Communicate Like A Pro: Elevating Small Business Strategies With Laura Hardin

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In this episode of Struggles hosted by Chris Inman with guest Laura Hardin, a corporate communication specialist, delve into the significance of effective communication within small businesses. Laura emphasizes transparent communication to prevent misunderstandings and foster a team-oriented environment. They discuss strategies such as involving employees in decision-making, promoting authenticity, and ensuring leadership accessibility.

Chapters

• 0:00 Unified Communication Boosts Performance
• 5:52 Employees as Ambassadors
• 6:40 Value Genuine Connections Over Salesmanship
• 10:02 Fostering Workplace Relationships

Transcript

0:00

Ensuring people know what the goals are, what the end of the journey looks like, what does success look like will enable them and empower them to come along with you and make you better. I want we're all better together. I want everyone to know that we're better together. When we have this myopic perspective, we will find ourselves attracting the same kind of people over and over again, which isn't necessarily the best thing to do. Right. You want to expand your horizons. You want to include people that are different than you, include perspectives that are different from you, and then learn and grow and come up with new ideas, try out new technologies, ask new questions, get fresh perspectives, and then incorporate what works. Welcome to another episode of Struggles, presented by ncbi, the podcast where we navigate challenges together. Hey, everyone. Welcome to another episode of Struggles presented by ncbi. I'm Chris Simmons with Idea Cleveland, and. Joining me today is Laura Harden from Hardin Heights Communications. Cool. So you are a corporate communication specialist? I am. And that's what we're going to tackle today. Yes. We're going to talk about some corporate communication tips many of us have. We have small companies, but we do have some employees, and it becomes kind of a challenge sometimes to communicate with them. We don't know the proper way and this and that. So we're going to give some tips. Yep. So let's give an overall about. As a small business owner, why corporate communications? Even if you have 10 employees or 20 employees, why is it so important? It's important because people need to know what's going on, otherwise they make it up in their head. And when you start making it up in your head, it's always worse than it really is. And if you can keep everybody marching to the same beat and moving forward and keep them informed, they're going to be way more likely to perform for you. And I think as small business owners, it's even more important because you. You have the ability to really reach your people where they are and get to know them. And the more you value your employees, the more they're going to value working for you and the more they're going to give back to you when it matters. Bring everybody together and make people feel like they're a part of a really special team. That makes sense. What are some examples of some small business? I own a small auto shop, let's say. What is some communication practices that they should be implementing within their company with their employees to really get them engaged and be part of the team? That's what ultimately you're trying to Create, right? Yep. If you owned, like you said, a body shop, I would ensure that employees know whenever there's a special or an ad running. I would make sure they know what your business goals are. Whether it's monetary or number of customers. I would let them know how what they're doing impacts the bottom line. And if there are decisions to be made, let them in on that decision. You don't have to let them. It doesn't have to be consensus, it can be a discussion. But when people know the why behind what's happening, they're far more likely to buy into it and understand it and then deliver accordingly. 100%. I think that's the problem is like I worked with a. I had my one full time job. I'm not gonna name names. Everyone knows who I am though. But he kept things as quiet. He didn't like giving away information. He thought he held power by having information. But ultimately then we weren't on the same page as him. Right. But he had this saying, do it as the boss would do it. Well, that's not necessarily always the case because the boss doesn't have all the answers in the situation that we're sitting in. And the boss maybe had other answers because he wasn't telling us the full picture. Right. And you can't expect employees to benefit you and your corporation solely on the goodness of them getting that paycheck. That's correct. There's thousands of jobs out there. Yes. They don't own the company. They don't care about the company as much as you do as the owner. And I think a lot of owners miss that. Right. And so bringing people in and making them a part of the known and the understanding, the mission, the statement of the company. What are your goals for the year and how these missions and goals can benefit them as well. Right, exactly, exactly. And it's about engaging them where they are. So if you've got an employee that's awesome at their job and you need to, you have the opportunity to promote them. Let's ensure that they're ready to be promoted and let's ensure that they have the skills. Because when you promote somebody, let's go back to the auto shop. Right. You have a mechanic and they're awesome and all of a sudden you need somebody to run the front desk. Right. You don't want to lose an auto mechanic and have a poorly trained front desk manager. You want somebody who wants to do that. So talk to your people, figure out who the right