What does it take to run a successful business? Some people claim it’s the art of identifying and seizing opportunities—the union of preparation and luck. Others claim it’s all about connections. But neither of these offers the whole story.
Effective communication skills are an essential but often overlooked aspect of business success. Communication contributes to everything—from learning about new opportunities to cultivating connections. It also helps within a business; with employees, customers, and shareholders; and in virtually every other aspect of building a successful organisation.
In a world where 80% of new businesses fail, every step of the process counts. This guide will discuss key ways to get the most out of your business communication. But first, let’s hone in on what communication means in a business context.
What are business communication skills?
Business communication skills are the traits that professionals use to deliver information, listen actively, build relationships, and collaborate, both internally and externally.
It doesn’t matter if you’re outlining your plans to shareholders, providing feedback to departments, or catching up with your newest hire at the water cooler. Your communication skills will determine how your messages land and how others perceive them.
With that in mind, here are some communication skills examples worth mastering:
- Active listening: Seeking mutual understanding, asking clarifying questions, and listening effectively to those speaking.
- Negotiation: Receiving information, evaluating solutions, finding compromise, and reaching agreements in a professional manner.
- Collaboration: Understanding how to navigate challenging situations and reach common goals with the help of others.
- Verbal communication: Articulating your thoughts in a clear way so they’re easy to understand with no room for ambiguity.
- Non-verbal communication: Learning to interpret and use positive body language, facial expressions, and non-verbal signals to build rapport and convey emotion.
- Written communication: Writing your ideas clearly and concisely so they can be understood by everyone.
- Communicating value: Discovering how to effectively communicate the value of your product or service to customers.
- Constructive criticism: Understanding how to provide criticism, receive constructive feedback, and have difficult conversations, without anger and frustration.
- Public speaking: Being able to speak in front of and connect with a larger audience, whether teams, network professionals, or stakeholders.
- Presentation skills: Knowing how to visualise and convey information in a clear, engaging way.
Great communication makes a difference at every level of business, from investor pitches and sales calls to team meetings and one-on-ones.
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Why does mastering communication matter?
If you can communicate effectively, you have the power to drive serious change within your organisation. You can find new opportunities, boost morale, enhance productivity, and streamline just about every aspect of business management.
Let’s expand on this with six reasons why excellent communication is essential for business success.
- Building relationships: Businesses thrive on positive relationships, whether between managers and employees or associates and clients. Effective workplace communication strengthens bonds, equaling more productive working relationships.
- Collaboration and motivation: When everyone feels that their views will be heard and understood, they’ll be motivated to collaborate, innovate, and work together to achieve common goals.
- Productivity: Articulating thoughts in a way that leaves no room for ambiguity reduces misunderstandings. This can improve the quality of your work while making each day more productive.
- Innovation: Teams that can communicate openly and express ideas efficiently find it easier to solve complex problems and innovate. Ideas are always better when multiple people can have their say on the best approach.
- Conflict resolution: Conflict is a necessary part of any effective business, but disagreements that get out of hand can harm growth. Great communication is the key to alleviating misunderstandings and resolving conflicts constructively.
- Credibility: Whether outlining product features to clients, organisational goals to stakeholders, or new opportunities to investors, communication effectiveness builds trust and credibility.
All of these things together equal a clearer path to achieving your long-term business objectives.
The 10 communication skills for business success
We’ve discussed what strong communication skills in the workplace look like and why they matter, but this doesn’t show you how to put these traits into practice.
To help, we’ve compiled the ten interpersonal communication skills that are essential for any growing business, along with actionable steps to learn and implement them.
1. Give people what they want
This isn’t about telling people what they want to hear, though that’s a part of equation. Really, it’s about knowing how to talk to people. In other words, organise your communication so you reveal the information that’s most important to your audience first.
Naturally talented speakers do this automatically. It makes sense to organise a list with the most important information at the beginning.
However, the art of correctly gauging your audience’s priorities and adjusting your speech on the fly to better accommodate it takes more subtlety. Politicians on the campaign trail face this challenge regularly. They never know who will come to public events or what impromptu questions they’ll get from citizens and reporters. Imagine your customer as a critical reporter: Make sure all of your communication emphasises what they care about most.
