COMMUNICATE for Success

ANSWERING TWO CRITICAL QUESTIONS WILL ENSURE YOU COMMUNICATE MORE EFFECTIVELY

---

By Michelle Floyd

How many times has this happened: you write a letter or brochure, send it out, and everyone wonders, quietly or out loud, “What was that?” Or, perhaps you are at a point where you want to go big and tell everyone what your company is doing. You send something out that you feel tells your story, but you get no response whatsoever.

It happens all the time. After a bit of hurry up and wait, people suddenly want to “get busy” and produce things, communicate messages, and my personal favourite, increase awareness. There might be an upcoming presentation, a funding announcement or request that creates a sense of urgency. Suddenly, everyone wants to get to tactical execution: get the brochure written, the logo developed, the Web site launched, the packages put together, the news release sent, the calls made. The trouble is, working at this tactical level without thinking about what you are really trying to accomplish is not only a waste of time, money and effort, it is also damaging to the long-term positioning, perception and credibility of your company.

Don’t feel bad, almost every company is guilty of putting the cart before the horse at one time or another. It can happen when you don’t know what to say, have too much to say or can’t distinguish what is most important. It’s a typical entrepreneurial problem. To you, everything about your company is equally important and relevant for your audiences to understand. However, individual audiences are actually far more specialized in what they want to know — and what they want to know is likely quite different from what you want to tell them.

What you can feel good about is, you can make it better. In a company’s life cycle, the person responsible for communicating is sometimes just too close to distinguish what is most important. You might not be able to hire a communications professional to help you with this right now, but in the meantime, doing the work to answer two critical questions will help you focus your activities.

The two questions to answer are: Who are you talking to and what are you trying to say? At first glance, you might think these are easy to answer. You would be wrong. The more research and work you put in, the more you will see the complexities and the relative importance of answering these questions accurately.

Take these steps to begin figuring out the first question:
Who are you talking to?

Identify key stakeholder audiences
The notion of the “general public” is a myth. There is no general public. There are only audiences, or groups of people defined as having the same or similar information needs. An audience can be as small as one person (e.g., your board chair), or as large as an internal staff group or external professional association. List all of your company’s internal and external audiences. Examples include staff, peers, investors, industry partners, boards of directors, etc.

Determine your communication goals for each target audience
Review your list of internal and external key stakeholder audiences and define your communication objectives and priorities. Is it your goal to inform them? To persuade? To educate? To ask? And which group comes first, second and third in importance, or are there concurrent needs? Make staff communication the first priority. Your staff members are your best potential supporters — always tell them your key messages first.

Find out the expectations of each defined audience
How often do the members of each internal and external audience expect to receive information: daily, weekly, monthly or just when there is news? How do they prefer to receive information: voice mail, e-mail, memo, presentation or through print materials? Be sure to actually ask people. Your intuition might likely be wrong and it is crucial to get this one right. Recognize that even within an audience of scientists, there are “computer people” and “paper people.” Communicate where people are — they will not come to you.

Think through content
Is the audience expecting to receive technical and/or scientific information, or do they prefer more general information? Regardless of education or experience, no one likes to unnecessarily read or interpret complex information. People are busy. People prefer simple, straightforward messages that they don’t have to sit down and figure out.

Determine what your audience already knows about your company
How much background do they need? What do they already know about your company and what you are trying to accomplish? Don’t assume that just because you told them once in an e-mail six months ago that it is now committed to memory and understood. People need repetition of important key messages and your interpretation of why those key messages are important to the company.

Determine how important what you say really is to each audience
Are emotions involved? Is your message a high or low priority for your audience? How likely are they to choose to read what is written, or care about the issue or its outcomes? How will the message affect them? How will you know if you have answered the first question sufficiently? Well, without the usual nagging doubt, you will know the groups and individuals you need to communicate with, how to reach them, how often you need to stay in touch and what they expect you to say. In short, you won’t feel like every communication decision is a new question or scenario to evaluate. You will have increased confidence in what you need to do and how quickly it needs to be done.

Now you are ready to answer the second question:
What are you trying to say?

About your brand
Simply put, your company’s brand is the face your company shows to its audiences. Human beings like to be able to predict over time what a company might do and say. Therefore, whether it’s an e-mail signature, a newsletter, a Web site, a brochure, a PowerPoint® presentation, a print advertisement or a memo on your letterhead, each and every thing has to reinforce — in a consistent way, through content, look and feel — what your company is all about. Everything has to point in the same direction to look put together, professional and credible.

Here’s the acid test: throw all your current print materials, letterhead, business cards and brochures on your desk. Other than your logo, do these things look like they belong to the same company or does this array of paper look like an accident? If it’s the latter, your brand is not clear. You are damaging your audience’s perception of your company. You need to make some quick decisions right now about your tone and the way your materials look and feel to ensure you move forward with a single-minded, consistent message. Your communication pieces should look like a family of materials.

About your words: figure out your key messages
A key message is a simple statement about your company that highlights a benefit that is relevant to your audience. It says who you are, what you do, what you stand for, why you are making a difference. Ideally, you will develop a small number of primary or key messages that will be communicated consistently across all audiences in everything you do. You may also need to develop secondary messages for various target audiences.

The truth is, most people can’t get this part together. Everything seems equally important. Instead of focusing, the decision is made to just say everything. This is a mistake. Remember, the more you say, the less people hear. Go back to who your audience is and what’s important to them — that will guide you.

Don’t be frustrated if you can’t do this easily. Making something simple is the hardest thing to do. To get to what’s most important, write down what you think is your company’s key message. Now ask yourself, “who cares?” or “why?” Write down the answer. Now take what you have written and ask it again. Once you can’t ask “why” anymore, you are pretty close to a key message. Now you have to honestly evaluate if it’s the right message. Is it credible and important to your key stakeholder audiences? If not, keep working on it. No one ever said communication was easy. It takes time to be clear and to make things simple. But take the time, it will pay off.

Communication is meant to be a dialogue. Just like a first date or first meeting, you don’t have to tell everything at first glance. You only need to share enough to engage your audience. When you engage them, you will get the response you have been looking for.

The job of communicating is crucial to your company’s success. It must be done with clear intention and understanding of its impact on a company’s ability to achieve business goals and objectives. Someone has to have the responsibility of looking at every piece that leaves the building to ensure it reinforces who you are. In so doing, you will define your company’s culture.


Michelle Floyd is an accredited business communicator and principal with Designmode Communications Inc. (London, ON). For more than 10 years, Floyd has helped scientists, emerging and growing biotech companies, research institutes and health-related organizations tell their story. She can be reached by e-mail (michelle@designmode.com) or by calling 519-963-5248.