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The Impact of Internal Marketing on Organizations
4 Plays2 years ago
Welcome to the Onya Mic Podcast with your host Ashley Monk. In this episode, Ashley is joined by Leah Hartzell who is currently a faculty member at the Indiana Wesleyan Institute's business division.
Internal marketing brings an organization together to work on a mission toward the vision. Leah believes that the most important audience of a brand is its employees. The more these people understand and connect with an organization's brand, there will be more advocates for what the organization stands for.
Ready to dive in? Here are three key topics that Ashley and Leah touch on in this episode:
1. Why internal marketing can be an overlooked aspect of business
2. Strategies for marketing to your team
3. What it's costing you when you don't engage your team
Enjoy this conversation and let us know what your thoughts are on this episode. We are excited to connect with you!
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Transcript
Introduction to Anya Mike Podcast
00:00:03
Speaker
Welcome to the Anya Mike podcast, a podcast where we discuss the ins and outs of marketing, running a business, and tips and tricks the industry may just not be telling you, but we will.
00:00:14
Speaker
If you're looking for inspiration on exactly how to grow your business with ambition, innovation, and confidence, while creating maximum impact to influence your clients like never before, you're in the right place.
00:00:26
Speaker
Grab your AirPods, pen, paper, or laptop, and let's get on your mic.
00:00:31
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Get set and grow.
00:00:33
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And now here's your host on the mic, CEO Ashley Monk.
Importance of Brand and Internal Marketing
00:00:38
Speaker
All right, everyone.
00:00:39
Speaker
Well, I am very excited for this episode today because we are going to be talking about brand and internal marketing and why it is so effective for companies, especially in
00:00:50
Speaker
the workforce climate and culture that we have right now and make sure they're marketing internally.
00:00:53
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And I have the incredible Leah Hartzell with us today to talk all about how she has done this successfully for many years.
00:00:59
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So Leah, thanks so much for being here today.
00:01:01
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Thank you, Ashley.
00:01:02
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I'm so excited to be part of the On Your Mark podcast.
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It's a real honor.
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It's going to be so much fun.
00:01:07
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So first and foremost, I know you, I know your background, but for everyone listening, I would love for you to share maybe how you got into marketing in the first place and a little bit of your marketing journey.
Leah Hartzell's Marketing Journey
00:01:18
Speaker
Yeah.
00:01:19
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Well,
00:01:20
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How I first got into marketing, I was attending Indiana Wesleyan University and didn't know what I wanted to do and just wanted to try out a business class.
00:01:27
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And from day one, it just felt like I, that was my calling.
00:01:31
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That's where I needed to be.
00:01:33
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Why I decided to focus on marketing is just my passion for people and understanding people and storytelling.
00:01:40
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So that's how I ended up choosing marketing.
00:01:43
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My career experience, I first started in a very heavy kind of like sales and enablement role.
00:01:50
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From there, I was there a few years, switched to a marketing agency.
00:01:54
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Loved getting the experience of working with a lot of different clients, a lot of different industries.
00:01:59
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And then my last role, I was the marketing manager at Custom Congre.
00:02:02
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Amazing culture, really just a dream job.
00:02:07
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And now currently I'm a professor at Indiana Wesleyan University.
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So it kind of all ties back in together my story and looking forward to being there and investing in the business students.
00:02:17
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It's amazing.
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They are going to be so lucky to be able to have you as their professor.
00:02:22
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I'm so excited for that journey for you and just being able to speak and teach so much to what you've built.
00:02:27
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So thank you.
00:02:28
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I would love to start and ask you why, what, maybe let's break down this.
00:02:32
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What is internal marketing?
00:02:34
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Like what does it look like to, for organizations to actually market to their
What is Internal Marketing?
00:02:39
Speaker
employees?
00:02:39
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Yeah, that's a great question.
00:02:41
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So how I define internal marketing is internal marketing is about building a consistent company's story, values, vision, and goals.
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It's critical to make sure your HR leadership and corporate communications teams are all aligned and focus on the employees.
00:02:57
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So they are getting the same narrative about the company on multiple different touch points.
00:03:03
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I love that.
