Moment 47 - The Power of Good Communication: Nick Jenkins

00:02In terms of skills as well, as an entrepreneur you, I heard you talk about public speaking being integral to, you did public speaking at university? I did.

00:08I did a lot of public speaking at university and a lot of debating, and the skill I think that's important is the ability to be able to persuade people of your ideas, not necessarily public speaking, but in every meeting that you go to, you need to be able to look people in the eye and convince them that your idea is right and and that could be in a sales role, it could be sitting around a table with a bunch of developers and one of them saying, I think this is the right way forward. If you can't articulate yourself properly, then you're never going to be listened to and that's a skill I think is, is, um, uh, it's being recognized in schools. I'm, I do a lot in education now, so I, I see now more and more they recognize that that's a skill that is really important that people, you should be able to look someone in the eye and be able to explain yourself very, very coherently.

00:48I tend to actually believe I'd go one step further and think I can't think of a more important skill in life and business then we, I call, I refer to it as sales because and we think of sales, we think of trying to get cash backck. Out of someone else's pocket by giving them something. But I think if it was like meet a girl in a nightclub, you know, try and communicate your idea to your team, investors, employees, um everyone you encounter I think is uh to some degree you're trying to sell something and it's usually yourself. Yeah. but. and those that are, you think about how that compounds over 70 years of your life being good or bad at that one skill. Will anything change the trajectory of your life more than being a like a good salesperson? And and that comes from, as you say, from being able to articulate yourself and speak and. yeah, and just think coherently and put down.

01:33A logical argument that people think, yes, okay, I get that, I understand it. how does one get better at that? I think a lot of that's practice. Um, um, and I, I think, you know, people make this sort of binary thing between public speaking, standing on stage and speaking to a crowd of people, um, versus not doing anything at all and actually in between there's a whole load of stuff which is, which is working within a team and being able to, and that that's where most people come up against it is that they'll be sitting in a meeting with four or five other people. And they've got something they want to say and they too if they're too nervous about saying something, they just don't say anything at all and then their ideas are never listened to. Yeah. And then they're devalued in that context.

02:10And so it may not necessarily be spoken word. You've also got to be able to write well and convincingly. Then there's another side of it which is the numeracy side and I find, I find that the the most convincing is when I went I love a good spreadsheet but, but when you can express ideas in, in numbers and you say look this is the model that works and you can prove it in numbers, it is, is a very convincing thing particularly if you. Yeah I think right if we do this this is the evidence we've got, that's what will happen that's very convincing uh so there's there's there's also being numerous and being able to explain things in numbers which is persuasively. yeah. yeah. it's so true yeah you can be like orally persuasive which is you know anecdotal persuasion I guess, and then you can be persuasive with numbers which is a.

02:54all graphics and that's the other thing, I mean I do see the quality of decks in the last 15 years has dramatically improved and. It in that all that, they're much much more engaging and and there's some real creative genius behind some of the stuff I we take occasionally they don't talk about the numbers, which is you know you beautiful people presentation and you a big sort of you know you go through the docs and and all fantastic looks, lovely beautiful graphics and then you think, you have kind of missed out the point about how you're going to make any money but but so there's a lot more so that again. But that comes down to how you persuade people and how you present how you present ideas not all of us not all of us. Understand things by listening. Some people understand by seeing. I see patterns in numbers, but not everyone.

03:33Does and I I realize that now that that just because I happen to see something one way doesn't mean to say that everybody else sees it in that way, and you have to understand how people how people communicate. one of the on that point about you know persuasion and communication.

03:46Um one of the most amazing things that happened to me inadvertently was um I well one of them is right here, I started doing a podcast and I from I never, the unintended consequence of me being forced to speak on stage because I was running around the world talking about marketing, um and being forced to write out on I do quotes On Instagram write these quotes every. Single day at seven PM On Instagram and then write, I used to write the this podcast, I used to just do on my own um was that I a and was able to develop my ideas better so if you ask me any question on marketing, well I've already written it out, I've written written an essay on its because I had to do a blog because I had to run my personal brand or if you ask me something else about.

04:25My life, I've already spent you know, a thousand hours talking on this podcast about it was I became um much I'd say 10X better at communicating, and the impact that had on my life was just profound. So my conclusive point here is I really think for young people that there are ways to force yourself to accelerate that learning.