Read time: 5 min, 44 secs

Hey there - it's Brian 👋

Wow.

Our team is growing fast.

We hire two more people these next few weeks.

But one thing about growth keeps me up at night:
How do we keep quality as we scale?

It’s easy to obsess over every detail when you’re small.

But you hit a turning point.

Too many customers/clients and you need to empower others to hold your high bar for quality.

So today… I leak my internal training for TalentHQ.

It’s the ultimate guide to how my team 10x’s the value in their communication.

This is for you if…
➟ You want your team to work faster and make fewer mistakes.
➟ You want clients/customers to see you as more valuable.

Let’s make your business an outlier: 👇

🚨 Warning: This one’s in-depth

I stole this from a real training we have internally.

Why do we have this?

TalentHQ is completely remote.

We have teammates all over the world.

A lot of people are great communicators in person. Not so great via email / Slack etc.

Mediocre communication when you’re remote means:
➟ You lose days
➟ And deliver bad quality
➟ Have frustrated customers

So if you ever work remote (meaning you send emails at all…)

These communication tips are mission critical.

Steal it so you can boost the quality of how clients/customers perceive your business (without spending 8+ hours building your own training).

Here’s how we use this (and how you should too):

1) Share this with your team. Ask them to read it.

2) Host a call to go through each of the 7 ways to improve communication.
Share examples of where this worked (& where it didn’t).

3) Track results in your 1:1s.

Okay let’s get into it. 👇

“Maybe consulting isn’t for you…”

When I first joined Deloitte, my mentor warned me.

She pulled me into the hallway and dropped a bomb:
“Maybe consulting isn’t for you.”

I was giving it all I had. But it wasn’t enough.

I refused to give up.

So arrived 2 hours before work every day to study how to be a better advisor.

Studied full weekends.

I even lived at Deloitte university for weeks just to get bootcamped on how we work more effectively.

2 years later…

I was ranked one of the top consultants at the firm.

So I need my team to maintain that same quality standards.

I built this training to boil those 6 years into 7 bullet points.

Here they are: Here’s 7 ways to communicate value to clients / customers / teammates.

(FYI - I’ll use the words “clients,” “customers,” and “teammates” interchangeably)

7 ways to communicate value (but they get increasingly more difficult)

I’ve ranked these in terms of difficulty.

Each communication skill will get increasingly harder (& more valuable) down the list.

Nail them and you’ll be a trusted advisor (& build a team that works seamlessly):

1) “I caught the ball! You go left, I go right.”

Imagine you’re playing basketball, but you can’t see your teammates.

Cough*just like you can’t see your teammates in business*cough

You pass the ball.

But your teammate doesn’t say anything.

Did they catch the ball?

Should you run to the hoop or go help them pick it up?

You have no idea what to do because your team didn’t signal they’ve received it.

For your team:

Silently accepting a task is not an option.

There’s only 5 responses your team can have:
1) Got it! Will do.
2) Got it! Busy now, but will review by X time/day.
3) Got it! But there’s this change (to scope, budget or timeline)…
4) Got it! But I have a question…
5) Got it! But here’s a push back (this other item takes priority)…

Whether you send something to your team, or a customer asks for something, we always need to respond.

Even it’s just to say “Agreed! We’ll take care of it.”

Don’t agree in silence. Reply.

🧔🏻‍♂️ Brian’s nerdy side rant:

When I say “tasks“ I really mean more than just tasks.

I mean all “RAID” items:

Risks - this bad thing could happen. Hasn’t yet.
Actions - to do
Issues - this bad thing DID happen. Need to fix.
Decisions - big choices

Leadership or customers ask about RAID items and we need to respond.

🛠️ We track all RAID items in Asana:

2) Always be proactive. Never wait.

My team sent me a status update this morning for a client that said “waiting on feedback.”

That’s not actionable.

So we hopped on the phone and fixed it live.

Final result:

“Sent client final candidates 2 days ago (Tues). Told him deadline is Thurs. [Name] will send a reminder email this morning. If we don’t get approval by end of day today, Brian needs to send a text tomorrow morning.”

Way more actionable isn’t it?

Even waiting has an action:
➟ How long before we follow up?
➟ Who follows up?
➟ Which channel?

In other words…

WHO will do WHAT by WHEN?

We never just wait.

🧔🏻‍♂️ Brian’s nerdy side rant:

My big pet peeve:
Team hits a problem…

Then waits until the next meeting with me to solve it.

Being “proactive” means we never bring problems without proposing solutions.

3) Don’t be vague. You lose days by trying to save 7 seconds.

