HOW TO: be a good comms consultant

I’ve been a comms consultant now for nearly four and a half years.

 Starting up on my own was the best career decision I’ve ever made. It’s an experience that has had some challenges, no doubt. But it’s a period of my life that has been overwhelmingly fun, inspiring and enriching.

 I’ve reflected a lot on what makes a good comms and marketing consultant in this time. I’ve learned a lot from the ups, and the (occasional) downs; and I think there are some key common behaviours that help to deliver good comms or marketing projects.

 So this isn’t a “how to become a comms consultant” post (I’ve written about this a lot – and done a podcast about it). It’s also not a “how to be successful in business as a comms consultant” post (I’ve written about this previously too).

This is how to be a good comms consultant; i.e. which common behaviours I believe are key do giving a good service to clients, whatever the project:

 1.     Listen more than talk

 I approach everything as if I’m the end user so always start with a deep dive into the narrative of the project, people or place in question and listening to the wants and desires of all those involved.

 This inevitably means doing far more listening than talking. I often find that clients (be they NHS Comms based or in the private sector) appreciate the opportunity to express themselves as openly as possible, before I provide my perspective. Often, the problems they come to me with have been in the “too difficult”, “too complicated”, or “not enough time” piles for a while. So knowing that someone is available to help, often comes as a big relief.

So just giving the opportunity for them to “empty their brains” of their thoughts, however this emerges is both really appreciated by them; and actually really useful for me to get a proper understanding of the challenge.

So it’s really important that in coming up with the right solutions, you listen and absorb clients’ needs in the full unedited format; which leads to behaviour number 2…

2.     Ask the right questions

Whilst I do see my role as to be as much of a sounding board as anything as anything else; it is ultimately my job to come up with solutions, and create a sense of order and direction.

This is where asking the right questions is so important.

These vary from challenge to challenge; but they almost always involve asking:

“What does good look like?”

“Why does this matter?”

“What are you doing about it?”

“How can people get involved?”

“Who do we need on side?”

Whilst clients I work with expect me to know a bit about their business, they don’t expect me to be an expert. They do, however, expect me to come up with workable comms solutions, and bring order to their sometimes scrambled thoughts.

Asking simple, but the right, questions always helps me to do this.

3.     Take people with you

It can be a difficult balance to strike.

On the one hand, you want to show you’re an expert who can take your clients’ problems away with your own sheer personal brilliance.

On the other, you want to give them what they want! They’re paying your way, and ultimately, you need them to be happy.

The perfect situation is to take clients on a journey with you; and help them arrive at the right solutions, by advising and carefully nudging them along the way.

I will never dictate a solution to anyone. However, I won’t just be a “yes person” either. Part of the role of a comms consultant is to provide insight, foresight and a framework for creative thinking; drawing on your expertise and experience.

Sometimes you need to use your powers of persuasion (which includes demonstrating evidence in the form of research or the results of customer engagement) to gently help your clients to embrace an idea that may sound a bit scary to them at first. You’ll sometimes have to use these powers to help them avoid making sub-optimal decisions.

But whatever the situation, taking this evidence-led, but respectful approach to client engagement will very often pay dividends to your projects.

  4.     Bring people together

 A happy client has happy partners.

It’s why I love working alongside service leads, community groups, wider workforces, as well as budget holders.

It has important strategic and operational benefits.

Understanding early everyone who will be impacted, or just have a valuable opinion about a project helps you to ensure things run smoothly; and that you help to mitigate otherwise long, painful approval and sign-off processes.

However, even more importantly; bringing everyone together at the outset of a project is just the right thing to do. By involving people in issues and solutions that will impact them in some way gives you a much richer evidence base to work with, helps you shape your project outputs around their needs, and gives your initiative a much greater chance of future success.

5.     Gain people’s trust

I believe in honesty, integrity, and accessibility.

By being open about how I work; being just a phone call or email away, and dedicating myself totally to delivering a great outcome every time; I have become trusted a partner to many clients.

On one level this is just simply good business. But more than that, it’s something I’m really proud of.

It has taken a while to gain the level of trust that Grey Fox has with so many organisations.

But I acutely understand that, as the old saying goes: “What you build with your hands, you knock down with your backside.”

So whilst I’m proud to have this level of trust with a range of clients I really respect; I understand that I’m only ever one or two things going wrong before it can be damaged. It’s why I take such care, and work day and night, to deliver on my promises.

It is only when your client has complete trust in you, that together you can do good better.