The Most Valuable Skill You’ll Ever Learn for Life and Business

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I'm going to teach you the most important skill you're ever

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going to learn in life or in business.

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And I'm not teaching you because

I'm good at it, by the way.

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I'm teaching you because

I'm horrible at it.

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And I've had to learn the hard

way just how important it is.

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This is an absolute, complete,

and total prerequisite for anybody

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that works at Solutions Aid.

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As a matter of fact, in our

employee onboarding, the very first

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video that I ask people to watch

is a video on this exact topic.

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So you're going to get a pretty

healthy dose of, exactly what our

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employees get when they first start.

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And I call it...

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The three C's of communication.

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Now, before you jump ship and

say, oh goodness, hear me out.

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Communication is the most important

skill to master as an entrepreneur,

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a business owner, a leader, an

employee, an employer, manager.

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There's not a role that exists In the

world that isn't amplified by an order

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of magnitude when you become an effective

communicator When you're an effective

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communicator, you are deadly in so many

ways Now what's interesting the sad irony

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is and this has been my experience over

the course of 17 years as an employer

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The better somebody is at their job

The worse they are at communicating it

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why because they take All the things

for granted, they just understand,

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like there's no question to them.

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Nothing's opaque.

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It's just this, solid, very clear

structure that they're dealing

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with they don't feel the need to

communicate because in their mind

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they see from start to finish.

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Okay, I know exactly what's going on here.

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I know what the problem is.

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I know the solution is and we've all

actually, I don't know if you've,

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experienced this, but I have where

I'm dealing with somebody who's

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hypercompetent, but I don't yet

realize they're hyper competent.

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I ask them to do something, they

communicate poorly, I have all of my weird

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neurotic, wonder what's going on there.

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They probably don't understand me.

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They weren't listening.

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They didn't respond.

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They're ignoring me.

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They're not going to do it.

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Oh my god!

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And then they come up and

they're like, hey, it's done.

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But I'm already so frazzled, I'm mad.

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I hope we've all been there.

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the cadence, the SOP, the habit

to get into if you want to be

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an effective communicator, the

three C's of communication.

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First C, C number one, clarify.

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This is as much for the other

person's benefit it is for yours.

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So I come to you with a problem and

I say, Hey, for whatever reason,

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and I don't understand why, but the

checkout experience on this particular

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product is broken in these ways.

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You come back and instead

of saying, okay, got it.

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That's the wrong thing to do,

because everybody's, everybody

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in the back of their mind goes,

I wonder if you really got it.

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I wonder if I explained that well enough.

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it's my concern about me,

not my concern about you.

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And so you come back and say, Hey,

appreciate you submitting this.

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I just wanted to clarify

the checkout experience is

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broken in these specific ways.

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And then you just slightly

revise what it is that they sent.

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And.

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Most importantly, you actually

clarify, because very often

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people's initial assessment of

the problem isn't really problem.

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And you as the expert know

that more than they do.

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So you're going to come back and say, hey,

it's actually not the checkout experience

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based on what I'm looking at here.

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It's a mobile compatibility problem

going on with this particular plug in.

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Can you try on your end and

let me know what you see?

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Here's a loom video to show

you what it is that I mean.

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And do you see how I've, pushed

that back on their plate needlessly.

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It's, I just clarified the problem.

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Gave you my assessment of the

problem, showed you proof that the

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problem existed, and then asked

you to confirm my assessment.

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Clarity.

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So you want to clarify first and foremost.

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You want to set their mind

at ease using clarity.

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You also want to make sure, and if

you're teaching your team this, by

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the way, it's really important to

clarify because It's risk mitigation.

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You're making sure that you're

climbing a ladder that's propped

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up against the right wall.

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I can't tell you how many times

we've solved a problem that wasn't

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the problem because we didn't

clarify in the very beginning.

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So it brings all the misunderstandings

to the surface immediately.

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scene number one, clarify.

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Scene number two, commit.

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Commit.

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There's nothing more frustrating

than having somebody be like,

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okay, let me see what I can do.

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Well, when?

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How?

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With who?

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In what context?

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Like, commit.

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Don't commit to things

that you can't commit to.

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But let them know what comes next.

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Let them know, like,

hey, totally understood.

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I'm going to take a look at this.

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I'm going to run this up the poll.

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I think I need to involve tier 2 support.

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this actually isn't something

that I'm an expert in.

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So let me go find somebody

who knows how to do this.

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Let me go to my Rolodex.

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I'll look for a freelancer.

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Like, commit to an action.

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I am going to do this specific thing.

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And define what that specific thing is.

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So you've clarified, if

clarity is necessary.

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And it always is.

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You've committed to an action.

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And then, This is a

kissing cousin to commit.

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It's close.

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Scene number three is close.

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People need closure.

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I need to know that I can take this task

off of my desk and put it onto your desk.

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And for as long as it stays on

my desk, it's still my problem.

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And that makes you a half solution.

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So if you can take this completely

from me, Hey, I've got this just so

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you know, I'm going to take these

four steps that are all really

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important in these sequences.

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I think each is going to

take about this much time.

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I'm going to follow up tomorrow just

to let you know that this is in queue

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and it should be done by Friday.

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Even if it's not, I'll shoot you an email

and let you know what the update is.

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you've got it.

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And as long as you actually do the things

that you say you're going to do, I begin

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to trust you to a degree that makes you

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absolutely indispensable.

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So first you, you clarify, you

commit, and then you close.

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you commit to your closure.

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One of most valuable tools in your...

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Toolbox is the snooze feature on your

email inbox, you know, I know there's

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customer support ticket systems and

project management tools and CRMs, but

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man, I just like to, I send an email and

when I commit to doing something and I

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provide somebody with closure, I snooze

it till the day that it's committed to.

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So if I say, I'm going to get back

to you on Friday, I just snooze

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my outbound email and Friday.

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And now I have all the context and

I can remind myself like, oh yeah,

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I needed to respond to that and bam.

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I'm able to follow through and make sure

that keep up with all of my commitments.

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People want to know that

you're a prior that they're a

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priority and good communication.

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Let's know their priority There's

nothing more frustrating for a vendor

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when you're actually grinding you're

actually doing the work You're like man.

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I am going to war for these

people and they don't appreciate

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me at all Well, guess what?

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They don't see that they

don't see behind the scenes.

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They don't see you coding

They don't see what happens.

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They don't see how the sausage is

made You have to tell them you have

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to tell them and the better you are at

Explaining that explaining your value,

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the more they're going to value you.

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So three C's of communication.

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This works for you.

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This should work for your staff.

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And what's really, really interesting.

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And I think remarkable is you actually

begin to train your customers.

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How to communicate to.

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They begin to match your cadence.

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I've seen this over and over and

over and over and over again.

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There's a couple A types

that are just insufferable.

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But for the most part, people are like,

Oh, okay, I see what we're doing here.

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and you don't have to explain to them.

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These are the three C's of communication.

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But as you start to do it, they

come to you with more clarity.

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And they begin to trust you more.

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So.

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hope this is helpful.

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You'll never know how much I'm rooting

for you in your life and in your business.

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I can't tell you how much I appreciate

you watching me, supporting the channel.

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If you want to like, comment,

subscribe, all those things,

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help the YouTube algorithm know

that there's some value here.

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\ money and resources.

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Just kidding.

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I'll see y'all tomorrow.

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Peace.