Can a business talk?

It does not have a mouth but it can speak. It does not have a face but we can see it. It does not have emotions but it can form relationships. It's not a riddle, it's a modern-day business.

Can a business communicate?

Say, someone told you, 'Apple said 'Plant more trees.'', you wouldn't question it. But if they told you, 'the tigers said 'Plant more trees.'', would you believe it?

Of course, at the back of our heads, we know that when someone says 'Apple said', we assume it was a human who released a press statement or twitter post, on behalf of the important decision-making humans at Apple. But with tigers, we don't share a common language; and they don't function as a group.

Looking at it from that angle, we can say that language and community enable businesses to communicate.

Today, it's easier for a business to communicate with humans, than it is for other living species to do so; even though we have co-existed on this planet for centuries.

But, think about this: if we replaced all of us with our hunter-gatherer counterparts (same species, same brains, different collective consciousness) - would they believe Apple or the tigers?

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Anyways, now that we have established that a business can talk, the next question is - how do they do it? They talk to us, humans, and they talk to each other!

What is business-to-business or B2B communication?

Just two businesses chit-chatting over a cup of tea.

Jokes apart, a business is an entity engaging in trade of any form to make profit. It exists for trade. And it communicates to exist. So, it communicates to trade.

Fundamentally, business 'A' wants to sell something and business 'B' wants to buy that something. Business 'A' would first have to tell other businesses like itself, and people like us, that they're selling their products. Business 'B' has to express interest. 'A' has to convince 'B' of the value of their products or services. 'B' will evaluate the offer. If all goes well, 'A' and 'B' negotiate the offer, and get an agreement signed. 'A' has to maintain this relationship with 'B' forever, to support, help and upsell.

What I just described is the B2B sales cycle. Why is that relevant?

Because the sole purpose of business-to-business communication is to sell, to do business. Every interaction it has, for brand-building, public relations or customer relations, stems from this core need.

An organisation that is not a business (like an NGO or a school) would communicate for entirely different reasons.

However, for businesses, the only way to survive is to sell. And the only way to sell is to communicate.

'Communication occurs whenever persons attribute significance to message related behaviour.' - Professor David Mortenson

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How does a business communicate?

For communication to happen, we need four major things:

1. Sender (brand or business in marketing)

2. Message (story or campaign in marketing)

3. Medium (channels of communication in marketing)

4. Receiver (target audience or ICP in marketing)

The sender is a business. But who is a business? A group of people? An office building? A godown with products? Our brain doesn't understand like that. So we give it an identity- we anthropomorphize it, we give it everything we give ourselves. A name, a face, dreams, values. This is what branding does- it defines who the business is.

The message is the crux of communication. There are many many ways to communicate any message. The tone or voice belongs to the sender, the value depends on the receiver and the construction and look of the message depends on the medium. These are the stories marketers love to tell.

Medium is the channel of communication. This is interesting, because the medium for a business to communicate is us! People. We communicate messages from one business to the other. In turn, we use channels such as emails, websites and meetings. And our channels communicate using language, visuals, sound, etc.

The receiver is another business, the buyer. The needs and values of this business determine the direction of all marketing and communication efforts - the sender, the message and the medium.

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If I want to tell something to my friend; my brain decides what message to convey, converts it to language, expresses it through words through sound, commands the vocal chords, and communicates it. For a business, the people are the brain. What to say, why, how, when and where is decided by people. People are also the language. People bring meaning to the message for communication. At the other end of the process, people interpret and comprehend the communication.

Language is predictable. People are not. But that is exactly how businesses grow (faster than vocabulary does).

A business can talk. And it talks through us.