In the last couple of blogs, we’ve talked about the importance of networking–particularly with your liquidators. Effective communication is key to growth. You will need quality business connections that can help you facilitate your growth.
I have seen situations in our industry where resellers have struggled with proper professional communication skills and suffered for it. Ask us how we know (wink, wink). We’re coming from a place of having been there. We know exactly how conflict festers and grows when it’s not dealt with. It’s not something you want in a business that pays your bills and helps you achieve whatever dreams you’re reaching.
Any time you communicate with other people, you don’t know what kind of skills they have until you’ve already talked to them. Fine tuning your own communication skills can reduce the chances that you avoid potential bridge-burning.
Effective Communication for Resellers
Why Learn Effective Communication?
Even two highly effective communicators may have unintentional miscommunication from time to time. If the reselling community makes it a priority to communicate effectively, our community as a whole becomes more successful. Here are the main benefits to effective communication in the reselling community:
Avoid Miscommunication and Conflict
Not all conflict is bad conflict. Conflict can be a tool that identifies weak points in your business or processes that need refining or updating. However, miscommunication hardly has benefits. In fact, 90% of conflict comes from simple miscommunications– either poorly worded phrases or poorly worded responses. Learn how to communicate your needs, boundaries, and expectations clearly to prevent those issues. Ask for clarification when giving information. Learn to listen actively when receiving information.
Reselling is already hard enough without having to protect our words from each other. Be clear with what you want and what you need. Don’t beat around the bush. This is business and your time is too valuable for games.
Establish Trust
Reputation is incredibly important when working with other businesses. Businesses talk, people talk. You may not want them to, but they do and you can’t change what people do when you’re not around. But what you can do, is figure out a way to use it to your advantage.
Consider investing time or energy in building trust with these businesses. Let them get to know you and your strengths. Maybe it’s letting them borrow a piece of equipment, sharing their posts on social media, or helping them solve a problem. Sure, that’s not going to get you any direct money or value. But, people are what is important. Ultimately, the will profits follow. And they’re going to be built on a more solid foundation the ebbs and flows of the economic market. Seriously. Relying totally on the market for your business is not a good idea. I have more trust in the emotional stability of my toddler than the economic market. Hammer another nail in the posts that hold your business to it’s foundation. Connect with other businesses and work together.
Furthermore, establishing a reputation of trust opens more opportunities for you in the future. When you establish yourself as a trustworthy organization, that becomes a qualification that makes you a desirable collaborator. Should you decide to develop more creative streams on income, these completed trust cycles will work in your favor.
Productivity Increases
As you reach goals, you will be required to develop relationships if you want to get anywhere efficiently.
Do you:
- … want to expand the amount of items in your store? You’ll need to find new sources and develop new sourcing strategies.
- …desire to begin selling your own pallets or create a new stream of income? You’ll need to cultivate relationships with people to get that product.
- …intend to extend your reach by creating videos, blogs, or creative content for the audience you plan to serve? Increase your reach by cultivating relationships in that industry as well.
You will be significantly more productive if you know the right people and develop quality relationships with those people. Whether it be expertise, product, or services–these people have what you need. You want to mutually beneficial relationships so you can help each other get where you both want to go.
Building Reputation and Encourage Collaboration
Resellers purchase products from trusted liquidators because they want to know that the products they will be passing on to their customers will be taken care of.
Liquidators rely on their reputation to encourage repeat business where a majority of their purchases come from.
I protect the reputation of my influence as a teacher and influencer. When deciding if a collaboration opportunity is right for me, the reputation for the other business has to match mine.
This is not to be confused with reach. It is not as important to me to see how large their business’ audience is, as long as that audience is treated well. I need to know that my audience will be cared for if they spend money or time learning with them. It is my moral obligation to take care of those who come to learn from me. I must trust the businesses I collaborate with and promote.
Other businesses will do the same to you. Effective communication is a powerful tool to prove that you are worthy of that trust.
