Meerkat Communications

It’s Meerkat Communications’ 5th year – hard to believe that time has gone by so quickly!

It’s been a privilege to work with a great group of clients in a range of industries and to help them express their ideas in various formats, whether in a brochure, sales sheets, or their company website. I love being able to help transform concepts into concrete copy and to help clients see the power of words in reaching  target markets.

Here’s to many more years of successful collaboration,welcoming of new clients, and of making words work for you.

Geraldine

You know how it goes… you have to have a really important but potentially very difficult business-related conversation. You know that calling the person would be the best approach to get a direct response, but you don’t want the stress. What if you stumble over your words? What if the person doesn’t listen properly? Misunderstands? Gets really angry? So you do one of two things… you dial when you know the person is likely to be busy and pray for voicemail and then mumble awkwardly if they happen to answer, or you chicken out and send an email instead.

While written records can be essential in certain business situations (whether positive or negative), sometimes conversations have a time limit – you need immediate feedback and you need to be able to ask/answer questions right away, so a phone call is really the best means of communication to achieve your purpose.

Tips for Improving Your Verbal Communication

It can be really hard to ensure a conversation goes smoothly and that you get results, so here are seven tips for improving your chances of success:

1. Analyze your audience. Consider your audience’s reaction/response. Would they react better to a more direct approach to the issue? Or should you consider “sandwiching” the bad news in between any possible good/positive information?

2. Decide on your main point. Work out exactly what the outcome that you need is and clarify your exact purpose for contacting your listener. Gather any resources you may need (copies of previous correspondence, resources, legal notification, etc.)

3. Write yourself a script. You shouldn’t read this off word for word, but brainstorm your main ideas and put together your supporting evidence. Organize this into a logical order (direct or indirect) of information. Maybe write down a few really important points that you can recite exactly, to help ensure the main message is understood.

4. Keep your tone and language neutral. As tempted as you may be to get angry, all this does is distance you from your audience and often it escalates the problem, because the audience gets defensive and stops listening properly.

5. Make the audience’s next step clear. What do you need your audience to do? Is it clear for them? Have you ensured they have all the information they need to resolve the issue (including relevant contact info)? Make this very easy to follow to ensure you get what you want.

6. Know when to end the conversation. Conflict can drag on or escalate. Make sure you’ve written down a ‘conclusion’ to the conversation. Make it clear to the audience that your time is up and you have to end the call. Try to close off with a positive thought and a reminder of the main idea.

7. Follow up in writing. If there are specific steps the audience needs to take, ensure that you follow up your conversation with an email that briefly summarizes the conversation and that lays out the next steps (including a deadline, if appropriate/relevant) in an organized list. This ensures you still have a written record and that you’ve doubled the chances that the audience will understand the message.

This doesn’t have to take you a long time, but organizing your information, being clear on your audience and purpose, and writing a script will make you feel more confident and in control of the conversation.

So don’t hide behind email when a phone call is more appropriate. Make your own life easier and ensure you get the job done, with a well thought out, well planned, old fashioned phone call

Geraldine

One of my favourite digital marketing companies in Vancouver is 6S Marketing. Beyond the services they offer, they share a lot of really interesting, applicable information with their network. Their’s is one of the few company newsletters I receive that I actually take the time to read through in its entirety. Their most recent letter had this fascinating infographic about Canadian Internet usage.

I already knew that a huge percentage of the population is online and that a vast majority use the Internet for product research etc, but some of these stats astounded me! It’s well worth noting the importance and impact that mobile devices and smartphones are having on business. Our clients are moving, and we need to follow.

Take a look.

Blogs can sometimes seem like something only narcissistic weirdos with too much time on their hands  are interested in producing. However, blogs can function as highly effective business tools. Web 2.0 and social media give us a way to connect with our clients and potential customers directly, encourage feedback from them, and find out how they think we’re doing, almost instantly. Done right, blogs can be used by businesses to promote their products and services, cement their brand, share news, and create brand evangelists – a community of dedicated followers and supporters. Blogs can also be used very successfully as an internal means of communication to engage with employees and receive valuable feedback from your own immediate community.

What are some of the main functions of a business blog?

You can choose to use your blog to communicate within your business or to reach out to your clients and customers (existing and potential). Your blog can function to

• market your company through free media
• raise your social media/online presence but also add depth to it
• communicate new products and services
• recruit new employees, clients, customers, investors, etc.
• communicate bad news to clients (but also do damage control at the same time)
• get instant feedback on new ideas/products/services
• gather information about potential target markets
• offer customer service and/or technical support
• and give your company a voice.

Of course you need to blog effectively to ensure the blog fulfills its potential functions.

What are some tips for better blogging?

In order to create a successful blog, you need to first of all identify who your intended audience is, whether internal or external. Next, you need to profile that audience to determine their particular needs and expectations. What sort of tone will they prefer? What types of information will they need and not need? What is their level of knowledge on the topic? Will they understand industry jargon or do they need layperson’s terms? Then you need to determine your blog’s ‘personality’ and the range of topics you are going to cover.

Remember that you are creating a whole channel of communication, not just a single message, so it takes careful preparation  and follow-up to blog effectively.