2. Learn some quick problem-solving strategies
You may think this goes without saying, but it’s worth repeating: Problem solving is an indispensable part of business.
Your problem-solving checklist
These steps provide structure to any process, and are extremely important when communicating how to deal with problems in case you aren’t there to do it personally:
- Identify the problem
- Understand the cause
- Figure out a solution to the problem
- Monitor the progress
- Set up a system for dealing with a problem if it recurs
These steps may seem irrelevant until you encounter a problem you don’t know how to solve. With a problem-solving protocol established, there is a framework to react to new problems, even those that are unfamiliar. This helps you stay active and ensures you have less downtime.
3. Practice professional courtesy
In business, strong communication starts with respect. People bring different backgrounds, preferences, and communication styles to the table, but professionalism should always be the standard. Courtesy isn’t just about being polite; it creates a clear, respectful structure for working together. This applies across every channel, from meetings and emails to customer service interactions.
For marketing professionals, on social media where visibility is high, responding promptly and politely helps protect your reputation and build trust.
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4. Practice emotional intelligence
Emotional intelligence involves being in tune with others’ feelings and emotions. At work, this kind of high emotional intelligence guides social interactions and helps people work together more effectively.
At work, high emotional intelligence guides social interactions and helps people work together more effectively. It improves communication and allows teams to tactfully discuss differing opinions. Leaders in a company who actively pay attention to others’ emotions have happier employees because they are more socially aware, are respectful of diversity, and know how to handle conflict. This further translates to more positive interactions with vendors and customers.
Especially in our modern world, where tolerance and acceptance are mandatory in good business behaviour, it’s important to think about historical and social context with every move you make. Others will appreciate your tact and empathetic interactions with them.
5. Pay attention to non-verbal cues
Even though a number of studies place the importance of non-verbal communication equal to or surpassing that of verbal communication, it continues to be misunderstood and underestimated. Businesspeople who have mastered the ability to communicate non-verbally have several distinct advantages in the business sphere, from exuding confidence to reinforcing authority.
Facial expressions, posture, eye contact, voice, and hand gestures all fall into this category. Mastering the art of non-verbal communication for business relations is not easy, but can provide a new dimension in your communications with colleagues, as well as friends.
To illustrate how to use it, here are four areas of non-verbal communication to pay attention to.
- Facial expressions
- Facial expressions convey emotions
- Smiling makes others feel comfortable and creates an atmosphere of warmth and friendliness
- Body movement
- Maintain eye contact
- Avoid slouching or fidgeting
- Avoid pointing fingers, which is often perceived as aggressive and threatening
- Nod to demonstrate you understand
- Space and boundaries
- Be aware of your space and the space of others
- Personal space can be measured as 18 inches to 4 feet
- No need to pull out a measuring tape. Just keep a comfortable distance
- Voice quality
- It’s not just what we say, but how we say it
- Consider the tone and volume at which you speak
- Take note if you raise your voice in anger or frustration
6. Don’t rely only on non-verbal cues
Non-verbal communication is best used to supplement your understanding or experience of the interaction, not be a substitute for basic communication (especially when discussing important matters).
For this reason, always interpret signals you see as a collective. Don’t take your cues from one signal alone, but rather from the general mood of the situation. Pay special attention to the non-verbal cues that many people miss out on.
By the same token, it’s important to control the non-verbal cues you project to your colleagues. Chances are you’re giving away clues and extra information all the time, even when you’re not aware of it. Slowly and carefully consider how gestures and expressions may be interpreted, both to help you understand people, but also to help people understand you.
7. Be an attentive listener
It’s nothing short of frustrating when people pretend to listen when they really are just waiting for their chance to speak. If you can be a good listener, worlds will open up to you. After all, everyone loves being listened to. It’s probably the easiest way to put someone at ease: Just listen to what they have to say, and actually be present for the conversation.
It might seem like leadership is all about giving direction, but the best leaders know when to listen. Taking the time to genuinely hear your team’s concerns builds trust, shows respect, and helps you make more informed decisions. It’s that kind of attention that sets great leaders apart from the rest. Here are five ways you can be a better listener today.
