Why is communication important for entrepreneurs

There’s a myth in entrepreneurship of the ‘lone wolf’ business owner, who battles the odds alone, then triumphs in the end. These rare stories of entrepreneurs are the exception that proves the rule. 

More often, successful entrepreneurs are amazing team builders and leaders. They inspire and motivate their employees and partners to create business success. The fundamental skill they draw on to achieve this is communication. 

The Importance of Communication Skills in Entrepreneurship

Steve Jobs, Arianna Huffington, Richard Branson, Elon Musk, Sara Blakely,  Jack Dorsey, Oprah Winfrey…

…What all these famous business leaders had in common is the ability to create a vision so compelling, their employees, investors, and the wider public all bought into it.  They created vision through communication and it drove growth at all levels of their business. 

Communication is a skill vital for:

• Building a team (trust, rapport, relationship strengthening, resolving conflict)
• Finding clients & closing sales 
• Finding investors 
• Keeping clients & managing expectations
• Communication with yourself (clarity of thought, mindset) 

Even so, many entrepreneurs don’t spend time honing their communication abilities. This is because it’s easy to think you have good communication skills because as an entrepreneur, it’s what you do all day. 

However, unless you’ve done training specifically on communication, it’s likely your skills could do with a tune up. 

Why Good Communication Matters for Entrepreneurs

The entrepreneurial environment (especially for startups) is often turbulent, involving high stakes and elevated levels of uncertainty. 

In these conditions, the consequences of missed or unclear exchanges can be serious. To build a company that has a solid foundation, you’re going to navigate people with opposing ideas, hidden assumptions, and different expectations. All these factors lead to conflict, and that’s where excellent communication is the solution. 

Many entrepreneurs only find out their communication skills could be improved when a large breakdown happens. 

However, many problems can be dealt with when they’re small if you’re able to find out what people’s underlying assumptions and their unvoiced doubts are. Bringing these to light early is how you avoid the partnership breakups and employee disengagement that hamstrings businesses. 

Once entrepreneurs discover what excellent communication skills can accomplish, they’re able to create business teams that produce, innovate, and grow fast. 

How do you assess your communication skills?

The first step to improving your skills as an entrepreneur is to assess where you’re currently at. Do you find that you often:

• Step in and correct employees in their tasks – after you’ve already given them instructions
• Have team members disagree on what the top priorities are
• Have staff come to you because they’re not sure of their responsibilities and targets

If this is the case, then improving your communication ability will likely lead to a huge increase in business productivity. 

Communication & Delegation

Effective entrepreneurs are good delegators. The art of delegation hinges on communication. When you perceive an employee or partner has deliberately screwed up a project, always question that assumption before you go on the attack. 

Nine times out of ten, an employee will have made a mistake because they misunderstood your instructions. As an entrepreneur, failure to communicate a clear vision of what you want is always your responsibility. 

The way to uncover misunderstandings like this is to enquire in a neutral tone why an employee did what they did. This neutral communication is the first step to finding clarity.

What Good Communication Looks Like

Entrepreneurs who practice crystal clear communication may take more time initially to get their message across. However, they’ll save a boatload of time on the back end because the person they’re talking with will have a true understanding of the information they’re been given. 

There are several simple checks you can do to make sure you’ve successfully communicated:

1. Ask the person to repeat the instructions back in their own words
2. Ask them to seek clarity on anything they didn’t understand
3. Make sure you agree on key terminology and have a shared understanding of its meaning
4. At the outset, examine your core assumptions, and make them clear to the person you’re talking with

Following these steps will make it much more likely the vision of what you want will be clearly understood by the recipient. 

Unlock Business Growth with Communication

While things like ‘engagement’ and ‘increased productivity’ sound good on paper, honing your communication skills can convert into a real change to your bottom line. 

One ABA client, Kent Manos, used the communication skills he learned with us to deal differently with his staff, suppliers and contractors. He was able to bring his A game to work each day, and helped his team do the same. 

The result? Kent went from $1M a year turnover to $10M per year, in just four years.

Another client, Amy Bliefnick, used her communication skills to close more business and raise her client rates. In just one year of working with us, Amy was able to triple her cashflow, and pay down an existing debt 5x faster than she’d planned. 

