Developing strong SaaS communication practices within teams and with target audiences requires attention and effort. 

It’s not a given that you or your team members will communicate effectively with one another or with your leads, prospects, and customers. 

As a result, this may lead to a revenue decline. 

According to the 2023 State of Business Communication report by Grammarly, poor communication impedes efficiency, productivity, and revenue generation. 68% of business leaders have lost deals because of miscommunication. 

Moreover, 1 in 5 executives say they’ve experienced eroded brand credibility because of bad communication practices. 

Things are pretty straightforward. 

Inefficient communication between executives, managers, and team members will result in multiple issues such as: 

💥 Unequal brand and product knowledge distribution 

Example: If executives don’t communicate well a product’s value proposition, the sales and marketing teams may have different understandings of its benefits, unique selling points, and target audiences, leading to inconsistent messages and confusion. 

💥 Lack of clear prioritization standards

Example: When receiving messages from multiple managers or executives, professionals may get confused and work on non-priority items that won’t move the needle in terms of business growth. 

💥 Missed deadlines or low-quality deliverables

Example: Faulty communication may lead to a poor understanding of tasks, ambiguous deadlines, responsibility, overlapping, and inefficient feedback loops, which will result in delays and low-quality work. 

[❗The list above is a tiny sample of the challenges executives, managers, and professionals may experience when engaging in inefficient communication practices.]

Later, internal chaos and miscommunication will reflect externally, negatively impacting the relationship with leads, prospects, and customers. 

How can you keep this from happening? 

There’s no shortcut, quick hack, or other way around than taking the time and intentionally working on improving your communication workflows. 

This approach will help you build efficient practices for internal communication and considerably improve your communication with target audiences. 

If you decide to improve your communication, consider applying the 8 principles described in this article.

These communication principles will help you: 

• Have a strong starting point when launching your work on upgrading your SaaS communication workflows. 
• Identify the main attributes contributing to improving existing communication practices and designing new ones. 
• Promoting a culture of continuous learning, flexibility, and adaptability within your SaaS company.
  

Let’s discuss them one by one.

1. Self-Awareness: Encourage Mindfulness

Usually, we’re quite oblivious to the ways we communicate. In other words, when communicating, we’re often unaware of communication aspects such as:  

→ Habits

For example, we may habitually interrupt and cut others off before they finish their thoughts. I’m guilty myself of that. This can be equally annoying when talking to team members, prospects, or customers. 

Or, we may have the habit of neglecting follow-ups, failing to check back with our teammates or prospects.  

→ Styles 

We may vary between or express different communication styles. For example, depending on the circumstances, we may have an assertive approach to expressing our thoughts without disrespecting others. In other cases, we may be passive, refraining from voicing our opinions, or even aggressive in our communication. 

Also, some may have an educational style when communicating, focused on helping target audiences gain helpful insights. In contrast, others may be condescending while educating leads, prospects, and customers.

→ Patterns

We may display multiple communication patterns because of existing habits as well as from external influences and factors. For example, we may present patterns of question avoidance, redirecting, or not answering questions directly, or selective responding. 

Also, we may manifest a pattern of escalation, transforming minor misunderstandings into larger conflicts. Finally, we may develop a pattern of over-promising to prospects, thinking that your Customer Success team will somehow meet people’s expectations.

This lack of self-awareness affects our communication with our team members (internally) or target audiences (externally) alike. In most cases, it may result in misunderstandings, disagreements, and unmet expectations. 

Self-awareness involves a professional’s ability for self-observation and self-correction while communicating. Instead of defaulting to habitual or auto-pilot mode when engaging with others, one must cultivate mindfulness and be present in communication. 

 You can develop self-awareness by: 

• Step 1: Identifying ideal habits, styles, and patterns to achieve communication goals.
• Step 2: Observing the habits, styles, and patterns you display when communicating.
• Step 3: Consciously working to eliminate annoying or inefficient habits, styles, and patterns while cultivating desirable ones. 
  

Enough practice allows you to develop and integrate new communication habits, styles, and patterns to yield better outcomes and interactions.

