How to Unlock Your Business by Developing Your Communication Skills – In Just 7 Minutes with Kolarele Sonaike

Resources/Links:

• Wanting to Know How You Can Use Your Communication Skills as a Superpower for Your Business? Learn more on how you can use communication to effectively and positively change your career: greatspeech.co/workshop

Summary

Have you been feeling anxious, scared, or nervous whenever you try to communicate about your business or products to your clients?

Are you always finding different ways on how you can convince and effectively communicate to your clients?

Do you want to know how you can effectively and efficiently develop your business through communication and overcome those knocking knees?

Kolarele Sonaike is a Communication SuperSkills Coach. He is also a barrister helping executives and entrepreneurs supercharge their careers and businesses by developing outstanding communication skills.

In this episode, Kolarele explains how communication is crucial in developing your business, getting more clients, and snatching those sales! He also shares that communication is so diverse that it is not only limited to PowerPoint sharing and how it can be the “all or nothing” part of your business growth and development.

Check out these episode highlights:

• 01:21 – Kolarele’s ideal client: “My ideal client is executives and entrepreneurs who know that they are good at what they do but struggle with communicating effectively.”
• 01:38 – Problem Kolarele helps solve: “A lot of people find that they know their stuff, whether it’s their career or their business in particular, but being able to compellingly convince other people of their thoughts, their ideas they struggled with.”
• 03:07 – Typical symptoms that clients do before reaching out to Kolarele: “It’s kind of this internal and external thing, right? So the internal is, “I can’t get out the words that I want to say.” You know, I look at that classic situation where you look back at a conversation and go, “Oh, I should have said this. I should have said that.”
• 04:12 – Common mistakes that people make before they find Kolarele’s solution: “The two biggest ones are digging your head in the sand. So just assuming it will either get better by itself or that it’s not important enough. Or listening to friends who tell you, “No, you’re fine.” As opposed to the inner voice that tells you, “I know I should be far better.”
• 05:40 – Kolarele’s Valuable Free Action (VFA): “Practice. Einstein said, you know, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity”. He was entirely right, except for when it comes to practice.”
• 06:21 – Kolarele’s Valuable Free Resource: Check our Kolarele’s Webinar: greatspeech.co/workshop
• 06:57 – Q: They always think of presentations. They say, “Oh, my mind goes blank. And why does that happen?” A: That’s really just about our physiological response to what and feels like a threat or feels like an alien environment. Your body says fight or flight mode which sends adrenaline through your body.

Tweetable Takeaways from this Episode:

“They copy other people. It takes you out of being authentic and connecting with people which you can only do when you are as much yourself as possible.” -Kolarele Sonaike Share on X

Transcript
(Note, this was transcribed using a transcription software and may not reflect the exact words used in the podcast)

Tom Poland 00:10
Greetings, everyone, and a warm welcome to another edition of Marketing the Invisible. Tom Poland is my name. Beaming out to you, as always, from little Castaways Beach in Queensland, Australia, joined today by Kolarele Sonaike. Kolarele, a very warm welcome! Where are you hanging out?

Kolarele Sonaike 00:27
So I’m now back in London. If you’d done this a couple of days ago, I would have been in Corfu, so I could have matched you for sunshine.

Tom Poland 00:34
Corfu? Oh, beautiful! But I heard you had a beautiful summer in England this year anyway.

Kolarele Sonaike 00:40
Yeah. Beautiful.

Tom Poland 00:42
Relative, isn’t it?

Kolarele Sonaike 00:44
Yeah!

Tom Poland 00:45
All right. For those of you who don’t know Kolarele, he’s a Communication SuperSkills Coach, and we’re going to find out more about that, also a barrister by training, helping executives and entrepreneurs supercharge careers, and businesses by developing outstanding communication skills. Absolutely essential skill to have! Always has been, and always will be. Particularly some businesses. The title today is, “How to Unlock Your Business by Developing Your Communication SuperSkills”. Kolarele is going to show us how to do that in just seven minutes. Kolarele, our time starts now. Sir, question number one, who is your ideal client?

Kolarele Sonaike 01:21
My ideal client is executives and entrepreneurs who know that they are good at what they do but struggle with communicating effectively.

Tom Poland 01:30
Perfect! Thank you, sir. Lots of time left. Therefore, question number two is, tell us more about the problem you solve?

Kolarele Sonaike 01:38
Yeah, so a lot of people find that they know their stuff, whether it’s their career or their business in particular, but being able to compellingly convince other people of their thoughts, their ideas they struggled with. Often they’ll say, “I know it’s in my head, but when it comes out, it just doesn’t sound the way it should be.” Or “I use great logic but somehow they’re not persuaded.” Or “I’m in a leadership position, and I struggle to get people to follow me.” So I really deal in that space where it’s beyond how good you are at the job, and it’s about how you can bring people along. And that really is pretty much entirely about how you communicate.

Tom Poland 02:18
Do people often tell you that it sounds good in their head before it comes out of their mouth, but somehow it just doesn’t flow?

Kolarele Sonaike 02:25
Yeah, so I actually have. I’ve cut and paste actually a lot because I always ask people, “What do you struggle with most in communication?” And I’ve cut and pasted the various things that they say. And that is literally one of those!

