Category: Business Insights

If you are looking to streamline the process in which you select your vendors, consider a Request for Proposal or RFP. An RFP is precisely what it sounds like, and it is a proposal that you can use to compare and contrast offers from a variety of different vendors. Once you are able to analyze your options, you can create a better picture of what is best for your business and for your customers.

Building Relationships with Vendors

Outside of RFPs, you can also have a more direct dialect with one or several vendors, whether that is in person or by reaching out through email or phone. When you build a relationship with a vendor, trust begins to burgeon, and you will start to feel more comfortable with the people who you are buying from and vice versa. These relationships help vendors to understand what their buyers want and need and therefore won’t need to offer a service that the buyers don’t need. This also allows buyers to narrow down their selections because they have already seen demonstrations. They can then move on towards comparing prices and quality.

Request for Information and Request for Quote

When you are interacting with your vendors, another way to approach the buying process is with a Request for Information and a Quote. These are less detailed reports of information that answer some frequently asked questions. This concise and to the point report is used to give enough information up front to where the buyer will then be able to ask informed questions and in return, get an informed response. These vendors target the specific needs of the buyer in question and then focus their energy on what the buyer has decided is important.

An even more concise report will come in the process called Request for Quote. RFQ is highly detailed and broken down by a list of the pricing of the object which includes things such as the number of licenses you will need and their prices. The RFQ works similarly to the Request for Information and a Quote because it’s the main focus to create communication between the buyer and the seller by allowing the buyer to ask questions and then receive a detailed response in return.

Keep Your Options Open

Don’t forget that you can also “shop around.” The internet offers a large number of cloud solutions for your company, and the sites typically advertise everything that is provided and what the prices usually come out to be. Websites often have a chat option, or at least an email and phone number which you can use to get into contact with these vendors. Once in touch, you can then ask more questions and get an even better idea of the exact pricing. Usually, on websites, they are true to what they are selling and if a vendor does not seem to meet your needs, making a phone call is typically a waste of time. If they had the feature that you need, it would be advertised on the site. There is a blind trust in using the internet to select your vendors because it is likely you will never meet the seller in person, which is preferable for some and a turn-off for others.

So which one of these options should you choose for your business? Well, that depends on some different factors of your business. Is your company large in scale? That could mean you would need an RFP or sometimes you can get away with an RFI/Q. You must also weigh the risks and complexities of your business as well. Can you trust a source that you have never met or are you concerned about security and fraud?

However, if you have a smaller business or a more straightforward business plan, then you can easily find a cloud-based solution online. You can choose on your own time when you will carry out your internet research where you can compare and bid on different vendors. This flexibility is great for smaller businesses and offers simplicity for your process. Plus, because the website often advertises its standard offerings and pricing, you don’t have to guess which one might be better for your business.

No matter your business, take your time to consider the best vendor for it. It could take weeks to months of research, but it will be worth it to know that you’ve chosen the best vendor for your company.

People who don’t set goals tend to get tangled up in minutia and begin to devote time to activities that do not help with long-term growth. Everyone has desires. Whether yours is getting a promotion, returning to school, writing a novel, or getting in better shape, it will never come to fruition if you don’t set goals.

When it comes to setting a goal, the first thing to remember is that it must be reasonable. If you set yourself a goal that is unrealistic, you will give up before you even get close to achieving it because you will be disheartened by your lack of progress.

With that in mind, here are three ways that setting goals can help you grow.

