The New Business Paradigm demands Great Communicators. Your clients and customers expect you to be active on all platforms.  It creates a picture of trust more easily.

Communication stopped being a one-way street on the day that you posted your first Facebook or Twitter update.  Thus, these are Top 5 Habits of a Great Communicator in The New Business World.

           1.   Trust matters

Results come only after your team, customers and clients trust you. Sadly, the majority of businesspeople trust others only after success is achieved. People need to feel and believe that you are available to them now,  and that you will always be there when they need you. Want to show that you listen in the New Business World?  Try being the Bearer of Treats. The next time you walk into a meeting, take coffee with you, selected because you’ve memorizes what flavors the attendees enjoy. This demonstrates the insight you have into the person, that you’re an observer of people, and the coffee is a vehicle to encourage a relationship of open and effective communication.

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Customer Service is alive and well and she lives in Arizona. Customer Service’s name is Ellen and she works for American Express Platinum Travel Services.

 

As you may imagine, as president of four international service companies, I travel a lot and my most basic requirement is that I have backup on those occasions when I might run into a problem while far from home.

 

My path crossed with Ellen’s four years ago. I had called Amex to make a business air and hotel reservation. While the agent was nice enough and was very helpful the first time I used her, she simply was unresponsive to my calls and emails the next two times I called. After leaving four or five messages, on the next go around, I simply pushed “0” for “an agent who is available to assist you.”

 

That agent was Ellen. (more…)

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During the past week, I was treated to an executive level, advanced course in Customer Service. The week wasn’t supposed to be a learning experience for me. In fact, I was supposed to be nothing more than a willing participant in a long anticipated few days of rest and relaxation.

I work with one of the finest five-star hotel groups in the world. I deal regularly with people for whom guest service is a way of life, but it took a concierge onboard a cruise ship to demonstrate how one man, and one man alone, can make or break your company or mine.

His name is Francis. He is a native of a Pacific Rim nation, who came to the United States to work at sea, serving well-heeled customers in hopes of contributing to his family’s future. He spends as many as six consecutive months at sea, living in shared quarters like a college student, using Skype as his only lifeline to his wife and darling daughter. That doesn’t make him special, though, because many immigrants, legal and otherwise, come to the United States to work and benefit from our generosity.

What makes Francis different from the rest is that he singlehandedly changed my mind about an entire company. (more…)

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Think Big. Before you contemplate changes that may affect your content, ask yourself a few simple and enlightening questions:

• Why is change necessary?
• How does the station’s history affect today’s expectations?
• Does the audience have any attachment to the current content?
• How does my coverage area affect my competitive ability to change?
• What is my audience profile?
• Does my music meet and exceed audience expectations and do I execute it perfectly?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of my presenters?
• What result should my marketing plan create, and do I have the resources to execute that plan flawlessly?
• How will my competitors react to my planned changes?
• Where does the new content fit into the mix of already available radio products?
• How will the new content alter my audience?
• How do the changes fill an audience or advertiser need?
• How large is the opportunity for the change? (Don’t do it if the opportunity is too narrow.)
• Is there new and reliable research available that may confirm my plans or change my mind?
• What is the experience level of the management team?
• Is the management experience suitable to the challenge of change?
• What will define a win, and how does it look and feel to my team, the advertisers and the audience?

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