Count the Cost of Poor Communication

 In my aim to help small business owners make improvements in a 'Power Hour' (or even less), I'd like to focus on communication. Communication can seem like a 'fluffy' topic, but it's actually quite the opposite. If you can't communicate effectively, you can't get the things done that you want to.

We know that small business owners have to wear many hats, and have to make every part of their day count. However, sometimes in the rush to get things off our to-do list, we fail to communicate properly, and this means that things get done wrong, take much longer than they should, or don't get done at all. And what does this cost your business?

Add up all the time in a week that you spend explaining things again, leaving messages, forwarding on emails and putting right mistakes that occurred due to misunderstandings. Then multiply that number by your average hourly rate. How much are YOU costing your own business? Chances are, it's quite a bit. 

So if you just take one hour this week to evaluate where your communication goes wrong, and what you can do to improve things, you can make a real difference to your bottom line.

Communication often goes wrong because we:

• Use the wrong form of communication (should you be talking about this rather than putting it in a email?)
• All interpret and use words differently...maybe your understanding of 'quickly' is different to someone elses?
• Make assumptions about other people's understanding or commitment
• Fail to concentrate or fail to get full concentration from the other person. Speaking between meetings, in the car and when we are doing other things means that we are not giving what we are talking about full attention.
• Don't appreciate differences in language and jargon, in particular slang phrases that may be completely alien to someone else.

The thing with effective communication, it takes two people to make it work. You have to both give and receive information clearly. Whilst you may not always be at fault when things go wrong, chances are, you played a part in it.

So, think about a recent occasion when there was a breakdown in communication, and that DID have an impact your business. Which of the reasons above was most likely the cause of that problem? More importantly, how are you going to avoid making that same mistake in the future?

For more tips on effective communication, click here.

Good luck!

Power Hour