I think the communications industry must be rubbish at communicating.

What else could be the explanation for so many leaders of UK SMEs still seeing communications strategy as something you do only when you can afford it or at certain inflection points for your organisation?

Strategic communicators are often the last ones allowed into the boardroom and the first ones out of the door when times get tough.

Still so often the conversation around the communications function in organisations of all types is around:

  • how little can we get away with spending? OR
  • who can we give the job to in addition to their main duties? OR
  • if we can't directly measure it, do we need it?

Enlightened business leaders usually get it. Often they're the best trained ones who've done the professional learning about what is and is not crucial to business growth.

Encouragingly, one of my colleagues came back from a meeting recently in which a senior advisor from another industry told the shared client that they absolutely had to have us in the room from the start and through every detail of a major project that was getting under way. That's hugely refreshing, because too often practitioners in our field just a brief after the decisions are made - and then it's too late for us to shape them to be successful in the first place.

What should the PR industry do?

The folks who struggle to value the comms function tend to be, in my now quite extensive experience, those who are subject matter experts and can't really grasp another specialist subject that is outside their remit or experience. Not universally, but more often than not.

These are the people our own industry should be working on. The trouble is we're not collectively good at advocating for ourselves. We talk to each other about techniques and technologies (we're actually quite good at sharing internally) but we don't have an industry-wide approach to educating other business leaders on why communicating effectively and strategically is essential at every stage of the life of their business.

Sales needs PR too

When I say to some that communications is everything, because without a position and a message you don't have an audience to sell to, they will point to their sales function as the crucial bit.

I'll pull a bit more hair out before delivering my (often sceptically received) riposte that those sales people need more to work with than just trying to convince people that your product or service is the cheapest/newest/fastest.

How many sales are you missing by not having: - your prospects warmed up through prior knowledge of your brand? - positive name recognition? - empathy among like-minded firms? - a strong positioning in the community? - a body of trusted, third-party coverage of you?

Communications is not sales. Doesn't want to be. Never will be. But your sales people will always thank you for effective comms which make their job easier and their success rate (and maybe bonuses...) higher.

The cost of undervaluing comms

The positives also come from avoiding the negatives. Great communicators spot and fix (or at least polish) your weaknesses and then build secure foundations that you will see the benefits of over years, not weeks or months, and through trends and downturns and other setbacks.

So my plea, in a bid to do my small part in fixing my industry's self-communication problem, is to encourage business owners and managers to take a few minutes to think about: - how they're perceived by their customers, staff (internal communications really matters) and suppliers - whether they're making the most of the genuine strengths of their business - whether they're getting the credit for their authenticity, care for their people and community-mindedness

The only business function that can change and improve these things is expertly curated communication. Nothing else. That's not nice to have - it's essential.