Sam Birkett 0:05
Hello everyone once again for Marketing Meanders with Sally and Sam. Today, we're just gonna give you a quick rundown, a quick conversation about stakeholder management and it's probably something we've touched on in the past a certain degree and I'm sure something that pretty much well, everyone does in whatever way in their life. So you know, whether it's a stakeholder management of your, of your children, or your parents or friends or, you know, local drama society chair people, whatever it might be, there's stakeholder management, we've got to get into around the place and I suppose we wanted to look at it today in terms of both of us being freelance because we have stakeholders to manage reporters to external perspective. But of course, a lot of people are out there in the business, and they have these immediate stakeholders and wider stakeholders to actually work with effectively to get things done, I suppose. So what do you think Sally in terms of the most important things to bear in mind, if you're looking at you know, if you're someone who's in a marketing team, perhaps quite junior, and thinking right, stakeholder management, what does it mean, to me? What do I need to think about?

Sally Green 1:12
I think what you need to think about is that your targets and goals aren't necessarily everybody else's targets and goals. So don't think for a second that everybody is working towards the same, you know, number of leads the same revenue stream, they might be working towards a profile picture, or having these particular jobs done by this date, or whatever it is, just remember, it's not different. So possibly, when you're working with someone, that is a stakeholder in your marketing plan, the first thing to say is to ask them what their targets are, because then you can kind of align and you might find they're the same, that's not impossible, it's extremely rare, but not impossible. But make sure that you understand what they're working to. Otherwise, you're just going to annoy each other, and then tell them what yours are as well and make sure you both recognise it, it might even be worth writing them down so as a team you don't forget. But that's what you can often see that's gone horribly awry and people are just not understanding each other's priorities at all and then all of a sudden, you've got a mismatch.

Sam Birkett 2:14
I think that's brilliantly put, that's probably the most critical thing, isn't it? As you say, actually, that self-awareness and awareness of other people, isn't it within a team, and that's ultimately what it is, isn't it? Because you're effectively saying, Well, okay, what I know, I've got to achieve X, Y, and Z, and my manager says, I've got to do this by whatever dates, but then that awareness of okay, but you know, Isabelle working in this team, her main priority is to deliver this, this and this, and therefore, I know that if I harangue her on this, this issue again, and again, it's probably not going to it's gonna fall, perhaps on deaf ears, but it's, I'm gonna get frustrated. But it's almost anticipating, isn't it I suppose, therefore, by understanding your landscape, I guess.

Sally Green 2:55
Exactly. I mean, the other part of that is understanding actually what they're going to be able to help you with, don't just assume that I'll just say something out loud and they're going to completely understand what I'm expecting back. Because they might not, it's like I mean, we do it all the time, because we're freelancers. So we do quite detailed briefs because we're not part of the same team, we have to absolutely make sure that our clients know what we're trying to get at. But to say that can drift inside companies, you kind of assume that when I say, Oh, the lead time is six months. But actually, the sales team's lead time is six weeks and so you're kind of losing each other instantly. So you need to understand you've got the same vocabulary quite apart from anything else and otherwise, managing stakeholders without the same vocabulary is almost impossible.

Sam Birkett 3:41
Yeah, again, it's fantastically put, you're on fire today. I think that's a really good point. Because again, it's like, yeah, it's the common lexicon, I suppose or just making sure that people, as you say, do understand what do you mean, when when you say it, and the fact that, you know, there may be those competing concerns or interests, but you're effectively, you know, you could walk away. I mean, it's that thing is that they say, sometimes people can walk away from the conversation and something's been said and agreed in inverted commas and then you ask the three or four different parties in there, what's agreed, one person understands that as yep top A-one priority, urgent that's going to happen now and another person says, well, no, that's obviously like, the third most important thing we're doing so yeah, it's not gonna happen realistically.

Sally Green 4:25
Yeah. We just nodded because we wanted them to go away.

Sam Birkett 4:27
Exactly. Yeah and it's interesting because I think it's kind of, I mean, I'm thinking of the few cross-culturalist people I've worked with over the years who have the, you know, the background in terms of like, you know, what certain stereotypical cultures will do you know, when someone says, yes, does it really mean yes? Or does it mean, maybe? Or does it mean oh, gosh, no? And again, it's that, you know, relationships, really stakeholder management. It's actually when you're starting out perhaps with a new client or in a new business. It's getting to know those people a little bit, isn't it? It's sort of getting to know again, what the priorities are, but also how they communicate and how they go about things.

