Doing Things vs. Knowing Things
Orchestrating many specialists is always possible, but what’s your strategy?
Where Are You Going?
Expertise in doing things should not be underestimated in the creative/marketing world. Having the best “doers” is very useful and often essential: the expert WordPress person, that excellent Photoshop editor who can make all the photos look great, copywriters who grind out quality content, animators, and video folks who are really good at specific techniques and approaches. But what’s the strategy to put this all together?
What’s the Big Picture?
That’s the big question, isn’t it? What are you working to achieve? Digital marketers, graphic designers, and content providers all have their expertise — but is this what a company needs to properly launch a new product line or grow a company brand in a competitive market? It’s now easy to find a wide range of inexpensive resources online from any part of the world to get something done. The challenge is: how do you coordinate these expert doers to produce something bigger, something that’s more than just a bunch of uncoordinated parts.
It’s easy to find a wide range of inexpensive resources online from any part of the world to get something done. The challenge is: how do you coordinate these expert doers to produce something bigger, something that’s more than just a bunch of uncoordinated parts without a clear strategy focus?
Knowing Things
We’ve worked on multiple brand launches and new product campaigns and have found that our initial research, market intelligence, and critical customer interviews gave us enormous insights into how to proceed. This bigger picture enabled us to assess customer needs; their thinking and behaviors; and the relevant value of client offerings. This analysis became the foundation and the strategy for the brand.
Understanding what you’re looking for, the big picture of where you’re going is really something most people don’t think about when trying to solve problems. We tend to get lost in the management of tactics and details, the plan itself. What are you trying to achieve with any incremental change? Whether it’s design, new photos or a new website, these are all pieces of a bigger picture that’s ultimately all about strategy and outcomes. You have to think of the big view.
Strategic Thinking
Thinking about the big picture is how you solve problems and create solutions. Being experts in knowing things means understanding how the big picture works, how things function. Ultimately when you’re a company that knows things you still have to do things, but the bigger vision guides your way.
Building a different mindset in an agency is critical. For many, the choice nowadays is to become a super-specialist but then you’re competing with lots of other super specialists, sometimes globally.
When you have an orchestra full of expert musicians it doesn’t mean they create great music together — that’s where knowing things comes in. When an expert, the conductor, who has a vision, a focus, pulls it all together.
Keeping The Big Picture
At Radiant we keep the big-picture strategic view to orchestrate our team to deliver the desired results for our clients to meet their goals. Whether it’s commercial/multifamily real estate, emerging technology or large enterprises focusing on consultative sales, it’s essential to have a strategic focus on their business, how they operate and who their customers are.
Steven Donaldson, Principal, RadiantBrands