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And I feel like especially, oh my goodness, for large companies, the larger an organization gets, there's things they don't have as much access to the executive team or to leadership.
00:03:13
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And so I can imagine that things can become so, so fragmented.
00:03:16
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And this is such a great way to really
00:03:18
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not only communicate change, but to invigorate employees and to keep them engaged on the mission, the vision and the values.
00:03:26
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So why do you think there are, I don't know, tell me if you think that I'm wrong, but I feel like companies that really engage in this practice are few and far between, like, or at least maybe we don't see or hear examples about them because it's being marketed internally, but I, I don't know.
00:03:42
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What
Why Internal Marketing is Critical
00:03:43
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do you think about that?
00:03:43
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Do you feel like a lot of companies engage in internal marketing or is it maybe, yeah, more scattered?
00:03:48
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Yeah, I think internal marketing can be something that companies can easily miss.
00:03:52
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There's so much focus on who's their target audience and selling what they're offering.
00:03:57
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But I think people miss the most important audience, I truly believe, is your own employees.
00:04:02
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The stronger and healthier, happier employees you have.
00:04:06
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just naturally that selling's gonna become more easier because you're gonna have brand advocates for your company.
00:04:11
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But it just gets so easy to focus on who's our target audience, getting out in front of customers where the people who are right with you every day are the most important, I really believe.
00:04:20
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I love that.
00:04:21
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Why do organizations, because when you say it, I mean, it's so clear, right?
00:04:24
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When you rally your team behind the vision in what you're doing, of course, they're gonna be excited.
00:04:30
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They're gonna be in alignment.
00:04:32
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There's gonna be a lot more unity.
00:04:34
Speaker
Why are companies maybe, why, what are maybe the root causes on why people aren't focusing there?
00:04:41
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Like you kind of hinted on it when you said they're not their target audience.
00:04:44
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If that's the case, like why do people so often overlook
Implementing Internal Marketing Strategically
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this?
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Is it just time and prioritizing clients and customers first?
00:04:51
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Yeah, that's a great question.
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Cause I think if you ask any leader, do you want your people to believe they care about you?
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You know, they'll say yes.
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But I think to do internal marketing well, you really need a strategy.
00:05:02
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It's just like you would have external marketing campaigns.
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You need to be strategic in what you want to accomplish.
00:05:08
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I think a lot of times it's just maybe not on leadership's mind, like they're busy trying to run their operations, but it's really a whole team effort.
00:05:17
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You need
00:05:19
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HR coming on that side, you need marketing coming in to really specialize in the communication piece, and then you need leadership support to communicate the message that employees are wanting.
00:05:30
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So I really think it's a whole team dynamic and that can just get overlooked and the busy of trying to run a company.
00:05:35
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Yeah, no, I think so too.
00:05:37
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And everything else falls into place.
00:05:39
Speaker
How have you, cause you've advocated for this so often, how have you been able to get buy-in from leadership and from, cause you've done this with custom concrete
Case Study: Custom Concrete's Internal Marketing
00:05:49
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so seamlessly.
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And I feel like you guys are always putting out so much content.
00:05:53
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How was that the case when you had started originally or did you really pioneer and spearhead those efforts?
00:05:59
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Yeah, I think custom concrete, amazing company.
00:06:02
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They had the value in wanting to care about other people and a lot of great foundations.
00:06:07
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That's why I was drawn to the company.
00:06:09
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Their senior vice president, Jason Ellis, has this phrase where kind of the custom concrete tagline is we want to create an environment where people can be the best version of themselves.
00:06:20
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So just, you know, our people aren't employees, but there's so much more behind them.
00:06:24
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We want them to be a better mom, a better spouse, a better friend because they work at custom concrete and are in a healthy environment.
00:06:32
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So for that, it made it easy.
00:06:33
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But actually when I came on, the company had just done a study of employees and they were hearing they want to hear from the executive team, which like the executive team was a little surprised.
00:06:44
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Yeah.
00:06:44
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Because they're just so busy running.
00:06:47
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Or I think when you have that information, you cannot realize, oh, other people might not have that and how important it is to employees.
