LEAD WORKPLACE COMMUNICATION

LO1.

1.1. EFFECTIVE VERBAL COMMUNICATION METHODS

1. Be friendly. People who communicate with a friendly tone and warm
smile almost always have the edge. The reason is simple: we are
subconsciously drawn to people who are friendly because they make us
feel good and bring more enjoyment to our lives.

2. Think before you speak. One of my favorite English Proverbs is

“Better to remain silent and be thought a fool, than to open your mouth
and remove all doubt.” I find that many people say whatever goes
through their minds without putting any thought into what they are
saying. As a result they say things that end up reflecting poorly on
themselves.

3. Be clear. Most of us don’t have the time nor do we want to spend our
emotional energy to figure out what someone else is trying to say. People
who are indirect in their verbal communication and who tend to hint at
things without saying what’s really on their mind are seldom respected.
When there is something you want to say, ask yourself, “What is the
clearest way I can communicate this point?”

4. Don’t talk too much. Last week I met with a personal chef. At first I
was impressed with him and considered hiring him for an upcoming
event. However, the more he talked the less impressed I became. Very
few people like to be around someone who talks too much and dominates
the conversation.

5. Be your authentic self. Today, (more than anytime during my

lifetime), people are turned off by those people who feel the need to put
on a show to make their point. Instead, people are attracted to someone
who speaks from the heart and is genuine, transparent, and real.

6. Practice humility. Humility is having a modest view of one’s own

importance. It is one of the most attractive personality traits one can
possess and is one of the most significant predictors of someone who is
respected. People who speak with humility and genuine respect for
others are almost always held in high regard.

7. Speak with confidence. You don’t have to sacrifice self-confidence to

practice humility. Confidence is a self-assurance arising from an
appreciation of one’s true abilities, whereas humility is having a modest
opinion of one’s own importance. Speaking with confidence includes the
 words you choose, the tone of your voice, your eye contact, and body
language.

8. Focus on your body language. When you are engaged in face-to-face

verbal communication, your body language can play as significant of a
role in the message you communicate as the words you speak. Your body
language communicates respect and interest. It puts real meaning
behind your words.

9 Be concise. Very few things are more irritating to me than when

someone can’t get to the point of what he or she is trying to say. Plan
ahead. Constantly ask yourself, “How can I say what needs to be said
using the fewest number of words possible while still being courteous
and respectful?”

10. Learn the art of listening. Being an attentive listener is more

important in verbal communication than any words that can come out of
your mouth. You must show a sincere interest in what is being said, ask
good questions, listen for the message within the message, and avoid
interrupting.

https://www.littlethingsmatter.com/blog/2010/11/30/10-verbal-
communication-skills-worth-mastering/

1.2. Communication Framework Template

Who are you trying to reach?
What message do you want them to receive?
How will you try to reach them?

Step One: Develop a Brand Statement That Summarizes Who You Are

Before you can communicate the value of your organization, you need to
understand who you are, and exactly how you serve the audiences you
want to reach. An easy way to summarize this is by creating a brand
statement (or a brand definition).

Step Two: Identify Your Unique Selling Proposition (USP)

To craft effective communication, you need to know your unique selling

proposition.
 Your USP is what makes your business and its products/services
different. It’s what you offer that no-one else does in your market –
whether that’s higher quality, a lower price, a better customer experience
or a new technological innovation.

If you can’t identify your USP, you’ll have a hard time convincing
prospective customer to buy from you instead of your competitors.

Defining Your Own USP

So, what makes you unique? And why should people care about those
traits? Find the answers by starting with these questions:

 What problems do your products solve or what need do your services

address?

 What do you offer that your competitors don’t?

 Is there anything about your products or services that are difficult to

copy?

Once you’ve determined these things, you can develop brand statements,
taglines, and other messaging that inform your marketing strategy.

Step Three: Identify Your Business Objectives

The next step in your process is to identify your business objectives. Business
objectives are goals your company or organization needs to hit to be successful.

Every goal your team sets needs to contribute back to these objectives. If you’re
unaware of what you’re aiming for, you’ll miss every time.

Talk to or schedule a meeting with your manager to find these objectives. Once
you have them record them in your template.

Step Four: Develop Audience / Customer Personas

The next step is to find your target audience or audiences. These are the people
your organization is trying to reach.
 Therefore, you need to identify who they are and what makes them tick so you
can create messages that connect with them.