person is, figure out if they need Some training. Talk about opportunities for them to benefit from internal progression. Right. For that opportunity to promote from within and make sure that's something that they want. And if it's not, that's okay. Keep the great mechanic. And maybe you hire from an external perspective. But you know what? Make your employees be your best advocates. Have your employees be the ambassadors and have them want to bring their friends to work for you. Have them bring people that they know also do a good job and bring them into the fold. So you always want to be empowering your employees and engaging your employees so that they can be ambassadors, helping you move your agenda forward. Because you're doing it together. Correct your next one. Here is something that I think is important for so many aspects, from your social media to your personal brand and everything. And it's about being who you really are. Your authentic self. Yes. So why is it so important to be authentic with your employees? Because if you're not, everybody knows it. That's why we all know the skeevy car salesman, right? That's a meme or a stereotype for a reason. Because they're inauthentic, because they're just trying to sell. Anytime somebody approaches me and just wants to sell me, I can tell and I have no interest. However, I have had interactions with people and they share what they do or why they do it. They talk about what's important to them and when our values align and when our personality click, I'm far more likely to reach out to them. When it's time for me to hire someone or work with someone or partner with someone, I always want to have a genuine connection. And we should want that with our people as well, with our employees as well. You know, we don't always have to agree. We shouldn't be adversaries, but we don't have to agree. I want people to push back on me. I want people to challenge me. I want them to question what it is that I'm doing and then I wanna be able to defend why I'm doing it. And I also wanna learn from other people. I hired a consultancy coach early on when I started my business, and she helped me simplify several things that I wouldn't have even recognized. I was over complicating. Right. She pushed back on a couple ideas that I had that I thought were great ideas. And she said, okay, but hold on a second, let's look at it from this perspective. And what if you did this instead? And you know what the downside was? Nothing. It saved me a ton of Time and it simplified processes for me. Well, how would I, I wouldn't have known anything about that different way of doing things if I didn't get to know her and respect her and then get excited about an idea that she, without shutting it down, suggested we do things a little differently. I want to always be learning. I want to always be connecting with people where they are and figure out how we can move forward together. And that kind of leads into your third tip, which is you know about the employees and how they can interact with you better. Yes, yes. So we want to make sure that communication is always a two way street. We want to listen to understand instead of just listening or tuning out or dictating. Right. We want to make sure that there is a feedback loop in all the things that we do. In addition, I always want to remind leaders and bosses and employers to be accessible and be available. So many people say, oh, I have an open door policy, but in fact you have to make an appointment or you have to call their admin or really have something to deliver in order to get in front of your boss. I really encourage leaders to be on the floor where their people are to be. Just walk around the office when you come back from holiday break and poke your head in when you see somebody's not on the phone. Ask how their kids are, ask how their dog's doing, have authentic conversations. Get to know people so that when it's time to get feedback, that matters. When it's time for people to be comfortable talking to you or bringing issues or problems, they'll be much more likely to do that because they feel that they know you. And I think that's something that's sometimes missing. Bosses and leaders think they know what's best and they might know what's best, but you have to bring people along from where they are. And you have to recognize that when you're talking to your peers as a leader, that is not the same as talking to your employees as a leader. If you're a CEO and you've got your executive leadership team, that is not who you're talking to in a town hall. That's never who you're talking to. The people around you in your immediate sphere know what's happening. You don't have to explain it to them. So take time to understand that next level and the level below that so that you really know what they need to know and what they understand and what they need to know more about. Cool. Well, this has been really interesting. I hope that everyone out there found some value out of this conversation. And that something to take back to your company and how you can improve or change something in your own world. Because none of us are perfect, let's be honest. For sure. And it's okay. We'll never be perfect. How boring would that be? Exactly. So thanks for listening, and thank you for joining. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. All right, cool. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Struggles, presented by ncbi, where we navigate challenges together. Don't forget to subscribe, listen, and share this podcast with others who might benefit. We'd love to hear about the struggles you're facing or have overcome, and we'd be thrilled to have you as a guest on a future episode. Let's continue this journey together.