Communicating for Communicators

In the last few months, I’ve been consulting for a small number of communications firms. When a client like that asks you to help, you can’t help but be flattered. I mean: these are people who already know what they’re doing, to say the least. They don’t need me… but I’m glad they’ve been asking.

My latest client is Cunningham Strategic Communications, a small start-up helping re-shape opinion in the clean energy sector. They’re involved in some of the most important conversations happening in the most difficult-to-get-inside-of rooms, and I was thrilled to work for them. We share the same values with regard to clean energy (bottom line: we both like it), and they made it easy for me to be successful.

The website I built for them is simple… because it needs to be. As a start-up agency, Cunningham Strategic Communications is full of possibility and promise, rather than experience, so we decided a simple, scalable digital platform made the most sense for the immediate future. It will evolve as CSC takes on new challenges and, undoubtedly, grows.

The work I recently completed for a second, much larger communications agency, by contrast, was internal, rather than external. I came in, did an audit of the firm’s business development and creative practices, led a “refresh” workshop, and delivered a detailed recommendations brief to help guide them toward smarter, more state-of-the-art practices. It was a very satisfying two-week process.

I wish I could tell you the name of the agency, but they’ve asked for discretion… and if you were to bring me in on the same sort of project, you’d expect the same better-part-of-valor treatment, too. (And you’d get it.) I can, however, tell you this: the agency’s business development staff report significant improvements in their approach toward winning new business—and in their success rate. Creative team members, furthermore, are feeling energized and inspired and delivering fresh work to their clients.

I like this work—it helps me stay sharp, trying to keep one step ahead of (or at least keep up with) such smart professionals—and I’d like to do more of it. So if you happen to need help… I’d love to hear from you.