Here’s One Skill You Need to Master to Remain Competitive

  • Author: Tim Sanders
Reading time: 3 min
  • Word Count: 449
Read the news article

The old saying, “What got you here won’t get you there,” applies to your professional life today with One Skill You Need. The world is quickly changing as well as the competitive landscape. Whether you are running a business or trying to increase your career equity, ramping up One Skill You Need set is important.

If there is One Skill You Need that stands out as a game-changer, it’s the ability to effectively communicate with people from a distance. It leads to more collaboration, better expectation management and an improved ability to lead others to outperform on projects.

For most of my life, I’ve heard that there’s nothing like face-to-face communications for connecting with others and managing relationships. But it’s harder than ever to make every interaction in-person. So, we rely on the phone and more recently, email and text. While those are convenient to use, they pale in comparison to video conferencing when it comes to high quality conversations that produce results and connections.

Here’s One Skill You Need to Master to Remain Competitive

A few years ago, I decided to invest in video conferencing by creating an area in my office with a backdrop and a lighting set and a high-quality webcam. I settled on Zoom as my platform of choice and then started to offer clients and business associates the option of doing video instead of a call or an endless email thread. Within a dozen sessions, I started to get the hang of screen sharing, which really improved my ability to collaborate with others and visually communicate difficult concepts. Today, I’m almost 100% video communications based, only doing the rare conference call.

There are many benefits to video communications. Stanford researchers found that when we conduct video conferences, we achieve neural synchronization with others, just like we do in-person. This allows us to be more candid, create mutual liking faster and get more done with less time. The other big plus is that you have more focused conversations, because video requires us to single-task unlike conference calls, email or smartphone conversations.

As a consultant, I’ve helped entire companies move their sales, service and supplier communications over to video, and it’s made a huge difference to their bottom line. It also gives them a competitive advantage over rivals who stay stuck in audio or typed out conversations as One Skill You Need.

Here are a few data points from our research that demonstrate the gains from video VS phone/email:

30% increase in value from suppliers
50% increase in closing ratio for high quality deals
25% decrease in remote employee attrition

Contact us at Speakers Inc and follow us on Twitter

Was this article helpful?

Further articles you may enjoy:

  • (15)

Diversity in Speaker Lineups has become a buzzword in the event industry. Conference organizers, corporate summits, and industry panels all claim to be making strides toward inclusivity. Promotional materials showcase smiling, multicultural speaker lineups. But beneath the surface, a difficult question remains: Are events truly diverse, or are we just witnessing performative inclusion? Despite increasing […]

  • February 5, 2025
  • (25)

Booking a Keynote Speaker in 2025 when the world of events is evolving—fast. Whether you’re planning a leadership summit, corporate offsite, or global conference, your keynote speaker is no longer just an opener, they’re a catalyst for engagement, transformation, and brand alignment. So what are the biggest trends influencing how event planners when Booking a […]

  • April 6, 2025
  • (59)

Are Keynote Speakers Still Relevant in the rise of artificial intelligence has revolutionized nearly every industry, from automation in manufacturing to AI-powered chatbots handling customer service. In the world of events and conferences, AI-generated content has made its way into key areas—curating personalized event experiences, generating speech outlines, and even producing lifelike deep fake avatars […]

  • January 30, 2025
  • (8)

On a recent flight, at almost every stop along the way, the airline I had chosen reminded me that I was flying with “the best” So can you over-compliment your CX team. Airport signage told me…the CEO appearing on the pre-flight safety video told me…the flight attendant announcements told me…well, you get the picture. The […]

  • December 23, 2022
  • (3)

Four Reasons why do most successful employees manage their Personal Brands daily? It’s simple, really. They get the concept that every time someone has contact with you at work, outside of work, or on social media, one of two things happen: your Personal Brand is either strengthened or weakened by what you say or don’t say, and by what […]

  • December 18, 2022
  • (4)

Connection with someone takes more than common interests of What Makes People Click. It also takes this. Do you know who created the world’s first social network? It wasn’t Zuckerberg, Dorsey, or Tom from MySpace. It was the person who kindled the first fire. The fire’s loud crackling, billowing smoke, and beautiful orange glow attracted others […]

  • April 18, 2023
  • (12)

When the Show Doesn’t Go On: Hard Lessons From a Speaker No-Show If you’ve ever booked talent for a high-stakes event, you know the pressure: a packed ballroom, a waiting audience, and the expectation that everything will go perfectly. But what happens when your star speaker… just doesn’t show? We recently faced that nightmare with […]

  • June 4, 2025
  • (35)

Help! I need a speaker! But why use an Agent? The value of a good agency… The conference and business tourism industry is worth billions of dollars on a global scale every year. And for many of those conferences and industry seminars, the highlight of the event is the keynote or closing speaker. With so much […]

  • January 2, 2023

Subscribe to our Newsletter and get connected:

Your subscription could not be saved. Please try again.
Your subscription has been successful.

Newsletter

Subscribe to our newsletter and stay updated.

We use Brevo as our marketing platform. By submitting this form you agree that the personal data you provided will be transferred to Brevo for processing in accordance with Brevo's Privacy Policy.

Our Mission:

We are your partner creating memorable and engaging experiences that go beyond the event itself.

© All rights reserved 2026.  Designed using Voxel

AI Assistant
Speakers Inc Logo 2024
Privacy Overview

This website uses cookies so that we can provide you with the best user experience possible. Cookie information is stored in your browser and performs functions such as recognising you when you return to our website and helping our team to understand which sections of the website you find most interesting and useful.