The Art of Communication in the Modern Era, All Is Not Lost

The following is a fictional communication that in reality could be taking place in your office today.

Retail Agent: I nd a qte asap on this prop (I need a quote as soon as possible on this property)
Broker: addy and val (address and value)

Retail Agent: 1250 Jones St $1 mil TIV (1250 Jones St. $1 million Total Insured Value)
Broker: DD is done emailing u now (Due Diligence is done emailing you now)

Retail Agent: 12.5% Comm and u got a dl (12.5% Commission and you have a deal)
Broker: 10% Lol nice try (10 percent Laugh out loud, nice try)

Retail Agent: Bnd It and FYI grt jb 10q (Bind it and For Your Information Great Job Thank You)
Broker: DMI and TTUL (Don’t mention it and Talk To You Later)

The art of communication has changed drastically in our business, or has it really? It is a question that many of us struggle with on a daily basis. Twitter, Facebook, SMS, Instagram and Snap Chat to name a few, all words that were foreign to us just a few years ago. It wasn’t that long ago that email was the big buzz word in business. To our shock today, some of the next generation believe email is a dying way of communicating. We all are facing many challenges as we perpetuate our companies. Not only from a recruitment point of view, but also from how our next generation of team members will communicate moving forward.

To survive, it is important that we are able to learn from our past generations and our future generations, including blending the art of old school communication skills with modern communication technology of the present day. While this isn’t an easy challenge, it is one that we dare not ignore.

Remember back to just several years ago when you heard the word email. At first, like many, I thought this new technology would never work, but yet in a few months it seemed like magic. No longer were we tied to being available on the phone, we could send our message electronically! Then it got even better, we could attach items to our email … applications, pictures, loss runs, our business was changed forever.

Within a few short years, SMS became the big buzz word, and text messaging was the new hot way to communicate. Gone were the days of our kids being over the allotted minutes allowed, and in were the days of unlimited texting. This is the way the current generation knows how to communicate, and hence the door is open for a potential problem. To me, there is an art to being able to answer that phone call, being able to hold a verbal conversation, and being able to dedicate that time directly to the needs of your client without interruption. It is this one-on-one personal communication that we all need to fight for to ensure it never goes away.

There is something to be said about knowing how to communicate in every situation. Our business is a “people” business, based on relationships and trust. Along with that comes a responsibility to ensure we share our experiences with future generations. It is important that we don’t get lost in technology and forget how our business was established – personal relationships. As we teach our team about how there is no tone in email, we also need to ensure they have the ability to walk into that room full of people, shake a few hands and to look people in the eye. We need to arm our next generation with the ability to hold and conduct an in-person meeting, and share with them the art of reading body language.

There is no greater moment when holding that meeting and you look across the table and you see that smile that tells you, yes they got it; and of course the arms crossed when you think this is going nowhere. Ensuring that team members can handle that dispute on the phone, and turn it in to a positive situation, is every bit as important as them being able to upload the latest insured data to their underwriter on the cloud.

These are exciting times in our industry, and if we keep alive a little bit of the way we used to conduct our business, the new technology will only enrich our future.

Topics Agencies