Working With Me

The Services I Offer

1. Research

   Being a strategic communicator starts with research; only campaigns informed by rigorous research can claim to be strategic.

   You need to know the resources you can deploy inside the organization, assess them objectively and separate the strengths you can then leverage from the weaknesses you will need to overcome. You also need to know the world outside your organization. There are trends and forces out there are making it harder for you to succeed or easier for you to succeed. Good research will assess your communication resources and scan the external environment, providing you and your team with the information and insight you’ll need to be truly strategic.

2. Strategic Planning

   Being a strategic communicator also requires a disciplined and comprehensive approach to strategic planning.

   Planning needs to be much more than on-the-fly responses to gut feelings. It must be much more than simply doing what the organization has always done. And it needs to be much more than simply copying your competitors and the leaders in other sectors, hoping that what worked for them will also work for you. I recognized this early in my career and set about slowly developing a method for strategic communication planning that is comprehensive, focused on communication and – I’m happy to say – consistently effective. I work closely with leaders in an organization and develop a detailed process for planning and scheduling all the key tactics of a campaign. I help gather the information that will be needed and then facilitate the discussions that follow. It sometimes takes a few days; it sometimes takes several weeks or months; each organization and each plan is unique.

3. Strategic Communication Campaign

   Once the plan is written, the time comes to begin following the plan and actually implement a strategic communication campaign.

   This is when the time comes to turn strategies into powerful messages, compelling images and effective campaigns. I’ve spent more than three decades doing precisely this for my clients; it’s what originally drew me to a career in communication. I’m delighted to continue offering creative, strategic and effective services.

4. Campaign Evaluation

   Finally, being a strategic communicator demands a disciplined and comprehensive approach to campaign evaluation.

   Strategic communicators know the value of learning from each campaign they plan and implement. They want to know for certain what resources delivered for them and what resources were lacking. They want to know if the trends and forces they thought would be helpful actually did help; did those trends and forces they felt would be a threat turn out to be a threat? And did the ways they chose to leverage strengths, overcome weaknesses, capitalize on opportunities and mitigate threats actually work? I work to find the measurable results that prove just how strategic the campaign actually was. I do it with a rigorous, sophisticated set of research tools and approaches that will help to answer all of these important questions.

Wherever your organization is along this strategic communication wheel – the initial research, the strategic planning, powerful communication or the evaluation phase – I can offer the counsel, the research data and the optimal words and images you will need to ensure your campaigns deliver every time.

About Working With Me

No surprises:

I ensure my clients always know what to expect from me and when. Then I work hard to deliver exactly that. If ever circumstances outside my control look like they might prevent me from delivering, I let the client know early and we work together to set new expectations.

On time every time:

Being on time matters in all walks of life but I would argue it matters most of all in communication. Programs go to air, newspapers go to print, blogs get posted… all on a tight schedule. If our work can’t be ready on time, chances are we will miss the opportunities others create for us; we work hard and plan carefully to ensure that doesn’t happen.

The right words, the right images:

I’ve worked with hundreds of clients throughout my career. All of them could speak and write in English; many could also do so in French. They could write and speak but they knew well enough to hire a professional when the stakes were high. When clients present me with the opportunity to write for them, I honour the privilege by writing carefully, creatively and strategically. The words and images I create will draw the attention of the audience; they will move them to action; and they will enhance the impression that audience has of your organization.

Listening is step one:

Throughout my career, I’ve had a number of clients and employers compliment me on being a good listener. At first, I didn’t realize what an important compliment that was. Today, I know one of the reasons I have consistently been able to help my clients and employers reach new heights, calm disasters and manage new challenges is because I listen carefully. I pay attention to detail. I ask good questions. I work with my clients to probe the situation and find the optimal solution. That’s what strategy is all about. Strategy starts with listening.

Decisions backed up with data:

Over the course of my career and my education, I have been able to learn a good deal about research. I have drawn on the research I conducted to learn and to make informed decisions on behalf of my clients. I have seen the difference that solid, objective and recent data can have on the quality of the decisions I make. Today, I make sure that all of my clients benefit from informed decisions.