Identify Your Target Audience

Before you start developing your audience personas, you need to identify your
target audience. Your target audience is the group of people who are most
likely to purchase your product or service.

Here are a few ways to learn more about your target audiences:

 Survey current customers to learn more about them. Try using tools like
SurveyMonkey or Google Forms to gather data from your audience. Ask
demographic style questions to gather the information you are looking for.

 Dig into Google Analytics to learn more about who is currently visiting
your website.

 Search through your competitor’s social media followers to see who they
appear to be attracting (and compare that to your own followers).

Once you’ve gathered the data, you need to create a one to two sentence
description about your audience. It could look something like this:

Our target audience is made up of professional 20 to 28-year-olds who have

just started their first job after graduating from college with a four-year degree.

Remember to keep it brief, as you’ll go into more detail later. Record these
statements in your template.

Step Five: Understand Other Key Publics, Too

You might need to communicate with people and entities other than
customers. Some examples might include:

 News media. News outlets and blogs (and the editors and writers working
for them).

 Government agencies. Nonprofits and government entities may have

public-facing communications with other government agencies.
 Other organizations. Do you partner with companies or organizations?

You don’t need to get too in-depth yet. For your purposes at this stage, you’re
just looking to be mindful every possible target audience your communications
strategy may need to consider.

Step Six: Determine What the Worlds Needs to Know About You

So far, you’ve figured out who you are, what makes you unique, and who
interacts with your brand or organization. The next step is to connect your
company and your audience by identifying the high-level messages you need to
communicate about your brand.

What’s Your Story?

This gets back to your story and what you’re all about. What makes you
interesting and what value do you offer to the world? The messages you deliver
should connect back to this.

Think about the following two items:

 What are the most important things people need to know about your
organization?

 What are some common misconceptions you need to combat against?

Everything you do marketing and communications-wise is going to tie back

into one of these two things.

Step Seven: Choose Your Channels

The next step in your communication plan process is choosing the channels
that you’re going to share your message on.
 Your Company Blog

According to Express Writers, featuring a blog as a key part of your website

increases your chance of better search engine rankings by 434%.

Blog posts are great for establishing topical authority, sharing news, :

 Company news and events.

 Useful how-to content.

 Sharing information about product updates.

Email Marketing

A second channel option to consider is email. According to Imagination, emails

usually generate 38 dollars for every 1 dollar spent. That’s a 3,800% return on
investment.

Some common types of email you might send include:

 Email Newsletters: Keep your audience up to date with your latest

content and news.

 Sales Offers: Having a limited time offer to entice your customers to buy
from you? Let them know with a quick email blast that encourages them to
buy.

 Outreach: This includes PR,

Social Media

If you decide to use social media, ensure that your organization is using the
best channels for your purposes.
SMS Marketing

SMS marketing is another great way to get a direct line with your audience.
Some practical use cases include event reminders, sales announcements, and
discount offers (particularly for brick-and-mortar businesses).

Media Relations

This is core to any communications strategy. You need to have a strong

understanding of who covers your space, which writers and editors you need to
build relationships with, and how to get them to notice you. This is all PR 101,
but it’s important not to overlook solid execution of the basics.

Print Collateral

This could include printed flyers, brochures, in-store signage, direct mail, and
other materials you might provide for your audience or potential customers.

Podcast Advertising

Ever wonder why you hear extended sponsored product placements in

podcasts? It’s because brands understand the value of consistently being heard
by loyal listeners in a format that holds people’s attention for 30 to 60 minutes
or more at a stretch.

Traditional Advertising

Print and television advertising aren’t dead. Even as modern marketing goes
increasingly digital, people aren’t watching less TV (and TV is going
increasingly more digital … but you know what we mean), and print media is
enjoying a resurgence as a niche product.

Step Eight: Plan a Messaging Matrix

 Now it’s time to pull together what you’ve worked out in the previous steps,
into a cohesive messaging matrix. This is a document that outlines the
following:

 Brand Statement: What value do you provide?

 Target Audience: Who benefits from that value?

 Core Problem or Issue: Which problems do you solve for each of your

audiences?

 Key Messages: How do you communicate that value?

An Example of What This Might Look Like

Before planning this out yourself, let’s take a look at a hypothetical example for
a bank.

Let’s say this bank has three main audiences:

 High school and college students setting up new checking accounts.

 Home buyers shopping for mortgage providers.

