 Mae'r cymdeithasol yn effeithio i ei bwysnes, boi'r cymdeithasol ydw i fi wneud ei gael ar gyfer gael gweithio'n gwneud yn fawr. Mae'n helpu i gael rhaglen o'r cystafell, yn wneud yn ymddiadau yn cyfrifio'n cy 느�ig, yn gweithio'r cyfrifio morhaol a'r cymdeithasol, yn gweithio i'r brifoedd newid, yn ddigon i'r problemau a'r byddwch yn cael ei ddefnyddio'r cyfrifio'n gweithio. звyr Penedigydd yw'r unigol yw'r gwaith sy'n bod iawn i'ch gwybod i'ch unigol i'ch chaith yw hwn. Mae'r unigol i'ch gwaith gennymu amddir iawn i'ch unigol i'ch gwaith. Felly wrth cyhoedd yr unigol iawn i'ch gwaith gyda mwynghaedd ymlaen i'ch gwaith sy'n bwysig a darod ar y flwyddyn o'r unigol. Rwy'n ddiwylo cydwynau hefyd i'ch gwaith. Rwy'n credu bod rhannu'n hollores. uwch i'ch cyhoedd ac os blaenol o ceis. 3, 6, 3. So, communication. So, as we were saying, right, communication in itself and the effectiveness of it stems with you essentially being able to craft your message in a way and understand your audience in a way that they can then take that communication and really understand the message that you're passing across. So, I mean today we're focusing on businesses, right, and business communications and what we think are effective strategies for being able to communicate to. You were talking earlier about your work in customer success. How do you use communication effectively in your day-to-day work life today for your business? So, for me, right, typically I make sure that our value proposition is clear. Starting with that, we want, or I want my customers to look at our value proposition and know exactly what the brand or the company is about, and that would also translate into the kind of products that we are selling to them and our services as well. We make sure that whatever it is that is going on with them, it aligns with us, right? They have their business model, we have ours, they have their value proposition, we have ours, but when we know that we have a problem that we can solve, you have a problem that we can solve, and that's where the value comes in, and that's what we communicate. Now, when my customer sees that, okay, you know what, your value aligns with mine, I see the vision, I get the mission statement, then we want to come on board. Now once they come on board, it doesn't stop there, right? Communication continues. It's like an end-to-end process from when sales brings them on board and they are passed on to customer success or even to the product team, right? Communication just goes on through, because once you want to deal, the customer is working with you now, then when you have issues, that's another level of communication, being able to effectively and timely resolve those problems, giving your customer feedback at each time, depending on the level of resolution that you're working with at that time. So I mean, I like the direction that you've taken into, you're looking at the external communication for an organization in how you talk to your customers, and you also mentioned vision and mission, and I think that's very important because organizations first have to attract customers, which means to attract customers, you need to essentially not only tell customers what you sell, but have customers understand who you are, right? So whether it's B2B, you're selling to other businesses or it's B2C, you're selling direct to the consumers, people still need to know about you, they still need to trust, so today trust is a big thing, so you see people, all the companies who are out there on social media today, they're not just trying to sell a product, but they're trying to get customers to connect with their brand, they're trying to communicate the essence of who they are, what their story is. Storytelling has become a huge concept now because these platforms exist for people to tell their stories, so when we say vision and mission, I'm communicating who I am, what I'm doing, what my long-term goals are, right? And then I'm saying to my customers, this is who I am, this is what I believe in, do we have the same, so do I practice ethically and is that something that is important for you as a customer to find a company who's ethics and principles match yours and maybe that of your own business to work with, so in that sense it sets the tone of first defining who we are as a business, well you know as an organization, and then as you go into that you're now crafting the messaging, so this is what customers, before they even become customers, this is what they find out about our brand, so like you said, even in communicating it's not just about what you've written, it's also making sure that your salespeople understand what they're supposed to tell customers, right? Because I'm sure for you from a customer success perspective you're thinking, if my salespeople have made the wrong promises to customers, I'm sure that's your day-to-day life, right? You know, then how are customers supposed to have success to your product? So even that communication at the sales stage is also, and this is usually most times now one-on-one interactions, salespeople to customers, that sales process is also huge on their communication. Have I clearly understood your problem? Do I have a solution that matches your need, and then can I bring you on board? And then all the promises I've made at that point, if the product will fly, it will make you rich. You have no hassles again for all of those things that I have communicated, I need to make sure that I can back up those promises, right? And that's where we come in. So we start to build on that external customer content, and then they become customers, and then you see, you know, the communications