Achieving alignment and harmony between your inhouse team and specialist can provide advantages and a competitive edge for your brand and against the competition.
Brands can find working with consultants and specialists challenging across many fronts.
These include onboarding and getting the external team aligned on systems, processes and workflows. Adapting and combining work cultures and styles can also present obstacles in achieving efficiency.
The reason for bringing in an external team can also be a factor in determining harmony with your inhouse team. Some brands do so to plug a resource gap, others consider specialist help when they are facing a business challenge that internal resources have not managed before. Regardless of the reason, it is important to be clear about the reason the team is being brought in.
Another alignment challenge revolves around expectations. Many inhouse teams are familiar with the brand’s various challenges, including dealing with them on a daily or frequent basis. Expectations that the specialist will be able to ‘plug and play’ from Day One is unrealistic and sets both sides up to fail.
Given the challenges to alignment, what are the advantages of working with a specialist instead of growing the team inhouse?
As shared earlier, while there are multiple areas that can be challenging in working with an external specialist, there are also advantages. Some advantages are quick to realise in the relationship, while others accrue over time and experience.
Some ‘quick wins’ with working with a specialist include tapping on a knowledge base and capabilities previously inaccessible by the brand, gaining external and neutral perspectives on the brand’s assets, channels and messaging as well as additional talent to add on to programmes and campaigns and support with implementation or execution.
Long-term benefits include access to the network and community that can build collaborations and partnerships that are anchored by the same specialist. This can lead to consistency in treatment between partners, especially when it is driven by the specialist functioning as an anchor.
A competitive edge that comes with time occurs when the external team is mapped to the brand’s teams or functions, allowing the opportunity for the brand to take on or implement concurrent programmes. This increases efficiency, and if the specialist is sufficiently integrated, improves effectiveness as well.
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We are Brand Utility is a strategic communication and business consultancy. Our principal consultant is a registered management consultant, certified and recognised by the Institute of Management Consultants Singapore.
We work with brands in the corporate, professional services, retail, travel and technology spaces.
What are some steps to do to support strategic communications specialists in working with my inhouse team?
There are three stages in supporting the alignment and integration of specialists with an inhouse team – pre-engagement, onboarding and empowerment.
During pre-engagement of the specialist and team, the idea is to do an assessment of your team’s work culture and styles. Determine the baseline and the non-negotiables. Put these down into writing, or better yet, create a standard operating process. These can include matters such as team goals, objectives for the year/quarter, meeting outcomes, frequency, cadence and other aspects that the team recognises as a structure.
Decide on the reason for engagement whether it is to access capabilities, to lead projects or to increase resources. Depending on the reason, consider what areas and outcomes the specialist will be responsible for, whether jointly with the inhouse team, or solely responsible as part of the scope of work.
Create or refresh the communications or marketing plan and integrate the specialist’s areas and scopes inside. Secure buy-in and understanding from management, as well as coordinating or project ownership with inhouse team members.
Ensure that a positive and productive onboarding is done with the specialist. Allow time and space – usually up to a month – for the external team to research, read and ask questions (no matter how basic it can be).
During this period as both the inhouse team and specialist are learning one another’s work style, try not to set immediate outcomes or take pains to over-explain as it might give either team an inaccurate impression of the work culture. Remember that the goal is to optimise the specialty, capabilities and resources a specialist brings, and not just add another pair of hands to the team.
As the team moves to the empowerment stage, the team leader should start thinking in terms of clearing obstacles for the combined team to do their best work. These obstacles can include older approaches or methods of doing things, or helping other business stakeholders become familiar with the people and the work done.
Providing access to stakeholders, information and internal systems (for e.g. CRM, summarised sales figures, etc) can help optimise the specialists’ performance or delivery of outcomes. There are genuine reasons for withholding company sensitive information and data from external parties, so this is not about opening full access to sensitive information but instead ensuring that the specialist has the bigger picture and perspective.
Finally, empowerment includes co-ownership of results and outcomes. Working together as one team provides the specialist with support that they are working towards business goals and not being the odd person looking in from the outside and ineffective.
We are Brand Utility is a strategic communication and business consultancy business consultancy. We work with brands in the corporate, professional services, retail, travel and technology spaces.
We offer strategy and tactics to support growth outcomes - revenue, scale, regional expansion and market entry – for our clients.
Areas of support include:
Strategic communications: Approach to market, brand concept and map, positioning, messaging, story and narrative, thought leadership
Marketing: Campaign/programme planning, story-based marketing execution, digital marketing, community amplification, content planning and production, go-to-market execution
Lead generation and growth marketing: Digital advertising, social media advertising, social commerce, e-commerce
Integration of marketing with business operations: We plan and execute as a marketing and/or PR lead for your brand
Discover more about our services at our website.
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