Personalize Your Communication

I remember many years ago working in a pro sports press box, and routinely hearing a public relations staffer answer a reporter’s question with, “It’s in the notes.”  Essentially he was wanting them to look up the information themselves rather than just tell them the answer.

Too many times, especially in the electronic and technology age, we want to de-personalize our communication with people.

“Just text me.”
“I’ll email it to you.”
“That’s on the website.”
“Go look it up on YouTube.”

There are so many phrases like this that we utter, likely without even realizing how dismissive we’re actually being.

Here’s a radical concept – Why not just talk to the person on the phone or face-to-face and work together through the conversation?

To use a phone term, ‘transferring’ someone to somewhere other than your live, in-person conversation is essentially telling them, “You’re not important enough to me to spend the time giving you the information you want.”

Now, there is another side to this too.

Some people like to hide behind email or text message.  Oddly, it’s as if they feel some degree of anonymity, although my opinion is that their courage level changes when they’re texting or writing an email versus talking on the phone or in person.

In this day and age of networking being as popular as drinking coffee, how people can contradict that by wanting to do everything from behind a screen (laptop, tablet, phone) is beyond me.  Right about now someone is wanting to play the introvert card, but I don’t buy it.

Trust me when I say that the biggest deals that are getting done out there are not coming to fruition without some face-to-face meetings and person-to-person phone calls.  As someone who spends a considerable amount of time at networking events, Chamber meetings, membership groups, in professional development sessions, on-site with my clients, and just generally being out and about, I practice what I preach.  In fact, I wish I had more time to sit at my desk.

If you’re uneasy reading this because it describes you and your comfort zone, just be reminded of it not only the next time you find yourself referring someone to your website for information they’re asking for, but the next time you don’t get a deal done.  You know, the one you’ve traded so many texts or emails about.