trying to continue that sort of trail when they become customers. So all the happy new years, happy birthday, merry Christmas, it's all organisations still trying to communicate effectively with customers. I think today, if you look in your mailbox, how many emails have you gotten from different... I know, right? Everybody's trying to tell you something or the other. How do you then... Let's speak now from the perspective of a customer, right? When you get all those emails and news letters and all, what is it about a particular one and the communication that then makes you open it in the midst of everything that you have? I think there's some specific brands or companies that I always look out for, and that's because of how impeccable their services are, right? History has just shown me that, oh, you've been very great at what you do, and even when you have down times, the way you respond to your customers in that moment, is what matters to me because no business is perfect, you're always going to have issues, you're always going to put out fires, but how you put out those fires and how you communicate with your customers matter a lot. So brands like that, when their emails come in, oh, there is an update, I'm interested, because, oh, what new thing have you built, right? And brands that I know are very innovative, they are always looking for better ways to make their customers happy, they are looking for better ways to improve on the value that they are giving out. So in situations like that, when I see, I just rush, okay, what's happening? What's happening? Sometimes it might not be that they have any new product updates, it could be that they've partnered with a new company or, yeah, or they've changed a strategy that we probably previously working on, or they've had more people on the team or something has changed, maybe they have a new feature, for example. So things like that, I'm very interested, even if they decide to tell me, oh, you know what this month, all we did was enjoy it with our employees, oh, okay, that's nice, you enjoyed it, very good. So I know that you're giving me updates on what's happening in the company, right? And besides that, I mean, it's just amazing when I see people who are doing what they're supposed to do, you're collecting my money. So you are very proper and you are interested, because I find that a lot of people get lots and lots of messaging. So it's almost a fine balance for me to always say, I want to send a message that makes me get this reaction that says, oh, I want to read the next one. And I find that for me, the things that I try to focus on one is most of the emails that I read and I think are memorable. There's always something about the tone of voice the messaging uses, right? Even though it's quirky or it's funny, they've just taken a different approach to please be informed. It's not the conventional type of communication, right? That, I think, for me is the first thing that stands out. The consistency of the communication, again, getting that balance right away is not too much. I'm not getting 20 emails from you in one week. So balancing the number of communications that you get. Then I also then want to look at what content you are sending me. Is it relevant to me? So sometimes I say, are you paying attention to what you're sending me? Is it just marketing after marketing, by product A, by product B, by product C, right? I feel like I want you to use the information you know about me to send me things that are relevant to personalisation is a huge thing today in communication for businesses. People don't just want them or their sir. They want to use their name, they want you to show them in their communication that you know who they are as their customer, that it's not just a general, we're pushing this to everybody. So I think things like that and technology has helped us in this day and age be able to communicate to a lot of people without actually or efficiently communicate to these people and be able to deliver a message in a way that they can connect to it. So I think summarising that that sort of strategies that we can we can speak to when we say, how do you communicate effectively to external customers? Yeah. I think that we can, before we go into looking at internal, thank you for staying with us. If you just tuned in, we are discussing effective communication for business work. Please let's hear what you have to say. Remember, you can join the conversation, send us an SMS or WhatsApp to 0818 0384663. So in fact, when I was just reading like, you know, saying business growth, I think that that in itself can sometimes be part of your messaging, because growth can mean different things for different businesses. It can be that I'm trying to scale up in the number of customers that I have. It might be that I'm trying to scale up in my my product portfolio and my offering, maybe adding more features to my product. So I think even carrying customers along in your journey, right? In what we're doing. Like you said, I want to know that, you know, employees had a great time hanging out this month. I want to know what's happening. So even being able to keep companies going in terms of your activities can also be another strategy for people to connect with your business. But to serve the external customer, you have a lot of internal customers, right? And when you even started talking about vision and mission, there is a communication aspect of that of communicating the because the vision and mission typically comes from maybe founder or CEO, you know, MD. And the people who work with you to bring that vision to life need to understand it. What's been