effective communications

Note: This article originally appeared in the September 2020 issue of the Association for Women in Communications monthly newsletter, Communique. It is used here with permission. Interested in learning about AWC? Visit womcom.org We’ve all heard the term “Elevator Pitch,” that 30-second commercial that we provide when we meet new people at business events. That…

For 21 years I’ve led a team of what in our pandemic world has been dubbed “remote workers.” I am not a huge fan of that word, since I don’t believe it accurately describes the kind of collaborative work we do. But I do value it as a creative way to deliver great service to…

What was your favorite subject of study in school? English, perhaps or science? Maybe it was math. No matter the subject, we all shared in the excitement of school in one way or another and often found ourselves, especially with college courses, reading the catalog description to try and glean exactly what the course we…

Whether it’s reaching prospects with your sales and marketing messages, communicating with customers or vendors, creating a communications plan, or targeting the media with your press releases, knowing your audience matters. Asking some questions upfront will help you do a better job of reaching the right audience with your message. Who do we want to…

Questions. So many careers depend on them: sales people, doctors, nurses, teachers, journalists, attorneys — the list goes on and on. I’ve written before about the importance of asking questions. As professional communicators, my team and I find that our work often depends on questions. When speaking to a reporter who wants to contact a…

Everyone has had difficulty communicating with someone. In those moments, you may have thought, “Are we speaking the same language?” Whether that literally means the actual language (in the case of perhaps speaking to a person from another country) or being a matter of personal communication style, we wouldn’t be human if we didn’t face…

Do you wish there were days when your employees were doing a better job of communicating with you, each other and your customers? Communication plays a big role in our business success. Whether it’s asking customers the right questions or effectively getting our point across in a meeting, or even posting to social media, very…

Ever been in a meeting when you felt someone was being aggressive in making their point or trying to get their way? The answer is probably yes. Did that make you feel like you were being bullied? Perhaps, but at the very least it was probably uncomfortable. May I suggest a different approach? How about…

When you’re a parent with a young child, it may seem like the questions are never-ending. Why? What? How? In business, it’s not so different. We need to ask our customers questions so we understand how to better give them service or provide the product they want. I wrote about this topic last year, but…

I’ve written about the telephone before, but it seems to me now that people mostly use their phones for texting, not actually talking. In fact, 32% of people prefer texting to talking. This is especially true for Millennials — 75% of them choose texting over phone calls. But I can think of one good very…