One drum I regularly bang when coaching salespeople is the need to communicate effectively.

I will freely admit I have many different drums — any one of which I can be found banging on while trying to get my message across — but that’s not important right now.

Communicating effectively doesn’t just mean making sure you’re understood. It means using whatever medium your client is most comfortable with.

My sales territory is geographically enormous — one and a half provinces and two time zones. I’ll be the first to admit that some clients don’t see me for in-person meetings more than once a year. But most of them I talk with weekly, and in many cases, daily.

Regardless of the diversity of channels and industries they’re in, my roster of dealers and resellers can be sorted into the following groups:

• Callers
• Texters
• Emailers

I divide them that way in my CRM notes because that’s the means of communication they prefer. That’s the medium they’re most likely to respond to.

The rules are simple: Don’t call people who prefer to text, don’t text people who prefer to call, and so on.

There’s less overlap between them than you might expect. Obviously, I email everybody, but those messages often just formalize deals we already worked out by phone or text.

And at least for me, it’s normal to receive orders — sometimes very big ones — by text. This happens several times a week. I screen-cap the texts, forward them to my order desk and cc my client so there’s a written record.

Most of the reason people prefer one method over another is simply personal preference. But sometimes there are logistical reasons.

Years ago, I had a client who, without exaggeration, always emailed me between 2 and 4 a.m. And when I was in town, they were never available for a meeting until late afternoon — often not showing up at their office until then.

Those two facts often made me wonder if my client was a vampire. I don’t know if they were, but on that note, I also don’t know for sure that they weren’t.

And speaking of logistics: When there’s a time difference between you and your client, you sometimes have to flex to their working hours.

I’ll be the first to admit I’m not a fan of having to be up and at ’em, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for a 7 a.m. Teams meeting. But it happens a few times a year because that’s what’s necessary — and you do what’s necessary to do your job.