00:06:54
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So we developed a communication plan where we created a video series and each quarter we launched four or five videos and had an executive team talk about a topic that was really interested in the employees.
00:07:08
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That was kind of the initial campaign we had at a company that runs in multiple states and about 400 employees across all our entities.
00:07:18
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Video was just the easiest way we thought to have that personal connection.
00:07:22
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And then from it, we did it a couple of times, couple quarters, we sent out a survey, get feedback on employees if we were hitting the right topics, what they wanted to learn from and just keep adjusting.
00:07:31
Speaker
Oh my goodness.
00:07:32
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And there was so much more from there, right?
00:07:35
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Like what are maybe some of the other campaigns that you've seen so much success
Empowering Employees as Brand Ambassadors
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with?
00:07:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:07:39
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Maybe, yeah, whether it's internally or with other organizations, like what do you feel like maybe some of the top internal marketing campaigns you've seen have been?
00:07:47
Speaker
Mm-hmm.
00:07:48
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I think one thing you're going to do is empower who are those brand ambassadors that are already representing the company well and have that passion initiatives for employees and figuring out how to empower them, how to give them an opportunity to have a voice and speak.
00:08:02
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So it's actually funny at all the three companies I've been at, somehow I've always started the employee engagement committee.
00:08:09
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And it's just been just by chance.
00:08:11
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I'm like, Oh wow, that's neat.
00:08:13
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Just shows it's a passion of mine, but at custom concrete started employee engagement committee because
00:08:18
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marketing and HR, we're doing a lot of the event planning for the company and I see people interested and I'm like, I wanna get more people involved
00:08:25
Speaker
We picked individuals who were brand ambassadors, but were in all different departments brought together.
00:08:32
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And then we planned out like our whole year of events each month, we were doing some type of appreciation event and just the new ideas that came about from that group and the buy-in and getting like different departments engaged.
00:08:45
Speaker
And it just was such a different like breath of fresh air and created so many opportunities when you have everyone on board and making the events so much more rewarding.
00:08:55
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I love that.
00:08:56
Speaker
What are maybe even like tactically speaking, like what are some other examples too that maybe I know one thing that I've seen, like have been internal podcasts.
00:09:06
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I think that's been kind of so unique or so mysterious.
00:09:09
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Like what are some maybe other tactics that you've seen other people do that maybe aren't as well known, but organizations could get creative and inspired by?
00:09:17
Speaker
Yeah, I've followed a lot of different internal podcasts and seen it.
00:09:20
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I think just telling the stories.
00:09:23
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Every employee has a unique story of how they got there, what they do, what they value, and creating opportunities to share that.
00:09:30
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In smaller companies, it's easier to do that one-on-one, but then when you get to larger companies, having that audio and opportunity to learn stories, and it keeps that vision and goals and excitement alive.
00:09:43
Speaker
I love that.
00:09:45
Speaker
Now, here's a question for you because we've got marketing directors, CMOs, VPs, marketing, CEOs, entrepreneurs listening that are all across the spectrum in their organization size.
00:09:57
Speaker
And so obviously internal marketing efforts take time.
00:10:00
Speaker
They take capacity.
00:10:01
Speaker
They take resources.
00:10:02
Speaker
At what point do you think an organization, is there a certain size or is there a threshold for
00:10:08
Speaker
to where they should begin considering internal marketing or maybe there's a spectrum of starting small.
00:10:13
Speaker
I'm curious on your take on if or when there's a perfect time to begin creating capacity for these efforts.
00:10:21
Speaker
I think internal marketing is important across no matter.
00:10:23
Speaker
And yeah, sorry, let me start.
00:10:25
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:25
Speaker
I think internal marketing is important no matter what size the company is.
00:10:30
Speaker
I actually have been part of a company who has about nine to 11 people.
00:10:34
Speaker
And then, um,
00:10:37
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250 to 400 people and I've just seen the importance translate across that.
00:10:43
Speaker
I think the best time when it started is now, you know, even if you don't have it all planned out, you know, strategies are great, but just get going and creating conversations on, is it clear what our vision is?
00:10:54
Speaker
Is it clear what our goals are to our employees?
00:10:56
Speaker
Are the employees informed?
