There appears to be much confusion around what is considered sales and what is communication. I believe there is an essential role to be played in simply communicating to your broader customer base. There is a baseline expectation that on a regular basis your company communicates specific messages about your company, your products and your new innovations.

There are a plethora of communication channels that can be used however; none of these replace face to face communication. Communication channels aside, I believe there should be an expectation that on a regular basis your company communicates with its customers. I would prefer every message to be delivered verbally, but when our business needs to communicate a message about something new to over 100,000 people in our network this is simply not practical. Often I see organisations, and sometimes we’re guilty of this, at times rely on only face to face communication, or rely on only digital communication, when reality says we should have a broad cross section of methods and styles of communication.

I challenge you all to question your communication strategy:
How often you are communicating with your entire network?
What medium is being chosen?
What message are you, as the leaders delivering?
Once you have answered these questions, verbal and face to face communication should all occur over and above would you do with your entire network communication strategy. For example have you communicated to your entire customer base, the edition of a new franchise, the opening of a new location, changing management, new model release, extended opening hours… or have you relied on people to say all this?