5 communication tips that will build trust and strengthen all your business relationships

To build real trust between yourself and your clientele, customers or prospects, there’s nothing better than good, honest communication. Communications expert and former editor of Flying Solo, Kelly Exeter, shares her five top tips for effective communication that build trust with your clients, every time you contact them.

Trust is at the heart of every great relationship, and in business, there are few things more important.

When your clients trust you, they have more confidence in you, which has all kinds of positive flow-on benefits for your business. They will send you more work themselves. They will recommend you to others. And when there is a need for grace – like when you’re unable to deliver on a promise – they’ll be willing to offer that to you in spades.

What’s one key thing that allows you to build great relationships with your clients?

Great communication.

Top tips to build trust through your communications

Some of us are naturally better communicators than others, and can build trust more quickly and easily. But, for those who aren’t, never fear; communication is like any other skill. If you put in the work, you will get better at it.

Here are five tips to get you on your way:

1. Care about communication

There’s no way to escape this fact: communicating well takes more work than communicating poorly.

It’s very easy to dash off a quick and thoughtless reply to someone, or send an email with no consideration for the tone you’re ‘speaking’ in. And so easy to speak tersely to someone because you’re irritated. It’s harder to take an extra minute to add an appropriate salutation and sign off and proof something you’ve written before pressing ‘send’, or take a deep breath to reduce your irritation.

I always find it interesting when people tell me, ‘I just don’t have the time to pay that kind of attention to what I say and write’. Because whether they realise it or not, what they’re really saying is, ‘I just don’t care enough’.

When you take the time to care about what you say and how you say it, you’ll find yourself immediately ahead of the people who don’t.

2. Choose your medium carefully

We all know the written word can lack tone. This means that when you communicate via email or text, you should carefully check your words before sending.

When tone is super important, it’s almost always better to pick up the phone and use your voice. Or, if a phone call isn’t possible, send someone an audio message.

When you get tone wrong in written communication, the receiver can get so hung up on ‘how they’ve been spoken to’ they miss the critical detail of what you’re trying to tell them.

3. Follow up in writing

While a conversation held in person or over the phone is always better for tone and situations where nuance is important, it’s critical that you follow up that conversation with a written summary of what was said. Especially if the conversation was one that led to an agreement, an expectation or an action.

Few things hurt the trust between two parties more than a verbal ‘promise’ made but not followed through on … and the ‘but you said’ situations that tend to arise out of that.

4. Practice emotional control

When things go south and you find yourself having an emotional reaction to something, this can be a make-or-break communication scenario. Remember, true character isn’t shown in how we behave when things are going well for us; it’s how we behave when things are not to our liking.

The damage you can do in a two-minute phone call can erase years of trust-building, so you should never call someone when you’re angry, upset or hurt. Instead, take yourself for a walk or vent verbally to someone with no skin in the game. (Someone with skin in the game will likely escalate your feelings, not defuse them.) When you’re calm enough to make the call, make some notes and be crystal-clear about the outcome you’re seeking from the conversation, before you pick up the phone.

If you’re tempted to communicate your displeasure about something via email, I absolutely encourage you to write the email! Putting how you feel into writing can be hugely therapeutic. BUT … the key here is that you shouldn’t actually send the email. Yet. Sit on it overnight and read it over again the following morning. Chances are, there’s a fair bit you would change.

If the email really has to go that same day, make sure you give it to someone less emotionally involved to read over and edit before sending.

5. Listen to understand, rather than reply

Too many communication breakdowns come because we’re listening to reply – we’re focused on what we’re going to say to dispute the other person’s position, or tell them they’re ‘wrong’.

Most people simply want to feel ‘heard’, especially when they’re communicating something the other person doesn’t want to hear. You activate empathy when you dial down your desire to reply and actually hear what the other person is saying. This leads to the person on the other end of the conversation feeling like their position is understood. You don’t have to agree with someone’s position for them to feel understood. You just need to hear what they’re saying. And when you do, a difficult conversation can become immeasurably easier.

We all prefer to do business with people we know, like and trust. Unfortunately, trust can take years to build, seconds or minutes to break, and forever to repair. You will never regret the time you invest in caring about and delivering good communication. But you might regret the time you don’t.

This article originally appeared on Flying Solo, read the original here. 

Want more? Get our newsletter delivered straight to your inbox! Follow Kochie’s Business Builders on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn.