How managers can boost staff buy in for change

Kerry-Ann: Ultimately, employees work for themselves. They don't work for the company in the figurative sense. So, our objective is really about creating that connection and empowering our team members to use their voices, which will see them building their own personal brands, but never fear, the company brand will benefit and get to go along for the ride.
Jimmy: Hello, and welcome back to this week's episode of The Ways of Working Podcast, your weekly dose of practical tips for leaders who are trying to gain that high-performance edge without burning themselves or their teams out. Now, before you put down your phone or click away from this window, make sure you hit follow or subscribe on your preferred platform of choice to make sure you don't miss any future episodes of The Ways of Working Podcast with our incredible experts and guests.
Hello, and welcome back to this week's episode, and I'm absolutely thrilled this week because we are joined by the incredible Kerry-Ann Stimpson. Now, Kerry is a woman of many talents, but today she's coming out to us as the CMO of JMMB Group, and we'll find out a bit more about that a little bit later, and also the producer and host of The Internal Marketing Podcast, which is where we're going to start today. Kerry, welcome to the show.
Kerry-Ann: Thank you so much for having me, Jimmy, and that after that introduction, I feel like I have a huge bar to reach, but I I really appreciate the opportunity to be here. Thank you so much.
Jimmy: Absolute pleasure to have you here, and Kerry, you know, you and I connected over the idea of internal marketing, and what is that? And what's that meaning in terms of leaders who are listening to our show, which is all about building a high-performance culture? There's some overlaps there, so we're going to go and explore that a little bit, but for those listeners who might be thinking internal marketing, I've never heard of that before, tell us a little bit about what is internal marketing?
Kerry-Ann: Happy to. So, we're more than familiar, I suspect, with the word marketing, which is really about engaging a target audience and encouraging them to do something uh that is consistent with with an outcome that we're trying to achieve. So, in the case of internal marketing, it's really about engaging and empowering our employees to become advocates of the brand. Now, when we talk about engagement, we talk about everything from communications, employee experience, anything at all that would bring our employees on board with who we are as an organisation, what our mission is, our value proposition, our products, our services, it's really to get them excited and connected to the brand with the expected outcome that they'll be motivated to share and promote that brand to their own respective communities. And so, that's what internal marketing is, it's marketing to your employees.
Jimmy: So, when you talk about this, getting excited about the product and or and/or service of that organisation, are you essentially saying you're telling your employees about the things that we sell externally so they can get excited about it, or is it more than that?
Kerry-Ann: I would say it's a little bit more than that. It certainly does include that, right? Because if your employees aren't quite sure about what makes you great as an organisation and why your product and/or service is better than the competition, then that's something you'd want to address as well, but it's a little deeper to the extent that it really goes to the heart of why we exist, our mission, our vision, our purpose as an organisation. Employees not only need to be aware of what those are, but they need to have that emotional connection. And again, I love to draw the parallel with an external marketing example where it's ideal that you have customers who are connected to the brand, who are emotionally engaged and feel good and are loyal to the brand, but we have to remember that before we got our very first customer, we had our very first employee, more than likely. And so, if our employees aren't connected to the brand in that emotional way uh where they're not engaged, they really don't believe in what we stand for, then they won't be empowered to deliver on the brand promise, and they won't be willing or motivated to share about the wonderful things about our organisation to their communities outside.
Jimmy: I love that, and, you know, as it as I've been talking to you for the last couple of weeks, and we've been putting this together, one of the things that kept on coming up in our conversation is where there is some really aligned work with the work of internal marketing teams and the work of our HR functions. So, for we I know we've got a lot of senior HR listeners, how could they best partner with their internal marketing team or maybe with just their marketing team to create some internal marketing, how could they best partner to get some great results for employee engagement, brand advocacy and things? Because you guys are the experts on on that stuff, and HR people tend to play in the lane of employee advocacy, employee engagement. Where's the partnership opportunities?
Kerry-Ann: So, there're a number of them, and that's a great question, because you're right, HR, they're the people, they're the people team, they are the pundits on things like culture and overall employee experience and engagement, and then the marketing team brings that expertise to the table that again, shifts mindsets, builds engagement in a brand, and ultimately, changes behaviour. And so, the partnership there is rich. I mean, when you think about first of all in any marketing space, you have the four Ps of marketing. There's place, price, product, promotion. Those are the basic four Ps. And in the case of internal marketing, the product is actually the job. It's the culture. And before you market anything, your product has to be on point. And so, when you talk about the partnership between marketing and HR, HR's role is to lead the drive to ensure that the product, which is the culture of the organisation, the jobs, which includes the compensation, relationships, leadership dynamics, and so on, HR are the ones who lead in that vein, and then the marketing team can come in and support HR in the vein that says, "Hey, you know what? How can we better engage our employees around what is really an awesome product, an awesome culture, an awesome experience, again, to shift the the behaviour of our employees so that they feel motivated and empowered to become advocates of the brand outside?"
Jimmy: I'm so intrigued listening to your angle on the things that I've spent the last 20 odd years working in the field of HR, and just listening to the things you're saying, I'm like, "Yes, this is good stuff. Yes, we should be doing this. Yes, this is absolutely where we should play." And what we're starting to see in some of the more progressive clients that we work with, and I'm sure you're probably seeing the same in in the organisations that that you've had the privilege of partnering alongside, is that the idea of employee experience is starting to gain massive traction, and it's based on that idea of customer experience, but let's do it internally, right? And so, there's probably thought already happening in many organisations about, how do we internally market to build our employee experience? But if if we were going to do two or three things, if maybe we just go one or two things really well to start that journey, to start moving towards a a strategy of internal marketing, where would I start?
Kerry-Ann: So, first of all, where I'd suggest you start, Jimmy, is first of all assessing where does the brand sit in the hearts and minds of your employees. So, typically, we know that as companies, a lot of companies pretty much do what we call employee satisfaction and engagement surveys, which, again, tests employees' affinity to the product, which is, again, the culture, the job, the organisation, the overall employee experience, which of course is very, very important. But I'm suggesting, in the case of internal marketing, to take it a little bit further, where you're testing the affinity that employees have to the company brand itself. Are they proud to work for your organisation? Do they believe that it's an organisation that they would recommend a friend, a family member, to come and work with themselves? We call it the employee net promoter score. Are they loyal? Are your top performers staying with the organisation or are they leaving? Uh do your employees know what makes your organisation great, what's your unique value proposition, how do your products and services stack up against the competition? All of those things you really need to understand, what's the temperature check on the ground where your employees are concerned, because if they're not engaged in the brand in that very intimate way, then they're not going to be able to promote it externally, they're not going to be able to deliver on the brand promise, and if you don't have engaged employees in the brand, then there's very little chance, or it's certainly going to be much harder for you to engage your customers in the brand as well. So, that's the first thing. And then the second thing is that you want to make sure that whatever work that you need to do on the product in your internal marketing mix, which is your culture, which is your leadership dynamic, do employees feel valued, do they feel heard, do they feel safe, do they feel empowered to use their voices both internally and externally as the chief ambassadors of the brand, then that also would need to be addressed as well. So, those are the two areas that I recommend companies start.
Jimmy: I'm really intrigued by obviously, you are a marketer and an expert in your field, but the the leverage opportunity from uh maybe an HR team that's traditionally been involved in employment relations activities or recruitment activities, to suddenly have all this horsepower of research and data analysis and and all these extra pieces that they can bring to the to the party when it comes to building an employee experience through leveraging some of these internal marketing strategies and tactics, I really like that. And I've also seen very um average employee engagement surveys, and having some marketing expertise to go, "Well, what what what would we ask a customer? How can we tailor that question for an internal employee?" That could be a really interesting um opportunity area to very quickly get a handle on the culture of your business, right?
Kerry-Ann: Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. And and you know, it it goes back to the saying that uh nowadays where you can't have a great customer experience unless you have a great employee experience. So, digging deep into understanding what drives that experience, what's the overall brand engagement like internally, then that's almost like a predictor of what your customers are going to experience and where your brand is going to go.
Jimmy: Mm. And what brought you into this space, Kerry? How did you end up in internal marketing?
Kerry-Ann: So, it I would say it's it's from probably two different vantage points. Well, I've been a marketer now for about 20 years, and one of the things I've noticed as a marketer, and a lot of marketers probably listening would feel this, is that as a function where we don't always get the love that we think we deserve, and we're not valued as a function in the company as much as we'd like to be valued. And over the years working in the function, and working and listening to internal clients, and doing my own research, and having conversations, you realise that a huge part of why that doesn't happen is because of the lack of internal engagement around the marketing function, yes, but around the brand. I don't believe that employees generally feel like they're a part of the marketing strategy, the marketing voice that's going out externally, and there was an opportunity I saw as a marketer to do more internal enrollment of employees in that conversation. So, they understand the strategy, they understand what we're trying to achieve, and they appreciate that they have a critical role to play in that. So, that's one. And then the other vantage point was even just within my own current role as CMO of JMMB Group, where we are a financial brand that, get this, Jimmy, we are founded on the basis of love, and I know that's weird, and that's probably a whole other episode. But as a financial brand, we really believed that, and we still believed as when we were founded, and we still continue to believe, that all human beings are created equal. And so, if we want people to realise the greatness within them, it's the power of love that is going to take to unleash that greatness, and to deliver on such a powerful value proposition, we couldn't do that without our people, without our team. So, recognising the strength and the importance of a team that is bought in and engaged in the brand became super important to the marketing strategy that my team and I had to execute, and so those were the two angles via which I said, "You know, internal marketing just needs to be spoken about more, it needs to be embraced more." And so, it led me to this point in my career journey.
Jimmy: Hey, Jimmy here. Just wanted to drop into this episode, and let you know that we're so grateful for all of those reviews that you as listeners leave on our podcast. We put all our hearts and souls into the podcast, and the guests we invite are absolutely fantastic. I wanted to share one review with you from a recent episode from Kelly. "Jimmy's experience and thoughtful dialogue provide a phenomenal canvas of learning opportunities from thought leaders in the industry. It was a pleasure both listening and participating. What a great resource to learn valuable tips and tricks to navigating impactful leadership capabilities." So, not only are we thrilled to have incredible guests on the show, but we're also absolutely overjoyed that it's having a positive impact on our listeners like you on The Ways of Working Podcast. Speak soon.
I think that's such a great insight that often the greatest breakthroughs, the greatest moments of inspiration and innovation come from a, "There's something not quite working here, and we need to do something about it." And I love that idea of getting curious, dipping into a new field, because let's face it, I don't know many organisations that have an internal marketing function, or an even an internal marketing-focused person, so you're really carving a bit of a niche in that space. And could you share with us, you know, one of the pieces of work that you've done in your career that's made probably the biggest difference in terms of really shifting that employee awareness and contribution to the company brand based on being much more engaged in the internal brand?
Kerry-Ann: So, well, first of all, we did some research. As I was speaking earlier about the brand engagement research, we actually did some research ourselves a few years ago, which was quite eye-opening, because what we found is that our team members loved working with the company, they were proud to say they worked with JMMB, uh the name of my organisation, but they really didn't know what made us great. They didn't understand what was our unique value proposition and how our offerings were better than the competition. So, we saw an opportunity to create fun and engaging educational content around our financial services that they we could share with our team members, that they could sink their teeth into. So, that was one. Another thing that we did was we really started to enrol more of our team members in our social media marketing activities, our digital marketing activities, whether it was to host a webinar, or a live stream, or to create valuable content, and then what we would do is we would highlight and applaud those team members who would invest their time and talent in those areas, things like the social media ambassador of the week, where we would give a nice Amazon gift certificate to a team member who has done a great job of showing up for the brand and for themselves online, and then we'd send a nice email out to the entire organ- organisation to give them their kudos, and they got their Amazon gift certificate, which they could use however they like. So, those I would say are the two big things that I think started to shift the conversation around how well are we engaging our employees in the overall marketing strategy, recognising them as a key ambassador and constituent in that plan and execution.
Jimmy: I love that. And if I were sitting at the top table of an organisation thinking, "Hmm, we're looking for that performance edge, and I've just listened to this episode with Kerry, and my thinking is we need to get some internal marketing and some HR people talking." Yes. What would be a good couple of questions for me to be asking the the leads of both those functions to to start this type of project rolling?
