2118 - Elevating Communication for Purpose-Driven Organizations with Sarah Wood

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1:05With us right now, it is Sarah Wood. Sarah, you're a communications consultant. You are the founder of Sarah Wood Communication. You are found on the web at sarahwoodcommunication.com. Sarah Wood, thank you for joining us. Thank you for having me today. I'm very excited to talk to you. Yeah, well, give us an overview of your work. Who are you helping communicate? Sure. So Sarah Wood Communication is a boutique communication agency, and we help purpose-driven organizations illuminate and share the story of their good work and ways that reach and resonate with their audience. And I define purpose-driven organizations as an organization that is trying to make the world a better place in some way, shape, or form.

1:50It's a lot of nonprofits, associations, corporations that have corporate social responsibility departments or focused on a lot of health and science topics and things that are just kind of improving the way that people live. And, you know, hopefully the world we're all in. Yeah. So I obviously picked up on that you work with or specialize in working with purpose-driven organizations. Tell me a bit about why that's the case. Is it just, you know, a personal interest? But I guess what I'm getting at in particular is in the field or when we think about everything that is under the communication umbrella, if this is a nonprofit or association or a for-profit company that is just really focused on their purpose, tell me about that unique quality as it relates to all of communication.

2:52Yeah, so it's a little bit of both, right? My background was in nonprofits. I was in-house communication staff for several nonprofits, mostly in the health and science sphere to start out my career for about a decade. And then I decided to go out on my own and I was like, you know, stick with what you know. And there are some different elements to communicating, I would say, for purpose-driven organizations. One is that they have a lot of great stories kind of laying around, right? It's kind of a matter of picking and choosing and figuring out how to share those stories in the ways that most make sense.

3:31You're not really digging, right, for something to talk about. There's a lot of feel-good information there. And I will say the ability to tell a story is so essential to an organization's growth and success. And a lot of times in purpose-driven organizations, that kind of gets pushed to the side, right? They're not necessarily thinking about their communication. They're not necessarily thinking about how to tell the story. They're so focused on doing the work, so focused on having as much impact as they can that they don't necessarily pull out and see like, hey, we could actually reach so many more people.

4:08We could get more donations. We could get more volunteers and all of this if we invested in telling our story well. And so that's what I like to help them do is effectively tell their story, build those relationships, raise awareness. I think it's underestimated how much relationship and connection plays a role in an organization's success. And that's both organizational partnerships, but it's also on an individual level and telling a story consistently and doing it strategically so that you're regularly reaching out to people and you're not just kind of saying like, hey, I need some money today.

4:49You know, no one wants to get involved in that. They want to have that relationship. They want to feel invested in the organizations they're supporting. And I am here to tell people that, yes, do that. Invest in that. Tell the great stories of what you're doing. As much as you're doing good work, if you can't talk about it, you're going to plateau, right? You're going to hit the level where you can't continue to grow. You can't continue helping people. You're not going to have as much of an impact or be able to enact as much change as you're trying to make. So for all the do-gooders out there that are like, you know, I'm here to make the world a better place.

5:23Well, I'm here to help you do that. Yeah. You know, and something you said that I think really deserves to be underlined is one of the most valuable things that we can build, you know, consistently is relationships and deep relationships and relationships that are based on trust. And, and Sarah, you said that there were, you know, what, what you're saying, it sounds like is that, you know, communication, you know, how you're communicating, you know, whether that's written word, verbal, video, audio, you know, know, whatever channel that is visual, the imagery that you use, I mean, that is going to be the go juice that really helps facilitate a lot of these relationships in lieu of, you know, direct one-on-one time together.

6:18You know, we're talking about, I guess, essentially, it's like synchronous communication versus asynchronous communication. Do you mind maybe just, I've just thrown a bunch of stuff out on the table. Can you make sense of what I'm just talking about for our friend that's listening here? Josh, I think I know what you're getting at here. Yeah. So let's, okay, let's take an example, right? So let's say you have a major donor, right? You're going to have some individual communications with them, right? You're going to have someone in your organization that's kind of dedicated to like, you know, if they're giving you millions of dollars, someone's checking in with this person, right?

