. I read this in a lot of customer relationship management pieces. I find the opposite. I think most businesses set the service bar so low that exceeding it is easy! What do you think? Read more…

Good Social Business *Must Read*

Yes! Like the author of this article, I too am increasingly alarmed by the growing number of ‘Social Media experts’ who confuse SEO, social marketing, branding, and promoting. Too often it’s one hot mess. I know already this will be one of my ‘must reads’ for the week. This is how to do social media right! Bret Simmons is an author always worth reading on this subject. Read more…

The Dirty Secret of Effective Sales Coaching

Are you coaching the wrong people? This study confirms what good managers and sales coaches already know: you are wasting your time if you try to train everyone equally, or even worse, try to train your weakest staff. The best bang for your training buck is with the middle third of your team. An important note: training is not the same as rewarding. That’s another conversation. Read more…

Want to improve your communication with employees, partners, and customers? I help organizations improve communication through social media strategies and management-level workshops.

Image by Clarita

Being a great listener is as much about collecting information as being a great communicator is about having a big vocabulary. The words, heard or spoken, are not the main point.

A great listener not only hears what is being said but treats the act of listening itself as a way of building a relationship.

Use these 10 exercises to become a great listener:

Business operations just aren’t sexy.

Marketing is sexy. Human resources, or at least employee relations, is pretty cool. Even finance has its moments of glory. But operations conjures up visions of bean counting, performance reviews, inventory lists, quality control reviews, supply chains, equipment, machinery, communication & IT infrastructure, and documentation. Lots and lots of documentation. Not much fun there.

But for all the talk (including mine) about remarkable relationships with customers and employees, of great management, or of building that brilliant brand, none of it matters worth a hill of beans if you don?t have . . . → Read More: Smooth Operations!]]> Share/Bookmark

Image by Clarita

Business operations just aren’t sexy.

Marketing is sexy. Human resources, or at least employee relations, is pretty cool. Even finance has its moments of glory. But operations conjures up visions of bean counting, performance reviews, inventory lists, quality control reviews, supply chains, equipment, machinery, communication & IT infrastructure, and documentation. Lots and lots of documentation. Not much fun there.

But for all the talk (including mine) about remarkable relationships with customers and employees, of great management, or of building that brilliant brand, none of it matters worth a hill of beans if you don?t have the operations to back it up.

Operations is more than just all the stuff in business that costs money. Operations is delivery. Operations is where the promises made in marketing are delivered on. Without a focus on operations, your marketing could actually hurt your brand. That is because of a fundamental customer relationship rule: over-promising and under-delivering is the single fastest way to undermine customer relationships.

Operations is more critical to your brand than any of the classic 4 P?s of marketing (product, price, placement, promotion). Effective operations allow you to actually deliver on your promises. Operational decisions can have more impact on your relationships with employees and customers than anything else you do.

A company can build sustainable growth on great delivery. You can?t say that about marketing, even great marketing. Marketing is talk, operations is the walk.

Here are 6 areas to look at in bringing the ?sexy back? into your operations:

1. Keep it consistent. Consistent processes support employee effectiveness and good customer experiences. Why are the day-to-day activities strictly controlled in monasteries? Its not about control for control?s sake. It?s about freeing the mind from mundane details, to focus on bigger issues. Nothing slows you down faster than having to figure out how every small step in a larger process works each time you do it. Get a system and stick to it. Customers expect the products they buy to be the same from purchase to purchase. Few things elicit more negative buzz than a product that ?isn?t what it used to be?. In service industries, people want to know that their experience of your services will be the same each time they do business with you. We love variety in many things, but variations in quality of product or service is not one of them!
2. Watch your expenses, without losing sight of your values. There are a hundred places for a business to leak money. These leaks can ultimately effect your ability to deliver, or deliver profitably. All the promotion in the world won?t grow your business if you can?t deliver at the price promised. You should know where every penny is going. At the same time, you should contain costs in a way consistent with your mission and your brand. There is no point in talking about remarkable customer follow-through, only to cut half your telephone support staff when times are tight. It may be necessary, but always be clear about the impact on your brand and your mission.
3. Use the right tool for the job. As Gallup and Buckingham have shown, not having the tools to do the job employees are asked to do, leads to increased turnover. Trying to use tools that are slow, cumbersome, outdated, uncomfortable, or inconvenient grind us down. Few things contribute to procrastination or time-gobbling ‘task-switching’ more than a piece of equipment or software that we hate using. Poor equipment can contribute to mistakes and even injury.  In my interviews with employees, dissatisfaction with equipment and workspace ranks second only to negative management behaviour as cause for dissatisfaction or departure. And even if the employee doesn’t leave, if you think the frustration doesn’t bleed over into their interaction with customers, you haven’t been paying attention.
4. The little things matter. Great business is about executing the big vision by paying attention to the small details. In good operations there is no such thing as an unimportant detail. It all needs to get done, and done right.
5. Great management is great match-making. So who will do all those things that must be done? Find someone in the organization or sub it out. Each employee should be doing what they are best at, generating maximum horsepower for the organization. Forcing good people into roles they don’t enjoy only results in more dropped balls and more unhappy customers. If there is a task not getting done, don’t just add it to someone’s plat indiscriminately  Hire or contract the right person.
6. Share the love (and the learning). Great operations are not created overnight. They take time. Mistakes are made along the way. Things that seem like a good idea on paper turn out not to be so great in practice. Finding the right fit of person and task or role takes time. Its a long learning process. Maximize your investment in all that learning by embedding it in your organization. Document everything, and provide ongoing training and peer mentoring. Newer technologies like social media channels and Wiki have created opportunities to do this in a way far more dynamic and reflective of on-going learning than ever before.

