Many times we have been asked, “What can you do for our brand, we need some help” That question opens up a waterfall of questions and opportunities. Many times highly talented and very astute brand champions ask us that question. These people have the skill set to push any brand anywhere they would like it to go.
In our industry we live in a world of intangible and most people in the C-Suite come from backgrounds as contrary to ours as black is to white. As marketing professionals we can sit in a room and develop brilliant strategies, but getting complete by in, that is another question. Where it all falls apart is in our ability to do two things:
1. Communicate with our coworkers in the C-suite in a fashion they are accustom, in a vernacular they can understand, one that is outside the world of abstraction.
2. Build a consensus, a baseline understanding of the brand within the entire organization before moving forward to solve any problems. Many times organizations become so involved with what they do on a day-to-day basis that they forget the core goal or philosophy of the company. It is our job, our responsibility, to keep the entire organization in touch with the brand. We understand brand management that is what we do. While others are doing what they do best, it is our responsibility to manage, defend, and migrate our brand internally before we can ever give flight to the external brand, let alone a migration. Take time to develop a communication bridge with all the people in your company who need to better understand what you do and why you do it. Make sure they see value in what you do by showing them how it brings greater value to what they do. Create an environment of passive collaboration allowing everyone to feel they can contribute and thus obtaining ongoing buy-in from the team.
The more the C-Suite understands the power of what marketing can do for them the more value they will see in the power of you. After all we are the masters of communications.