00:10:57
Speaker
Are they feeling valued?
00:10:59
Speaker
Yeah.
00:10:59
Speaker
Um, at least starting that conversation and,
00:11:02
Speaker
And I think just being like confident and open.
00:11:05
Speaker
I've seen a lot of executives like hesitant, like, I don't know if people want to hear from me or if I'll get their message right.
00:11:12
Speaker
Um, just be transparent with your employees.
00:11:15
Speaker
Um, cause they want to hear from you what's going on.
00:11:17
Speaker
Give them the good, give them the concerns, like make them aware.
00:11:22
Speaker
Um, cause they're going to be thinking about it.
00:11:23
Speaker
Right.
00:11:23
Speaker
And I think it's just better put in the open, give them the opportunity to, um, it creates opportunity for new leaders to step up when they see what the company is concerned about or seeing things going really well.
00:11:35
Speaker
It creates conversations where they can help step up and lead as well.
00:11:38
Speaker
I love that.
00:11:39
Speaker
I think too, like, especially for sales teams, like that's the cat.
00:11:43
Speaker
I mean, there's so many people from an organization that benefit, I think about the sales team and how often, or even to like when a company gets to a certain size to where, even if it's a small company, they don't know, sure, you've got your mission and your about statement on your website.
00:11:58
Speaker
And then through new employee orientation, there's usually a short snippet to where you learn how the company got started and grew, but yeah,
00:12:06
Speaker
man, I found the organizations that
Engaging Employees with Company Origin Stories
00:12:08
Speaker
do this.
00:12:08
Speaker
Like there are always stories about the founder or the early days or the startup days that are so fascinating that, um, really create unity and even more depth behind the mission and values, because I think it's one of those things where core values and mission and vision are so important, but it can be very challenging for, um,
00:12:30
Speaker
I think anyway, employees that come in later on, like for a company, if it's a 30 year old company, if they're coming in year 20, year 25,
00:12:39
Speaker
it can be challenging to contextualize those core values.
00:12:43
Speaker
And so I love that internal marketing gives a chance to hear those stories, but even for sales, for them to even beat the drum even harder and for marketing their efforts, like I think it just creates more clarity for the client and the customer too, as a result of everyone being on the same page.
00:12:58
Speaker
Definitely, I agree.
00:12:59
Speaker
And I know Gallup has research out there that I think is about one in seven employees
00:13:04
Speaker
only one of some employees are engaged and just how do we create an environment where people are engaged, are empowered to be the best for themselves and love what they do.
00:13:15
Speaker
For me, it's hard to measure, but when people ask, how do you measure internal marketing success?
00:13:20
Speaker
I like to go back to like, what are the people who are closest to your employees like saying about that company?
00:13:27
Speaker
And that speaks volumes.
00:13:28
Speaker
Like to me, it doesn't matter what I might say about the company I work for, but like,
00:13:32
Speaker
How are my kids doing that company and just how healthy I am of an employee?
00:13:36
Speaker
How's my husband doing that company?
00:13:37
Speaker
And ties back to investing in not just your employee, but they have a life outside that too.
00:13:44
Speaker
So companies that do it really well.
00:13:46
Speaker
I've been part of campaigns where we'll actually have a campaign designed around our employees' children.
00:13:51
Speaker
Like we'll do back-to-school folders, coloring pages of box trucks and things like that.
00:13:57
Speaker
Um, and those are actually almost the things that are most meaningful to our employees in those events.
00:14:03
Speaker
That's amazing.
00:14:04
Speaker
And, you know, to your point, when you talk about, cause I think all the leadership or executives listening, everyone wants to know, how do you measure this?
00:14:12
Speaker
Like, what is the effect?
00:14:13
Speaker
Like, how much is this going to cost?
00:14:15
Speaker
Like, should we allocate resources when we could be growing our revenue toward internal efforts?
00:14:21
Speaker
And then it's kind of
00:14:22
Speaker
interesting to kind of reverse that question is, well, what does it cost you by not engaging in internal marketing?
00:14:27
Speaker
Because you look at the workforce crisis that, I mean, I would consider it to be a crisis.
00:14:33
Speaker
People are, there's turnover happening left and right.