• Prioritization: By setting yourself a challenge to work towards, you are organizing your priorities. This will give you a clearer perspective, allowing you to set your more important wishes and desires apart from the less important ones. For example, if you want to write the first chapter of your novel, you will probably decide that sitting down with a pen and paper is more important than watching your favorite TV show.
  Once you have set your goal, you’ll find it much easier to steer towards productive activities and away from ones that are wasting your free time and blocking the path to your goal. Once you do away with distractions, you’ll find the path to your goal is much clearer, and you will soon have something to show for your hard work and determination.
• Movement: If you want to get into better shape, one of your first steps might be joining a fitness class. If your wish is to get a promotion, you might sign up for an online course to increase your knowledge of your field of business. If you complete your class or course, you can look back and see what progress you have made. You will also be able to easily identify any challenges or obstacles that made attaining your goal more difficult. This will allow you to make adjustments for putting your next goal into play.
• Motivation: Setting a goal is making yourself a promise that you will see it through to the end. This type of commitment helps you stay focused and motivated. If you begin to struggle with your motivation, break your long-term goal into a series of more manageable short-term goals, so you can pat yourself on the back when you reach each landmark. Because you stay motivated, you will avoid slipping into the swap of procrastination and getting bogged down by worrying about whether or not to set your goals in the first place.

Short-Term vs. Long-Term Goals

Short-term goals are markers on the way to reaching a long-term goal. It’s important to have short-term goals so that you can see you are making progress and getting closer to your ultimate desire. They can help you minimize distraction and stay motivated. Long-term goals can take a year or several years to accomplish. Your long-term goal may be to become a senior partner in your company, to expand your business overseas, or to retire by the time you are aged 50. Each time you reach a long-term goal, it is a culmination of all the short-term goals which preceded it. Over time, long-term goals may change or grow even more ambitious.

Personal Goals vs. Professional Goals

Personal goals could include losing 20 pounds, joining your community softball team, saving for an overseas vacation, learning to ride a horse, or improving a personal relationship. You need personal goals in order to feel fulfilled in life. It’s important to keep a balance between your personal and professional goals, if you satisfy one at the expense of the other you will not feel fully satisfied and may soon begin to feel depressed.

Professional goals might include advancing up the corporate ladder, starting your own business, changing careers, or going back to school to advance your current career. Everyone has a unique personal objective for their career. The important thing is to stay focused and motivated and remain on the path that is leading you to the achievement of your goal. Professional goals often have to be timed carefully, so that family and social needs are not neglected.

Whether you need to make some changes in your personal life or your professional life, setting goals is the way to get started. They will help you stay focused, avoid distractions and overcome procrastination. Remember, goals are markers to help you focus your energy in positive ways; they can be changed whenever you wish. You can drop old ones and add new ones as your life changes and progresses.

If you’re like 99 percent of business owners, you probably never turn off from running the company. You may feel like going on vacation is a waste of your time, you may take breaks but then end up working through them, or you may feel too guilty about leaving the company to take any time off at all. But one very important thing that you need to remember is that taking a break could be the best thing you ever did for your business and for your health.

Why You Need to Take a Break from Business

It’s an actual fact that your business is only as good as the person who runs it. That means if you don’t allow yourself to relax from time to time, you’re not doing what’s best for your company. Not only will a break from business to help your health, but having some distance will also give you a much better perspective of the company when you return.

Making the Vacation a Holiday

You’ve planned your vacation days for a whole year, just you and your family, soaking up the sun and relaxing by the ocean. But what about work; how will they manage without you at the office while you’re away, and how often should you be checking in? You don’t have to cut yourself off completely from the world of work while you’re on vacation, but try to remember that the purpose of a break is to leave business behind, have some fun and recharge your batteries. If you don’t unplug yourself, you run the risk of work-overload stress during the summer months, and this can lead to poor health and depression later in the year.

The Ups and Downs of Staying Connected

Obviously, you should be thankful to have a business and be doing everything you can to keep it running successfully. However, staying plugged-in during vacation time can lead to stress and frustration because you’ll never quite feel as though you can separate your personal time and your time as the company owner. This can mean that your long-planned summer holiday at that exotic beachfront destination soon turns into an extension of your office and before you know it, you are overwhelmed with input from work and spend less and less time relaxing and enjoying your leisure time. Don’t worry; it doesn’t have to be this way. It’s not so hard to unplug from work without having to feel guilty.

