Process and Tools Improve Communication

Wouldn’t it be great if at the beginning of your entrepreneurial venture you were handed a “Starter Kit” that magically put everyone on the same page and created efficient ways to communicate with employees, customers. advisors, consultants, investors and others. The entrepreneurial venture is normally characterized by communications that would generously be called “chaotic.”

Think of all the email, text messages and other communications that fly back and forth throughout the day. Not only is it hard to keep track of it all. It is even more difficult to make sure that the information and messages that are coming through are consistent with the messages you want to portray. While communication may not be at the top of your list, it certainly affects everything you do. Companies that communicate well have a much better chance for success.

“While communication may not be at the top of your list, it certainly affects everything you do. Companies that communicate well have a much better chance for success.” 

Your Goal for Communications

Your goal for your communications environment is:

• To create clear and consistent communications among company constituents (i.e., employees, advisors, customers and investors)
• To create concise messaging to explain the company’s products and services to its markets
• To develop regular processes and tools for keeping the organization and its constituents informed about company activities

How useful would that be? Most entrepreneurs would settle for “manage the noise in the midst of the chaos.” In this lecture we will show how you can establish a process and improve your communication so your organization and its constituents stay informed and aligned.

Create a Set Process for Communications

Establishing a standard process for communication helps to keep various constituents informed and brings consistency to your messages. For example:

• Make Vision, Goals and Objectives Public. When the company sets it goals and objectives, make them visible and public to everyone. It’s a big step for small companies to lay out a vision, and formally set goals and objectives. If you have taken this important step, do not let them get lost in the shuffle by keeping them in the dark. Make them front and center in your communications and regular meetings.
• Weekly Business Summary. Distribute a one-page business summary at the same time each week that updates company constituents on the business. The Business Summary details a few bullets for each department or major area of the company. This will allow you to communicate with all relevant constituents and eliminate repetitive ad hoc conversations. This update will be unique to your business. Remember that this document is a summary, not a place to vent or a catalog of details. It should not be longer than one page. The goal is to provide an efficient mechanism for high-level updates and to eliminate this communication from your mid-week responsibilities. By consistently distributing this summary, create a weekly efficient information flow.
• Specific Initiative or Area Summaries.If there is a specific area of the company or a specific initiative important to the company that parties need to know about, distribute another one page summary. Examples might include:
  • Investment process
  • Product launch process
  • Hiring process
  • Employee developments
  • Customer developments

Many times these items can be included in the overall business summary but if it needs more attention, give the area or initiative its own one pager.

• Regular Meetings. Creating a regular meeting structure is essential to managing a company in the chaotic entrepreneurial environment, but it is also an important communication tool. Whether it be your core team, board of advisors, investors, or outside consultants, get in the habit of having a standing meeting at regular intervals (i.e., weekly, bi-weekly) that is the primary forum for communication. The answer to most ad hoc emails and communications should be “unless this is urgent, let’s put this on the agenda for the xxx meeting.”
• One on Ones. If you have multiple people in your company, it is important to have regular one on ones scheduled. Even if you work together all day long, put some time on the books each week to sit down and keep grounded and focused. This regularity creates familiarity and structure that will serve you well.
• Issue Tracking. As your company evolves, you will find that you need a more efficient mechanism to keep track ongoing issues – especially if you haven’t expanded your team yet. Use a central repository to keep track of these issues.
• Implement Internal Social Networks. Use social media to your advantage by encouraging employees to connect through an internal social media system or through private groups on Facebook or LinkedIn. When used correctly, these tools can create a sense of cohesiveness and camaraderie while allowing teams to connect on a different level.
• Tools That Can Help.Set up the right tools. When you notice e-mail losing its status as a main tool for internal communication, you know your team is doing something right and your internal communication just got a lot more efficient.
  • Document Management. Using document management software such as Dropbox or Google Drives creates a single place for the documents of the company. You can also start a company wiki. Either can streamline communications by improving the constant flow of information between and among the team and outsiders such as advisors and consultants.
  • Communications: Slack is an all-round communications solution that is one of the most popular communication tools used by startups in the world. You can set channels for different topics, start private group messages and pick your favorites from dozens of integrations. Connect your Slack with internal systems and other social media such as your calendar, Twitter and you can get notifications from different platforms from your Slack.
  • Task Management: Trello is a good solution for to-do lists and tasks. You can set up boards for different topics (e.g. product, vendors, sales) and add different lists with individual cards that count as to-do’s for each board. You can also tag people on cards to mark tasks as their responsibility and set due dates among many other cool features. Wunderlist provides some of the same functionality and suncs nicely across multiple platforms and mobile devices.

Communicating in the early stages of a company is quite difficult. You need your value proposition to come through to your customers. You need employees to stay informed about the company and aligned to the vision. You need investors to understand how you and your product are different. You need to keep everyone informed and moving in the same direction. All of this must be accomplished without any resources that manage communications or any dollars to execute a communications plan. The tools and processes will hopefully help improve that process so focus your energies on the things you are communicating about.