Recently, I have been wondering why no one really wants to talk about their bookkeeping. At first I thought that it was because I rambled on and on (which I did ad nauseum, yes I admit it) about how important having a professional bookkeeper is for Small Business to succeed in today’s tough economic environment.
So, I talked to myself and looked for the tell tale signs when someone engaged me about bookkeeping. I consciously did try not to ramble on and thought I was doing quite well. Unfortunately the problem persisted. I really had no clue as to what solution I could come up with to get the message across to a captive audience. I had asked several of my networking partners for advice, to no avail. Then I met a fabulous woman who is considered a “People Whisperer”. Her name is Sandy Chernoff and she is a Personal and Professional Soft Skills Trainer (basic interpersonal communicative skills). I met her at a Marketing Summit one weekend a few weeks ago. We have since met over coffee to see if we would both be a fit for one another. She is amazing!
From that one meeting, alone, I discovered that I was not rambling about bookkeeping, I was driving home the importance to a fault…so in other words…being more on the “you need to do this” rather than, “lets have a look at what your needs really are. I have a few questions that might assist in determining what those needs might be”.
The “approach” is the key in any business or personal communication. How many times have we (as business owners and individuals) heard that. Sometimes we all need to be made aware that our communication skills have fallen off and we need to revisit by having a professional assist us. If we are not delivering our message so it can be well received then we can expect not very many listeners/promoters or business lining up to hire/promote your services or purchase your products.
Sandy answered a great many questions for me that day. We have decided to hire her services to assist us in refining our message to our target markets. This is going to be fabulous! I cannot wait to get my “homework”. Wow, never thought I would say that in my lifetime 🙂