5 Communication Rules I Live By

Never before have we had so many ways to communicate with each other. The number of channels we can use to convey a message keeps growing and we can choose between email, Slack, Salesforce, Whatsapp, Google docs. Oh, shoot, did I forget posting to Trello too? But, somehow all these ways of communicating have tripped us up and slowed us down. Instead of truly enabling us to become more effective, all these tools have overloaded us with chatter. If you’re like me, you’re constantly trying to research how to save time and communicate more effectively. But you’ve probably noticed how all the online tips and hints about “effective communications” are focused on public speaking or running productive meetings. What about some tips for communicating effectively during the other 95% of your day?

Here’s our template for communicating better everyday to get more sh*t done — whether it’s organizing a roadtrip with a group of friends or motivating your team to finally finish that presentation before an important meeting.

1. Select the medium by dynamic and frequency. Every group of people you interact with have a different dynamic and rhythm. By picking the right medium for each group, you can make the conversation flow so much better. Below are the groups I speak with the most and how we interact.

• Family & Friends — We rely heavily on group chats (mostly Whatsapp) because the dynamic is fairly intimate and casual with short comments and responses. The rhythm isn’t regular or predictable because there’s a different comfort level with interrupting each other’s days, wherever we are in the world.
• Colleagues
• We use Slack for long thread chats, because the dynamic is often real-time but not necessarily time-sensitive so we can develop ideas and go back to the stream of group consciousness.
• We use Whatsapp when something is time-sensitive and want something to show up as a text for our team. Generally, the conversation dynamic here is more fun and company culture related (“at a coffee place, who wants coffee/donuts?”), though we also use it for any mid-night crisis when we need to wake up our engineering team in Tel Aviv.
• Email we reserve for more complex (and polished) thoughts or tasks that need to be completed since most people use their inbox as a default to-do list. The frequency here allows for less time-sensitive or weekly updates.
• Skype and Google Hangout is used across our team on a daily basis because it allows for a more personal connections between individuals and teams who are often working across continents. The timing here can be either scheduled and regular or can be more time-sensitive if a solution to a challenge needs to be hashed out in real-time.
• Finally, I use Asana and Trello to keep track of to-do lists or allow for more project tracking when the communications are one-on-one and not time-sensitive.
• Partners and external groups (i.e. investors, journalists, vendors, affiliates)
• I use Mobilize mailing lists and group messages a ton with these groups of people because I often want to package news for them in a regular cadence (weekly, quarterly, etc.) like big announcements or product updates and track our interactions over time.
• SMS is used just when the dynamic is one-on-one and more time-sensitive with my closest partners.
• While our internal teams are always synced on a variety of activities, I use shared calendars to keep our partners aware of major milestones, events or deadlines without interrupting their day or becoming too intrusive.
• Customers
• We use Intercom to communicate with our customers who we wish to support through various dynamics, including inbound inquiries, one-on-one conversations and communications we want to archive for future use. Customer communications are most often immediate, so use the tools and platforms that allow for this type of conversation.
• Newsletters are a great communication vehicle we use regularly to convey broader messages to multiple parties in a regular cadence.

2. Include a CTA in every communication. Sometimes people get used to hearing about calls to action (CTA) in the business setting and more specifically with marketing efforts. But honestly — CTAs should be used with everyone you communicate with daily. Think about what action you want people to take and make your ASK the equivalent of a giant button on a landing page.

3. Highlight what’s in it for them. Make your communications relatable and focus on why someone should work with you. How would they benefit from taking action? For example, with your brand ambassadors highlight how they’ll benefit from organizing a successful event. They’ll support you as a company; however they’ll gain the professional prestige associated.

4. Make it easy for people to act. We all like to do things the easy way. So when you’re trying to drive impact through others, give them all the necessary information in the simplest possible way so they can act immediately. For example, do you want your manager to approve the plan your team sent along a week ago? Add the plan document as an attachment again but clarify the fewest number of questions possible in the body of the email, so they can reply in-line immediately. Or if you want your investors, team or advisors to provide an intro to someone, write out an email they can easily forward along with one click.

5. Track, remind and repeat. Nudge, nudge, nudge. if someone didn’t reply to you, think of the most appropriate timing to remind them. Sometimes people really want to help you but they got the message when they were driving, in a meeting or on vacation and then forgot about it. Use software that allows you to track opened emails — WhatsApp, Messenger, Mobilize and Boomerang all enable this — so you can see who saw your message and didn’t manage to reply. Be caring in your nudging, but nudge away.

You likely have endless ideas and goals you’d like to share with others and communication shouldn’t be your barrier to realizing them. At Mobilize, we’re obsessed with helping you communicate them more effectively across different groups of people to drive action. It’s why we developed a platform to help facilitate communication across and within various scattered groups of people. We designed our platform to integrate best practices in one seamless communication workflow so you can communicate more easily with everyone through the mediums that make the most sense (i.e., text, email, event invite). We also help automate and personalize messages so you’ll likely be successful in spite of your worst efforts.

Again, communicating effectively can be difficult given all the mediums, groups of people and content we’re trying to drive action around. However, with some more careful thought around how to ask for help and convey clear messages, you will likely start teaching others how to communicate more effectively. And maybe even get your team to finalize that proposal, without too many nudges or meetings in between.