Sally Green 5:08
Yeah, that's a really, really good point and is this a person that always says yes, and then just never does anything? And it is worth, I mean, I don't mean to say you should go and gossip about people although obviously, it can be entertaining, it's quite useful to actually talk to maybe your boss about, I have a conversation with X, I'm not quite sure what he meant by what he or she meant by this than the other and see whether your boss can help you. Because it's don't just assume that you're the only person that doesn't understand because you're new. It's always worth because she might say, Yeah, I've no idea. But he always says that, but really don't worry about it, because it'll all settle down in a couple of weeks.

Sam Birkett 5:47
Yeah, exactly. It's interesting, actually, because this very much close to I had a conversation or several conversations, I was doing a handover with someone in a role and interestingly, you know, you sort of book in your handover times, and you say, right, so here's where all the files and things are and this is this process and that process and here's the structure of who does what, but actually, as we were discussing things, I quite often go into more of a free form conversation with back and forth questions about, you know, what's it like doing this and that, and I was apologising saying, oh, gosh, I'm sorry, that, you know, I want to spend more time on looking at the specifics of this, this and this sort of process, or data or whatever it might be, and they say, oh, no, no, please, please, please. Now I find the most useful thing is talking about how to actually get things done and what's what's the sort of political landscape? What's the kind of, you know, understanding of what good looks like, and whether this can be done with these people? And what our expectations, what are real expectations that people have said, what's written down, what's unsaid that she said, that is really what I find far more interested, not disinterested, but useful, use a real utility to it because everything else, or if it's stuff that saved on a system, and it's there to format, I can find that stuff. But I can't find this, the actual human dynamics as it were, which is far more important.

Sally Green 7:15
I mean, you used a really good word, which was expectations, because that's the other thing you have to manage the stakeholders is their expectations. Because they might be expecting, oh, good new persons arrived, I'll be able to manage it like this now. Part of your job with stakeholders, particularly, the further away from you and your team stakeholders are, the more careful you have to be at managing their expectations. Because you'll say, Oh, yes, we can do that for you and if suppose they're in the warehouse, and you never see them, they'll think, Oh, they've done that yesterday and actually, what you meant to say is, yes, we can do that for you. But it's going to take us six months, it's going to take these processes, we'll have to do this first we have to, then we're going to have to talk to you every week about this, that and the other, don't just assume they're going to understand your processes. So you have to absolutely manage expectations because otherwise you get cross people around, you know, well, that's useless. They never do what you say they're going to do.

Sam Birkett 8:06
Yeah. Oh, absolutely. Do you say yeah, and is that the more tenuous links, isn't it effectively when you're sort of saying well, because there's also I mean, this whole, you know, stakeholder, everyone says, you know, the quote from Ryan, I'm good at stakeholder management and so whether that means relationships, which are immediately close to you, within your team, but then also, as we always saying, like marketing and sales team, marketing operations and finance, but also then even further afield, and obviously external to the business as well, so that somebody who is genuinely good at, you know, stakeholder management, so it could mean anything, couldn't it effectively, you could say, well, I suppose every relationship that you have, there's a stakeholder in a project. So whether it's sort of a shorter term relationship, or whether it's one that's set there for the long term and I think there's also that thing, I think, maybe when, I don't know perhaps when you're in more of a startup or scale-up business or you're freelancer, and you're you've got more of that entrepreneurial view of things, rather than perhaps being a big, well-established organisation, you kind of see stakeholder management, or, as you might call it, relationship building in slightly different ways. You're thinking, well, there's possibilities here. This isn't just me doing this to actually so that we can get this done successfully, whatever project is working on, it's actually, what else could this lead to, and what options are there, which is the exciting bit.

Sally Green 9:27
Which means you've got to listen really carefully to them, you got to keep listening to them, because they might be saying really good ideas constantly might be the only thing you've got to tune in to, as you say, these possibilities surrounding what they're saying to you.

Sam Birkett 9:39
Exactly and it comes from, it's almost like I think, I don't know, I mean, I suppose some people are naturally very gifted with that quite early on in their careers, whereas other people are, you know, sort of develops over time, doesn't it? And then it's but when there's a necessity to, to be able to do that and to build those relationships more deeply. But I think, I mean, it's interesting because you look at the sort of have your professional persona that you actually project and you look at more of your individual, personal self or private self, whatever your social self and you think about, well, what is it I do to actually build relationships with people? And how does that effectively work? It's by listening, it's by asking questions of them, it's being interested in them and then I think also that I personally, I think it's more successful, build relationships with anybody across the world, professional or personal. It's just, you know, again, this is being yourself and actually, not being afraid to be the individual and be quite open with people, which I think is probably a very important thing to do, rather than where people are put in a professional persona, they might be more encouraged to effectively say, well, I need to sort of obfuscate or I need, I need to project something, it's very different from what I'm doing behind the scenes. There's much more potential to do that I think.

