Buying in the Neighborhood - Edition Nineteen (19)

Just sitting here thinking about the past few weeks and what has worked and what hasn't worked in business, personal, and life in general.  Reflection is good sometimes, but better when you do it often so that you can make adjustments, change, and respond to things more effectively.  Sometimes though we get caught off guard and even defensive at times when we think we are doing our best when in fact we have missed the boat entirely.

I've had the opportunity to work with individuals at all different levels and the one thing I do remember is that listening is very important as well as making sure you ask questions and don't make assumptions or try to proceed without clarifications if things aren't clear.  Why do I mention this?  Well it's abundantly clear that in our society today, that communications and sharing information is of utmost importance and often critical to one's success, no matter what it is they do in business, personal or life.  Sometimes it can be simple communications or the expectations of communications that can make a difference.

If you use a cell phone, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, email, regular mail, or any other form of communication you cannot always expect the message to come across clearly.  There are two parties in this in most cases - the sender of the message and the receiver of the message.  I know, pretty basic, huh?  Well, I only point this out, because sometimes I know for myself in particular that I have communications failures not because I don't try, but sometimes I don't either completely send the message or receive the message and then there is confusion.  Okay, so how do you solve that problem.  It's actually rather simple and most individuals make the effort to close the gaps in communications, but often times there are still communication misses.  So the lesson for today revolves around how to make sure you have clearer communications by playing your part, which is the part that you as an individual control.  Simple steps you can take or just remember:

1. If you receive a communication and you are clear on the message, please make the attempt to ask the sender what they mean.  Whether it comes to you via email or phone, connect directly to the sender so that there will be no confusion.
2. If you are sending a message to someone, re-read it before you send it out to make sure that you are clear on your message intent and meaning - which means most often, short, concise, and to the point, unless you are working on telling someone a story with a lot of juicy details, then that's another type of communication.
3. For email, texts, Tweets, Facebook posts, LinkedIn posts, or anything you post, make sure you put yourself in the recipient's position and make sure that you are seeing it from their eyes, that way you won't feel stupid after the fact when you can't block, cancel, recall, or change it after the fact.
4. Even when talking to someone directly, the level of sound in your voice can impact the communications as well as cutting people off and then tuning them out......which some of us (I won't mention names, me...) sometimes do.  So be cognizant of the listening part in this piece because sometimes it is better to listen and absorb then to immediately respond.  Being defensive in responses usually will get you nowhere and then the issue is usually still not resolved.

I'm stopping with that on the communications, because really if you just create awareness and check yourself, that is probably half the battle and you can change the whole perspective on things when you do that.  I'm sure this seems elementary and why bother with something like this at all.....well in business you communicate to your customers, your suppliers, your partners, your friends, your associates, your fans, your supporters, your audience, your family, and so many more.  When you are doing events, activities, and more, they all revolve around communication, so you can't get away from it, even though you might shelter yourself, you just can't.  So this is really just about the daily application and the think before you speak which can affect everything you do.

If you are looking for great resources on this and people that are great to work with and know the challenges about communications check out the following individuals:

• Dr. Mamiko Odegard - Daily Affirmations
• Anna Weber - Voices in Print
• Mrs. Hancock's Etiquette Training

Each one of these individuals offers different focuses on things related to communications in different areas and training.  You won't be disappointed and you will definitely gain some great contacts as well as resources.

If you are interested in being showcased on this blog, please send an e-mail to BuyinArizonaCampaign@gmail.com with the business website, contact information (e.g. business owner name, phone number and email address), so that a follow up contact can be made to talk with you about your business and what is offered.....