The High Cost of Poor Social Skills

How many prospects and clients has your firm lost due to lack of social acumen skills?  
How many chances to collaborate were lost because people missed the cues?
What is social acumen?  Skill in

• Tuning into another person's perspective or way of seeing things,
• Building relationships with a wide variety of people,
• Responding appropriately in many different business and social settings.

Ram Charan’s book, Leaders at All Levels, reports that as people develop their social acumen, their networks often extend beyond the business to include customers, suppliers, regulators, politicians, and various interest groups. The relationships tend to be durable because they are built on trust.  That trust allows information to flow both ways, exposing people to new ideas and different ways of seeing things.

At Contacts Count LLC our training programs teach skills in The 8 Networking Competencies needed by almost everyone in almost every job type at almost every level. 

Participants learn skills like these – focused on bringing in the business and working cross-functionally to get the job done:

• Pay attention!  Disappear your phone and listen for conversational cues and opportunities to address needs and commonalities.  (Competency # 5)
• Tell stories that show expertise . . . without bragging!  (Competency #7)
• Ask questions that uncover opportunities and build trust. (Competency #6)

Wonder how to measure the skills of your staff?  Call Lynne Waymon at 301-589-8633 to “test-drive” a complimentary on-line Networking Competency Assessment.  The NCA measure skills in the 8 Competency Areas, takes about 20 minutes to do, and gives you a report on each of the 40 items.   Call Lynne at 301-589-8633 to set up Assessments for your group.