Sally Green 10:58
No but your right. I mean, we've definitely said this before, but stakeholder management is another occasion where it's never wrong to say, I don't know the answer. So don't just... I guess be professional, of course. But if you don't know the answer, say, I can't tell you that right now. You know, be honest about these things and then, quite apart from the fact it gives you an excuse to go back to them and talk to them. Again, that's embedding, binding the relationship, but be honest about not knowing things.

Sam Birkett 11:26
Yeah and I think as you said, I mean, honesty throughout really is something you would hope to have because I suppose when it's that barrier of, you know, whether it's something external particularly difficult if you're, I don't know, perhaps working with people who are some semi-competitors of yours, but you're kind of collaborating on something and you're immediately your boss possibly goes, don't give away the crown jewels and we, you know, we can't do this, we can't do that and there's this kind of sense isn't there when you talk to them and go, Oh, hi, yeah...

Sally Green 11:57
What can I can't I say, where can I go with this? I mean, this is going to be quite a short one I know, but before we start, we must remember that probably some of your biggest stakeholders are your customers, they really are, don't just think your stakeholders are in your business or possibly some of your suppliers. Nope, they're your customers.

Sam Birkett 12:14
Yeah, absolutely and, I mean, it's a real exploration of the word, isn't it? You know, they have a stake, obviously, in everything you were doing, you know, and that's absolutely the point, isn't it? Because so often, perhaps, you know, you see, you see a customer as you know, yes, an important relationship, a relationship that is actually yielding a return for you. But actually, it is effectively that, as you say that they have a stake in this, they own a bit of it, like we were saying with brand, I suppose you know, they actually have that stake that claim and the brand that you're working in, and they're just as important as well. So listening is crucial, isn't it.

Sally Green 12:52
And if you're hoping to turn them into referrers, then they absolutely have a part in your marketing campaign. They are in a way, as people you are commissioning to promote your business. So they're really key stakeholders, and you've really got to make sure that they understand what the expectations are and what they can and can't achieve on a slightly different way. But it's the same kind of relationship.

Sam Birkett 13:16
Absolutely and I suppose it's really that... I get asked, I was saying earlier, almost about sort of, you know, what's useful when, particularly, you know, obviously, a freelancer or anybody coming into a business or a team, it's almost like, I'd say, investing that time to understand, to observe and understand that landscape of your stakeholders. I mean, I know some people I have sort of someone I worked with in the past, who was sort of, I think they when they came into a team, they sort of said, you know, you've got the org chart thing, and then you've got the understanding of, you know, okay, so then yeah, who are our customers, and who's this and who's that, and then sort of just spending quite a lot of time on just really getting that appreciation and talking to others, to build that landscape, that understanding. Clearly, it's something as human beings, it takes us a while to genuinely you know, because by the time you actually got round to, you've talked to everyone, you've said, hello, who you are and then you know, you've looked at the analytics of the customers and where they are, what they look like, and the personas and so on and so forth. But it does take time, but it's still an important investment in time. Isn't it, because ultimately, it's all the human beings who are the stakeholders in what you're doing that drive everything.

Sally Green 14:23
That's exactly right. The same is true every time you go to a meeting and we all go too far too many meetings, but every time you go to a meeting, really that's the time when you should be checking out the stakeholders you're working with what are they saying? What are their problems? What are their pain points? Meetings are great time to do stakeholder exploration.

Sam Birkett 14:42
Oh, definitely. Definitely, and I think it's that I mean, I would say it's almost against it. I'm thinking about an old boss I had who it's interesting. You go from sort of managing the sort of the tools and the processes, when perhaps you're a more junior role and then I was looking at him and he spent most of his time I think was about the people and the relationships and it was an interesting eye opener for me because on the surface, it almost feels a bit like, oh, well, that's, you know, you're not in it... Well, you don't need to get into the nitty gritty detail of exactly how this system operates, or does this or whatever and you know that's my role to do that and produce reports for you to say, this is the direction of travel of this campaign, for example, it's more important for you to be managing me and the people in the team, but also protecting us from other stakeholders who might be disruptive because that's another thing and obviously, certain stakeholders can be disruptive Gartner. But that's where the focus was and I suppose that's another thing, isn't it? Actually, when you, when you do go into a situation, you think, oh, gosh, this person's got skin in the game here, but they're being too, you know, involved or trying to push their own agenda too much, because not everyone is good at stake automation targets, and they can they don't obey the rules.

