Communicating with your stakeholders: effective tips, tricks, and habits

Communication is important for every aspect of your business, you need to know how to communicate effectively with different people, in different roles. How can you communicate in different ways and change your workflows for the best? When mastering the art of communication you should determine which is your ideal style. Communicating is a skill and doesn't just get better on its own, you need to work at it. Communicate meaningfully, with both your team and clients.

Why it matters?

Communication can be a very effective tool in more ways than one.

  • Something that many business owners don’t think about is that ALL outgoing communication impacts your brand! This means that you constantly need to be thinking about the quality of your communications.

  • Clients will judge, it’s natural, so you need to be careful with what you're presenting at all times.

  • Communication is an indirect relation to your brand and the values behind it. Even when you don’t realize you are reflecting on your brand, you are.

  • It can be beneficial to research brands that successfully communicate with their stakeholders so you can take notes and learn from others' mistakes and successes.

Internally:

Communicating with your team can be equally as important as communicating with clients. Communicating with your team leads to more informed, better functioning team members. There are effective ways to convey projects, tasks, and reminders to your team members.

  • For your team to do a job effectively, you need to communicate with your team members what it is that you expect from them.

  • Consider using online collaboration tools to track everything centrally, this will help ensure that no one drops the ball.

  • As a good practice, catch up with team members regularly and make sure that everyone on the team understands their role. In every aspect of your business, you should do your best to look for ways to communicate better so that everyone feels involved in the project. It is important to give your employees a sense of purpose and fulfillment.

  • Have clear weekly goals that you share with your team, this gives everyone a focus point and something to strive for.

Internal is just as important as external communication, with effective internal communication you are strengthening your program from the inside out.

Externally:

We know how important it is to communicate with your team, but as you may have guessed, external communication is also very important. In business, marketing and communication go hand-in-hand.

  • When communicating with your clients, be sure to demonstrate your added value to participants.

  • External communication impacts the brand and perception of quality. Consider the right communication channel and voice to reach your target audience.

    • Depending on the client, depends on which communication method will work best. Determine your customer and figure out their preferred method of contact, from there do your best to stay in contact with them.

  • When using social media as a business tool it is important to be consistent and create quality content regularly.

    • When posting content try to think about what will bring in the most engagement, make it something that people will be inclined to like, comment, and share!

    • Creating opportunities for engagement and returned communication is a great way to determine who is most interested in your business. It is important to reach out to clients about more than just selling, that helps build a stronger relationship and show that you are there for more than just their money.

  • Utilizing technology can help make this process easier and more effective.

    • Consider using templates for emails, for things that are commonly sent out that save time and prevent error.

    • There are so many different tools available to make your life easier, one of these would be CRM-type software to help manage your client communications. A system like this will help make your future communications more powerful and meaningful. Keeping track of all previous communications with clients is extremely powerful, it makes them feel like more than a number.

Takeaways:

There is no harm in experimenting with different ways to communicate better, there are so many different methods to look into! Don't be afraid to get in touch with your clients and ask for their feedback. Transparency is always better than non-transparency. Personalizing communication with current and potential clients is an extremely powerful strategy to build deep relationships, which are the ones that drive business and keep your company running.