For this week’s newsletter, I wanted to highlight how useful a communication tool my team and I use, called the Process Communication Model, can be in growing your business. And who better to talk to than Jeff King? Jeff is a Master PCM Trainer – one of twenty in the entire world – who has used PCM to help corporations, hospitals, individuals, sales teams, and more learn how to communicate more effectively.
For those who don’t already know, what is PCM?
PCM stands for Process Communication Model, and it’s a communication tool that teaches you how to assess, connect, and motivate people based on their preferred communication style.
How can you use PCM in your everyday life?
You can use PCM to assess people’s communication styles, and then learn how you can alter your message to better fit with that communication style. For example, 85% of the population don’t want to be told what to do. It may sound obvious, but even language like “click here” or “read this” can be a turn off for these people. By simple rephrasing your demands to request, you’ll connect with a much larger section of the population.
Can you tell me about a time where PCM had a substantial impact on a client of yours?
I was working with the executive team at a hospital who brought me in to help resolve a situation where a group of nurses had started wearing Crocs. Apparently, these shoes were a violation of the hospital dress code, and the hospital didn’t know how to get the nurses to stop wearing them without it turning into a larger issue. I spoke with the nurses and found out that the nurses just wanted to be comfortable and show off their personality by wearing shoes with different colors – they weren’t trying to break any rules or be disrespectful. So when I spoke with the administration, I was able to use PCM to help negotiate and make some small changes so both the nurses and the hospital administration felt heard and respected, and the situation was resolved. Overall, I ended up saving the executives hundreds of thousands of dollars they would have spent in a long, drawn out battle, and was able to get both sides to come to an agreement.
What advice would you give for someone who doesn’t know a lot about PCM, but wants to quickly start using its techniques to grow their business?
First thing: don’t tell people what to do: ask them, instead. Second, avoid mission, vision, or value-laden language. People who start businesses are usually pretty passionate about what they do and have strong beliefs in their products, but most people don’t connect with that kind of language. If you’re more logical and feeling-oriented with your messaging, and less value-laden, you’ll have better results.
Feel like there’s just one thing that’s holding you back from success? This may be the right fit for you…Register for my master class here.
