The importance of conversations

29/01/13

Recently published by our business coach partner, Rasheed Ogunlaru, 'Soul Trader - Putting the Heart Back into Your Business' helps entrepreneurs follow their passion and build a business you and your customers will love.

This is the fifth in a series of 8 articles sharing tips and insight from the books main principles.

Rasheed runs the Your life, your business workshop in the Centre.

Conversations

“The right word at the right time will unlock the door to treasures - the wrong one will close it forever”

Everything you do, say and present is a conversation or the opportunity for a conversation: what you say at a networking event, your website, your business card, your use (or mis-use of social media), what you say at a meeting or event. All of these things are an opportunity to engage.

The problem is that in all the noise of the busy-ness of life and the business most communications are not:

Clear and simple enough for people to grasp understand immediately
Relevant enough – for it to appeal or for us to notice of
Compelling enough – to make us act.

Getting it right

The secret is to ensure everything you say and do is clear, crisp, concise and compelling. So the first thing I want you to do is to look at your website, marketing materials and see if they pass that test.

Let’s home in on face communications. A huge number of people ramble or use jargon. If you do this then you are wasting your time and that of others. You could have the best product in the world but unless you can connect with people clearly and simply you will not win the business.

Customer conversion is dependent on the right customer conversation

In order for this to happen you first need to build:

Rapport
Respect
Respect
Relationship
Reciprocity

Who you gonna call?

So now based on this:

Identify 10 potential pieces of business from contacts, clients, your network etc.
What’s in it for them (and / or their network) and what would be the ideal win-win?
Consider the best time, way, means to approach them.

Every career or business opportunity I’ve had has come from a conversation. It is a skill and an art that can be developed over time. But much of the key to this is having something apt to say, share, show and of service.

Find out more about Rasheed and Soul Trader - Putting the Heart Back into Your Business