6:55Someone's having those actual conversations. However, you might also have like a million people who are giving you like$5, right? And you can't possibly have that one-on-one time and long-term conversations with those people. So that's where your kind of corporate communication comes in. I know it's a little tricky because we call it corporate communication and I'm not necessarily doing it for corporations, but corporate communication is kind of just your strategic external communication. So that's where the... And traditional PR or certainly media may be part of that. Absolutely. Right. So communication, again, is this broader term and media, media placements, media relations, that's a part of that.

7:44External shareholder communication, customer communication, It's all part of this larger umbrella of how we're communicating. I like to use the analogy of it's the general contractor for anyone who's familiar with construction or anything along those lines, because it encompasses so much. right? It can encompass your social media, your PR, just like you're talking about, you know, your web content, your e-newsletters, your newsletters, your print, like it should be closely tied with your fundraising or marketing and whatever other kind of sales, whichever departments you have, it needs to be very closely connected to all of those departments.

8:26And I say it's like, you know, use it as a foundation, you know, corporate communication is the foundation, right? You're building the foundation, you're building the relationship, and then you can layer your other ask on top of that. Whether that's, you know, you need money, whether it's sales, whether it's awareness, whether it's people participating in your programs, volunteers, whoever, whatever it is that you need, it all starts with that relationship. You know, we don't want to, we want to work with people. It's what I'm communicating with on behalf of organizations frequently, occasionally individuals, but typically on organizational basis.

9:05But we all want to work with and interact with people. We are humans. It's how we are wired. The more we can personalize and humanize the communication and the experience, the better off we're going to be. The more people are going to be committed to our success and the more invested in making sure we have an impact. Yeah. Sarah, talk about your individual client work, what that ends up looking like. And there may be someone that's listening to us right now that might be curious. Should they have a conversation with you? How specifically do you engage together and what are the outcomes that you create?

9:50I primarily offer fractional communication support. And fractional has become a much more popular term. But for anyone who is not super familiar with it at this point, it really just means per fraction of the time that a full-time person would be there. It's bringing on senior or executive level support to help you with a particular thing. And that can range from revamping a communication strategy to implementation. I do a lot of messaging, developing key messaging and talking points and making sure everyone's on track and saying the same things. We do a lot of focus on storytelling and finding the best stories for your audience and figuring out how to tell them and to share them in ways that reach them and that resonate well with them.

10:37Um, so I like to say that I help your staff members get out of the weeds and do what they're good at. Um, a lot of times I work with organizations that have smaller communication staff or sometimes no communication staff that's dedicated, um, totally to this. Um, and you know, I, I am invested in an organization success as well, right? Because I only work with organizations that are doing things that, you know, I believe in to a certain extent or that are making some sort of improvement to the world, you know? And I think that's the benefit of being self-employed, right, is that you get some flexibility and kind of who you're working with there.

11:19But I'm here to help you. And again, I typically do that in a fractional basis. So if you are interested in revamping your communication or just having someone come in and look at it and kind of say like, hey, let's look at what's working well and what's not. Maybe you haven't evaluated recently. Maybe you haven't, your audience may have changed over time and your messaging may no longer kind of correspond with that particular audience. Yeah. So we're happy to do custom, you know, custom solutions based on the client because each client is a little different. Yeah. And it's, listen, it's, I think it's easy for, for us as leaders, you know, even, you know, say, you know, for someone like me that, I mean, I spend most of my time communicating still there are aspects of what would fall under that.

12:12I'm just, I'm busy. I'm not thinking about it. And so it's so nice to have someone at that higher, you know, it's like in communications and PR, there are the doers and then there are the strategists, right? And, you know, for me, having someone to help with that lift on the executive level, looking out for the larger objectives, like that is so freeing. And so I can imagine what an upgrade that must be. It's bringing in that unbiased outside perspective, right? I mean, so often you kind of, you get into this cycle of maybe you're doing things just because you've done them for a long time, or someone in the office maybe has a, it's like their pet project, you know, and maybe it's no longer really working out.

13:03And I think it's helpful to have someone come in from the outside and kind of look at it with clear eyes and say, OK, here's what things are looking like. Here's my suggestions. And I will say one of the things that makes us a little different is we actually do both the strategy and the implementation. So we're happy to kind of stick around for a while and see how it plays out, right? Because we can come up with the best strategy in the world. But if you don't have the resources to effectively implement it, then it's not really going to do any good. It's just going to sit on the metaphorical shelf, right, and gather dust.