[Read: How Self-Awareness Can Make or Break Your SaaS Communication]

2. Intention: What’s the End Result? 

Intention refers to the result you or your team members want to generate through communication. These results may take different forms, such as: 

• Informing: Stating a fact or providing basic information.  
• Educating: Sharing in-depth insights and knowledge about a subject. 
• Persuading: Convincing someone to think a certain way or take a desired action.
• Selling: Getting an executive to buy into your idea or a prospect to purchase your product. 
• Clarifying: Answering doubts and eliminating existing confusion. 
• Directing: Providing someone with instruction and guidance. 
• Negotiating: Discussing specific terms and finding ways to achieve agreement. 
• Motivating: Inspiring someone to act a certain way while feeling good about it. 
• Entertaining: Ensuring higher engagement rates through amusing and relaxing communication. 
  

… and more. 

Knowing the impact you want to create within your team or with your target audience will help you adjust to different communication elements, such as the following: 

→ Message‍

Your intent will determine the information, subtleties, arguments, data, and perspective you share with the end receiver of the communication. 

→ Structure

Intention dictates the structure of your message, ensuring the proper arrangement of information. For example, if you want to persuade someone, you’ll build your message based on strong statements followed by arguments. 

On the other hand, if you want to educate new customers about your platform, you’ll build your communication starting with foundational concepts and gradually moving to advanced features.

→ Wording

Intention impacts our manner of speaking and word choices. For example, when persuading prospects to purchase a product, your sales representatives may use language based on benefits, emotions, and urgency.

→ Voice

The voice may refer to literal or figurative tones in communication. Literal voice relates to sound, pitch, and modulation when speaking. On the other hand, one can express a figurative voice when writing a piece of content through a specific style, such as formal or informal, or recognizable personality traits aligned with a brand’s values. 

Intention will influence your and your teammates’ voices. For example, if you want to convey a sense of urgency regarding project deadlines, your voice will be sharper, and you’ll use concise sentences with active verbs. 

Or, if you intend to connect more easily with your target audiences, presenting your brand as approachable and friendly, you’ll use a conversation and friendly voice in your customer communication. 

→ Method

Your intention will dictate whether communication should be synchronous or asynchronous. For example, if you want to convince your manager about the need to change action direction, a face-to-face or online meeting is more appropriate than an asynchronous Slack message.

On the other hand, when you’re not seeking immediate feedback, you can easily rely on asynchronous communication. 

→ Channel 

Depending on your intention and method, you may choose to communicate with your team members through email, Slack, face-to-face, Zoom, or Loom. The same applies to your communication with leads, prospects, and customers. 

For example, if you want to inform your customers about product updates, you can do it via email. On the other hand, if you want to educate customers about the best use of your platform, you can host a webinar.  

3. Clarity: Eliminate Uncertainty and Doubts

Make your messages digestible and easy to follow or act upon. By prioritizing clarity, people will understand your messages as you’ve intended. 

There are multiple aspects to consider when ensuring the clarity of your message. Here are some of them: 

→ Encoding

Use symbols, terminology, and meanings familiar and relatable to your message receiver(s) for better clarity. Whether internally or externally, before communicating something, you or your teammates can ask the following questions: 

• Is my audience familiar and comfortable with the word choices I make in my communication? 
• Do I have the same understanding of certain concepts and terms as my audience? Or should I clarify first the meaning behind those ideas? 
• Could my message be interpreted differently than I intended? 
  

→ Contextualization

This concept refers to ensuring that both you and the message receiver are on the same page. These two questions will help you with message contextualization for team or audience communication: 

• Are there any knowledge gaps my message receivers have that impede them from fully understanding my message? 
• If so, what information should I provide first to reduce these knowledge gaps? 
  

For example, you might start discussing a project with a team member only to realize they’re unaware. So, first, you’ll have to introduce them to the project and then proceed with your message. 

Similarly, create different content corresponding to multiple maturity levels your target audience may have, ensuring you cover any possible knowledge gaps.

→ Simplification

Simple messages guarantee a higher level of clarity. They eliminate redundancy and reduce doubts. To build simple messages, you or your teammates can ask the following questions: 

• Is my message providing redundant information? What can I exclude?
• Can I use fewer words, images, statistics, or graphics? 
• Are there any ambiguous parts that may create confusion or misunderstanding? 
• Does my message have a clear call to action? 
• Am I using jargon and complicated terms? How can I replace them? 
  