 People approaching retirement age looking for financial planning

assistance.

The messaging needed to reach each of these audiences may be dramatically

different. The best ways to reach each of those audiences might be different
too. And that’s where having a clear communications strategy with messages
mapped to a matrix comes into play.

So, say this bank has a different message or value proposition for each
audience, which looks something like this:

 High-interest student checking accounts with free $100 for account

activation (for high school and college students).

 Having the area’s top-rated mortgage team (for home buyers).

 Expert financial planning advice (for those approaching retirement).

 This bank would then execute campaigns focused on communicating each one
of these individual messages, through the channels best suited to reach each
audience.

So, taking what they know about social media demographics and knowledge of
how these different groups consume information, they tailor their execution to
meet each one’s needs. Here’s how that might break down:

 Teens and young adults: Organic and paid social (Instagram, Facebook,
and Twitter), in-store signage, SMS marketing.

 Home buyers: Television ads, Google PPC, print ads, direct mail, in-store
signage.

 Retirees: Brochures, in-store signage, Google PPC, television ads, direct

mail.

This is a crude hypothetical set of examples, but you get the point: different
messaging, for different audiences, on different channels, all focused on
communicating the bank’s value to potential customers.

Aligning Messaging With Audiences and Channels

You have an idea of what your high-level messaging strategy looks like, and
you understand which audiences most are easily reached via specific channels.
Now it’s time to connect these three things with your messaging matrix.

Step Nine: Determine Your Important Events and Campaign Plans

Another critical part of your communication plan is going to be laying out the
essential events your team needs to keep track of throughout the year. You’ll
also want to start formatting the campaign plans for each of those events.

To start take a look at your calendar for the next year. Take note of recurring
events and times of year to consider might include:

 Seasonal sales cycles.

 Major events and conferences in your industry.

 Annual fundraising drives.

 If you know something will be coming up, then be prepared to plan and execute
those campaigns.

Step Ten: Set Your Communication Goals

The next step in your communication process is to set goals that your
communications team needs to reach.

These goals should relate back to the business objectives you identified earlier
in this post.

For example, let’s say your business objective is to increase charitable

donations by 50%. So a communications goal for your team could be: increase
the number of event signups by 75% from last year.

Each goal that you create should also be SMART:

 Specific.

 Measurable.

 Actionable

 Relevant.

 Time-bound.

Step Eleven: Plan Content and Campaigns on Your Marketing Calendar

Organize and execute your communications strategy with a marketing

calendar. This will make it easier to enforce deadlines, deliver organization-
wide visibility into what your team is doing, and help your staff understand
what needs to be done and when.

Step Twelve: Measure Your Impact

Measuring each component of your communications plan is critical to

understanding how well your efforts are moving the needle. How you do this
exactly depends on the channels and tactics and use, but in general, a strong
communications plan should help you gauge public perception and
understanding of your organization.

1.3 BUSINESS COMMUNICATION CHANNELS

TYPE OF
ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES
CHANNEL

Spontaneous nature may lead to unwise

Build relationships and trust;
Oral statements; people are unable to refer to
accelerate decision making due to
communications the communication once it is said unless
immediate feedback
a record is made.

Message can be revised for

Message is static; sender does not
exactness; can be archived for
Written receive immediate feedback. Hard for the
reference; can be studied.
communications sender to gauge if the receiver has
Appropriate for legal and formal
understood.
business functions.

Technical difficulties and hack attacks

Instant, global, and adaptable to
Multimedia threaten the security of organizations
multiple targets.
and their customers/clients.

The Sender

For most everyday business communications, a manager needs only to focus

on presenting a professional image. On different occasions, she may want to
present herself as a serious and responsible leader, a technical expert, or
informally casual. But when uncertain what a situation calls for, always err on
the side of professionalism. Studies have shown that an audience reacts
initially to the demeanor of the speaker and not to what is being said. If you
appear nervous, your audience will pick up on that and become nervous as
well.

The Message
 Which channel suits the content best? 
 What do you want to achieve by sending the message? 
 Does the message require interaction from the audience or is it
more of an “information dump”? 
 Will visual aids help the message, or will they just distract from it? 
 Do you have to establish your credibility? 
  Most importantly, before deciding on a communication, ask yourself
why the audience should care about it. 

The Audience

 How big is your audience? 

 What is the status of your audience?
 Can you establish empathy with the audience?