Amanda Kerr, a real estate agent, was able to double her business, all while feeling more relaxed and centered in herself than ever before. 

Most entrepreneurs don’t see the ‘soft’ skill of communication as something that can have a huge impact on their business’s bottom line. However, the case studies above show what a difference this can make, and we’ve seen that bear out across many businesses and industries. 

Right now, you can take the first step towards building your communication skills. This is something that will accelerate your entrepreneurial journey and help you build better businesses, faster. You can book a free discovery session with us to get started on your communication journey.

Soft skills and success go hand in hand in today’s business environment. All successful entrepreneurs share the same set of skills, besides the technical, hard skills they have from working for so long in their fields. This set of skills is rather based on attitude, the ability to seamlessly interact with others, and to communicate ideas in a simple and efficient fashion.

This set of skills is relevant because it allows entrepreneurs to share ideas easier and to connect at a more personal level with colleagues, partners, and customers. Below is a series of soft skills, with emphasis on communication, that will help you achieve more as a business owner and employee manager.

Communication

For successful entrepreneurs, being able to communicate their ideas and messages in an effective and desirable fashion is key to spreading their knowledge. Communication also helps them develop fruitful relationships with their co-workers, employees, and collaborators. Good communication skills have to be spread across multiple media channels. People who can understand what you try to communicate are more likely to catch your ideas; to be receptive to those. Ensure that you develop sturdy abilities in the following spheres.

·        Listening;

·        Written communication;

·        Presentation skills;

·        Spoken communication skills.

Emotion control

Productive business owners and entrepreneurs seem to all have good emotion control. You will be under a lot of stress as an entrepreneur. You can’t let your actions guided by impulsions and stress. Being in control of your emotions is one of the most important soft skill you can master. According to psychologists, there is a high correlation between emotion regulation and our ability to remain productive under pressure. Some of the most common negative emotions people bring to work are stress, anger, and anxiety. Although these are normal feelings, they can put a strain on your relationships with your co-workers and collaborators.

The key to being in control of your emotions is learning what triggers your stress and negative emotions. This will prevent you from spiralling into an endless chain of emotional reactions. Try to learn to identify negative emotions in your employees and teams, as well. This will allow you to adapt your reactions and your approaches more effectively. It will also put you in control of your teams.

For example, real estate is a challenging and demanding field. Being able to advertise and sell different types of properties demands good knowledge of human nature and high levels of self-control. Managing luxury properties for sale demands even deeper knowledge of how to deal with emotions and regulate your deepest anxieties.

Take an example of the professionals in this field, and try to analyse their behaviour when faced with challenges. It will change your perspective completely.   

Problem-solving skills

Successful entrepreneurs have the ability to get in the problem-solving mode and persist until the issue is solved. They are unlikely to give up and pass the responsibility to others when unfortunate scenarios happen.

The key to improving your problem-solving skills is learning how to deal with inevitable problems and challenges. Try to develop your explanatory style. This will help you understand why things happen the way they happen. People generally have issues when faced with work-related challenges. They become unfocused and see their issues as long-term, unsolvable ones. Resilient managers, however, tend to see the business challenges they encounter as short-term issues.

You have a purpose in all your actions

Acting with a purpose is a core skill for productive entrepreneurs. Managers who succeed to acquire this skill feel more connected with their mission and teams. They also inspire their teams to act similarly. Although many people are born with this skill, it can also be taught. You can learn how to reframe your thoughts and action patterns.

Try to develop a mindset that forces you to think of the larger picture; the biggest goal of your establishment and business activity. Try to think of your business as a legacy you leave behind, as an establishment that can bring a change in society and culture.

In dynamic business environments, employees who work in establishments where they are reminded of the bigger picture, tend to be more productive and have a more positive attitude in the workplace. As a result, they tend to see their role in the business and society as a determinant one, being mainly inspired by their employers and managers.

Teamwork

If you want to shine as an entrepreneur, you want to learn how to work and interact with others effectively. Learn how to utilize the human capital in your company and how to distribute different tasks to different employees. Take into account their backgrounds and skills. Learn how to actively listen to your employees. You need to learn how to inspire people in the workplace, and how to lead through example. Teach your employees how to work together and how to function as a team. Of course, you need to also learn how to work with others effectively, as a team.