There is always a back story….

As we begin 2024 and start planning for our year to come, Guy and I were reflecting on our business and what we have achieved in 2023. We decided we wanted to share a story about a little adventure that we had together, before we closed for the year to celebrate the festive period with friends and family. ?

Our story takes place in the US, two weeks before Christmas where we were travelling to work to collaborate with clients from Chicago and New York. We enjoyed flying into the ‘Big Apple’ on Sunday evening, looking for famous landmarks and were delighted as we drove through both cities which were festive and festooned with Christmas decorations and lights. We were excited at the prospect of the week ahead, with the diverse nature that our work brings and the opportunities that we could explore.

On Monday, after a flight to Chicago, we met with a client from Dyson, collaborating on several ideas including the; ongoing development of team communication skills, leadership approaches and values that focussed on clarity and empowerment, to inspire the departments and leaders. We then unleashed another area of our expertise with our second client, rehearsing for an ULTA feed that was to go out live the next day. We guided her on how to engage the viewers through the camera lens and to share product knowledge in a way that encourages and helps blossom the “desire” through integrity and demonstration. She listened, she implemented, she excelled and Dyson delivered!?

Following an exploratory meeting with a new client on Tuesday, we flew back to NYC, to work, on Wednesday in the World Trade Centre, with the brand ambassadors’ team from Hennessy. We had designed a bespoke workshop to re-enforce and continue to up-skill the teams messaging and communication skills when they deliver trainings to their clients. We had included activities that encouraged agility and flexibility - attributes required to excel in their expanding roles in the New Year. We enjoyed facilitating the workshop in conjunction with one of our colleagues from Hennessy and the day was memorable.

On Thursday we met a prospective client, the US CEO of a high quality daywear, nightwear and loungewear company, for lunch, to discuss; what we could offer as a business and how this would help her and her new team. It was lovely to sit and exchange ideas and viewpoints, to chat about her life and professional journey and also ours. We discussed the values, principles and processes she'd like to implement into the team framework; her challenges, her opportunities and we discussed what we could provide, to offer solutions. Happy to say that this exploratory meeting was a success, and we are looking forward to collaborating together this year.

Our next client from Mo?t Hennessy (MH) USA had to cancel due to illness, which left us with the afternoon to ourselves - we seized the opportunity to enjoy the city at Christmas and visited Macey’s and then took an evening river cruise on the Hudson to see the sights that NY has to offer. We met with some lovely people on the cruise and had a fun evening celebrating Christmas in the Big Apple with strangers who for 2 hours, became friends.

On Friday morning we met face-to-face for the first time, with another client from MH. We spent some time discussing where she has worked, getting to know her, and building a relationship, discovering her challenges and opportunities. We also spent time working on prioritising, public speaking, and presentation skills, which we identified could help her communicate more efficiently and effectively to top management, regarding challenging 'data analysis" Ppt slides. We then took her for lunch and continued the conversation, chatting about life in general.

We had a couple of hours in the afternoon free, before we had to head to the airport to fly home and as the weather was beautiful, we decided to make our way to the river for some downtime and to reflect on the week, whilst enjoying the views as the sun set across the Hudson.

This trip had been busy, and at times hard work - we were challenged every day - our initial flight was delayed resulting in us missing our connection to NY. Our taxi driver, who picked us up at JFK, frightened us by driving straight past our hotel into a dead-end road in Queens, where a group of youths were selling ‘who knows what’ out of the back of their cars, drowned in a fog of pot…in the dead of night. Our flight in the morning to Chicago was delayed, the taxi we caught to our accommodation from O’Hare was, we assume, being used as a home and smelt terrible - it was minus 3 and we had to drive through Chicago with the windows down. We had someone homeless sleeping in the doorway of our Airbnb in Chicago… we bought him coffee and breakfast each morning whist we were there. We blocked our business cards unintentionally, and our internal and international flights were all delayed, for differing reasons! We stayed one night in an Airbnb in NYC, (supposed to be for 3 nights) but with no crockery or cutlery, no bare essentials, old stains on the beds and pillows, looking very tired and dirty, we moved to a hotel for the rest of the week. Problem solved, we thought, however, the room in the hotel had a problem with the heating, which, when turned on filled the room with an aroma of stale urine – the management were excellent and sorted it out for us, whilst we took a drink in the bar and chatted to guests and staff. Despite all of these setbacks and more not shared today, we laughed all the way through the trip, we focussed on our clients and on our work and remained positive…. we just got on with it! ?Albeit with all the operational setbacks, our trip was successful. It was great to meet some new clients and also to collaborate with some of our clients face-to-face for the first time, continuing to build relationships whilst discovering their needs.

Why are we sharing this???

Well, there are many reasons we could share, but here’s just a few that we think are important as we start the New Year; always try to be adaptable and agile as you never know what’s around the corner, face adversity and don’t get dragged down by it, ?be courteous and kind to everyone - there’s always a back story that you don’t know about, remain focussed on what is important, remember to try and listen and use your communication skills to your advantage not to your detriment. It doesn’t matter how big or small you are within the corporate world, the principles of working with your clients should still be the same, to build mutual trust and to connect in order to be able to deliver their needs. Also, we wanted to illustrate that running a small family business, although it comes with its own set of challenges, can still be fun as the photos illustrate … if work is not fun then you’re missing out.

Our final message we’d like to share is that we understand how important it is to connect with people on some level; whether it’s for 5minutes stood outside Macey’s singing Merry Christmas with strangers on the interactive window display (Guy was cajoled into this), or helping a homeless person with breakfast and a chat in the morning before work, spending quality time in a cafe with a prospective new client, or facilitating a workshop with creative and curious brand ambassadors, we embrace these connections and utilise our skills to develop working relationships that result in trust.

Ultimately communication is about connecting, it’s how you do it that is important, and that’s what we think (and have heard) we specialise in…. on that note, we just want to say thank you to all our clients for your continued support and engagement, and wish you all a happy start to the New Year. Looking forward to collaborating with you further in 2024 as we discover together more 'back stories' on this journey....

Jeanette Jones - Communication River