- Face the speaker – Show your attentiveness through body language
- Maintain eye contact – To a degree you both feel comfortable
- Minimise external distractions – Drop your phone, push your computer aside, and focus on the conversation
- Keep an open mind – Wait until the other person finishes a thought before deciding you agree or disagree
- Engage thoughtfully: Ask questions, reflect back what you’ve heard, and hold off on giving advice unless it’s asked for.
Did you know?
- We listen to people at a rate of 125-250 words per minute, but think at 1,000-3,000 words per minute
- Strong communication skills are the top quality employers look for in candidates.
- 85% of individuals rate themselves as average or worse listeners
8. Challenge assumptions (politely!)
No one likes negativity, but there are situations when the only appropriate action is a thorough and detailed questioning of the subject. It’s human nature to make assumptions—it saves us time every day—but what if you or someone else arrives at the wrong conclusion? Some assumptions can be downright dangerous to relationships, business transactions, or both, and it’s your job to question them when you see them.
We aren’t mind readers. Rather than make assumptions about why a colleague hasn’t responded to an email, if a client is satisfied with your work, or if an innovative product will be profitable, ask questions. Stick to the facts you do know, and let the other person fill in the rest.
There are many examples of businesses missing out on real opportunities because they failed to challenge their assumptions about new products or technologies until it was too late. Subtly and deftly attempt to understand the context of the assumption to gauge its value. When you take the time to challenge assumptions, you may learn more information about the subject and improve your business as a result.
9. Ask questions
This may seem similar to the previous tip, but it’s actually different. Somewhat counter-intuitively, when you ask people questions in the social sphere, getting information is actually a secondary goal. The goal is to get them to talk and relax, and give you the opportunity to practice those listening skills. In business, the more information the better—but you need to ask the right questions to glean that information.
Asking the right questions takes effort, but it can have immense rewards. If you know the right questions to ask, you can find out the information you want, and also communicate metadata about yourself. Asking intelligent questions is one way to show your competency and expertise over the subject matter, and is an indispensable part of business networking.
10. Know when to be assertive
Though many of our tips have focused on being less assertive, it’s impossible to be a good leader without knowing when to put your foot down.
When employed judiciously, being assertive can have a great effect, one that is only enhanced when people know you as a sensitive and considerate person. This can show you’re committed when you really need to. Being assertive doesn’t mean you have to be aggressive or pushy, but rather clear and effective.
In fact, with a less assertive leadership style, it doesn’t take much firmness to make things happen. Your employees will see your strength of purpose and your drive to succeed and respect that. Give orders judiciously and people will take notice.
Communication separates a good business from a great one
When you communicate with people in your organisation more effectively, you’re more aware of potential problems and better able to implement solutions.
Focus on the skills in this article to improve your communication in the workplace: You’ll be more informed about every aspect of the business and you’ll understand the concerns of your coworkers. If you communicate with your customers well, you can catch potential pitfalls and other issues early on. Appraise the communication system at your business and see how these tips work for you.
If you’d like some additional guidance toward your communication skill development, Salesforce’s Trailhead features dozens of modules that can help you build industry and role-specific communication skills in the workplace, all for free. Start learning today.
This article was written by John Siegel and Nick Rojas.
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FAQs
What types of communication skills are best for business leadership?
Great leaders rely on interpersonal skills, emotional intelligence, and a clear communication strategy. Focus on authenticity, empathy, and social skills to build trust.
Strong verbal communication skills, active listening, and persuasive communication help you connect with different personalities and handle conflict resolution with confidence. These enhanced communication habits also support personal relationships, career development, and overall team morale.
How can I improve clarity during communication in the workplace?
Start by stating your main point in a single, clear sentence. Then back it up with confident spoken words, structured written communication, and positive body language.
Clear listening skills and effective speaking go hand in hand—when you listen effectively, you create space for deeper understanding and reduce common barriers to effective communication like confusion, distraction, or mixed messages.
How can business leaders improve communication across teams?
Lead by example. Practice effective listening, use clear interpersonal communication, and handle tension with stress management and anger management techniques.
Encourage open dialogue by setting aside assumptions and listening to both verbal and non-verbal signals. Invest in professional development that strengthens writing skills, presentation skills, and interview skills to build a culture of trust, collaboration, and ongoing personal development.