Ultimately, you can double-check your messages with other team members, ensuring they’re clear and easy to understand. 

4. Transparency: Provide Truthful and Accurate Information

Transparency is at the core of trustworthiness. Whether internal or external, transparent communication is key to becoming a reliable executive, manager, professional, or brand. 

To ensure transparency in your communication, you can ask yourself questions such as: 

• Did I verify the accuracy of the information I’m about to share?
• Is the information I’m providing true and accurate to the best of my knowledge?
• Am I hiding information to achieve a result? If so, how can I communicate honestly while ensuring a desirable outcome?
• Would I feel comfortable if all aspects of this communication were made public? 
• Are there any possible biases that are influencing my message? If so, how can I eliminate them? 
• Are my intentions clear when communicating? 
  

By considering all these questions, you’ll become more transparent in your communication, achieving greater connection and trustworthiness with teams and audiences alike.

5. Emotion: Connect With People (For Real)

Emotions in communication may have different connotations. However, when it comes to communication alignment, this principle refers to: 

1. Manifesting empathy and,  
2. Crafting messages based on the emotions you aim to evoke in your audience. 
   

You can show empathy in your communication with team members or audiences in multiple ways. Here are some of them: 

• Fully understand the background of your interlocutor or audience. 
• Practice active listening. 
• Ask the right questions that will reveal possible challenges you can help solve. 
• Keep your interlocutor’s or audience’s best interest at heart. For example, be upfront and honest when your prospect may need a different solution than your company offers. 
  

… and more. 

On the other hand, you can also work on evoking different emotions in your leads, prospects, and customers. These emotions can vary from curiosity to enthusiasm and will depend on your intention. But we’ll discuss the subtleties of this strategy in a different article. 

6. Willingness to Share: Transfer Knowledge and Skills

Whether internally or externally, great communication helps expand collective knowledge and skill sets, contributing to better workflows and higher efficiency. 

Knowledge and skill transfer within executives, managers, and team members depends greatly on your company’s dynamics and structure. 

• Do we offer extensive employee onboarding sessions? 
• Do you encourage professionals to organize training classes for colleagues? 
• Is our brand nurturing a culture of openness and sharing, celebrating those generous with offering insights and tips? 
  

On the other hand, knowledge and skill transfer from your brand to target audiences manifests slightly differently, depending on your company’s mission and educational strategies. 

To know whether your company is using the sharing principle in its communication with leads, prospects, customers, and other external stakeholders, ask yourself the following questions:

• Do we share our real expertise through our marketing and sales materials?
• Is our Customer Success team generous in offering hard-won insights to customers? 
• What’s our contribution to increasing the knowledge and understanding of our leads, prospects, and customers? 
• Do we provide a community platform for free exchanging ideas and insights? 
  

A generous approach to internal and external knowledge and skill transfer will contribute greatly to strengthening the collaboration between your team members and improving your brand’s position as an industry leader.

7. Consistency: Achieve Maximum Coherence

Consistency in communication refers to displaying coherence in ‘what’ and ‘how’ SaaS executives, managers, and team members communicate internally and externally.

 Team communication needs consistency for: 

• Reducing uncertainty: Consistency will set and solidify good communication standards, allowing your teams to anticipate expectations and work more efficiently. 
• Enabling complete synchronization: Consistency involves operating with the same meanings and practices, allowing full team alignment. 
• Improving collaboration: When executives, managers, and team members share the same wording, messages, communication workflows, and engagement practices, there’s a higher likelihood of reducing internal conflicts and increasing collaboration. 
• Homogenizing and maximizing workflows: Consistency in messages and engagement practices will allow your teams to test and use the best communication workflows for higher efficiency. 
  

… and more. 