Slave to the Gadgets

Technology is a fundamental part of business life. Cell phones, digital secretaries, and tablets make everyone all too easily accessible via email, texting, Facebook Messenger, Skype, and virtual voicemail. If you really want to take a break from your business while you’re on vacation, you have to be strong enough to unplug at least some of your gadgets. If you must take something with you, limit it to your cell phone, just in case of emergency, but don’t be afraid to turn off your phone, or at least silence the ringtone while you’re having some downtime, and by all means, don’t succumb to the temptation to check your voicemail every ten minutes. Should you really need to check in with your company while you are away, use time-based routing. Give your office specific days and times that you will be available so that they won’t have to encroach on your ‘you time.’

To Mail or Not to Mail

So you can’t survive without your laptop even on vacation; perhaps you want to upload your sunset photographs or check in with your friends on Facebook, but beware; the minute you start answering emails, you have opened the floodgates. One simple way to avoid the distraction of work emails is to have them forwarded to a temporary email address that you can check when you get back to work; another is to put your email account on hold until you return.

Unplugging is a State of Mind

Leaving your technological gadgets behind is not only about leaving work at the office, but it’s also about creating a state of mind. It allows you the opportunity to escape from data-daze and to fully recharge your mind. Without your gadgets you’ll find you have time to do many more different activities, like swimming in the ocean, reading a book, taking a walk on the beach, catching some sunsets, or visiting galleries and museums. Don’t forget your family members too, without the constant finger-tapping of Droids, iPhones, Xboxes and PSPs; you might actually have time to do something fun together.

Take a break from the business even if it’s only a couple of days now and again. You’ll be pleasantly surprised at just how much better you will feel when you return. So stop feeling guilty and book your next vacation now; your life will be better for it.

Good communication skills not only improve your interactions with your peers and colleagues, but they also strengthen your relationships and help you gain the respect of those you interact with. Successful communication entails more than just talking to someone. If your conversation skills are lacking, don’t worry, there are things you can do to improve them.

Better Communication Makes for Better Relationships

If you come across as being cold and distant, arrogant, or lacking in empathy, the person you are talking to will be tense and may not communicate the information you need or may not want to talk to you at all. Whatever your role in the workplace, building patient relationships should be an ongoing practice from the outset, and the way to do this is through improved conversation skills.

Tips for Improving Conversation Skills

Pay attention to how you communicate with others. Be honest with yourself and ask yourself if there are areas in which you could improve your conversation skills. Here are some tips to help you:

• Establish Rapport: When you talk to a co-worker or employer, make them feel comfortable. Open the conversation by asking them how their day is going. By giving them a chance to relax at the outset, you are setting up a healthy relationship. This means they will feel at ease conversing with you. Don’t be tempted to interrupt or rush them along when they speak. Give them time to explain what they want to say in their own way and listen carefully. Do not interrupt them. In this way, you will get to know your team members and how you can work together.
• Use Polite Language: Avoid judgmental or insulting language. The last thing you want to do during a conversation is to offend or hurt the person you are talking to. This will cause communication to break down and may lead to aggression. Be aware of any language barriers you may have with your co-workers and act accordingly.
• Be Aware of Your Nonverbal Communication: When you are having a conversation, be aware of your body language. Don’t look around the room, stare at your computer screen or phone, or fold your arms across your chest. Make eye contact and show the person you’re speaking to that you are being attentive and open, otherwise, you will convey negative messages.
• Collaborate with Your Team Members: Ask your coworkers what they need from you and explain what you can do to help. Determine how they feel about the joint project you’re working on, and if they agree with the way it’s moving along.
• Be Flexible: Don’t have a rigid conversation style: what works for your close friends won’t necessarily work for your co-workers or your boss. Learn to judge a situation so you can use your conversation skills to your best ability.
• Be Concise: If someone asks you for some information, don’t tell them things they don’t want to know. Focus on their question and keep your response pertinent. Otherwise, they will think that you have not been listening to them.
• Be Empathetic: When you are having a conversation, the other person or persons should always feel comfortable expressing their opinions and concerns and they should feel confident that they will receive understanding and helpful advice. By expressing empathy, you are showing that you understand what your co-workers are feeling.
• Be Aware of the Details: Someone with good conversation skills notices the little things that the average person fails to see. When you bring such details to the conversation, by pointing out interesting things, it impresses the person with whom you are talking.
• Eliminate Negative Thoughts: When you’re about to talk to someone, don’t think negatively. Avoid telling yourself that you’re bothering the person, or that you will mess up if you try to start a conversation.
• Emphasize Similarities: This doesn’t mean that you have to mimic everything the other person says or does, it simply means that pointing out commonalities can help you make a firm connection with another person and start the foundation of a healthy relationship.
• Get the Other Person Talking: A surefire way to start a good conversation is to get the other person to talk about something that interests them. Make sure you listen intently, and you will get to know a lot about the person.
• Maintain a Balance: If you want to keep a conversation going, don’t try to dominate it. Give the person plenty of space to talk. On the other hand, you don’t want to be a non-contributor, either.