Sally Green 16:00
No, I mean, quite apart from the rules aren't written down anywhere, and they're not the same all the time. So that's really annoying. But at the same time, if the further up the scale you get as a manager, the more important it is that you use exactly what you've just said Sam and you protect your team from troublesome stakeholders, because you will always have some people that are awkward, and it is your job as a manager, you're absolutely right, to just stop it. Stop them disturbing the campaign trail. It's, you know, it's no good if you've got, you know, especially in publishing, which I was where authors, who were huge stakeholders could be really irritating and disruptive, and all of those things, and it was your manager's job.

Sam Birkett 16:43
Yeah, exactly and I think that's the thing. It's sort of, again, I keep going back into this sort of my mindset of when I was starting out, almost I don't know why it's interesting, because I think when you're coming into things again, what do you hear this word stakeholders? Who am I doing? How am I managing these relationships? But when you see it going wrong, that's the interesting part where you start to realise there are people who... like we said a lot of agendas, isn't it? It's like someone pushing a personal agenda, which is contrary to the good, the well-being of the organisation and all the people in it and that's typically when things can go wrong, we see someone who's very sort of shut off and particularly I mean, you know, as you say, I mean, I guess there's a certain people who weren't, you know, you say, working with academics and certain academics can be incredibly, obviously, they are really experts in what they're doing and very persuasive and particularly for certain people, you can go okay, well, that sounds like that's the thing we need to do. But it's sticking to your guns, isn't it to actually have a plan.

Sally Green 17:45
Absolutely and it is never wrong to nip things in the bud. So if a stakeholder relationship is going wrong, nip it in the bud and try and say, I think we're misunderstanding each other here, shall we go back to this point here and start again, because it's only going to get worse, it really is only going to get worse. So just try and nip it in the bud. So everyone should be able to do it. But some people are more awkward than others and some people might be able to help you. So if you're having trouble, go to somebody else and say, ooh, do you know how to deal with this person? Because I'm not cracking it, see what other people do?

Sam Birkett 18:20
Actually, that's a really important point, isn't it? Because I mean, it's both, particularly when you're working in a team, or whatever it might be you as you say, you're reaching out to others to sort of get that, well, there's solidarity, there's advice, and there's sort of solidarity and there's also like, there's more than one way to skin a cat and sort of if you're trying to get something through and you need to just get to that point where you don't have to keep trying to explain to Denise that this is a really important priority, but she just doesn't get it because, you know, I'm not having support from other people and, you know, and how often do you hear these conversations about somebody who's a very good operator who's who gets what they want, you know, so they could be in a situation where, you know, they're just good at oiling the wheels, and I suppose playing the politics, isn't it really, and so being able to sort of, you know, establish good relationships with everyone. I mean, again, going back to the old boss I had, who again, would invest time instead of going out having a coffee off-site, with other team leaders on a regular basis because again, it was like, this is an important, you know, investment of my time and you say it's not just... hopefully not gossiping about people, it's more like, Okay, so that's let's see how we aligned on this issue, and how can we work together to make it happen? I think that's important, isn't it? It's a stepping out and literally, in this case, stepping out of the atmosphere and connecting on a more personal human basis as well, which I think is important to do.

Sally Green 19:45
Exactly and it's never easy, but it's worth doing it and stakeholder management, it can be really painful, but it's just one of those things, you're never going to not have it. However high up you get whatever you do, whether you leave the corporate world or you know, go to a different corporate, you are always going to have it. So however much you hate it, you need to sort out how you're going to manage it.

Sam Birkett 20:06
Yeah, I think I suppose as we've sort of indicated, I guess that there's that approach that there are certain things you can do in terms of just good clear communication, understanding of who's where, who's what, what are they doing, and building those strong relationships with people, because we know that there's going to be some stakeholders that you are just not going to see eye to eye on a lot of things. But there will be some common ground, therefore, perhaps it's more of that piece of sort of, you know, getting workarounds and other ways to try and find a way forward with them, perhaps with other people who are involved and I suppose really, it's that a lot of it is gained through experience, this experience of dealing with people in different contexts doesn't mean that can also as you say, it can change from place to place, or it does change from place to place quite dramatically.

Sally Green 20:56
Exactly, when you were being a freelancer, you've got really radical different, you're having to juggle balls that are different colours, different weights, different sizes all the time.