On the other hand, consistency in audience communication is necessary for: 

• Building trust: Sending coherent signals to your audiences reaffirms your brand’s reliability and trustworthiness.  
• Reinforcing key messages: Being consistent in your communication will help you stay top of mind for people who’ll gradually start memorizing your value proposition. 
• Ensuring brand recognition: Consistent repetition of the same messages is crucial for breaking through the online noise and making your brand and products recognizable. 
• Reducing the risk for miscommunication: When your public-facing teams communicate with consistency, there’s a lower chance of sending mixed or contradictory messages. 
• Providing a good experience: To ensure positive interactions with your audience, send consistent messages and signals whether they’re engaging with your marketing material, sales reps, or Customer Success team. 
  

… and more. 

You and your team members can improve communication practices by working on elements such as the following: 

→ Messages

You can’t change your company’s mission from one month to another. Also, you can’t send mixed signals and messages to your team. For example, if you declare that your ideal customer profile is focused on luxury retail brands, you can’t ask your sales team to contact fintech companies. This will create a disharmonious work environment, reducing efficiency and accountability. 

On the other hand, when discussing with prospects, you can’t change your product’s value proposition from one meeting to another. This approach will weaken your brand image and turn away possible customers.

→ Wording

Wording consistency refers to using the same words, concepts, and understandings throughout internal and external communication. 

For example, the engineering, marketing, sales, and customer success teams of a SaaS platform that offers event management solutions should use the same words when describing an event’s phases or elements. 

Let’s take the simple word “attendees,” describing people who register and attend an event. This word should be used consistently throughout platform micro-copy, articles, sales presentations, and customer support documents. 

Using different words for the same meaning, such as “assistants,” “participants,” or “delegate,” will disrupt leads, prospects, and customers’ experience, adding more confusion and misunderstandings. 

→ Practices

Practices refer to habits, routines, protocols, and procedures your team members employ to maintain daily operations. 

For example, managers and team members should elaborate a consistent practice for delivering website QA feedback. Also, there should be clear employee onboarding protocols in place. 

You can’t onboard your new team members differently by enrolling someone in a two-week learning program while encouraging others to schedule meetings with everyone to understand the company and product better. 

The same principle applies to external communication. For example, it would be wrong to encourage your sales reps to follow one process for one customer and a completely different one for another without a valid reason. Disjoint practices are dangerous as they reduce efficiency and diminish brand trust.

Having detailed all three aspects that need consistency, the challenge is to get everyone on your team to use the same messages, wording, and practices. But we’ll discuss possible solutions in a different article. 

8. Standardization: Formalize and Socialize Your Practices

If I’d summarize standardization in one short sentence, it would be: 

“This is how we do it here.” 

Standardization doesn’t mean overcomplicating things. From startups to behemoth companies, we tend to overcomplicate and add unnecessary levels of bureaucracy. 

This shouldn’t be the case, as too much bureaucracy leads to stagnation, slacking, unimaginable levels of inefficiency, and, ultimately, decline. For more details, read “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” by Edward Gibbon. 

Standardization involves creating a company handbook that includes communication guidelines, practices, and rules. This handbook will be a tool for explicit learning, which is highly important, especially if your teams operate remotely.

Your executives, managers, and team members shouldn’t guess or come up with their own internal or external communication rules and practices. Your handbook should include everything they need to know for efficient communication. 

Before standardizing your internal and external communication rules and practices, ask yourself the following questions:

• Are these rules clear and easy to follow? 
• Will these communication practices save time and effort? 
• Do these rules and practices make sense? 
• Did we make sure to reduce unnecessary bureaucratic processes regarding our communication standards? 
• How can we encourage team members to follow our company’s communication handbook? 
• How will we measure the efficacy of these communication practices? 
• What’s the process for updating and improving our handbook? 
  

These questions will help design a quick-to-digest and follow communication handbook, setting the standard for efficiency, coherence, empathy, and strong practices within teams and when engaging with target audiences.

Final note

Working on these eight principles for communication alignment can feel overwhelming. But there’s no need to worry. When starting the work on improving your communication, you can focus on one principle at a time. 

In most cases, working on a single principle may be enough to improve your overall team and audience communication practices. For example, encouraging people to be mindful of their communication may result in thoughtful message exchanges, fewer misunderstandings, and better workflows. 

Next, you can gradually continue expanding and incorporating more principles for holistic communication practices.