Improving Your Ability to Communicate

No two people are the same, and there is always room for improvement in your communication skills. Be mindful in your communications and observe not only those you are communicating with but also how you interact with them. This will give you valuable insights for enhancing your conversation skills and improving relationships.

Business intelligence is the term used to refer to any form of technology, practices, and applications which enable and enhance the collection, analysis, integration, and presentation of business data. The main purpose of biz intelligence is to improve business decision making.

Whether your business is small, a start-up, or a global enterprise, you will need tools to enable you to leverage the power of big data. Smaller businesses can now accomplish this thanks to a wide range of available business intelligence tools that can quickly and easily make sense of big data. These software solutions can collect, collate, and convert information into efficient and understandable reports which can give you valuable business insights, which in turn, increases profits.

Best Biz Intelligence Tools

Let’s take a look at some of the best available biz tools for small and large businesses.

Tableau

Tableau by Sisense will help your business to visualize and gain a deeper understanding of information. It also allows you and your partners or colleagues to share data easily using your PC or tablet. Once logged in, users can create a dashboard that will allow them to publish and share information with colleagues. The interface does not require any programming knowledge. You can import data from various sources of information.

Features include:

• Embedded dashboards
• Highlight and feature data
• Data notifications
• Dashboard commenting
• Translate queries to visualizations
• Metadata management

BDxtra

BDxtra by Advisionario is a stand-alone platform which enables team members to create interactive dashboards and web-reports in just a few minutes, without any programming knowledge. This is the only tool you will need to organize project and data reports.

Features include:

• Financial reports
• Marketing reports
• Ad hoc reports
• Graphical data presentation
• Creates alerts
• OLAP

AnswerRocket

AnswerRocket by Answer Rocket was named the cool vendor in analytics by Gartner in 2017. This software solution provides a search-based analytics tool which uses natural language. Users can ask questions in everyday language and get results in just a few seconds. It allows you and your team to make business decisions quickly and efficiently.

Features include:

• Natural language processing
• Chatbot
• Machine learning
• Multi-language
• Predictive analytics
• Virtual assistant

Salesforce

Salesforce by Analytics Cloud is suitable for every business user, no matter what the size of your company. The software enables you to pull together your choice combination of data, procure instant answers and share with your team, quickly and easily from any devices, wherever you are.

Features include:

• Marketing and sales leads
• Communities for sales
• Approvals
• Workflow
• Real-time visibility
• Forecasting

Cyfe

Cyfe is an all-in-one business dashboard you can use to collect and collate data from your existing services such as Google Analytics and Salesforce. You and your team can review real-time information, so you are always ahead of the game. Data can be shared instantly and securely.

Features include:

• Auto email reports
• Business KPIs
• Branded client reports
• Custom visualizations
• Historical data
• Multiple sharing options

SimilarWeb Pro

SimilarWeb Pro is designed for any size business. Use it to extend your website’s reach. As well as keeping track of marketing expansion is will also enable larger companies to record their acquisition and merger activities. The software can produce in-depth data analytics related to the performance of your competitors’ websites.