your experience with your organisations you've worked with? Have they been able to communicate their vision and mission effectively to you as an employee, to then be able to connect and deliver? What are your experiences? So I think I wouldn't call names. Um, with the different companies that I've worked with, right, there was a particular one where there was no clear vision. There was no clear mission. Even the culture was dead. I get that it was a start-up. But there were lots of things that were missing, right? In the sense that when we are trying to sell to our customers, we didn't even understand what our vision was or the mission. All we knew was just cancel, right? In situations like that, even when we come back and we get feedback based on what we've gotten from outside, it just isn't received properly, right? So internally, we had a lot of us who were grumbling, a lot of us who were upset, who just felt like we were wasting our time while we were there. And you would see people who just wanted to exit the company because I mean, this is not even aligning with my own future plans, right? So in situations like that, it's just like, you know what? Forget about it. But there are companies that I've worked with where culture is clear, vision is clear, mission is clear, everything is clear. So you know why you're there, right? There are clear roles and responsibilities. And even when you have feedback, it's been taken seriously, right? And one thing about internal communication that I know is that it builds teamwork and collaboration, right? You have employees who communicate effectively with each other. Again, listening is also very important because stop management has to properly listen to what the staffs or the employees are saying. Now, if you have employees who are disgruntled is going to affect the general flow of work, because I've had situations where a particular colleague wasn't happy anymore, right? I tried my best because we worked together. So I need you to be at your best. There's so much I can do as your colleague. Management has to step in at this point. Now, if that doesn't happen, my work suffers because if you're not your best, I can't deliver, right? So it's like I'm going to be pulling my weight, doing what I need to do and also do your work as well. So I've had those instances. But sometimes I mean, even when everything is clear, things are going smoothly, you will still have hiccups along the way. And that's where management needs to step in. Management needs to just make sure that communication from one employee to another is is is seamless, right? I know that there are times when I've had conflicts with some of my colleagues, like, might have to probably have to step in or I have to just be the bigger person and say, okay, you know what? Let's resolve this. Where did I mess up? Where did you mess up? How can we fix this? And how do we prevent this in the future? Well, yeah, very, very lots of important things that you have mentioned there. Every time I hear the word culture, everybody that knows me knows that I'm a culture champion. I think that culture is foundational. I think what's that? I think that says culture is a strategy for breakfast or something like that. Your culture isn't right, which means that I haven't interpreting or translating the vision and the mission. I haven't defined it properly. I haven't communicated it clearly. So people can buy into it. It can affect the overall performance of a company. And then it starts to even affect other communications in the company, because when I'm frustrated and I'm angry when you say hello to me, I'm ready for war, right? Or I'm just not pulling my weight, as you said. So lots of important points that you made in that submission. I think that when I think about internal communication, I think one of the most important things for me is even about teaching employees in an organisation how to communicate. We've gone from the place where organisations are focused on experience and focused on capacity. I mean, these things are still important. But over time, organisations have also understood or have come to understand the impact and the power of soft skills. And communication is one of those things. So even ensuring that, given that everybody is coming from different backgrounds, different levels of education, even though you set a standard, I mean, you're not going to hire a master's degree holder, for example, to be a security guard. So even with the level of exposure education that someone who would end up being a security guard would have, you still need to make sure that that person can communicate effectively. If that person doesn't understand how to properly greet your guests, how to probably talk to other colleagues in your business, then that's going to be a problem. So communication in itself and ensuring that staff in an organisation can communicate effectively is key to productivity. Time is not lost in what you said to me was I should go and do it. I've done it now. You're telling me now that's not what you meant to be, right? You know, a lot of time is lost. There was this meme I saw, it was not really a meme, it was more of a graphic. I don't know if you've seen it, where they showed a tree with a swing and they were saying, all the different people in the business, how they described what they wanted to build. So they said, this is what the product owner described. Then there was a picture of what the person controlling finance described. The person who actually asked for it, what the person got in the end, and like 10 different pictures, and all of them were different. Really what was in that was communication. All