Building confidence is better than a weak sauce excuse

“They didn’t take any of my good advice.”

I’ve heard a variation of that statement many times, and it rings hollower with every telling. I even wrote of a comms director who used it as an excuse for why she was leaving her problematic politician.?

But here’s the thing: It’s a weak sauce excuse, and I regret ever saying it myself. As a professional communicator, it’s my job to bridge the gap between my best advice and its execution. We ignore that gap at our peril and the peril of our clients.?

It’s all about confidence

This isn’t about convincing clients or bosses that we’re brilliant; it is about helping them have confidence in the work we do. Confidence that:

• The strategy is sound
• The plan is thorough
• They will be successful with your advice

Simply dropping the results of our labour on a client’s desk isn’t good enough. That approach invites their second-guesses and worry: “Should I take a closer look? Do I need to give feedback? Is this actually a draft that needs my input?”

We have to treat our client as a key audience. Their success hinges on us building trust with them and giving them the confidence to act on our good advice.?

That means delivering strategy with context and materials with a clear sense of deliberate decision-making that led to that output. The level of detail will depend on the client, but bringing them into your process will bridge that gap between good advice and execution. In time, that leads to you becoming a trusted advisor and them becoming champions of your work.?

Confidence in action

I recently worked with one senior communicator who was developing a detailed strategy and plan for their senior administration. Unfortunately, their strategy was never fully approved; it alternated between lingering untouched and being sent back for revision or overhaul. The work was good; the document was thorough and thoughtful. But they were having trouble getting it over the finish line.

The key to approval was reframing the project for senior administration. We rewrote the front end of the report to highlight senior administration’s needs for simplicity and clarity rather than launching into leading the reader through a complex strategy. This adjustment gave them confidence in the strategy and equal confidence to be champions of the communicators who would own it. We moved the situation from “they won’t take this good advice” to “they trust in our expertise” and the strategy was approved.

What about you?

The best communicators put in the work to earn that trust. This approach is part of my practice, and I’ve had the opportunity to coach other communication leaders to adopt it as well. If you have a story about how you moved beyond a “they didn’t take any of my good advice” situation, I’d love to hear it.