Features include:

• Competitor website traffic analysis
• Engagement metrics
• Keyword research tool
• See traffic share according to channel
• Visual charts and graphs for KPIs
• Mobile app industry analysis

Clear Analytics

Clear Analytics is designed to help your business retrieve information from multiple sources and record metrics within Microsoft Excel where users can access data and create extensive reports. There’s no need to call on IT professionals because the software will extract all the data for you. Reports are all organized in layers by version, so they are easy to find.

Features include:

• Performance metrics
• Report generation
• Dashboard creation
• KPIs
• Problem Indication
• Predictive analysis

Report Plus

Report Plus enterprise-grade software is designed to enable you to create a centralized record of business metrics which is easy to share with your team. Not only does it provide users with real-time dashboards and interactive reports, but it also allows them to choose from more than 30 visualization types, to inform data-driven business decisions.

• Broad Variety of Integrations
• Real-Time Data
• Deployment Concierge
• KPIs
• Metrics
• Revenue and Profitability

If you’re not already, you should be using biz intelligence software. The benefits far outweigh the investment you will have to make. It can enable your business to garner information, so you can resolve business conflicts, affect growth, collect and analyze marketing data quicker, and anticipate future outcomes. This way, you can always be at least one step ahead of your competitors.

The roots of meditation travel back to ancient times. Scripts dating back some 5,000 years, known as the tantras, refer to several different forms of meditation. Yet meditation is not only an ancient spiritual practice; it is popular today as a contemporary mind-body technique used for completely calming the mind, relaxing, and re-energizing the body. Recent studies have also shown that is it effective in the prevention and treatment of a host of illnesses and diseases including cardiovascular disease, the management of chronic pain, fibromyalgia, coronary artery disease, stress reduction and hypertension, prevention of psychotic episodes in schizophrenia as well as anxiety, depression, and insomnia.

Why Meditate?

Mediation is sustenance for the mind and body. Buddhist sutras refer to Samadhi as food. Samadhi means contemplation or meditation. Meditation can give you a mental and physical boost when your energy is depleted and can put your body’s energies back in sync to prevent illness and disease. Meditation is a very beneficial practice, particularly in our fast-paced world of increasing stress and anxiety, poor diet, disease, and environmental toxins.

Meditation and EEG

Electroencephalograph (EEG) recordings taken of experienced meditators (people with more than ten years of training and practice), during meditation sessions show interesting changes in brain wave patterns compared to the normal waking state. During meditation, there occurs a significant rise in gamma wave activity to a range between 80-120 Hz. The participants also showed increased gamma activity when not meditating but merely at rest. This means that this type of mental training can increase the possibility for experienced meditators to control certain neurological functions.

Meditation and the Brain

Andrew Newberg, a radiologist at the University of Pennsylvania, conducted a study examining the effects of meditation on Buddhist monks’ brains.

Newberg and his team used brain imaging to measure the changes in the monks’ brains after they had been meditation for one hour. Once the monks had reached a transcendental state, they were instructed to pull a string that released a radioactive tracer into their bloodstream. This enabled scientists to watch the dye move to the active parts of the brain. Once the subjects had finished meditating, the initial image was compared to one of their brain during normal waking state.

The study revealed that during meditation, in the brain there is an increase in activity towards the front of the brain, which is the area responsible for focus and concentration. There was also a marked decrease in activity towards the rear of the brain; the area responsible for orientation. This may indicate a reduction of spatial awareness during meditation

In a study designed by conducted by Maura Paul-Labrador, M.P.H, and colleagues from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles, coronary heart disease (CHD) patients received a sixteen-week training course in transcendental meditation. As a comparison, a second group received only instructions on how to maintain their health. The study was designed to see what effects, if any, meditation would have on risk factors associated with CHD such as high blood pressure, abdominal obesity, high cholesterol levels, and insulin resistance.

Significant positive changes were noted in the blood samples of the group using transcendental meditation. These included; lower blood pressure, an improvement in fasting levels of insulin and glucose and an overall improvement in digestive functions. These results suggest that transcendental meditation helps reduce the symptoms of CHD by reducing stress levels.

