I happened to come across the notes taken during the Effective Networking seminar (run by Diane Darling) that I attended a year back. One of the things that was mentioned was that communication power is based on:
- 55% body language
- 38% voice/tone
- 7% words
This means, whenever you send an email, you have just thrown out 93% of your communication power. If you pick up the phone instead, you get 45% of it back. And what are we so used to doing these days – sending emails. Is the world now full of lousy communicators? BTW, I learnt a lot in the above seminar and would highly recommend it and I have no vested interests in making this recommendation.
Software Product Manager by Gopal Shenoy 
Hi Gopal,
I have to confess I love using email; it’s just easy to use and seems to work most of the time. However, I absolutely agree there’s no replacement for talking to people in person. This is especially true when it comes to getting to know your customers. Sending email has limited effects and phone calls aren’t much better. If you really want to know your customers, know how they use your products, and what you can do to improve, get out of the office and go see them.
Thanks for your post.
Michael
Dear Gopal,
I am thrilled to see that you found some useful information in my program. Makes my day!
I wish you wonderful success!
Warm regards ~ Diane
Great point. I had a sales manager from years ago say something that always stuck with me. He said “50% of life is just showing up.”
He meant that if you get in front of people, things just happen.
And you’d 93% of it back.