PEOPLE are very good at giving advice. They know exactly what you did wrong and how you can correct it. However, not many persons are inclined to accept and act on the guidance.

Experience is the greatest teacher, and of course we know that it takes a special brand of modesty to eat humble pie and accept practical counsel. Here are some of the best communication advice I have received over the last three decades:

Know your audience

In my earliest days in the field of communication, I was once part of a young and eager team planning an out-of-town event; in Mandeville to be exact. We went about happily mailing several letters of invitation to all and sundry in that town, with nary a thought to make a personal connection with the townsfolk. We wanted them to come out in their numbers to meet and greet us, yet we never spared the time to get to know anyone with whom we sought to communicate. Needless to say the good people of that wonderful town ignored us in droves.

One or two straying and curious onlookers came out to partake, not of our company, but of the copious amount of food that we took with us to the event. It was a harsh lesson, but we learned that the town’s businesses closed half-day (the day of our event), and thereafter everyone made their way home. Our number one lesson from this experience was to know your audience, find out as much as you can about them, and of course use the information wisely. We never forgot.

Be really good at receiving feedback

To say that feedback is very important in communication is an understatement. It is the sine qua non of the trade.

Feedback is your audience’s response and it enables you to evaluate the effectiveness of your message. If your audience doesn’t understand what you mean you can tell by the response and refine the message accordingly.

Sometimes feedback is non-verbal smiles, sighs or frowns — and sometimes it is oral or in writing. If you have friends they will sometimes politely tell you to your face the truth about yourself, how you look, or about your performance.

Then there are those people who will speak about you behind your back and their feedback (when it eventually gets to you, as it inevitably does) is useful too, depending on how you choose to use it. If you have really very good friends they will unhesitatingly hit you over the head with the unvarnished truth — many, many times. Fortunately, many of us are blessed with the latter.

Much has been written about how to give feedback, but not a lot is said about how to receive it. In giving and receiving feedback it is always important to have a great sense of humour and an authentic desire to work on yourself.

I have been fortunate to have had some of the brightest and the best Jamaican minds in the field of journalism to hone my career. If as a journalist you have not been castigated loudly (from the back of the newsroom) by your editor about the damn nonsense with which you have just offended his precious eyesight, you have not lived.

In the giving of such feedback, egos will take a bruising, especially if you were convinced that you had just delivered to mankind and future generations, your magnum opus.

Being able to humbly receive good feedback has kept it real for me and allowed me to not rest blissfully on my laurels, as few as they were. Keep an open mind when you get good honest feedback and try your best to improve on your last performance.

Understanding the importance of marketing and positioning

The leaders of many organisations in Jamaica still do not get why it is important in these times of shrinking dollar, to properly position your organisation and the work that it does.

Simply, positioning is the process by which we try to create an image or identity in the minds of our target audience about our brand. Re-positioning involves altering the identity of the product relative to competing products, for example.

Many decision-makers tend to think that expenditure on marketing and communication is a drain on the company’s purse and that it is a “waste of money” to market or advertise. In the field of communication, there are not many people who have had good or great bosses who understand the importance of marketing and communication as a return on investment line item.

Gladly, I have had some of the best. Marlene Street-Forrest, the General Manager of the Jamaica Stock Exchange is one executive decision-maker who understands the importance of marketing and selling your product or service.

Among business leaders she has done excellently, over the years, at communicating the message about the stock market and the importance of the stock exchange on a very low budget, cutting and carving as perhaps only a woman can. In the field of communication, getting your message out there is the key.

Yvonne Grinam-Nicholson, (MBA, ABC) is a Business Communications Consultant with RO Communications Jamaica, specialising in business communications and financial publications. She can be contacted at: yvonne@rocommunications.com. Visit her website at www.rocommunications.com and post your comments.