Tom Poland 02:37
That’s one of them, isn’t it?

Kolarele Sonaike 02:38
In my head, it sounds great, but when it comes, it’s different.

Tom Poland 02:42
Right, that must be frustrating for a lot of people. Tell us, question three, five and a half minutes left, some of the typical symptoms that- you mentioned the leader that struggles to articulate in such a way that the people we’re following, and so on. How does someone know, let’s say they’re a business owner or a coach, consultant? I have audiences, they’re in that sort of category. What are some of the clues that would say to them, “I need to find out more about what Kolarele actually does?”

Kolarele Sonaike 03:07
Great question, actually, because it’s kind of this internal and external thing, right? So the internal is, “I can’t get out the words that I want to say.” You know, I look at that classic situation where you look back at a conversation and go, “Oh, I should have said this. I should have said that.” Or going beyond that, which is, “I have to give a presentation and I’m all over the place. I forget my words. I sweat. My hands shake. My voice goes dry.” Or some say, “My voice goes up to, like, a different pitch like I’m a little 13-year-old girl.” So those are kind of the internal impacts. The external is, as a result, your business doesn’t convince as many people. You struggle to get clients, You struggle to, kind of, establish yourself as a leader in your field. That kind of thing. So it kind of flows into that, and then really creates a problem.

Tom Poland 03:59
It’s just got tentacles everywhere, isn’t it? In business and in life, this communication thing? Thank you, sir. Question four and four minutes left, what are some of the common mistakes that people make trying to solve this communication challenge?

Kolarele Sonaike 04:12
The two biggest ones are digging your head in the sand. So just assuming it will either get better by itself or that it’s not important enough. Or listening to friends who tell you, “No, you’re fine.” As opposed to the inner voice that tells you, “I know I should be far better.” And then the second is often when people do try to do something, they try to copy somebody else. So they’ll go and stud-, you know, look at Barack Obama’s speeches. I had a lady, in fact, yesterday who told me that she went to my websites, they have a great resource on the greatest speeches given by women. And she went there specifically to try and copy and memorize them. And so they copy other people, and that’s actually- I wouldn’t say it’s worse than doing nothing at all, but it takes you out of being authentic and connecting with people which you can only do when you are as much yourself as possible. So that’s probably the biggest mistake.

Tom Poland 05:08
The biggest big mistake is authenticity, our personality, that’s part of our gift to the world and the expression of that is clearly what you’re helping to draw out in people.

Kolarele Sonaike 05:17
Yes. Oscar Wilde said, you know, “Be yourself. Everyone else is taken.”

Tom Poland 05:20
Everyone else’s taken. Yeah. Well, someone said to me, “You got to get this book talk like TED.” And I said, “I don’t wanna talk like TED. I wanna talk like Tom.” Thank you. Question five, two and a half minutes left, one valuable free action. What I’m after here is the top tip, not gonna solve the whole problem, but it might just take them a step on that journey?

Kolarele Sonaike 05:40
Practice.

Tom Poland 05:41
Practice?

Kolarele Sonaike 05:43
Yeah. Einstein said, you know, “Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is insanity”. He was entirely right, except for when it comes to practice. Because actually, you do that over and over again, but you do get a different result.

Tom Poland 05:58
Very true!

Kolarele Sonaike 05:58
So practice everything that you’re struggling with communication. The vastest majority of it can actually be addressed by practice to improve. There are other techniques, but if you, at least, practice or prepare, you’re gonna get much, much further.

Tom Poland 06:12
Perfect! Thank you, sir. Question six, two minutes left, one valuable free resource. Where can people go to upskill even more?

Kolarele Sonaike 06:21
Yes, I’ve got a great free workshop that’s called, “The 5 Communication SuperSkills that will change your career if you use them and stall your career if you don’t”. Big mouthful, right? But the URL is greatspeech.co/workshop. That’s .co/workshop.

Tom Poland 06:41
“5 Communication SuperSkills that will change your career or business when you use them.” So in the great speech, great as in terrific! Greatspeech.co/workshop. Thank you, sir! 75 seconds left. What’s the one question I should have asked you but didn’t?

Kolarele Sonaike 06:57
So probably the most common problem that people say to me with communication, they always think of presentations. They say, “Oh, my mind goes blank. And why does that happen?” And that’s really just about our physiological response to what and feels like a threat or feels like an alien environment. Your body says fight or flight mode which sends adrenaline through your body. The adrenaline has nowhere to go because you’re not about to fight or flight or run away, and so it’s just sitting in your body. And then it has to manifest itself in certain ways which are shaking hands, dry voice. I sweat.

Tom Poland 07:31
Knocking knees.

Kolarele Sonaike 07:33
Knocking knees, all of those things. So that’s actually why it happens, which means it’s entirely natural. So, again, practice will kind of help with that.

Tom Poland 07:41
Perfect, Kolarele. Thank you so much for your time and your insights.

Kolarele Sonaike 07:46
Thanks.

Tom Poland 07:37
Thanks for checking out our Marketing The Invisible podcast. If you like what we’re doing here please head over to iTunes to subscribe, rate us, and leave us a review. It’s very much appreciated. And if you want to generate five fresh leads in just five hours then check out www.fivehourchallenge.com.