My team asked a client to send “the Google drive folder.”

We talked about this on a call so they should know which folder, right?

Client responded 1 day later… sent the wrong folder.

We clarified. They took another day to send the right folder.

We lost two days because we didn’t specify the folder with their logos.

It takes seconds to be more specific.

Make 3 of these mistakes and you lose a week.

Don’t assume your team / client just knows what you’re talking about.

You can’t afford to lose weeks.

🧔🏻‍♂️ Brian’s nerdy side rant:

This specificity applies to:
➟ SOPs
➟ File names
➟ Actions (RAID items)
etc

4) Be nuanced

Ever get frustrated because someone has a great idea, but that doesn’t apply to your situation?

95% of people give suggestions that apply broadly (but not to your specific situation).

Suggestions you give need to be tailored depending on:
➟ Goals
➟ Industry
➟ Geography
➟ Team dynamics
➟ Personality types
➟ Stage of business
Etc

Fix that with nuance.

Nuance just means: You break a problem, context, and solution down to its parts.

And you understand that strengths in one situation are weaknesses in another.

You can’t be trusted if you don’t think in nuance.

🧔🏻‍♂️ Brian’s nerdy side rant:

Here’s a few examples of downsides of positive traits.
1) You prioritize moving fast.
Downside: Moving fast means more mistakes.

2) You prioritize creativity
Downside: Creativity brings risk. You’ll have more failures.

3) Highly specialized skillset.
Downside: Not flexible

4) Good at everything
Downside: Not the best at anything.

Be nuanced.

5) Make things simple

Imagine you’re the client (or teammate).

You ask for something and what you get back isn’t what you need.

Frustrating isn’t it?

Put yourself in their shoes:

➟ What context do they have?
➟ What are they actually asking for?
➟ What do they want vs what do they need?

If you take the request word-for-word without reading between the lines, you’ll do the wrong thing.

Then waste days in back-and-forth.

Figure out what they actually need. Deliver it simply.

You’ve mastered this if:
You need something from a teammate/client.

The ask should be hours.

But you designed it so it only takes minutes.

🧔🏻‍♂️ Brian’s nerdy side rant:

Okay here’s a tactical example:

We had a graphic design candidate share his portfolio with a client.

It was a Google drive. 7 folders. Each had 10 sub-folders.

We were NOT about to ask the client to go through 70 items. Let’s make it simple.

We asked the candidate to screenshot his favorites into one presentation.

We turned 1 hour of work for the client into 5 min.

Simple.

6) Don’t just pass along information. Add value to it.

You have your own unique experience and insights.

Add that lens.

Most people:
“Here’s the info you asked for.”

Trusted advisors:
Here’s the info but…

This part is most relevant to you. It’s missing this info. This part is most valuable.

etc etc.

Here’s an example from TalentHQ:
When we send you the final candidates, we don’t just send the list.

Nope.

We add insights:

1. Which examples you think is most relevant to the client? Why

2. What’s missing from their examples?

3. What risks / hesitations do you have?

4. What makes this candidate unique?

Don’t just blindly pass information.

Add value to it.

7) What could go wrong? See around corners.

What is the client not thinking about?

What problems could they hit if they go with one option vs another? How can they de-risk those problems?

If you ask them to do a task, do they have everything they need to get it done? If not, how can they get it all simply, in one email?

Examples:

Does everyone have access to a doc?

Take a few seconds to think through any back-and-forth that could happen. Solve the problem now.

🧔🏻‍♂️ Brian’s nerdy side rant:

I get a lot of pushback with this one.

So let’s squash these myths now:

“You can’t think of everything!”
True. But people use this as an excuse to not think of anything.

Don’t be lazy.

“We need to move fast. It takes too long.”
We’re talking about minutes here. Not days.

You’ll lose weeks (sometimes months) by trying to save a few minutes.

Bonus: Don’t answer only part of the question

Is this familiar?

You email someone like this:

Hey 3 questions:
How did yesterday go?
What’s the priority today?
What’s the biggest risk?

You get this response:

“Yes.”

Terrible.

Don’t answer only part of what they need.

Nail these 7 things and customers trust you (more than any other vendor)

Nail these things and your team works seamlessly. Your customers call you for advice.

You’ve built trust.

Make this actionable:

1) Send this to your team
2) Host a call with your team to make sure they get the quality you need
3) Track results on your 1:1s

Do this and watch your quality skyrocket.

See you next Thursday 👋

Brian
[email protected]
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TalentHQ

P.S. Have questions on how your teams can 10x their quality? Let’s nerd out. Happy to chat.

🙋 Vote: How did we do?