Connection isn’t a campaign

The value of brand trust cannot be underestimated, and it is built by listening to people (internally and externally), taking their feedback seriously, using it consistently to improve how you operate, and working on building relationships where people know they matter to your organisation.

Communication and relationship building might sound a bit like soft, feel-good pursuits, but getting them right increasingly gives brands a competitive advantage. In a world where trust in institutions, be it political, corporate, or the media, is at an all-time low, companies that build and nurture real relationships with their customers, partners, stakeholders, and their own teams are building durable foundations. And these will help see brands through any bad news cycles better than a shiny website or ad campaign.

The other benefits of connection
When you work at building solid two-way relationships, you automatically get much better at hearing some of the things you might not want to hear. That is because connection means honest feedback. And when that is absorbed honestly and acted upon, it is a strong driver of continuous improvement available to any organisation.

So rather than assuming you already know what your market, customers or people need and want, creating a culture of listening and connecting is what will set your organisation apart as one of the good guys in the eyes of the people that matter.

The people who can help
Kylie Reid has spent a decade building egg into one of Scotland’s most engaged communities. It has more than 200,000 members across social channels, and has been built almost entirely on actual human connection rather than paid reach. She understands, from lived experience, how to build a connected community and sustain it. Kylie can take these principles and translate them directly into how organisations build loyalty, belonging and advocacy far beyond what any advertising budget can manufacture.

Alice Thompson-Boyd co-founded Social Bite and understood that the most important thing she could do was connect the right people with a shared purpose. Bringing George Clooney and Leonardo DiCaprio to Edinburgh is an impressive achievement, but what is important is that those connections were built from a place of values and mission. For Alice, having authenticity opened doors that conventional relationship-building never would have. Alice now works as a purpose coach, helping organisations understand what drives human behaviour and how to build strong cultures and relationships that are deeply rooted in truth.

Viana Maya speaks about the elusive kind of connection that is easy to talk about and hard to actually build: genuine inclusion. Her work on equity, allyship, and people and culture transformation is grounded in the understanding that an organisation can’t build strong external relationships if its internal ones are weak. The two are not separate questions. How the people in your company relate to each other, whatever their differences, impacts everything that the outside world sees of your organisation.

John Hatfield has spent his career studying how communication between people works. An award-winning editor, author, speechwriter and conference speaker, John explores the art of cross-audience connection. He can help audiences understand who they are really talking to and what they really need to hear from them. John can help you find the key to real relationship building in today’s content-rich world.

Connection is not a campaign
When you embed listening, connection and relationship building slowly into your daily company culture, through hundreds of small interactions where you really listen and take note, you are building a strong base for your brand to grow on and a community that will support and stand by it. It starts with learning leadership behaviours and skills that make honest and real connection possible. Isn’t that a conversation worth having?

Kylie Reid, Alice Thompson-Boyd, Viana Maya and John Hatfield are all available for keynotes, workshops, and leadership sessions. If you are thinking about how your organisation builds the relationships that really matter, we would love to help. Drop us a line for a chat.