00:14:36
Speaker
There are layoffs.
00:14:37
Speaker
There's, we're still recovering from everybody leaving their jobs during the pandemic.
00:14:42
Speaker
I mean, there is so much transitioning transition happening in the, in the workplace that,
00:14:50
Speaker
I feel like what the thing that I would ask leadership is what is it costing you not to engage your employees?
00:14:56
Speaker
Because campaigns like this that are going to keep your teams unified, um, and, and really centric to what they're doing, that is going to, in the long run, help you retain great and top talent.
Consequences of Neglecting Internal Marketing
00:15:08
Speaker
And you see the organization, you think about the cost of what it takes to hire, to train an employee.
00:15:14
Speaker
And then the cost that's hidden in whenever one transitions, like, man, I,
00:15:19
Speaker
I can only imagine that taking the time, and I'm sure to your point, it doesn't need to be fancy or overproduced either, right?
00:15:26
Speaker
It could be as simple as executives on their phone recording maybe audios that somebody on marketing could repurpose into a podcast.
00:15:33
Speaker
Maybe it's just a quick video or a private, unlisted YouTube channel.
00:15:38
Speaker
I feel like there's so many ways, right?
00:15:40
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's just putting...
00:15:42
Speaker
Ways at their fingertips and things that maybe some leaders wouldn't think about because it's not their day to day to communicate.
00:15:49
Speaker
To your point, it's more costly to not do internal marketing than actually spend time investing in your employees.
00:15:56
Speaker
And I know for growing my marketing team at Custom Concrete,
00:16:01
Speaker
How I grew up was I went and was speaking to a class of students and just talking all about our culture and had someone really interested and came in and they were an amazing hire.
00:16:11
Speaker
Like a rock star, staying with the company, really strong, came out the bat because that's what they wanted.
00:16:17
Speaker
They had never worked in, for me and my example, I never worked in construction.
00:16:23
Speaker
My teammate had never worked in construction, but we came in and it was like our ideal fit because of the culture.
00:16:28
Speaker
So I think having a strong culture too, you really break down those barriers of someone like wanting to enter a new industry and things like that and create more opportunity.
00:16:38
Speaker
I love that.
00:16:39
Speaker
Now, do you think how, when you get into internal marketing, I'm sure there's so many different multifaceted layers too, depending on team.
00:16:47
Speaker
Like do you typically segment your internal marketing based on teams or is that something that you do often or is it more of a case by case basis?
00:16:56
Speaker
Yeah, I think it's case by case.
00:16:57
Speaker
From my experience, we'll do a lot of general messages to
Customizing Internal Marketing Messages
00:17:02
Speaker
everyone.
00:17:02
Speaker
So everyone's hearing the same message and then break it down further, connecting with different leaders of departments or leaders of entities and talk to them about, okay, what is your specific team facing that we can kind of craft a message to?
00:17:16
Speaker
I think corporately you need the high level overall message, everyone on the same page, but then understand each team is going to be at a different point, a different season and, um, helping those leaders meet them where they're at.
00:17:29
Speaker
That might look a little different.
00:17:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:17:31
Speaker
No, that makes complete sense.
00:17:33
Speaker
What are maybe some of the pitfalls you've seen that leaders should be watching out for that maybe when you've seen from the outside looking in organizations that have struggled with this or maybe had a faux pas and something that went out that shouldn't have gone out or could have been communicated better.
00:17:50
Speaker
What are maybe some of those proactive steps that organizations can take to make sure that they're really being intentional with what they put out?
00:18:02
Speaker
Give me a second.
00:18:03
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:03
Speaker
That's a really good question.
00:18:04
Speaker
No, you're good.
00:18:05
Speaker
I know one that I have seen that I think concerned me.
00:18:10
Speaker
I shouldn't say concerned me, but that I was like, ooh, that's tough.
00:18:13
Speaker
Like with a lot of layoffs that have been happening, I know that this, I feel like having internal marketing in place can really like, if a decision like that has to be made, provides so much more clarity.
00:18:22
Speaker
And I know one thing that I saw that I was like, ooh, I don't know.