Here are some of my other tried and tested tips for blogging:

• Use and develop a readable, comfortable, conversational style of writing (you have permission to be less formal but should still care about grammar, style, spelling etc. as this can affect your credibility)
• Keep the information valuable, interesting, and to the point
• Supply readers with links, extra resources, images, infographics, etc. (remember that both internal linking and external linking help with your search engine rankings)
• Proofread the message and evaluate the content (edit, edit, edit!)
• Keep your posts short (probably around the 180- 200 word mark)
• Create a list of topics for you and your team to write about so you don’t run out of steam
• Use engaging, eye-catching headings for your posts and use sub-headings for longer posts
• Tag your posts with appropriate tags and categories
• Ensure all information is legal, ethical, accurate, and not taken from any other source without permission or credit.

Finally, remember that you are trying to reach and build a community of readers who can potentially become clients or customers, so you need to allow for comments and feedback and be a responsive blogger. Reply to comments, consider following your own followers back , and encourage interaction.

Blogging is a great tool if used correctly, and remember that it’s perfectly appropriate for business, not just those navel-gazing weirdos…

Geraldine

The London 2012 Olympics are being hailed as the first “social media Olympics” and it seems like this is only because social media happen to be the current, mainstream arena of choice, not because of any particularly successful social media strategy on the part of the IOC, sponsors, or broadcasting networks.

I just read a very interesting piece on the failure of Twitter itself, as well as social media gaffes by NBC in particular, around the London 2012 Games, that really highlight the necessity of having a solid social media strategy in place and of knowing your audience and purpose.

#Olympicsizedfail? You tell me.

Email dominates our lives, often as much in a personal capacity as a business one. Unfortunately, sometimes the bad habits we’ve developed in our more informal correspondence creeps in to our business messages, and this can have disastrous consequences.

If you pay careful attention, however, you can avoid common gaffes when writing business emails:

1. Know Your Audience… But Do Something with that Knowledge

I came across a great quote by Pablo Picasso the other day: “Action is the foundational key to any success”… The number one rule to any business communication or business model is to know your audience. However, this knowledge is useless unless you actually do something with it.

As much as you can, use any possible information (or educated guesses you can make about your audience) to shape, organize, and influence your content. Choose language that your reader will understand, and explain any terms they may need to know but won’t be familiar with. Focus on relevant information only. Always think about how your reader will feel, and subsequently act, upon receiving your message.

And make sure that by the end of your message, you’ve  anticipated any possible questions or objections and included information to answer these before the reader has to respond and ask you, including anything that will help overcome their resistance easily.

2. Edit, Edit, and Edit Some More…

With the sheer volume of email, the kind of multitasking now needed in the business world, and the sort of technology-related short attention spans we now seem to have, people don’t have time to read long messages, nor are they likely to do more than skim even a medium-sized message. So once you’ve written your message, go back and slash it.

Cut out unnecessary information, keep sentences short and simple, reorganize paragraphs for the biggest impact, and place your main ideas at the beginning – at the message, the paragraph, and the sentence level. Get rid of those trite sounding “business” phrases. Get rid of “fillers” like “There are” or “I am writing to tell you” and remember that less is always more in this case.

3. Design an Easy-to-Read Message

Somehow, even though we know what we don’t like in a message, all of those things fly out the window when we write to other people. Nobody has time to spend wading through a long email with no sense of what’s important and what’s less important. White space, paragraphing, bullet points, and numbered lists are your friends, as are headings.

Headings in an email? Yes! Why wouldn’t you use any possible method you can to ensure your message is not only read, but understood, and then acted on? Use bullet points only for your most important information. Use a numbered list for a sequence that must be followed in order.

But don’t overuse themse You want the reader to have a visual sense of what is important, but don’t overwhelm them with so many lists that they can’t focus. If you use headings, ensure they are descriptive and relevant, and don’t use them in a very short email – it’ll just look weird.

Ensure your paragraphs are short and that your message is well spaced, with an easy-to-read font.

4. Proofread Your Document… And Evaluate Its Success

Nothing is more frustrating than trying to read a message that is riddled with grammar, spelling, or punctuation errors, or “text speak”. Ensure you’ve done a proper spellcheck, that you’ve read and re-read the message, and double-check that you’ve included any necessary attachments.

And then ask yourself a few questions:

• Have I actually said what I mean?
• Is my main idea clear?
• Is the next step obvious for the reader?
• Will I get the response I want?
• Is my message easy to understand?

Before you hit send, ensure your message is professional, well-designed, and easy-to-read.

5. Follow Up on Your Message

Weeks go by and tThings slip down the ‘To Do’ list , with no response from your reader… Even the best thought out and written business messages can sit unread, purely because of a lack of time on the part of the audience.

If you are sending an urgent message, then you need to ensure you’ve given the reader a clear deadline for response. Don’t assume that just because someone has a smart phone or iPad that they are constantly checking their email. If you don’t hear from them, then you have to follow up. Also, don’t expect someone to respond within minutes or hours of sending your message – wait until a reasonable amount of time has passed before you check in with them.

