Getting your business strategy right sounds incredibly simple. It sounds like such a basic, it’s surprising that it needs to be stated. Of course a business needs a sound strategy behind it - what doesn’t? Even how you run your home is strategic, never mind your plans for an entire company.

What that basic phrase - “business strategy” - belies is the many little things that you have to get right to ensure a company is running as it should. You have to look at logistics, productivity, ensuring employees are happy, acing your customer service - the list goes on and on.

Unfortunately, the miasma of competing ideas and importance, one major area can be overlooked. It’s overlooked for the basic fact that it seems so… basic. It’s something that just happens - in fact, without it, your business doesn’t function at all. And given that it’s such a fundamental, it’s too easy to ignore it.

What is the mythical “it”?

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Communication Is Key

The way you communicate in a business can take many different forms. It can be how you phrase an email, the way you instruct your staff, the language you use during business interactions. It can be the informal group chat you run with your staff so you can all touch base or the precise business-like language of your marketing materials. The importance of getting these little touches right is essential - and the method of communication you use is crucial too.

Focusing on the business environment itself, the way you speak to your colleagues and employees is vital in maintaining an image you wish to project. The same is true in the way you write and even down to those informal text messages you might send to an employee you are on friendly terms with.

Do

• Be clear and forthright. If imparting important information, keep the sentences clear and punchy.

• Always be willing to answer questions rather than just expecting them to understand. You might have missed out an important section that you think goes without saying, but which others need to reaffirm.

• Let tech help you out. Whether it’s bringing in the likes of Hin Chong Engineering to install a dumbwaiter or doing a weekly email to sum up all the changes through the past seven days, there are ways and means of ensuring your message gets where it needs to go.

Don’t

• Use doublespeak. It’s unproductive; you want people to always know where they stand with you and what your expectations are.

• Drop hints. If you want something doing, have the confidence to go ahead and ask for it.

• Assume everyone has received a message. If you send an important email, ask that people respond to it so you know that it’s been received. Tech glitches can happen, as can accidental deletions. If it matters that everyone sees it, keep a checklist of responses so you know everyone has seen it.

• Use unprofessional language. Profanity has its place in human language - anyone who has ever stepped on an upturned plug can attest to that! - but it’s definitely not useful in an office environment.