Are Your Communication Skills All About Electronics or The Message?
by Valerie Sokolosky Saturday, May 01, 2010
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An author and executive coach, Valerie Sokolosky is a Certified Master Personal Brand Strategist who started Valerie & Company, a Dallas based international leadership development firm in 1981. Since then, she has become known as the expert in her field of strategic personal branding and professional presence.
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At a recent communications conference, the speaker asked how many of the attendees used BlackBerries? Hands shot up. “How many of you use Twitter?” came the next question. “How about FaceBook?” Again hands – at least every other person’s – waved in the air.
Obviously, the audience had become adept in social networking and the associated electronics. But, then came the question, “How many of you communicate effectively?”
The room became quiet and only a few hesitant hands went into the air.
Personal Branding is all about exuding your brand effectively to your brand community. If you communicate with clients, vendors, team members and/or management, it’s not about how instantaneous your communications are. It’s all about how clearly and concisely you send your messages...and once received, if the message is clearly and concisely understood.
And even with cell phones, hand-helds of every description and the Internet...management across the country continues to place poor communication at the top of their list of challenges. Here are the results from a recent corporate survey to encourage us all to evaluate the quality of our communications:
* 85 percent said their business has lost money due to ineffective presentations, proposals or e-mail.
* 55 percent said employees could not easily find information they needed.
* 45 percent said information for business use is either inaccurate, incomplete or out of date.
* 44 percent said information they use often lacked adequate detail.
* 44 percent said an average of 30 minutes to an hour was wasted each day due to ineffective written communications within the company.
Be careful. Today’s electronic communications are far superior to anything we’ve ever known – and using these wisely can only move the level of our communications up and even beyond. But, as we employ these electronic tools to stay in touch with clients or as a resource in order to achieve a higher performance level, let us not forget the importance of language and writing skills...the basics of communications for all of us.
An author and executive coach, Valerie Sokolosky is a Certified Master Personal Brand Strategist who started Valerie & Company, a Dallas based international leadership development firm in 1981. Since then, she has become known as the expert in her field of strategic personal branding and professional presence. Valerie’s engaging style ignites the spark of enthusiasm in professionals to create a strong presence and personal brand that differentiates them and creates greater success for themselves, their teams and their organizations.
Obviously, the audience had become adept in social networking and the associated electronics. But, then came the question, “How many of you communicate effectively?”
The room became quiet and only a few hesitant hands went into the air.
Personal Branding is all about exuding your brand effectively to your brand community. If you communicate with clients, vendors, team members and/or management, it’s not about how instantaneous your communications are. It’s all about how clearly and concisely you send your messages...and once received, if the message is clearly and concisely understood.
And even with cell phones, hand-helds of every description and the Internet...management across the country continues to place poor communication at the top of their list of challenges. Here are the results from a recent corporate survey to encourage us all to evaluate the quality of our communications:
* 85 percent said their business has lost money due to ineffective presentations, proposals or e-mail.
* 55 percent said employees could not easily find information they needed.
* 45 percent said information for business use is either inaccurate, incomplete or out of date.
* 44 percent said information they use often lacked adequate detail.
* 44 percent said an average of 30 minutes to an hour was wasted each day due to ineffective written communications within the company.
Be careful. Today’s electronic communications are far superior to anything we’ve ever known – and using these wisely can only move the level of our communications up and even beyond. But, as we employ these electronic tools to stay in touch with clients or as a resource in order to achieve a higher performance level, let us not forget the importance of language and writing skills...the basics of communications for all of us.
An author and executive coach, Valerie Sokolosky is a Certified Master Personal Brand Strategist who started Valerie & Company, a Dallas based international leadership development firm in 1981. Since then, she has become known as the expert in her field of strategic personal branding and professional presence. Valerie’s engaging style ignites the spark of enthusiasm in professionals to create a strong presence and personal brand that differentiates them and creates greater success for themselves, their teams and their organizations.
Recognized internationally, she is a sought after executive coach – having received the highly acclaimed position of vetted coach for several of the big four financial firms as well as for Women’s Leadership Exchange.
Over the last two decades Valerie’s firm has received front-page press coverage in the Wall Street Journal and is a respected resource for a number of national publications including Washington Post and Glamour Magazine. She recently served in a leadership advisory role as Publisher for Women’s Enterprise national news magazine and was monthly contributor for ten years to Southwest Airlines Spirit Magazine.
Valerie’s 8th book - Do It Right – is listed as a best seller on Amazon.