The High Cost of Poor Social Skills

How many prospects and clients has your business lost due to lack of social acumen skills?  

 How many chances to collaborate were lost because people missed the cues? 

What is social acumen? 

 It is a skill set that includes: 

• Paying attention!  Disappear your phone and listen for conversational cues and opportunities to address needs and commonalities. 
• Tuning into another person's perspective or way of seeing things. 
• Building relationships with a wide variety of people.
• Responding appropriately in many different business and social settings.

Ram Charan’s book, Leaders at All Levels, reports that as people develop their social acumen, their networks often extend beyond the business to include customers, suppliers, regulators, politicians, and various interest groups. The relationships tend to be durable because they are built on trust.  That trust allows information to flow both ways, exposing people to new ideas and different ways of seeing things. This is an example of what we mean at Contacts Count when we emphasize the “the power of human connection.”

Networking Gracefully using the skills of social acumen is one of the 8 competencies that we have developed at Contacts Count to help people just like you make Networking an Art not an Accident!

Want to learn more about the 8 competencies?

Contacts Count - 8 Competencies

Want to take a deeper dive into the 8 competencies and measure your current level of skills?  Our online Networking Competency Assessment takes 20 minutes to complete.  You will receive a 12-page PDF report with your results.

Email me at [email protected] – mention this blog and I will send you a complimentary link to the assessment.

About the Author

Vern Schellenger, President and CEO of Contact Count.

Contacts Count is the premier coaching and training organization dedicated to helping you use the power of human connection to transform your career, business, and life.

Vern is dedicated to empowering professionals and entrepreneurs with the strategies, skills and tools to master networking (even if they are introverted and don’t like networking events). His vast experience includes such roles as HR VP and CLO at Dunkin Donuts, VP & Director of Professional Services at Lee Hecht Harrison, and SR VP of Human Resources at American Bankers Association.