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

[00:00:10] Kasim: I'm going to teach you the most important skill you're ever going to learn in life or in business. And I'm not teaching you because I'm good at it, by the way. I'm teaching you because I'm horrible at it. And I've had to learn the hard way just how important it is. This is an absolute, complete, and total prerequisite for anybody that works at Solutions Aid.

[00:00:22] Kasim: As a matter of fact, in our employee onboarding, the very first video that I ask people to watch is a video on this exact topic. So you're going to get a pretty healthy dose of, exactly what our employees get when they first start. And I call it... The three C's of communication. Now, before you jump ship and say, oh goodness, hear me out.

[00:00:38] Kasim: Communication is the most important skill to master as an entrepreneur, a business owner, a leader, an employee, an employer, manager. There's not a role that exists In the world that isn't amplified by an order of magnitude when you become an effective communicator When you're an effective communicator, you are deadly in so many ways Now what's interesting the sad irony is and this has been my experience over the course of 17 years as an employer The better somebody is at their job The worse they are at communicating it why because they take All the things for granted, they just understand, like there's no question to them. Nothing's opaque. It's just this, solid, very clear structure that they're dealing with they don't feel the need to communicate because in their mind they see from start to finish.

[00:01:28] Kasim: Okay, I know exactly what's going on here. I know what the problem is. I know the solution is and we've all actually, I don't know if you've, experienced this, but I have where I'm dealing with somebody who's hypercompetent, but I don't yet realize they're hyper competent. I ask them to do something, they communicate poorly, I have all of my weird neurotic, wonder what's going on there.

[00:01:43] Kasim: They probably don't understand me. They weren't listening. They didn't respond. They're ignoring me. They're not going to do it. Oh my god! And then they come up and they're like, hey, it's done. But I'm already so frazzled, I'm mad. I hope we've all been there.

[00:01:52] Kasim: the cadence, the SOP, the habit to get into if you want to be an effective communicator, the three C's of communication. First C, C number one, clarify. This is as much for the other person's benefit it is for yours. So I come to you with a problem and I say, Hey, for whatever reason, and I don't understand why, but the checkout experience on this particular product is broken in these ways.

[00:02:13] Kasim: You come back and instead of saying, okay, got it. That's the wrong thing to do, because everybody's, everybody in the back of their mind goes, I wonder if you really got it. I wonder if I explained that well enough. it's my concern about me, not my concern about you. And so you come back and say, Hey, appreciate you submitting this.

[00:02:28] Kasim: I just wanted to clarify the checkout experience is broken in these specific ways. And then you just slightly revise what it is that they sent. And. Most importantly, you actually clarify, because very often people's initial assessment of the problem isn't really problem. And you as the expert know that more than they do.

[00:02:43] Kasim: So you're going to come back and say, hey, it's actually not the checkout experience based on what I'm looking at here. It's a mobile compatibility problem going on with this particular plug in. Can you try on your end and let me know what you see? Here's a loom video to show you what it is that I mean.

[00:02:56] Kasim: And do you see how I've, pushed that back on their plate needlessly. It's, I just clarified the problem. Gave you my assessment of the problem, showed you proof that the problem existed, and then asked you to confirm my assessment. Clarity. So you want to clarify first and foremost. You want to set their mind at ease using clarity.

[00:03:13] Kasim: You also want to make sure, and if you're teaching your team this, by the way, it's really important to clarify because It's risk mitigation. You're making sure that you're climbing a ladder that's propped up against the right wall. I can't tell you how many times we've solved a problem that wasn't the problem because we didn't clarify in the very beginning.

[00:03:26] Kasim: So it brings all the misunderstandings to the surface immediately. scene number one, clarify. Scene number two, commit. Commit. There's nothing more frustrating than having somebody be like, okay, let me see what I can do. Well, when? How? With who? In what context? Like, commit. Don't commit to things that you can't commit to.

[00:03:43] Kasim: But let them know what comes next. Let them know, like, hey, totally understood. I'm going to take a look at this. I'm going to run this up the poll. I think I need to involve tier 2 support. this actually isn't something that I'm an expert in. So let me go find somebody who knows how to do this.

[00:03:56] Kasim: Let me go to my Rolodex. I'll look for a freelancer. Like, commit to an action. I am going to do this specific thing. And define what that specific thing is. So you've clarified, if clarity is necessary. And it always is. You've committed to an action. And then, This is a kissing cousin to commit.

[00:04:11] Kasim: It's close. Scene number three is close. People need closure. I need to know that I can take this task off of my desk and put it onto your desk. And for as long as it stays on my desk, it's still my problem. And that makes you a half solution. So if you can take this completely from me, Hey, I've got this just so you know, I'm going to take these four steps that are all really important in these sequences.

[00:04:32] Kasim: I think each is going to take about this much time. I'm going to follow up tomorrow just to let you know that this is in queue and it should be done by Friday. Even if it's not, I'll shoot you an email and let you know what the update is. you've got it. And as long as you actually do the things that you say you're going to do, I begin to trust you to a degree that makes you

[00:04:46] Kasim: absolutely indispensable. So first you, you clarify, you commit, and then you close. you commit to your closure. One of most valuable tools in your... Toolbox is the snooze feature on your email inbox, you know, I know there's customer support ticket systems and project management tools and CRMs, but man, I just like to, I send an email and when I commit to doing something and I provide somebody with closure, I snooze it till the day that it's committed to.

[00:05:10] Kasim: So if I say, I'm going to get back to you on Friday, I just snooze my outbound email and Friday. And now I have all the context and I can remind myself like, oh yeah, I needed to respond to that and bam. I'm able to follow through and make sure that keep up with all of my commitments. People want to know that you're a prior that they're a priority and good communication.

[00:05:24] Kasim: Let's know their priority There's nothing more frustrating for a vendor when you're actually grinding you're actually doing the work You're like man. I am going to war for these people and they don't appreciate me at all Well, guess what? They don't see that they don't see behind the scenes. They don't see you coding They don't see what happens.

[00:05:39] Kasim: They don't see how the sausage is made You have to tell them you have to tell them and the better you are at Explaining that explaining your value, the more they're going to value you. So three C's of communication. This works for you. This should work for your staff. And what's really, really interesting.

[00:05:53] Kasim: And I think remarkable is you actually begin to train your customers. How to communicate to. They begin to match your cadence. I've seen this over and over and over and over and over again. There's a couple A types that are just insufferable. But for the most part, people are like, Oh, okay, I see what we're doing here.

[00:06:07] Kasim: and you don't have to explain to them. These are the three C's of communication. But as you start to do it, they come to you with more clarity. And they begin to trust you more. So. hope this is helpful. You'll never know how much I'm rooting for you in your life and in your business.

[00:06:18] Kasim: I can't tell you how much I appreciate you watching me, supporting the channel. If you want to like, comment, subscribe, all those things, help the YouTube algorithm know that there's some value here. \ money and resources. Just kidding. I'll see y'all tomorrow. Peace.