Mmmm, I Love Strategy (and Turtles)
This far into my career, I can’t tell if I was always a strategic thinker, or if I’ve just done it so much that it comes to me naturally now. Either way, my first thought with new clients is making sure the strategy is there to support any communication efforts. If they don’t have one, I am almost always going to suggest one, but I’ve also seen the look in people’s eyes when I tell them how much a strategy costs (there’s a comma in there, is what I’m saying).
I can understand that the idea of investing that kind of time and money for what amounts to a document can seem a little...well, ridiculous. I'll be the first to tell you that my work isn't rocket science; I have years of experience and a decent amount of training behind me, but I also know that a lot of my work is about making people sit down and spill out all the words and thoughts they’ve had about their business.
My job is to ask the client approximately 1,000,000 questions so I can gather the information that goes into a strategy. Sure, I check for actions/tactics and messaging that reflect their business and communication goals, but my clients are the subject matter experts on their business so it's pretty rare that I come up with an idea or message that changes everything. It's mostly just me being curious and asking so. many. questions.
The value of a complete and formal strategy is that it:
makes us think about goals (you all know I love knowing the goal. Love it so much.); and
takes all the information that's rolling around in our heads and puts it down in one place.
Now, having worked without a formal communication strategy for huge chunks of my career, I know we can survive and even do some damn good work without one.
But.
A complete, formal, fleshed-out strategy saves so much time and mental energy when it comes to creating content and making business decisions because we've clearly laid out what your goals are, how you'll measure them, and what you're going to "say" to meet them. I'm there to help with clarity, organization, and the knowledge of solid communication principles so you can spend less time agonizing about what to say and whether or not it's doing any good.
I also know that a formal strategy can take a really long time to create if you’re doing it on your own. Which, uh, is why I don't have one myself yet, and why I often worked without one as an in-house communicator. There's almost always a bigger issue than writing down strategy. So we're either winging it with what's rolling around in our heads, or putting it together in tiny blocks of time over the course of months or years. In which case, our goals and our messaging have probably changed so much that what we started with doesn't really meet our needs anymore...which means starting all over again or constantly shooting at a moving target.
Hiring me, or someone like me, to build your strategy is largely about putting a value—and let's be honest, a price—on your time and energy. You get to a finished product faster, and having an outside perspective can help you avoid some of the stumbling blocks you might otherwise run into—two heads are better than one, even if neither of us are rocket scientists. (But, like, the Canadian Space Agency is free to call me about a communications strategy, if they’re interested.)
If you want to put our heads together to make your communications better, hit me up!
