Over a third of UK small business owners spend over 45 minutes a day or nearly 4 hours a week talking to suppliers, customers, colleagues and partners who don’t tell it to them straight, according to a national survey of 2,000 small business owners by T-Mobile. These long-winded conversations collectively cost the small business owners almost 3 million working hours a week, or over £36 million in line with the average hourly wage in the UK.

T-Mobile commissioned the research into Straight Talking to better understand the time pressures business owners are under and find out how they prefer to communicate in business. 86% of small business owners said they waste time every day talking to suppliers, customers, colleagues and partners who don’t get to the point. The vast majority (91%) see themselves as Straight Talkers and have very little patience for those who do not take this approach. Almost three quarters (74%) admitted to switching off after just five minutes if they feel someone isn’t Straight Talking and one in five (19%) will not listen at all. One in ten even prefer to skip pleasantries altogether and get straight to the point in all business meetings.

Small business owners identified overuse of jargon, clichés and too much small talk as the biggest giveaways for knowing when someone isn’t Straight Talking enough. “At the end of the day”, “blue sky thinking” and “out of the box” were uncovered as some of the most hated phrases used by business people.

Martin Lyne, Director of SME Marketing at T-Mobile comments:
“Thirty percent of the small businesses we polled stated half or more of their suppliers are not straight talking. As a supplier to many of these UK businesses, it’s important to us that we know how to best engage with them and this research clearly highlights the price being paid for a lack of straight talking in business. We recognise the importance of allowing them to get on with what they do best and not waste their time with jargon or complex products and services.”