00:18:25
Speaker
It's just like a mass letter without the contextual backing of what happened.
00:18:30
Speaker
It's like,
00:18:31
Speaker
this could have like maybe been worded really well.
00:18:33
Speaker
And so I think that's just in my mind, an example of maybe, I don't know if these efforts would have been put in place in the first place, or maybe there's like a video would have been a more personal way to, to, I mean, that's kind of a no win situation anyway, when there's something like that, but I'm curious.
00:18:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:18:54
Speaker
I think when you're faced with like a challenging time, um,
00:18:59
Speaker
how you really took care of your employees in other times is what really kind of drives people.
00:19:05
Speaker
Because a lot of companies have been experiencing layoffs and things like that, and that's all really challenging.
00:19:13
Speaker
So I think too, in that level, you can lay off an employee in a good way and helping them, empower them, find their next job.
00:19:21
Speaker
But I think pushback, I didn't mean pushback, I didn't mean pushback.
00:19:29
Speaker
Oh yeah.
00:19:29
Speaker
Okay.
00:19:30
Speaker
I'm like, okay, I want time to think.
00:19:31
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:32
Speaker
I want to answer this right.
00:19:38
Speaker
I think I've seen employee engagement efforts.
00:19:42
Speaker
I think you always have to focus.
00:19:43
Speaker
What is the mass and not getting a benefit from it?
00:19:46
Speaker
There's been different events I've had where there'll be one or two people come in like with negative or like, why'd you do this?
00:19:53
Speaker
And don't lose sight of the goal.
00:19:54
Speaker
Like my goal is to create a positive environment for the mass.
00:19:59
Speaker
You know, when you get into larger companies or any appreciation event you're doing, it's never going to reach everyone on the level they need.
00:20:06
Speaker
That's why I think really empowering your other level leaders to know their team, know their personality, know what motivates them, giving them ideas and resources.
00:20:17
Speaker
But from that higher level understanding, every event's not going to meet everyone's need, but still being positive in that.
00:20:23
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:25
Speaker
And...
00:20:26
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's the biggest thing because I have had events where everyone's loving it and then one or two people come in with a negative mark and you just kind of like drop it and you're like, oh, I feel so bad.
00:20:35
Speaker
And then you're like, realistically, I'm probably not going to be able to sign an event to meet everyone their specific needs.
00:20:41
Speaker
Wouldn't it be great?
00:20:42
Speaker
Yeah.
00:20:43
Speaker
So just not losing sight of that.
00:20:45
Speaker
And I think the biggest thing is knowing like...
00:20:49
Speaker
You can reach everyone on a certain level of your company, but how are you building up leaders?
00:20:54
Speaker
I've also seen companies design emerging leader programs where they'll have emerging leaders at the company come in.
00:21:01
Speaker
That's good.
00:21:02
Speaker
We launch a month and develop their leadership skills to really kind of meet to that next generation of leaders as leaders fade out in the company.
00:21:11
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:11
Speaker
And that raises, too, a really unique way.
00:21:14
Speaker
I mean, there's so many creative ways that I think internal marketing can be leveraged.
00:21:18
Speaker
I mean, it could even be like, I love the idea of spotlighting employee stories or like even taking high performers and celebrating them for the whole company to do.
00:21:27
Speaker
I mean, not that it all needs to be about incentive, but depending on your culture, I mean, who doesn't want to celebrate the people that are making everything happen?
00:21:34
Speaker
And I mean, there's just so much untapped opportunity there, I think for sure.
00:21:39
Speaker
Definitely.
00:21:39
Speaker
Yeah.
00:21:41
Speaker
Really in the sky's the limit when it comes to engaging your employees and creating just a fun work environment.
00:21:47
Speaker
I love that.
Launching an Internal Marketing Campaign
00:21:48
Speaker
Well, what are maybe some of the best practices that if somebody, if a leader is listening to this and they're not at a loss, but just excited by so many opportunities, what are maybe some of the best practices that they could take away in how to get started creating their first internal marketing campaign?
00:22:06
Speaker
Yeah.
00:22:07
Speaker
I think first set goals, like any strategy plan, you need goals.
