Here's an example of poor communication skills. On route 95 just south of Fredericksburg, Virginia, I pulled off the road at a rest stop. As I walked up the path on the way to liberating the Diet Coke I bought in Bealeton, I saw a display in front of the bathroom that spelled out “LOVE” in large white letters. No wonder George Michael got in trouble at a rest stop. What kind of message is this? What kind of behavior is the state of Virginia encouraging by the side of an interstate. Wouldn't a better message have been “LEAK”? As in take one here.
Effective communication is conveying or receiving information in the most efficient manner. The sign outside the rest stop fails the efficiency test – not to mention the laugh test. Our objective is to transfer meaningful information between people. There are three methods of business communication: in person meetings, telephone communication, and e-mail or electronic communication. Of the three methods, how do you decide which medium is appropriate for your message? Deciding on the medium requires an evaluation of a number of criteria. Those criteria are time sensitivity or immediacy, volume of information, and the degree of interaction necessary. Let's evaluate each of the communication methods.
You might notice one obvious criterion I didn't include in the list – impersonality. I hate to go all age discrimination on you, but our children and grandchildren just don't believe electronic communications, like texting, are impersonal. Go back to when the telephone was just becoming ubiquitous. Our grandparents griped that the telephone was removing the personal touch from communications. Now our parents, and some of us, complain that e-mail is impersonal. Our children disagree. They'll text close friends before calling. You can't get much more intimate than sexting. I'm not recommending sexting, unless you're really cute and younger then thirty. Then my number is …. In reality, I'm not that attracted to twenty-somethings. What would we talk about afterward, if you get my drift. To date, my mid-life crisis has included neither a Corvette nor a blond twenty-something. If you have a suggestion for my mid-life crisis, let me know.
In person meetings are the ultimate in immediacy. You can exchange information on a real time basis. There is constant interaction and you can convey meaning not only verbally but by body language and non-verbal cues. I pretty much insist on meeting new clients in person. I read potential clients to determine if we're a good fit. Do I get the feeling they are honest? Do they ask me how aggressive I am? Here's a hint for you. CPA's all know the meaning of the aggressive question. What it really means is, “Will you cheat for me and not let me know? So I can deny it later.” Aggressive is code for cheat.
While meetings are extremely efficient for exchanging information, they are not at all time efficient. For a meeting to work, first of all, the participants have to be available at the same time. They also have to prepare the information to be exchanged in advance. If one participant isn't prepared for a subject or line of conversation, the meeting becomes inefficient or fails. Meetings are only good for exchanging information known by all the participants at the time of the meeting. If the meeting goes down an unexpected path, for which no one is prepared, the information exchange dies.
For example, during a tax meeting, if I find out a client has started a new business and I have no chance to ask for the business income and expenses in advance, the meeting fails. We are not able to exchange all the information necessary to complete the tax return. Much of the meeting is wasted.
Telephone calls have some of the same advantages of meetings. Information exchange is immediate. The volume of information that can be exchanged is similar. The key advantage telephone calls have over meetings is geographical. The participants don't have to be located in the same place at the same time. Unfortunately, they do all have to be available at the same time – thus the term phone tag.
A key, and regularly overlooked, similarity with in-person meetings is the necessity of advance preparation for an effective telephone call. I refer to telephone calls as ambush meetings. One side has an agenda for which the other side is ignorant and unprepared. Here is how conversations unwind with tax clients, who insist on only telephone contact.
First, three rounds of phone tag. Then...
Me - “Jack, I have some questions for your tax returns.”
Jack - “Fire away, Frank.”
Me - “How much did you pay in personal property taxes on your car last year?”
Jack - “Well Frank, I am in my car circling the beltway. How can you expect me to have that number handy? I'll have to call you back from a land line.”
After three more rounds of phone tag, I might get my answer. Telephone calls are horribly time inefficient. They are the black holes of time management. Before e-mail, our practice spent one third more time preparing half of the tax returns we prepare now. The reason is communication efficiency. This past week, I have had five phone conversations with three brothers, and I still don't have one bit of information with which to prepare their tax returns.
Telephones are moron machines. They encourage the illusion of working as opposed to actually getting work done. For a few years, I had a client in the environmental consulting industry, who was an action junkie. He spent all day every day on the telephone. He described every call as urgent and very important, excusing himself from meetings to take calls from God knows who. After ten years in business, he was barely able to take even a small salary, and the company continued to borrow to stay operating. All of that urgency and action, and nothing important ever got accomplished.
The next time you reach for the moron maker, ask yourself the following:
1. What information am I trying to obtain or convey?
2. Is the exchange of that information really time sensitive?
3. When I reach the other party, will he be prepared to give or receive
the information I am trying to exchange?
If you can't answer yes to #2 and #3, step away from that cell phone. Using a cell phone in public used to be a sign of status. Now it is a pathetic statement that every time the boss man calls, you jump. Yes massah. If you are in sales, you can pretty much ignore all of the above rant. The telephone is your life – better yours than mine.
Electronic communications, like e-mail and texting, solve the problem of participants all being available at the same time. However, the solution comes at the price of immediacy. With e-mail, you have no idea if the other side is listening. E-mail would be a horrible medium for a 9-1-1 emergency service. Imagine e-mailing an ambulance service that you're having a heart attack.
On the other hand, electronic communications allow each side to prepare for an information exchange. If I ask a client for the amount of personal property taxes he paid, the answer doesn't have to be immediate.
There are three main reasons I prefer to ask tax return questions electronically. The first is the time savings from not playing phone tag. The second is that telephone conversations encourage off the cuff and incomplete answers. With electronic communications, clients don't feel the time pressure to answer immediately. They have the time to research and provide complete answers. The third reason is a CYA reason. I get answers in writing. People have short memories when the IRS calls. They don't remember telling me they only use their Porsche for business, or that their girlfriend's rent was really for the business. Paul and I have decided that we will only accept certain pieces of information in writing, such as car mileage and estimated tax payments, the former because people lie, and the latter because people just don't know what they paid and don't want to bother looking it up.
There is a another benefit to having communications in writing. People tend to mute their emotions when they know they are being recorded for posterity by e-mail servers all across the globe. However, I was once a witness in a lawsuit, where the two sides actually wished death upon each other in e-mail messages. So that doesn't work on everyone.
There is another disadvantage to electronic communications. There is no immediate back and forth. With e-mail, if there are follow up questions based on a first set of answers, another round of messages is required. Paul and I have a rule for electronic tax return questions. We allow two rounds of electronic communications. After that, it's time to pick up the phone.
Selecting the proper communications medium is critical to your business success as it directly affects your productivity and even your quality of life. There is no right method to use or reject entirely. Realistically, you need an intelligent balance of meetings, phone calls, and electronic messages. Searching for that balance even affects your customer selection. Customers, who take an inordinate amount of your time, are less profitable. You should consider evaluating customer and vendor relationships based on your ability to manage their communications. There are some rare occasions when we have to part ways with clients who suck up more time than their circumstances warrant.
I'll leave you with one more communications hint that is apparently not common knowledge. If you want someone's rapt attention, don't contact him on a Monday or a Friday. People don't pay close attention on Mondays because they are overwhelmed by the volume they receive at the beginning of a week. If you need a favor, wait to ask until Tuesday. On Fridays, people's minds are already in weekend mode. They deal with issues on a superficial level to get out the door for happy hour. Calling on a Friday means you'll either get a bad answer or no answer at all.
Thanks for reading. For serious business advice and information, visit our main web site at www.skcpas.com.
