Co-owning a business with someone who lives 40-50 minutes away from you can have some challenges, especially when texting is the main form of communication.
As we know, texting is interpreted by the reader. If the same scenario happened prior to phones, we would write letters to each other. Good thing back then, you probably wouldn’t see each other for years, if at all, and could just get over it.
The problem with texting
About a month ago, Brittany and I had a miscommunication via text.
I took some videos during our time together with the clothes for an Instagram reel. I didn’t really have a vision planned but thought maybe we could throw something fun together.
I created a draft and screen shared it with Brittany. She replied back something about it being good but corny. I agreed, and then she said she thought we could do better.
I agreed. And said, just remember these don’t have to be perfect.
Silence.
She assumed I was upset because she didn’t like my video. I was making sure that she knew this is something we could have fun with and would need to plan better next time. I assumed she was nervous about reels in general and wanted to reassure her.
A couple minutes went by and Brittany started to apologize because she thought she offended me. I explained to her my reasoning and that I was not upset at all. All was well from that point on.
As they say - Never assume.
Learn from your mistakes
As we go through this business, we are learning so much. I will go into more on future blogs. From this miscommunication experience, we learned a valuable lesson - Opinions and feedback is an opportunity to learn.
There is a big difference between critique and criticism. I would never condone hate or unkind words to someone. However, critiquing isn’t always a bad thing.
Without feedback and critiques, we don't get the chance to learn. Giving ourselves an opportunity to see more than one side of things is an opportunity to grow as a person.
I know that going forward we are going to make some awesome reels or videos, and we are going to make some awful ones. But, I bet you that we will learn from all of them.
Miscommunication, if handled well, can give us the chance to correct a problem and find a solution. Conflicts don’t have to lead to total destruction.
We aren’t in the day and age of snail mail. Take time to explain yourself, don't make assumptions and make sure you take time to listen.
Don’t run from the confrontation, lean in and learn from it.
You may find out that there was really no issue at all.
Stay simply confident,
Kayla
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1 comment
Communication can be difficult at a distance especially through text. You can’t read a person or understand their tone through text messages. As convenient as it is it can be taken so many different ways. I would say as long as you each speak up to each other with questionable comments or further explaining your comments with makes things so much better. Picking up the phone and calling each other is always the best option but I understand how tough that can be. You guys both rock!! Love ya!!