Finding a Perfect Space

If you want to improve your health and quality of life by meditating, you need to find the best place to do it. Whether you opt to meditate indoors or outdoors, there are benefits to both. The key factor here is to find a comfortable space where you will not be disturbed. Do your best to steer clear of distractions, such as the television or phone; interruptions will definitely get in the way of your meditation session.

Let it All Go

The key to meditation is relaxing and letting all your concerns slip away. One option for getting started is to consider some progressive relaxation techniques, relaxing slowly, one body part at a time until the tension has melted away.

Focus on your Flow of Breath

Inhale and exhale consciously and deeply through your nose. At the same time, pay attention to the flow of your breathing. If you are having trouble concentrating, it may be easier to use a mantra such as “om.” Alternatively, you could try counting down from 10 to 1 as you breathe deeply.

Silence your Mind

This is the one part of meditation that people find most difficult, but it doesn’t have to be. The best way to start is not to try and empty your mind completely, but to slow down your thinking so that you can focus on just one thing at a time. After mastering this technique, you may find it quite easy to slip into a meditative state and reap the benefits of this mindful practice.

You may have been nursing your unique idea for a business for years, or it may be something that came to you in a sudden burst of inspiration. Either way, if you have a solid idea and you’re determined to get it up and running, then there are a number of steps that you need to go through. Here are some pointers to help you take your business idea from concept to business plan and beyond.

Fine Tune Your Idea

You’ve come up with an idea that meshes with your strengths, passions, and goals. The next step is to flesh out your idea. You may find that your initial idea changes quite significantly, so don’t be too possessive over it. Give it room to grow and transform.

Talk it Over

It’s a good idea to talk your business idea through with someone who is business savvy. Perhaps you have a mentor or a friend who is already running his or her own business. These people would make the perfect sounding board, and you could end up coming away with some great advice. You could also consider talking it over with potential customers in your target range and see what they think.

Consider it From Every Angle

Think about your business idea from the perspective of an investor. Be objective and analytical. Consider who your target customers are and what they really need. How big of an opportunity is there for you in this niche and is the timing right? Make a list of all the steps it will take to execute your business plan and assess if the payoff is worth the risk involved. Also, think about what type of business plan you’re going to utilize.

Get Plenty of Feedback

Talk to people who are familiar with the market and the type of business model which you intend to use – people who have this type of experience can help you understand what works and what doesn’t out there in the business world. You cannot do enough research before laying out your business plan.

Take Your Feedback Onboard

Don’t just ignore feedback, especially if it was not what you wanted to hear. Use it to make wise changes to your business plan and your go-to-market strategy. Make sure that you crunch some numbers so that you can develop an idea of how much you need to invest in key milestones. Now’s the time to decide who you need on your team to help you put this plan into practice.

Come up With a Minimalist Product or Service

In your mind, picture your product or service in its simplest form. Strip it down to the very basics that your customers need: the minimal requirements. This exercise will help you to build a prototype. Once you’ve got the basic model designed, go ahead and make it as quickly and inexpensively as you can. You can add a full set of features later.

Start Selling

You don’t have to wait until your product is 100 percent perfect before you open shop. Once you have it out there on the market, you will be able to listen to customer feedback and see where tweaks and improvements need to be made. This will give you a greater ability to react to customers quickly and upgrade your product as you go along. The key is to get your core product to market as quickly as you can.

Test Your Products

Now you have products in the marketplace; you can try to make them a better match for what your target customers need. For example, you can test different elements such as optional features, pricing, and branding features. Then you can search for a cost-effective way to draw customers by experimenting with sales pitches, promotions, marketing campaigns, and distribution channels. Once you have your results in, you can see which ones are most effective.

Don’t let the Process Stagnate

Now you’ve learned which aspects of your branding and marketing you need to change, fix them as quickly as possible. But you will have also gotten some things right, and obviously, you will want to leave those as they are.