of those people were communicating, trying to communicate the same thing, but from their own perspective, right? So having everybody understand that, I speak from my perspective because that's the experience that I have. I include based on what I know, but I also need to be taken into account who I'm speaking to. So if I'm speaking to the chairman of the company or the CEO of the company, I speak in a completely different way as I would speak to a janitor or a security guard, not because it's a class thing, but it's making sure that the message is encoded in a way that they can decode and then actually get the message that I'm trying to pass along, right? So that in itself, the importance of communication in terms of making sure people can effectively do their work, get the message because nobody works a loop, right? As long as there's an organisation, there's more than one person, and we need to communicate to be able to work together. So I think that's another thing that's very important, having people be skilled in being able to communicate to businesses also have to take that as a learning and development need to build the right communication skills within their people. So the next thing that I think is even in the, have you had those experiences where people are in a company and you don't know what's going on? You know, you're just like, well, I'm just a receptionist. They could tell you that the company is going back up tomorrow and you had no clue, right? So what have your experiences been with like internal communications, things that give you information about what's going on in the company? Just the way we had for the, we talked about for the external customers, right? Have you had some companies where you're just like, I come to work every day, I don't know what's going on here, but I'm here, shout out. I'll collect my salary at the end of the month, you know? What is your experience been? So there was a company that I worked with, right? It's, it's a massive company. So there are times when things are happening, you wouldn't know. So I'm in a department. I mean, in a department where you have about maybe seven different teams. When I'm organising an event with my own clients, Tim B isn't aware. So sometimes I might go somewhere to a venue and I realise, oh, my company is having an event here. I'm like, ah, how? No clue. And I'm seeing that it's not even a different department. It's my own department. So I'm not even aware. So I ask my other colleagues, did you know this was happening? I said no. I'm like, what is happening? Right? How can you be working in the same organisation? I remember there was a time, a customer called me. Oh, please. I can't remember the address to this event that you guys are organising. I said, huh? I am not aware. And I feel like that was a very, we had a very big gap, right? And those kind of things, right? At the end of the day, it affects your external business. It's just, it's not just internal because now people outside or your customers can see that there are a lot of things going on within the company and not everyone is aware. So if there is chaos happening in the house safe is our business with you. Yeah. Right? I, I, I don't think that that, not that I don't even think, I know that it is not a good thing. Like it is important that you update everyone in the company. How you decide to do it as a business is up to you. It's up to you what channel you use. But just to make sure that people are up to date on what's happening. If there is an event, no matter how small it is, if there are changes happening, if employees are leaving, if you're getting new management, if you're changing the workflow, or there is a process flow that is going to change, make sure everyone is aware from top to bottom because at the end of the day, your employees are your ambassadors. There are people who go out and they represent your company in different shapes or forms or sizes. Right? It could just even be the receptionist. You feel like, oh, the receptionist is not a sales person. The receptionist is not a customer success person. The receptionist is not even an engineer. Right? But when they are outside and they are talking about your product or your services, they should be able to talk about it. And that's one thing I love about the onboarding process. Right? There are people who have onboarding process that are just very short. Oh, the mission is this is what we do. Okay, go to your department and it will tell you what you are supposed to do. It is important that you know the products. You need to understand. One thing I love about my present company is there was something that we do. We do this demo every month. So each department would do a demo of what their product is, where they are right now, the changes they've made in the past few months, in the past few weeks, what is looking like now and how to use that platform. So I know that some people have like short attentions, but they will catch you at the end of that demo because questions will be asked. So what does this product do? Right? What were the changes that were made? Now in situations like that, you don't necessarily need to know how to use the product end to end, where you have an idea. Right? So if I go out today and I find someone who I feel is asking me questions about an aspect of the business, I might not be managing that aspect, but I can give you some information. Exactly. So I can give you insights and then I'll probably just tell you, oh, I can connect you to the right person. I can get back to you, I can connect you to the right person. Right? The situation is very, like it helps the business end to end, but I feel like people don't do that. A lot of companies play with onboarding and that's why you have people who join the team and even sometimes in your own team, they don't know what's happening. So I have to start tutoring you all over again. In fact, I start an entirely new onboarding process. Right? And then there's something called a playbook. Departments should have a playbook. Something that new employees can always fall back on, look at. Even employees who have been in the company for a very long time can still always go back to the playbook and look at it. In case you feel like, oh, you know what? I've had some shortcomings. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe I've forgotten something in the flow. There's always something to refer back to. A playbook is like a manual basically for R. Yep, yep. That's the book where all the strategies go. It's like a manual. Right? And one thing is it is important for businesses to communicate what their short term and long term goal is. Make it clear and concise. There are people who you've told them, okay, this is your role. I know what my role is. My role is what's product manager. Oh, my role is senior engineer. But what are your day-to-day responsibilities? What are you supposed to deliver on? Right? Now, if I don't have clear goals, it means that I might end up doing everything and nothing. So it's like I'm here, I'm doing the ABC, just scattering my tentacles everywhere. But at the end of the month, when we are looking at the key results or your goals for that month, we see that you've not achieved anything. And sometimes you feel like it's on the employee. It's not on the employee. It's a different thing if you've communicated effectively what they are supposed to be doing and then they end up not doing it. But in a situation where you don't communicate that to that employee, then it falls on the company, right? It falls on management. That means you've missed a key step. And those are the things that I feel companies need to start correcting. Yeah, absolutely. In fact, when you were talking, I remembered an experience that I had. I went to an event and you know how you introduced yourself. Oh, and this is so I work for this company. And the person said, oh, yes. I know you're a new MD. I was like. So in my mind, I'm like, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Oh, okay. What's his name again? Ah, yes, you're so right. You know, I'm so used to the old MD. Like I literally had to wing my way through the conversation and I think to myself, how do you change an MD? And you haven't, the organization is not the first people, like internally, we're not the first people to hear that, you know, we have a new MD. So that was an interesting experience. I just thought to myself, communication internally is so key because again, people just don't feel like they're part of an organization. When you hear something that big outside, your first thought is, I wasn't important enough for you to tell me that we have a new MD because somebody in the company obviously knows, but then the information just hasn't filtered down to everybody else. But when we start to sort of, I guess we're coming towards the end of the show, we've sort of talked about a lot of different things that I think are really key in understanding how to communicate effectively for growth. So I think that we should, in looking at everything that we've said so far, what else is there when we're thinking about effective communication? If we look at not just the communication skills, when you were talking just now, you said, I need to understand my clear, what are the expectations in my day-to-day, what are the things that I'm supposed to be working to. So you find that even in performance management, even in making sure that people understand what is expected of them, you find a lot of companies, particularly the smaller companies, they don't define what your responsibilities are. So, oh, I'm a receptionist. Okay, do you have a job description? Do you know what you're supposed to say when you're welcoming customers? Do you have your processes documented? All these things form part of internal communications. They're there to communicate. This is how we do things. This is what your role is. This is what your responsibilities are. This is how we measure performance. Where, in your experience, where else have there been gaps when it comes to communication? Where you're just like, in fact, on-boarding was another very big one. So many companies also don't have a handbook, they don't have a playbook, so people just come in and, depending on the size of the organisation, I may be clear that I'm an engineer, but then I don't know who the product manager is, I don't even know whether one exists. So, even that on-boarding process is so, so critical. So, when we say communication, it's not just like I'm talking to you, you're talking to me, or I'm sending emails back and forth, but there are certain types of documents and things that exist to communicate across that business line to say, I need you to be effective, I need you to know what it is that you're doing. So, what else do you think organisations should have in that sort of type of skill, documents and documentation, and things that will actually help the organisation to be more effective? So, I think I've been able to cover things in terms of documentation, but I think another key thing, just to digress a little bit, that I feel like some companies are missing out on is giving constructive feedback, which I feel like it's very important, right? You have some, you have some employees who just want to hit the road running, right? They