I think one of the most important things in business are clear lines of communication.
This may sound obvious, but anyone who's worked in Corporate America knows that there are lots of people who don't get it, or who don't subscribe to that kind of thinking. At my old job, the communication was rarely effective in most cases, and there were plenty of people who actually went out of their way to hinder it. I guess they felt threatened by too much information being passed around the company.
I was always able to sort of laugh at this phenomenon since I was rarely directly involved, but now that I'm on my own, I'm seeing first-hand how important good communication really is, even in the simplest of business dealings. An example: just recently I realized a payment was overdue from one of my clients. I sent emails and left phone messages multiple times over a period of a few weeks. Finally the client got in touch with me and said they were going to send the money; they didn't. It took more badgering to finally get the check sent. By the time it actually got in the mail, I had no faith left whatsoever that it was ever going to reach me or that the client was even telling the truth (the payment was already six months overdue before this whole thing started).
All of that probably could have been avoided, though, if the client had just told me what was going on. For some reason they couldn't pay me on time - if they were having financial trouble, I probably would have understood that and allowed them more time without any bother. I like it when others are flexible for me, so I try to be for them as well. As it was, they kept me in the dark about whatever their reasons were for the delay, to the point where I was nearly ready to go to court over the matter.
Luckily, I seem to have pretty good clients for the most part, who respond to my emails immediately and are always happy to answer any questions I have or follow up on things for me. I hope that continues.
Posted by steve at January 19, 2004 09:40 AM