Making business operations sexy, or even fun, is a bit of a stretch. But they are vital to the survival of your business. Pay as much attention to them as to the ‘fun stuff’ like team building, leadership, and marketing and it will pay off. Keep your operational decisions consistent with your brand and your mission. Put together the right people with the right tools to deliver the right results. Focus on your operations like this and you will greatly increase your chances of meeting or even exceeding your customers’ expectations.

If your business disappeared tomorrow, would anybody miss you?

No one wants to close their doors. But let’s imagine the unthinkable: how would your customers respond if you had to close up shop?

I can think of two scenarios…

Scenario one: you disappear and no one notices… That would be a disaster, but what would it tell you? Maybe it tells you that whatever needs your service or product fulfilled, those needs could be fulfilled by someone else. What you had to offer in the end was just a commodity, and all commodities are replaceable.

You spend considerable time and effort networking. You think you are doing it all right. You understand the 20/80 rule, and you focus your time and energies on the 20% of connections that get you 80% of your business. Your ‘elevator pitch’ has perfect pitch. You go to all the right functions to see and be seen.

But something’s not right.

Despite all your efforts, you just can’t quite seem to make those connections stick. You meet the right people and say the right things, but your book of business isn’t growing. Why?

Here are 11 things that . . . → Read More: Eleven Ways To Sabotage Your Own Networking]]> Share/Bookmark

You spend considerable time and effort networking. You think you are doing it all right. You understand the 20/80 rule, and you focus your time and energies on the 20% of connections that get you 80% of your business. Your ‘elevator pitch’ has perfect pitch. You go to all the right functions to see and be seen.

But something’s not right.

Despite all your efforts, you just can’t quite seem to make those connections stick. You meet the right people and say the right things, but your book of business isn’t growing. Why?

Here are 11 things that you might be doing to terminate any relationship you start. These are the silent relationship-killers that undermine even the most relentless networking efforts. They are deadly because in most cases, they are the kinds of things that will cause people to quietly walk away without ever telling you why.

1. You send mixed messages. Words convey less than 20% of the content in a conversation. Body language and vocal inflection carry the other 80%. When you cross your arms, drum your fingers, constantly look away, check your phone, lean back, etc. you are telling the person they don’t matter that much, regardless of what your words say. Great listening is a contact sport. If you aren’t tired after a focused conversation you aren’t really engaging.
2. You dress like we don’t matter. Dress is another form of nonverbal communication. Every industry and community has its norms, so a suit on a fishing boat, or Stanfields (look it up if you’re not Canadian!) in the boardroom, don’t work. That said, dress also speaks to us as individuals. Over-dress and you are broadcasting that you are clueless about the environment you are in. Dress too casually, and the message is that you are either clueless or don’t care. Neither is good. Dress for the clients and customers you want. Dress with intention.
3. You don’t follow up. When you don’t follow up, you are letting us know that, outside of our monetary value, we don’t really matter. When you don’t return calls or messages, you go one step further and tell us you don’t even want our business.
4. You use poorly designed forms & you can’t spell. Poor design in your documentation tells us that you don’t get how we think, or how we want our information. Misspell our name, or the name of our company, and you tell us you don’t care, regardless of what you say in the rest of the document. Make that mistake in an initial pitch or communication, and you are almost guaranteeing we’ll never do business.
5. You don’t show up when you say you will. If you are consistently late, or don’t even show up at all, you are letting us know that there are more important things for you to be doing. We get the message.
6. You fudge the truth; especially about your services or products. That one is a double whammy. Not only will we be angry with you for the misrepresentation, we feel personally insulted because you assume we aren’t smart enough to figure it out.
7. You tell us again how great you are. When you over-stress a particular quality about yourself, a sophisticated listener will always assume the opposite. If you constantly repeat what a detail-oriented person you are we assume your desk is probably a mess. You only sound like you are trying to convince yourself, and you are not convincing us.
8. You let the tumbleweeds blow through your web site. Have old content on your site, or old copyright dates, and we wonder how current and successful you are.
9. You tell us how busy you are. How many times have you told people how incredibly busy you are when they ask how things are going? How likely do you think we are to refer an important client to you when all we hear is that you are just barely managing to stay on top of your work load? If you’re that busy, you don’t have time to take good care of the people I want to send your way.
10. You wake up in the morning not loving it. If you aren’t really loving what you’re doing, we are going to pick up on that. Few things are more attractive than passion, and few things repel more than misery. If you don’t love what you’re doing, get out. If you don’t, your customers will pick up your dissatisfaction. If you’re trying to sell us something you don’t really care about, the message we get is that you don’t really care about us either.
11. You don’t do your homework. If you haven’t taken the time to find out something about us if the chance presented itself, the message is that we’re not worth the effort. Also, your communication will be designed around what you want to say, not around what we want to hear. Find out what matters to us, or you will send the message we don’t matter to you.

Great networking skills are tough to acquire. They require a love of people, a love of what you do, and a great deal of practice. But none of that matters if during and after a first meeting you send signals that contradict your pitch and your print materials.

The greater the distance between your initial pitch and what you actually deliver, the greater the damage. Few things turn customers off more than raised expectations unmet.

So learn to listen, pay attention, tell the truth, follow through, and take the time to get to know us. Loyal customers are won not by what you promise, but by what you deliver.

Want to improve your communication with employees,partners,and customers? I help organizations improve communication through social media strategies and management-level workshops. When it comes to business and social media,Twitter has become the ‘difference maker’  Try my online 6-day Twitter BootCamp.