are very aggressive. They are the kind of people who, once they join the company, you can already see the growth, you can already see their impact in the business, but the thing is they don't get good feedback on your work, right? There is no, oh, well done. You're not telling them how you're doing amazing, right? Sorry. Now, in situations like that, you tend to have people who feel like they're doing so much, but the company isn't recognising their effort, right? And those are key things that are very, very important. A small or little well done, you did great. Yeah, goes a long way. And that's another thing that helps the company, right? So when people tend to or start to see that trend, they are forced to want to put in more work. People want to apply themselves. Absolutely. I know that sometimes people feel like, you know what, this is my role. This is the only thing I'm here to do. But then there's also room to take on extra work, right? If you feel like, oh, there's a place or a part of the job that is lacking, so maybe I can pick up some of it. Now, when you see someone who is doing that, you need to recognise them for that. They need to know that, oh, yet the company is doing my work and they appreciate my effort. So being able to communicate. I'm being able to give them incentive for that, right? So when you do that, people would want to do more, right? They want to apply themselves more and constructive feedback is another form of communication, right? Sometimes a person might do a work that isn't so great. The way you would tell that employee, oh, what you did isn't amazing, right? But then there's a way to communicate that as well without being condescending or without making them feel like they did total mess. I mean, you think they don't know that it messed up. They already know, but the way you call them out, either privately or publicly within the organisation, also matters, right? That's where effective communication comes in as well. That's a good one, in fact, as we wrap up. That's a good one to end on. Being able to communicate performance, to give feedback, and also to reward people or acknowledge the hard work that they've done. We got a quick question that came in that says how can small businesses create a communication structure? I think all the things that we've said fit into that, having a handbook, having a clear onboarding process that's documented, being able to tell their story, what you put out externally about your business, whether it's on social media, understanding the different mediums you communicate on, as well as important. The way you talk about yourself and present yourself on social media will be different from the way you present yourself maybe in a company statement or annual statement, right? Again, matching the tone of your communication to the medium that you're communicating on, and then having those clear, what would I call it now, clear guidelines for how people should communicate. Do people understand your tone of voice as an organisation? When people see your communication or see something from your brand, do they immediately know it's you? Does that sound like the organisation? So very, very important that when we're doing that, also making sure that people open channels of communication, I think that's probably where we will end on, to say people also knowing that a lot of companies say oh we have open door policies these days, you know, from the days of we're all working in an open plan office as opposed to people having their offices and things like that and being included away from each other. So all of those things are done to essentially create that camaraderie, build relationships, all with the goal to effectively grow the business. So also in that aspect of making sure that people understand what your policies are around communication. Again, another thing that we have seen, companies know what to put on social media and what people who are known representatives. So if you know that I work for a certain company, then I also need to be careful what I'm putting on social media because people can also take what I've said or done and that can affect the image of our company. So I think that those things, a lot of everything or what we said today really applies to businesses and if they can put all those things together, then they essentially have built an effective communication structure, they've taken into account all the different elements that we have. So it's been for me interesting conversation. It's just two of us today carrying the show as we close out. But we hope that you picked up a thing or two from the conversation and that we have some good tips for you to be able to put in play for your businesses. If you want any more than that, then we are going to have to charge you. We'll charge you consultancy fee or we'll do you up a nice invoice and send to you and we can charge you for it. But yeah, it's been great spending the evening with you Jennifer. So I look forward to doing it again next week. So before we go, do ensure that you follow us on Instagram at Weishio Africa. You can interact with us further, drop a comment and most importantly, follow all our social media engagements and remember to like, share, comment and invite your friends and family to watch us and follow us. Don't enjoy ways alone. If you missed today's quote here, it is again. Nothing in life is more important than the ability to communicate effectively. We certainly hope that we've communicated effectively in the course of the show today and we look forward to seeing you again on Monday at 8pm as we bring another great conversation to your screen. Have a good evening.