Prepare for Expansion

Now is the time to update your business plan and gather all the resources you need to grow. Start raising capital if you need to. Pitch to investors, start crowdfunding, whichever path you choose, now is the time to do it.

Speed Up Your Start-Up

At this point, you have a market-tested business plan and resources at the ready. You should be ready to expand. Make sure your whole team is on board, and you’re all in line with the same goals.

Following these steps can help you move your business from concept to plan to reality.

Effective communication is essential for your business to succeed. Not only does it transform the way your team works together, but it also reduces in-house conflicts and redundancies. If you communicate effectively, your employees will like you and will listen to you. So, what is effective communication and how do you develop it?

What is Communication?

Communication involves the exchange of information and the method used to make this exchange. In a company, whether it’s a small business or a global corporation, communication is the means by which people exchange information about various business operations. Maximum effectiveness of communication within any organization is very desirable. Here are the elements of effective organizational communication. It is necessary for it to be:

• Verifiably factual: Optimal communication is comprised of information that is completely factually correct.
• One hundred percent complete: It must express absolutely every important piece of information that needs to be said.
• Completely accurate: As well as being complete, communication must be completely accurate.
• Well-targeted: The information you are communicating must be aimed at the right group of people within your organization.
• Easy to understand: You must organize the information so that the people who are listening to it do not need to spend a lot of time processing it to understand it.
• Timely: The information you are conveying must be passed on at the right time.

Why Effective Communication is Vital for Your Business

Ineffective communication can cause all sorts of issues within your company. Workplace risks, incoherent policies, and under-performance are just a few. Optimal communication is key for decision-making and for allowing the flow of back and forth communication through your organization’s vertical channels.

A further benefit of effective communication is that it assists with cross-departmental coordination. This enables your organization to not only have a highly efficient system, but also one which is optimally collaborative, so that all your departments, be they marketing, HR, admin or acquisitions, are all aiming for the same goals.

Strategies for Developing the Most Effective Communication

Here are some measures to help you develop more effective communication throughout your company.

1. Make the most of multiple channels

By using more than one communication channel, you can establish exchanges of information that might not happen otherwise.

2. Improve two-way feedback

Nurture a positive environment and a sense of mutual respect by asking for and giving feedback throughout your organization.

3. Keep the steps to communication short

By making it easy for intra-communications to take place at and between all levels, you ensure improved fidelity in the exchange of information.

4. Be mindful of clarity

Encourage an organizational culture that always aims for sensitivity to the needs of the recipient of the information.

Strategies to Make You an Strong Communicator

If you introduce these tactics into your daily routine, they can help you become a more effective communicator.

1. Lead by example

Practicing what you preach goes a long way in the business world. If you always deliver on your promises, people will follow you because they trust you, so it always pays to be genuine and honest.

2. Keep it simple

Don’t over-inform your team. Too much information just causes confusion. Simply say what you mean; in the world of communication, less is always more.

3. Be authentic

Always strive to be the best version of yourself that you can be. Be who you are, and your team will know you are expressing yourself honestly.

4. Be here now

Always be present. That doesn’t mean that you can’t take a break from work from time to time, but when you are working on planning and strategy, be focused and be visible to your team. Make sure your presence does not go unnoticed. Always allow people a chance to see you around the company.

5. Leave your door open

Make sure that your team members feel they can talk to you when they need to. If you can’t leave your door open all the time, then schedule a time at least once a week when you can. That way your team will know that they can count on you.

6. Encourage self-improvement

Every time a member of your workforce learns a new skill, it’s better for your company as a whole. Many companies support continued education within or outside of the workplace. If you can’t support your employee’s self-improvement financially, at least try to maintain a little flexibility with their schedules.

7. Support vacation time

The last thing you need is a workforce that is burned out and unproductive. To make sure this never happens, be supportive of vacation time. Your team will be much more productive and creative if they are well-rested and refreshed.

Remember, improving your communication skills and strategies can make for a more productive workforce and more loyal employees.