Raise Your Voice Podcast: Recent Episodes
Brian Sooy
The Raise Your Voice podcast helps business leaders of mission-driven organizations build brands with heart and soul that inspire people to listen, trust, and take action.
If your communication initiatives don’t directly align with the objectives or focus from your strategic plan, you’re merely doing busy work. You’re in possession of a to-do list disguised as strategic communications.
If you are a smart individual who wants to make the best use of your time and limited resources to help your organization communicate, raise awareness, and increase revenue, you can apply these three rules for converting strategy into action.
Transparency is often cited as a key factor in building trust. Declaring transparency as an operating practice or value makes for good accountability because as soon as your character or culture shifts away from it, your audience will hold you accountable.
Trust is earned when the audience experiences alignment between the culture, character, and voice of your organization. The trust relationship between the nonprofit that speaks for the cause and the donor or advocate is strengthened.
Clarity — the principle of clear and focused communication — can only be achieved when an organization makes its communications choices from the perspective of mission-driven design. Its purpose, culture, character, and voice must be unified in support of the cause.
One thing will never change: Trust must be earned. It cannot be bought or created. Nurture a culture of trust, and character will follow.
Be Trustworthy. Be transparent.
Listen and learn more about mission-minded marketing and communications with clarity with resources from Raise Your Voice.
Brian Sooy and Marty Neumeier discuss “The Brand Flip,” a whiteboard overview of how customers now run companies, how you can profit from it and create more loyalty with your customers.
Download the complete transcript at http://bit.ly/2tDarOo
"The Brand Gap." "Zag." "The Designful Company." With each new book, Marty Neumeier re-defines the role of brand and its influence on your customers.
The Brand Flip defines how your customers influence (and own) your brand. As often as brand managers and communications like to think a brand is all about an organization (it's not), Marty's insights and experience prove we have a long way to go in truly understanding the discipline of brand management.
Begin and end with a culture of courageous communication.
You do want to change the world, don’t you? Make a difference? Have impact?
Then you must share that with the world. Boldly. Courageously. Confidently.
You need to have an oversized belief in your purpose. You need to believe that what you are on a mission to do is the most important thing in the world.
Do you understand that your work is not about you or your organization? It’s about the success of your stakeholders — their stories and their impact on education, entrepreneurship, economic development, health and wellness, sustainability, philanthropy, the arts, and other social purposes.
It takes courage to admit: “It’s not about us; it’s about the cause and those we serve.”
It’s not a matter of how to communicate courage, but a matter of communicating with courage.
In a culture of communications, power comes from strength: a courageous and engaged board; a confident and competent leader; a clearly articulated purpose; and a mission embodied by the character, culture, and voice of the organization.
We live in a world of perceptions. Everything we see, hear, and experience creates a perception in our minds of the cause or organization with which we are interacting. To the stakeholder, perception is reality; what they think about the cause or organization is more real to them than what you’ve told them.
Listen and learn more about mission-minded marketing and communications with clarity with resources from Raise Your Voice.
When design and communications convey hope, it challenges the listener to action. Visual communications connect the purpose, values, and impact of a cause powerfully with a listening and watching audience.
Words are powerful. Images are powerful. Words and images combined with beautiful typography are even more powerful.
When design enhances the stories the narrative is powerful, it inspires hope, and it challenges the listener to action.
Listen and learn more about mission-minded marketing and communications with clarity with resources from Raise Your Voice.
Gratitude is a cultural practice. If you’re going to be intentional about creating a culture of communications, internal and external gratitude is essential.
Gratefulness is a character quality, and is expressed in the culture of your organization.
The values that represent your company or cause are expressed in the character of your organization. Organizations have purpose, expressed through their character and acted on through their culture.
Read more about this dimension of culture in on the Clarity Blog from Aespire.
To receive a free Raise Your Voice poster, visit the Raise Your Voice web site and create your own culture of communications.
Learn how to be insightful in leadership and communication when you read Raise Your Voice, available exclusively on Amazon.
As with any relationship, you can’t be social without knowing your audience.
If an organization lacks clear mission focus, its communications will be unfocused. Social media is often seen as the way to target the masses and hope for results.
Community exists whether you're trying to build one or not, your role is to nurture it. Your social network is already everywhere you visit, speak, and listen.
Everybody is a potential ambassador. How have you equipped them to be able to share your story in a manner that is meaningful to them?
Read more about this dimension of culture in The Social Side of a Culture of Communication on the Clarity Blog from Aespire.
To receive a free Raise Your Voice poster, visit the Raise Your Voice web site and create your own culture of communications.
Learn how to be insightful in leadership and communication when you read Raise Your Voice, available exclusively on Amazon.
Todd Henry teaches leaders and organizations how to establish practices that lead to everyday brilliance. He is the author of three books (The Accidental Creative, Die Empty, and Louder Than Words) which have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and he speaks and consults across dozens of industries on creativity, leadership, and passion for work. His book Die Empty was named by Amazon.com as one of the best books of 2013.