And sometimes you just have to pick up the phone… Don’t use email as something to hid behind, use it as you would with any tool – carefully and only for its intended use.

Geraldine

Sometimes, despite careful planning, a well crafted message can be misunderstood or misinterpreted or, perhaps worst of all, ignored.

One of the issues I find these days is that people really just don’t seem to have any listening skills, nor do they actually read all of what has been written. I have experienced both of these problems many times. For example, in my classes I can repeat instructions several times and put them in writing, and students still do not listen properly and end up doing the wrong thing (to their detriment). And I’ve also written very clear, well structured business emails (after all, it’s my profession so I have to show I can practice what I preach!), and still I get a response that indicates the person has not properly read anything I have written.

Sigh…

So what can we do about it? Unfortunately we can’t control others (oh for such a power!), but we can keep ensuring we construct well organised and thought out messages, and allow for feedback and questions. Sometimes, too, all it takes is a deep breath and a lot of patience. Something I learned a long time ago, because of the torture I experienced from certain teachers, is that if someone doesn’t understand something and they ask you to explain it again, explaining it in exactly the same way will not help, because the person did not understand you the first time.

We also have to be aware that communication is a process, a cycle from sender to receiver and back again, so we have a responsiblity to others to listen to them carefully and to read things slowly and with attention. This can save us time and unwanted issues.

So, it takes practice, patience, and sometimes, a healthy sense of humour to stay sane and ensure you overcome any barriers to communication to get your message understood and get what you want.

Geraldine

I recently got an email from BCIT administration that was sent out to all employees about the dangers of sharing and storing information via cloud computing. The email raised some interesting points that, to be honest, I hadn’t really considered.

Much cloud computing storage is based in the US and is therefore subject to the Patriot Act. Although I don’t usually share folders, I do adore Dropbox, and store my teaching and work files on there. While I am not scared of any of the information I have on there in terms of getting myself into trouble, I would like to be sure it is safe and that it won’t be taken and used without my permission, knowledge, or any compensation. The issue of online privacy and safety continues to be a huge issue, and there does not seem to be any definitive way to know your information is safe.

As I’ve heard it said, “I have read the terms and conditions” is the possibly the world’s biggest lie, so how careful are we being with our information really?

Food for thought. Or the cloud?

Geraldine

Hard to believe we’re already half way through August and heading into fall, when we haven’t even really had a summer! (I know, I know, so boring to complain about the weather but I can’t help it, I’m a sun-starved African living in the north).

With the lull over the summer coming to a close, it looks like it’s going to be a busy last few months of 2011. I’m going to be giving a seminar mid-September for SITE BC on Technical Report Writing. As described on their website,  “SITE BC (The Society of Internationally Trained Engineers of British Columbia) is an independent non- profit society founded in 2004 to represent the interests of British Columbia’s Internationally Trained Engineering community (ITEs).” I’m really looking forward to talking to their group about some of the fundamentals of writing technical reports.

I find when I talk to professionals in various industries, their complaint is the same: many people don’t know how to write or organise documents in a professional manner. Part of this issue that I have encountered is that of reader-unfriendly, jargon-loaded language and an overly formal tone. I will be addressing these issues, along with how to effectively  integrate graphics into a document, which I hope will be useful for the engineers.

Fall also promises more teaching, more writing projects (collaborating with my great graphic design partners at Spectramedia), as well as a workshop series with Dina Grskovich of DMG Strategy, so it’s going to be a busy one!

Watch this space for more details.

Geraldine

One of the challenges that we face living in a world of ever increasing information and “noise” is missing the mark when we try to communicate. You can craft a direct, focused, concise email and still get a reply that shows you the reader has not, in fact, actually read the whole email. You can use careful reader access techniques like lists and tables to highlight important information, and still you get a response that shows the person has not bothered to even glance at what you have provided.

So what do you do?

The Man in The Mirror

I’m reminded of the lyrics to the Michael Jackson song, Man in the Mirror:

“I’m Starting With The Man In The Mirror

I’m Asking Him To Change His Ways

And No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer

If You Wanna Make The World A Better Place….”

Perhaps what we need to do when communicating is look first at our own listening and reading skills. Do you pay careful attention to your emails, or do you skim through them? When someone is talking to you, are you really listening to them, or are you running through your To Do list in your head? If someone gives you instructions, are you already thinking about how you could do it better? Don’t be the game show contestant who gives the wrong answer because they’ve interrupted the host mid-question.

Listen carefully, read carefully, and check if you don’t understand. Ask questions, request clarification, and follow up to confirm that what you heard or read was correct.  If you have a lot of emails to get through, prioritise. Read the most important ones first, and before you respond, double check that you’ve read the whole thread and that you aren’t asking unnecessary questions. If you spend a few minutes reading and perhaps doing a bit of research, you show the reader that you care, that you can pay attention to detail, and that you want a mutually beneficial, positive result.

I’m convinced that the more we can practice our own listening and reading skills, the more we can improve our communication, and therefore command more thoughtful and careful responses from our audiences.

So… start with the (wo)man in the mirror, or rather, on the keyboard and monitor…

Geraldine