Effective communication is the foundation on which strong business relationships are built.

Good communication can bridge gaps between team members, create a cohesive workforce, and foster a sense of trust and positivity. Leaders who prioritize communication create a culture where creativity and innovation thrive, which leads to greater job satisfaction and higher morale. All of which increase the bottom line.

Below are five tips to help you communicate more effectively as a finance professional.

Understand Your Audience

When working with the business, it’s important to remember that different business partners value different things. Start by answering the following questions about your business partners:

• What’s on their mind?
• What challenges are they facing?
• What opportunities are they chasing?
• What words/terminology get their attention?
• What jargon should be avoided?

Find the intersection between your business partner's unique needs and the unique value you and your team bring. By speaking their targeted value language, you’re demonstrating that you understand what they care about.

For example, sales cares about revenue growth, customer satisfaction and, ultimately, commissions. Tailoring your communication to sales could mean translating what you see in the data into trends that will help the team understand what might be preventing increased revenue and how to adjust.

In terms of delivery, the Pyramid Principle is an effective tool for clearly conveying the most important information to your audience. Start by saying the main point of what you want your audience to take away. Support this message with high-level insights, then back up those insights with data, analysis and evidence. By leading with the main point, your audience has time to process it and see how the later points support it.

Build Rapport

Building relationships at work strengthens your ability to resonate as a compelling communicator. The foundation of relationships is rapport. To build rapport, you need to ask good questions and listen with intention.

There are three types of questions you can use to build rapport:

• Factual questions search for specific details or pieces of information. Examples include:
• How long have you worked here?
• Where did you go to college?

• Causative questions uncover the motives behind the facts. Examples include:
• What led you to work here?
• Why did you choose the college you attended?

• Value-based questions help you discover what is most important to people. Examples include:
• Tell me about an accomplishment you’re particularly proud of.
• If you could go back 10 years and give yourself one piece of advice, what would it be?

Ask Skillful Questions

Don’t guess the needs and desires of your audience. Your willingness to ask, listen and learn means more than any answer you could give on the spot.

Follow these four steps to ask skillful questions:

• Start from a place of sincerity. Where there is genuine curiosity, thought-evoking questions are sure to follow.
• Understand your intention for asking, then phrase your question accordingly. Do you want a clear yes/no answer? Then you need to ask a direction question, such as, “Does it make sense to move forward with this solution?” If you want to create dialogue, ask a question that starts with “what,” “why” or “how,” such as, “Why do you think that is?”
• Be inviting in your delivery to create a safe place for exchanging opinions. Avoid run-on sentences to keep the other person engaged, and leave your questions open-ended to encourage conversation.
• Ask follow-up questions to explore their answer on a deeper level.

Listen Carefully

Active listening means fully observing the verbal and nonverbal messages of the other person and responding with prompts and feedback to what they said. When you practice active listening:

• You’ll remember more of what the other person said.
• You’ll better understand what they said because you encouraged them to provide a deeper explanation and/or more details.
• You’ll strengthen the relationship by showing the other person genuine respect and interest in what they’re sharing.

Here are four active listening techniques to add to your skill set:

• Demonstrate attention: Maintain eye contact to show that you are present and interested, and listen without interruption.
• Provide verbal and non-verbal feedback: Encourage the speaker to continue with subtle prompts like nodding your head. You can also incorporate short phrases like “tell me more.”
• Ask additional questions: Encourage deeper dialogue with questions like, “Why do you think that it?”
• Confirm understanding: Paraphrase the insight you heard and confirm that you understand it correctly.

Avoid Communication Pitfalls

Words have power. Ensure your words convey the experience you want your audience to have. Here are four common pitfalls to avoid:

• Negative nuances: Words that communicate what’s missing or lacking. For example, when a request is made, a common response is “no problem.” Rather than focusing on non-objection, as this phrase does, use language that focuses on willingness, such as “of course.”
• Dead-weight words: Words that minimize or detract from what you’re saying. For example, “just” downplays your needs and accomplishments. Remove “just” and state what you’re going to say plainly.
• Safety-net phrases lessen the impact of your point, diminishing the confidence listeners have in what you’re saying. The most common are “I think,” “I believe” and “I hope.” Remove these from your sentences to strengthen your point.
• Common clichés are words or phrases that are so overused that they lose all meaning. A common example used in business communication is “I know you’re busy.” Instead of using this phrase, demonstrate the value you bring by focusing on what they care about. For example, “Your team’s financial success is important to both of us. Let’s prioritize a time this week to strengthen the strategy that will deliver the results you’re after.”

In summary, being an effective communicator means being deliberate and thoughtful with your words, mindful in your listening and empathetic in how you process what you hear.

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