I was recently running a messaging summit with the executive team of a successful government contractor in the cloud space. Just 13 months ago this company had very little presence and visibility in Washington among key decision makers. Today, through an aggressive PR and lobbying program, they are part of the right conversations.
Now that they are on the map they are ready to aggressively drive sales. So the conversation came around to making sure that all of the management team could deliver the same message, and I asked if we put the top executives into separate rooms and asked for a quick elevator pitch on the company would they all be on message. The immediate response was that they could sure do a better job of it today than when they decided to get serious about marketing and communications last year.
Of course that comment made me smile, and it led to a discussion about one of the fundamental things I tell all clients – the first step in getting the outside world to understand who you are and your value proposition is to align inside your company – ensure that all of the management team (and employees) can tell the same story. Management team and staff are your brand ambassadors – if they can’t easily articulate why you matter then you have no chance convincing decision-makers.
So next time you think about the message you are delivering to the market think about that exercise – if you put all of the members of the management team in different rooms and asked them to describe the company and why you matter, would they deliver a consistent story? If the answer is no then give me a call – it may be a reason why your marketing and communications campaigns are coming up short.