00:22:12
Speaker
What are the goals and you want your internal marketing campaign?
00:22:16
Speaker
Is it to get people really aligned with the vision?
00:22:18
Speaker
Is it for them to really understand your values?
00:22:21
Speaker
Is it to just create a better culture?
00:22:23
Speaker
Maybe you've had some culture issues and you want to work and refine it, be transparent about the transition you want to make.
00:22:29
Speaker
So first make a strategy and then second,
00:22:34
Speaker
Get those stakeholders together who need to be there, whether it's your HR, marketing, leadership, rally everyone together and say, hey, here's the messages we want to work on.
00:22:42
Speaker
Here's what we want to promote.
00:22:44
Speaker
And then my third, I'd say, this is kind of like one of my favorite phrase, create your employees to not just be culture fits, but culture additions.
00:22:54
Speaker
I read a little bit of an article and I loved it where
00:22:59
Speaker
We don't want employees to come into our company and like fit right in.
00:23:02
Speaker
Like I want them to come in and say, how can I keep enhancing this?
00:23:06
Speaker
How can I make this good thing great and make the culture even better?
00:23:11
Speaker
So really empowering your team.
00:23:13
Speaker
Like, you know, you do play a role in this culture.
00:23:17
Speaker
Like live it to like, let's see.
00:23:20
Speaker
Let me start.
00:23:22
Speaker
like empower your people that they do have an opportunity that they play a role in the culture and they can see opportunities to enhance it and make it better just like leadership can as well.
00:23:33
Speaker
I love that.
00:23:34
Speaker
Any other advice that you would want to give or other examples that anyone listening should be aware of when it comes to internal marketing?
00:23:43
Speaker
Yeah.
00:23:43
Speaker
I think my biggest advice for a leader, if you're on the fence, like
00:23:47
Speaker
Don't overthink it.
00:23:48
Speaker
Like, just take your passion and caring for the people.
00:23:51
Speaker
Like, that has to be there first.
00:23:53
Speaker
So really take time to invest in, like, your people and just start taking steps.
00:24:00
Speaker
Don't be afraid to, like, share the story.
00:24:01
Speaker
I know a lot of owners can, like...
00:24:03
Speaker
feeling comfortable sometimes sharing their story and the hard work it started.
00:24:07
Speaker
But like employees love hearing that.
00:24:09
Speaker
Um, and usually it's a pretty small team when that's starting, they miss out on the opportunity.
00:24:13
Speaker
So just get started, share your story, be authentic, be transparent with your people and lead by example.
00:24:21
Speaker
Yeah.
00:24:22
Speaker
Oh, that's so good.
00:24:23
Speaker
I love how simple that I think we over, we all have this natural tendency to overcomplicate things.
00:24:28
Speaker
And I love how you've just so beautifully laid that out.
00:24:30
Speaker
Share your story.
00:24:31
Speaker
I mean, it really comes down to,
00:24:32
Speaker
to that beat the drum of what your organization is doing.
00:24:35
Speaker
Leah, where can everybody find you and stay in touch with you?
00:24:39
Speaker
If they've got more questions, if they want to connect with you, if they want to follow along on your journey, how can they connect with you?
00:24:44
Speaker
Yeah, internal marketing is a huge factor of mine.
00:24:46
Speaker
So if anyone wants to bounce ideas off or helps get started or just even share their story, probably to connect with me on LinkedIn is the best way to reach me.
00:24:56
Speaker
Amazing.
00:24:57
Speaker
Leah, thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing all of your insight.
00:25:01
Speaker
It's just been so great to learn from you and hear all of your new ideas.
00:25:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:25:05
Speaker
Thank you so much, Ashley.
00:25:06
Speaker
And I'm excited.
00:25:07
Speaker
I hope I can help leaders and develop healthier and happier cultures.
00:25:11
Speaker
Amazing.
00:25:12
Speaker
I know that it will.
00:25:13
Speaker
Thank you again.
00:25:15
Speaker
Thanks for joining us this week on the Anya Mike podcast.
00:25:19
Speaker
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00:25:20
Speaker
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00:25:26
Speaker
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00:25:37
Speaker
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00:25:57
Speaker
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