His latest book, Louder Than Words, is about how to develop an authentic voice that resonates and creates impact.
In this interview, Todd and Brian Sooy talk about impact, why a manifesto is more compelling than a mission or vision statement, and how empathy for your audience helps you connect most effectively with those you're creating for.
Bestselling author Tom Rath called Louder Than Words “…one of the best guides to living a meaningful life I have ever read.”
Join the ChangeMakers Movement through October 15, 2015, and become eligible for the giveaway of copies of Louder Than Words and Raise your Voice.
You'll automatically receive a free Raise Your Voice poster just for joining. Visit Aespire.com to Join the Movement.
Learn how to be insightful in leadership and communication when you read Raise Your Voice, available exclusively on Amazon.
Support Todd by ordering Louder Than Words from Amazon.
Thanks for listening!
Key insights from my conversation with Todd Henry about Louder Than Words
“Cover bands don’t change the world” — At some point you need to make an intuitive leap from emulating other people to have the courage to develop your own voice. Courageous people weave their influences into something new.
“Courage means doing the right things even when it’s the uncomfortable thing.” You may not be courageous, but if you want to develop your own voice, you need to be willing to choose courage over comfort.
"Cultivate your vision, cultivate your sense of identity." When the opportunity presents itself, you’ll be prepared to make an intuitive leap."
"I am profoundly less interested in legacy than I am about impact.” The best way to make an impact that lasts is to approach every day consistent with the kind of impact you want to have.
"Your legacy is your body of work.” Your body of work is any place you add value in your life. It’s not just your job— but it’s how you treat your family, lead your family, spend your time. It’s how you sharpen your mind.
“Run your own race.” Sometimes our influences become burdens to us. Don’t artificially escalate your expectations based on what others around you are doing.
“Manifesto are active.” It’s impossible to read a manifesto without thinking “I’m in or I’m out.” Rather than a mission or vision statement, a manifesto is active. It forces you to say yes or no. It says the time is now.
"Your intended audience will change over time.” Create your work for one specific person. It allows you to cultivate empathy as you create.
The mission-driven organization creates a culture of communication when it recognizes it must be engaging—listening more often than it speaks, to understand the needs of its audience and constituents.
Being engaging isn’t always about sharing the great things you’re doing. Sometimes you need to ask your audience what they think, in order to find the points of interest where they want to have a conversation with your organization.
Read more about this dimension of culture in Mission-Driven Culture is Engaging on the Clarity Blog from Aespire.
To receive a free Raise Your Voice poster, visit the Raise Your Voice website and create your own culture of communications.
Learn how to be insightful in leadership and communication when you read Raise Your Voice, available exclusively on Amazon.
What inspires you? Why does it inspire you? Does what inspires you about the purpose of your cause or company inspire your audience in the same way?
Your organization creates a culture of communication and design–driven purpose when it shares stories that speak to the mind and appeal to the heart.
Read more about this dimension of culture and communications in The Social Side of a Culture of Communication on the Clarity Blog from Aespire.
To receive a free Raise Your Voice poster, visit the Raise Your Voice web site and create your own culture of communications.
Learn how to be insightful in leadership and communication when you read Raise Your Voice, available exclusively on Amazon.
You understand your organization’s character, purpose, mission, and culture. Your goal is to help your audience understand it in the same way you do in order to create a connection.
Using all of your available data and information will help you create messaging that informs, speak to impact, and progress toward outcomes.
Read more about this dimension of culture in Insights Drive a Culture of Communication on the Clarity Blog from Aespire.
To receive a free poster with resolutions for smart communications, visit the Raise Your Voice web site and create your own culture of communications.
Learn how to be insightful in leadership and communication when you read Raise Your Voice, available exclusively on Amazon.
What is your organization’s voice?
Does your organization speak effectively for your cause? Do your communications, experiences, and interactions express your organization's culture and character?
Do all communications consistently speak with one voice? How will the organization speak? What is the tone of the communications?
Do your values and actions will align with the reasons that motivate our followers to believe in your cause?
Read more about this dimension of culture in Fostering a Meaningful Culture of Communication on the Clarity Blog from Aespire.
To receive a free poster with resolutions for smart communications, visit the Raise Your Voice web site and create your own culture of communications.
Ready to change your culture? Buy Raise Your Voice, exclusively on Amazon.
Be Focused. "We will focus our communication on one cause, one mission, and one purpose; and we will share our purpose with one voice."
Chances are, if you have difficulty articulating your organization’s purpose (its cause and the reason that it exists), what it does (its mission), and why it matters (what difference it makes), it’s possible that your organization is lacking communication focus.
You have to recognize that communication is not entirely about your organization’s messages or stories. It’s about understanding what motivates and influences your supporters, and meeting their inspirational and informational needs through those stories and your narrative.
Your voice should be speaking the language your market needs to hear. To begin a relationship, you need to know your audience.