Sam Birkett 21:05
I mean, I almost find that quite liberating. In a way it is, I think, with freelancing, because you know, no longer are you do you have to sort of see, well you want to see as much as you can about, you know, the landscape of the organisation and the team and priorities and things like that and sometimes occasionally that a curveball, coming up from some other team member who's not really been involved and says, Oh, no, no, this is important you do this, and you go, Oh, right. Well, I didn't, I wasn't aware of this, because I've spoken to these three people and this is what I've agreed to, but as you say, because you've got more of a term of reference, in terms of, this is what I'm doing for you, you've always got that, haven't you as a sort of, not as a backup, but as your own terms of reference about this is these are priorities, this is what's agreed, this is what I'm doing and so therefore, if someone does come up with something else, you can go, well, that's not what is here, but very happy to, you know, understand your interest concerns, whatever it might be, and take it forward. But it's almost easier because you know, you're not going to be perhaps you know, the long-term part of that team, etc. and you know, you're not, your place isn't necessarily to be completely working within that political environment, because you're concentrating a bit more on the deliverables. But of course, you've got to still do the basics, haven't you and get it right, in terms of, you know, what you're delivering.

Sally Green 22:19
Stakeholder management is one of those things everyone says, and nobody ever knows how to do it really, it's never if you said to somebody, however high up. So what's your stakeholder management priorities? They would immediately go blank and think, hmm, I wish I had an answer to that. So it's tricky and it's also there isn't one size fits all, there aren't clear rules, you might find you have to do stakeholder management with Person A in this way, but with Person B in that way. It's like to be honest, it's like playing in a school playground. You know, you don't play football with everybody. Some people you play, you know, tag with or whatever, it's working out what you do with whom.

Sam Birkett 22:56
Absolutely, absolutely, I think yeah, it's a lot of it does come back to this, as you say, it's how you build relationships in any sort of context, really, isn't it? And then sort of health that of doing a health check, or regular health check on how well, is that going? You know, and is that an effective relationship or is it actually, is there something else I need to try and do here to improve it? And if so, what. I suppose at least if you can understand, even if you understand, it's that we'll get back to what we said right at the top was sort of that awareness and self-awareness and awareness of others, and clear communication of expectations. I mean, round, typically around the most times, you're gonna be managing stakeholders is going to be at meetings, I suppose, or in interactions, isn't it? And so, therefore, having a clear set of rights. So, you know, Janice and Fred said, their key priorities are this and this, you've acknowledged that and got it in black and white, and said, yeah, that's understood and yes, we'll take that on board. We're doing this for now. So next time we meet, your expectation is that you know, this, and that has been done. This has happened. Yeah and another thing you really want to get done has not happened because we're doing that next month and that's in black and white here. So it's good hygiene factors, I suppose relationships sort of factors there, which are important, aren't they in any context? But yeah...

Sally Green 24:13
I think we've solved that then phew!

Sam Birkett 24:15
Nobody needs to worry now at all about ever managing any stakeholders ever again. But I'm interested in this one as well, particularly just to anybody who's got any anonymous examples or anything like that about when stakeholder management goes wrong. That would be interesting to hear about, wouldn't it?

Sally Green 24:34
It's a really good thing to learn from seeing other people's mistakes is a very, I mean, obviously, we'd like to hear about successes as well. But mistakes is a really good thing to learn from.

Sam Birkett 24:43
Yeah, sort of like what's there and then yeah, diagnose it go back into it. So say, ah, so what went wrong here? Was it a personality thing? Was it a communication thing? Was it a bigger sort of cultural, management leadership issue that happened, you know, because sometimes you've got a leader perhaps who is not as effectively they'd like to sort of divide and conquer, and get other people to sort of scramble and fight against each other a bit. I mean, is that is that when it can go wrong, because you're fighting against a model, which is unhealthy, you know. I think that'd be interesting as well. So yes, anyway, let us know, please. You can email us at meanderspod@gmail.com. Or you can send a message to us on Facebook or wherever else if you want to just look at marketing meanders, and let us know your thinking. But that was a nice little meander today, short one,

That was a very nice, it's lovely.

Yeah, self-contained and we hope that we've managed our stakeholders effectively. If you found this interesting you'll have to let us know about that. But brilliant. Thank you very much Sally.

Sally Green 25:45
Thank you. That was lovely. Thank you.

Sam Birkett 25:47
Yes. Well, we'll see everyone next time and take care and bye for now.

Sally Green 25:51
Bye!