13:37So we want to make sure that you actually implement it and that you actually can see, is this working or is it not? Do we need to make some shifts? Do we need to make some changes? You know, we all have things that we're really good at. And sometimes the best way to do it is to, like, outsource it to somebody else who is really good at it. Mm-hmm. And I mean, speaking to your point specifically about being in communications and yet struggling to communicate, it's so much easier for me to do it for clients than it is for myself. Oh, yeah, yeah. Of course. Of course. Of course. You know, you expend all the like mental energy on like, okay, this is the great stuff I'm doing for my clients and they're going to do this, this, and this.

14:17And then you try to like turn around on yourself and you're like, uh, imposter syndrome kind of bubbles up. You overthink it too much. You're out of time, you know? Yeah. So I feel you on that. Well, Sarah, let's help resolve that. For our friend that's listening right now, let's talk about next steps. You know, here we are. We've just hit into 2025. I believe most of us probably need to do a more effective job in communicating our story, in connecting with potential customers, partners, audience members, shareholders, employees, our existing clients. Um, so where do we go from here? Well, I'd love people to reach out and contact me.

15:02Um, but also you may want to just browse around on my website and kind of get an idea of the types of clients and problems that I work with. I think that would be helpful for people. And even to take it a step back, it's a new year. It's time to think about whether your communication is effective, right? And before you need to reach out to anyone, that's the first step is think about like, how is our communication? Are we happy with what we're doing? Are we seeing the results that we want to see? You know, and if you're not, then, you know, reach out to me or someone else, you know, and kind of get an outside view on what's going on, you know?

15:44And if you're doing great, then awesome. Keep on doing great. I will caution, I do have some concerns that there's going to be some reductions or people who kind of are thinking about reducing their communication budgets for 2025. We know that that happens a lot when people are uncertain about the economy. It happens a lot when the presidential administration changes because people don't know what policies or funding streams may change. And I really want to caution people against pulling the budget from communication, not just because I work in it, but because we know that ongoing and consistent and strategic communication builds those relationships and those relationships give you the return on investment.

16:31And you don't want to pull. Yeah, I guess, you know, my philosophy on that is, look, you are either going to do proactive communication or you're going to end up doing a lot of responsive communication and responsive communication is usually a weaker position because now you're like, oh, we should have got out in front of it. and told the story rather than now we're having this story told to us. Always a risk, always a risk. Right, and also that means that you're not in control of which story you're telling because you're responding specifically to something. And that's probably not the best story you have to tell because you've got all these good things sitting around that you're doing and a lot of them are probably hidden.

17:20And, you know, the general public doesn't know about them and what the general public might pick up on or what might become a story, right, might snowball into a story tends to be, you know, negative. And we want those positive stories to get out there. And we want people to have a good vibe about your organization to start with, because then even if you do have if you have some type of crisis, if you have some sort of if you messed up somehow and you've got to fix it, you know, people are a lot more forgiving. if you already have that relationship and that you know that you consist, you know, that they know you're making an effort and have been making an effort.

17:59Yeah, I know Sarah, I know Josh. Like, I know what they stand for. I know who they are. They've been consistent on this issue. Exactly. Which I have to tell you, like, you know, if you had mentioned something about crisis comes, boy, we don't have enough time to get into this. No. If an unfortunate situation, you lose an employee and they make a stink. And then all of a sudden, you know, your organization is there's some concern that maybe you're missing out on a sensitivity or maybe you're just not a good steward or something like that. Again, you know, if you've just been radio silent, hey, maybe they're right and you're wrong.

18:38Yeah, you really have no credibility, right? If you haven't created that relationship through consistent communication, you don't have the credibility and they're not gonna give you the benefit of the doubt. And we don't want that to happen. No. Things happen at every organization, which are not ideal. And it's a matter of, have you created the relationships going in that they're gonna give you the space to fix what you need to fix? Mm-hmm. Hmm. Sarahwoodcommunication.com is the next step where you go. Sarah Wood, you're the founder. Thank you so much, Sarah, for this great conversation. Thank you for the work that you do.

19:18Thank you for having me. Appreciate it.

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