Read more about this dimension of culture in A Culture of Communication Remains Focused on the Clarity Blog from Aespire.
To receive a free poster with resolutions for smart communications, visit the Cause Manifesto web site and create your own culture of communications.
Ready to change your culture? Buy Raise Your Voice: A Cause Manifesto.
Be Strategic. We will create and follow a road map that aligns our communications with the goals of our strategic plan.
If you have a strategic master plan or communication plan without tactics and actionable items, then you’ve simply created a wish list.
In a communication plan, branding is not a strategy. Branding may be a priority, it may be a component of a strategic plan; but it is not a strategy.
Why be strategic? Why not just forge ahead, and hope for success? Without a plan, mission has no focus; without focus, there is no clarity; and, without clarity, it is difficult to communicate to the outcomes that you’re working to achieve.
Strategy is not an option. It is a requirement of your mission.
Read more about this dimension of culture in A Culture of Communication Begins with Strategy on the Clarity Blog from Aespire.
To receive a free poster with resolutions for smart communications, visit the Cause Manifesto web site and create your own culture of communications.
Ready to change your culture? Buy Raise Your Voice: A Cause Manifesto.
Timeless principles of leadership and communication. Learn how strategy, inspiration, relationships, and vision create a culture of communication.
The resolutions of the Cause Manifesto are timeless principles that align how an organization communicates its values through its purpose, character, culture, and unique voice. They speak to a higher purpose, as core values that anchor your organization’s character. When put into practice, they are attributes that will make your culture stronger. Over time, they will become part of your organization’s voice and help give voice to your cause.
To download a complimentary poster with resolutions for smart communications, visit the Raise Your Voice web site.
Ready to change your culture? Buy the book Raise Your Voice: A Cause Manifesto.
Move beyond branding to design with purpose.
Mission-driven designed thinking is about making intentional design choices to influence interaction, experience and understanding of a meaningful cause through communication touch points that are specific to your audience.
Designed thinking seeks to influence the way people think about your cause, in order to change the way they support your organization.
The most effective purpose-driven manage their assets and resources according to their mission’s outcomes and objectives. Those that engage their audiences most effectively communicate their purpose, mission, outcomes, and objectives.
To learn more about the mission-driven design approach, and to download a free poster with resolutions for smart communications, visit Aespire, and buy the book Raise Your Voice: A Cause Manifesto.
Practically speaking, you will need to position your organization as the voice of the cause, within a crowded and noisy marketplace. You will need to demonstrate expertise of the cause, and support it with communications about the organization. Your organization must become the voice for those who have no voice.
For a free poster and more insights on how to connect your mission with your followers, visit Aespire, and from the book Raise Your Voice: A Cause Manifesto.
Imagine a better way to communicate. Imagine that your goal is more than marketing. Instead, imagine that your goal is to build relationships, through engagement, to arrive at stewardship. Marketing can be superficial; engaging people over the long-term helps to develop deep and meaningful relationships.
Get more insights on how to connect your mission with your followers at Aespire, and from the book Raise Your Voice: A Cause Manifesto.
Instead of branding, your focus should be on identity and personality. A nonprofit should be more concerned about its positioning — how it wants to be perceived by its audience and supporters. It must be aware of what truly makes it different — and the difference it is in a position to make.
Get more insights on how to connect your mission with your followers at Aespire, and from the book Raise Your Voice: A Cause Manifesto.
Meaningful causes are led by board members and leaders who share a passion for change, and who unite with common purpose to solve an issue. These leaders make decisions that empower the organization to effectively communicate with clarity to outcomes, manage sustainable support for the cause, and create an identity that becomes the personal and familiar voice of the cause.
Get more insights on how to connect your mission with your followers at Aespire, and from the book Raise Your Voice: A Cause Manifesto.
What would it take to inspire your followers to become the sacrificial ambassadors of your nonprofit culture? And what would it take to create a legion of fans that support not just the organization, but also the cause — fervently and sacrificially?
Get more insights on how to connect your mission with your followers at Aespire, and from the book Raise Your Voice: A Cause Manifesto.
Every day, no matter where you are in the world, meaningful causes are trying harder than ever to get noticed, to rise above the noise, inspire change, motivate action, and speak with one voice. The organizations that are the voice of these causes are looking to attract and acquire new donors and engage their communities. They are trying to raise awareness about who they are, what they do, and why they matter. They are simply trying to communicate better.
Get more insights on how to connect your mission with your followers at Aespire, and from the book Raise Your Voice: A Cause Manifesto.
This is a book about communicating better: speaking with one voice on behalf of a meaningful cause. It’s about finding clarity. It’s about telling inspiring and informative stories about outcomes and impact that create credibility. This book will give you insight into how to connect your purpose and mission with people whose values you share, and to bring meaning to their lives as they become ambassadors for your cause. It’s about earning trust, and building relationships. It’s a book that will help you find your voice.
Get more insights on how to connect your mission with your followers at Aespire, and from the book Raise Your Voice: A Cause Manifesto.