Most of us have standard phrases that we use a lot in our professional lives. One of mine is ‘Communication means many things to many people’.
It’s handy to say at the start of comms audit interviews, for example. I can follow it with ‘for the scope of this review, we are taking it to mean x’. Or I can say ‘for the purposes of this stage of research, communication can mean anything that you feel is relevant’. It helps to set the context of the review I’m carrying out.
It’s also a relevant phrase to keep in mind if you’re thinking of engaging an external person to help with communications at your organisation. It’s not the right choice for every organisation, but if an extra pair of hands or a new perspective will help you, where should you start?
Where to start
There are a lot of people working as communication specialists. They cover a range of disciplines – internal communications, PR, marketing, communication strategy, audience engagement, to name just a few. And they work in a variety of ways too – as freelancers, through agencies, as consultants, as interims and more.
All this can make it seem overwhelming if you want to bring in an external specialist to support you. To help make it easier, my advice is to start by considering these 3 areas:
- The Brief
- The Budget
- The Relationship
Let’s look at each of these in more detail.
The Brief
What is it that you want the communications specialist to help you with? The clearer you and they are on this from the outset, the better.
I recommend that before you even contact anyone you consider the following question:
What do you want to think, feel and/or do as a result of working with them?
Organisations can be cautious about working with an external specialist because they’re not sure what they need. You may worry that you don’t know what you don’t know. You realise you have some sort of problem with your comms, but you’re not sure what needs to be done to solve it.
But you don’t have to have all the answers.
Even if you don’t know the precise outputs you need from a specialist, you will have a feel for the outcomes. Your answers to the question above will form a great starting point for a conversation with potential suppliers. What can they do to support you in achieving that outcome?
The Budget
This is another important component when engaging a comms specialist.
I know that times are hard financially for organisations as well as individuals and you have to think about every penny you spend. So go back to your desired outcomes and recognise the value that working with an external specialist will add. When deciding how much budget you have for this work, a business case demonstrating this value will be useful.
You might also want to look for funding sources that cover this type of work. A few years ago I worked with an organisation that funded comms support with a grant to support organisational resilience.
Of course, costs will depend on a variety of factors, such as the type of work and the specialist’s experience, but starting with a ballpark idea of what you might be able to spend is useful.
And if we ask you for your budget before quoting, I promise you that the vast majority of us are not out to rip you off. If we know what you’ve got to spend, we can save wasting everyone’s time if your needs and ours don’t match.
Or we can work out what we can do for the money you have to spend.
(I’ll let you into a secret: no-one really likes talking about money, including freelance specialists. But unless we’re very lucky, we all have commitments and bills to pay. If I come into money, I’ll work with organisations for free, but until then I have to keep my daughter in football boots somehow!)
The Relationship
Remember that once you’ve engaged a comms specialist, you’re going to have to work with them. So try to get a feel for the relationship you will build.
Some questions to consider:
- Can they understand your world? All organisations have factors that make them unique, but there will be some common sector-specific themes. There is little point in a specialist delivering end of project recommendations that are unrealistic for you. If they haven’t worked with someone like you before, they should still be able to understand you quickly.
- What do previous clients say about working with them? Ask for testimonials and try to get a feel for the way that they worked together.
- If you’re bringing them in for a new perspective, how will they approach that? Ideally you’re looking for someone who is prepared to challenge you, but do it with kindness and understanding.
- If the work involves them interacting with other people in your organisation, how will they approach that? As external specialists, they should be used to adapting their style. Not to ‘fit in’ but to achieve effective outcomes (there’s a whole other LinkedIn article needed to address the challenges of the idea of fitting in and the importance of diversity of thought).
Best of luck
There are many brilliant reasons for working with a comms specialist, even when times are hard and budgets are tight. The extra experience or objective viewpoint they bring can benefit you in many ways.
I hope you find it helps to approach this with the questions from this blog in mind. Good luck and let me know how you get on.
If you’d like to have a chat to see if I’m the comms specialist you’re looking for, drop me an email and let’s get the conversation started.
Until next time
Sarah
Photo by Omotayo Kofoworola on Unsplash