Why informal communication styles work

For years, experts have been telling us it is essential to adopt a formal, professional communication style. But I believe it is way more powerful to drop the formality and add some humanity back into communication.

As independent business owners, we spend lots of our time interacting with all sorts of people,including clients, suppliers and consultants. Our interactions can be in person, on the telephone, by email or even SMS.

If you do some reading on the subject, you’ll quickly find the predominant school of thought is that all communication must be 'professional', and that if it’s not, you risk damaging your reputation or credibility.

Part of communicating professionally, it seems, is keeping our language and sentence structure formal, using important sounding words and not letting anyone in on the big secret: that we are actually real people.

For example, saying: “Please le us know at your earliest convenience if this appointment is suitable”, rather than: “If this doesn’t work for you, just give me a call and we’ll work out another time”.

The first is cold, bland, and sounds like a business with no soul. The second sounds warm, friendly and actually feels like the sender wants a personal relationship with you.

At the risk of flying in the face of conventional wisdom, I believe our status as solopreneurs gives us a huge advantage over bigger businesses. We can take the opportunity to let our real selves shine through in our communications, and in the process we can differentiate ourselves from our competitors. There are a few of the big guys that do warm communication well. If you are a Virgin customer, you’ll know that they excel at friendly and fun communications.

The reality is that people really notice and appreciate the difference between the two. I can’t count the number of times that clients have mentioned how much they appreciate my relaxed style and sense of humour.

So take a look at the messages you are sending out. Do they need to be rewritten in plain conversational English? Are the icicles dripping off the pages of your emails and letters, or is the hearth warm and inviting?

After all –who wants to sound big, bland and corporate like everybody else? Leave that to those who think it’s important, although why they do escapes me!

Megan Tough runs Complete Potential, a company that helps businesses solve their strategy and people problems. She loves being a solopreneur, and when she doesn't have her nose to the grindstone, is fulfilling her other passion of fitness and health.

7 comments | Add your own

I don't write letters - I write memo's to my clients. Just like the old office memo, complete with layout.
If it's GST(BAS) time, I ask for "their GST stuff". If it's tax time, I ask for their tax bits. The newsletter I write, well, I don't think it would win any professional writing awards, but it goes on each month on parakeet green paper, and most feedback I get is that the clients sit down and read it over a cuppa. My job is to communicate tax stuff to clients, and client stuff to IRD(ATO). I make sure that I use the appropriate language of the receiver, otherwise I just have to keep repeating myself.
Denise Maffey CA from Kumeu
Megan
absolutely right. And BTW, flying in the face of conventional wisdom is nearly always a good idea. Karen Morath from Melbourne | Read my articles
This a common argument I have with a number of my peers - some arguing that people won't take me seriously with this communication approach. I think the relaxed and humorous style of communication is very effective. I honestly do want to have a more personal relationship with the people I am dealing with and I don't want to be seen as the "salesman". I have had to deal with many "sales" type personalities in the past and I would rather scratch my nails down a blackboard than have to deal with them. Kylie Garner, Kreative Media from Mount Isa
I agree entirely Megan. People buy people. And I actually like the people I do business with, so for me a more informal style is natural. My golden rule is if I can't relate to a client as a person, I won't do business with them. Simon Smith, www.southerncrosscoaching.com.au from Sydney
It doesn't matter how well you do in the rat race - you're still a rat! As soloists, we have chosen to be treated as individuals and adults, so why shouldn't we be nice and relaxed with others?
Grant Hyman from Sydney | Read my articles
After 20 years as a training design consultant, it is the real joy of my work to find and build new client relationships. Think of it as "collecting" people. At the end of my work life, it will be the people I served and collected as friends that will measure my success. Jack Mateffy, www.trainingtogoinc.com from Minneapolis
this article is very interesting because communication is changing these day because of technology and that's no way of dealing with the problem. Grace T from Queensland

7 comments | Add your own

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