Communication Strategies During Tough Times
Implementing communication strategies is critical for career success. These strategies can help whether we are job hunting or hoping to get a promotion. When times are tough, it is even more essential to have clear communication strategies to boost our visibility, build our army of supporters, and master asking for things we want.
According to a recent survey, 40% of Americans have been laid off at least once. Being prepared to find a new job or opportunity comes down to our ability to communicate clearly.
Our CEO and Founder, Jessica Chen, recently hosted a Soulcast Media | LIVE event on LinkedIn.
She shared tips and personal stories about communication strategies during tough times.
1. Visibility Mindset
Having a visibility mindset is critical for career success. We must be proactive so others can see us and remember our excellent work. We can’t expect others to recognize or advocate for us if we aren’t doing it ourselves.
Consider the following.
- Share Wins – If we have a win, we need to have a plan to share it. Often we can feel like sharing our successes is uncomfortable. However, we need to share our wins with others. We can share our wins without coming across as boastful or arrogant. For example, during the Soulcast Media | LIVE, Jessica shared how being concise is an easy way to share a win. If we are featured in a company newsletter, we can share a link and say, “Check this out!” Sharing our successes will help boost our visibility.
- Meetings – If we want to become more visible, speaking up during a meeting is one of the easiest ways to accomplish this. For example, we should try to speak up within the first five minutes of a meeting. We can also use anchoring to speak up. Anchoring is when we take what someone else said, and use it to anchor our message. This also acknowledges what the other person said. We can also use compliments to speak up during meetings. If someone had a great idea, we could say, “Great idea, Margaret!” The more we practice speaking up in meetings, the easier it will become.
- Proactive Communications – Everyone we work with is busy. Most people are focused on their next tasks, whether it’s our superiors or our colleagues. However, being proactive with our communications can help us stay top of mind. For example, if our boss is out of town, or we didn’t get a chance to check in, we can write a quick email detailing the status of our projects, or what we are working on. When we do this, we stay top of mind and keep our boss in the loop.
We want our voices and ideas to be heard. It is up to us to be top of mind when new opportunities arise.
2. Build An Army Of Supporters
Building an army of supporters helps us develop our career brand without being brash, pushy, or aggressive. When we have people around us, who support us, they will help advocate for us.
Consider the following:
- Advisors – When building an army of supporters, we want to find advisors. These people are the foundation of our army of supporters. For example, if we have an idea we want to approach our manager with, we would first reach out to our advisors. These are the experts in the field, or people within our organization who have a lot of knowledge about our idea. We can reach out to them to ask their opinions of our idea, and help us flesh out our idea.
- Endorsers – After we’ve fleshed out our idea with our advisors, we can find our endorsers. Endorsers are the people who want to see our plans become a reality. For example, our endorsers are the ones who have the social and professional capability to help us with our idea.
- Approvers – Once we have the buy-in from our advisors and endorsers, we need to find our approvers. We need to present a solid case to our approvers. For example, if we have fleshed out our idea with our advisors, and been endorsed by several people, we can present all of this to our approvers. All of our hard work should pay off with a yes.
Building our communications strategies with an army of supporters is essential. As we do this, we are building social capital. Social capital is what people say about us, people who support us, and people who advocate for us.
3. Mastering The Ask
Part of our communications strategy is learning how to master asking for things. During the Soulcast Media | LIVE, Jessica shared a framework we can use to help us when it is time to ask for what we want.
SAW Framework:
- Strong Case – To build a strong case, we want to answer the following questions – Why now? Who will it benefit, and why? Of course, our ask will benefit us, but if we can look at the bigger picture, our manager will be more likely to grant our request. For example, if we pitch a project and want to take the lead, we could say, “This new project will help our department streamline processes which will increase productivity.” The project will allow us to show leadership, but more importantly, it will help the department overall. The key to building a strong case is to showcase how it will benefit others.
- Align Our Objectives – As we prepare for our ask, we need to consider if our ask will cost money or resources, and where these will come from. We will also want to consider whether the investment return is worth it for the organization or team. For example, we may want to implement new software for our department. This will have an upfront cost. However, if we can showcase how this new software will save resources in the long run, we may have a better chance of getting it approved.
- Why Us – When we go into our ask, we want to ensure we’ve considered why we are the right people for the job. For example, if we ask to lead a project, we will want to showcase why we can lead the project. We can talk about all of the projects we’ve assisted on, and what our responsibilities were. We can share how we’re prepared to lead this project. We also want to share why we want to do it.
Mastering the ask is a communications strategy we can use to get a raise, a promotion, or anything else we want.
During tough times, we need to continue to be proactive in our communications and stay top of mind. Our chances of getting what we want significantly increase if we implement these strategies.
Check out Jessica’s Youtube Channel if you want to see the full version of this Soulcast Media | LIVE conversation.
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