Kerry-Ann: So, I would encourage leaders to perhaps more than anything, focus on what are the metrics that we want these types of activities to drive. Because let's get straight about it. We know as leaders, it's really about the bottom line, right? That's why we're in business. And so, the charge I think that leaders can give to marketers and to the people team in HR is around what are the metrics that we want to drive. So, you want to start looking at, "Well, what is our employee net promoter score?" We know what the net promoter score is from where our customers are concerned, the likelihood of customers to refer the brand to someone else. For employee net promoter score, the likelihood that employees would want to recommend that someone work for us. Uh looking back at things like performance metrics, uh performance scores. Are our top performers staying? Um are our, respectfully, bottom performers not leaving? You know, what kind of work culture, work environment, are we engendering? Uh but also things on the marketing side, brand awareness, earned media. When you have employees who are engaged and excited about the brand and they're sharing awesome content online, particularly in social media platforms, can we give an assessment of what kind of reach and frequency that we're enjoying, and mentions that we're enjoying as a brand? Earned media, which if we had paid for it, what would that have cost us? So, that's something I think we can also look at. And I believe that it's also important for us to just recognise that what are our employees feeling about the brand, how are they feeling about their overall experience, because usually, once your employees are happy and engaged, they're typically motivated and empowered to share awesome, value-added content, uh feel good about their own personal brands, about the company brand, and then of course, the company brand gets to go along for the ride, and the customers benefit in the long run, of course.
Jimmy: I'm I'm so aligned on so many levels, and, you know, I think about the work we do in the space of burnout. One of the things we talked about in in our episode when I was was when I was on your show, was the importance of having a really clear purpose and a really clear connection to the bigger picture, the plan, the what are we trying to achieve here, and to know that that's making a difference. And what I'm hearing is we want our employees to be very, very clear on our products, our services, our big push in terms of strategy, the products and services we really want to um get the maximum output of, the bottom-line goals that we're going for, and to feel somehow emotionally connected to that, Yes. Exactly. so they want to promote, and they want to share that. And then magically, if they feel good and fantastic about it, it's going to start popping up on their Instagram and their LinkedIn feeds to say, "I work for company X, and they're amazing, and this is what our big thing is for this year." I I really see I see a massive opportunity here that might be a little bit untapped in some organisations.
Kerry-Ann: Yes, indeed. And I mean, I'd want to caution too, Jimmy, that what we are proposing is not that employees become walking, talking billboards. I just want to put that caveat in there, and and that's why it's so important when we talk about that emotional connection and engagement, because ultimately, employees work for themselves. Uh they don't nece- they don't work for the company in the figurative sense, so our objective is really about creating that connection and empowering our team members to use their voices, which will see them building their own personal brands, but never fear, the company brand will benefit and get to go along for the ride. So, let's build that connection, build that engagement around an awesome employee experience, and we'll see it uh cascade down to our customers externally.
Jimmy: What about if I I'm playing devil's advocate here, but what about if I'm at the other end of the scale? So, I have a very low employee net promoter score, or we don't even measure it right now, and maybe people are going on websites like Glassdoor or other employer review sites and maybe sharing messages that aren't so great, where should I start if that's the if that's my start point? Because what we've talked about essentially at the moment is good to great, but what if it's what if it's not a great news picture?
Kerry-Ann: Yes, indeed. And it goes back to the point about making sure your product is great. So, in the same way when you get a bad customer review about your product or service, if your customer gives your product or service in the internal marketing context, which again is your culture, the work environment, the overall employee experience, then you're going to have to go back to the drawing board and work on those widgets to get them fixed. So, doing your surveys, doing not just surveys, but perhaps even focus groups, which allows you to dig a little deeper into what the issues are where your employees are concerned, what's not working for them in the environment, so that you can get a great handle on what needs to be addressed, and then work together as a team to address them, because nobody is going to market a bad product. So, if you want your employees to be your advocates, make sure that your product, which is your experience, employee experience, your culture, and the job environment itself is great, and they'll market it. Don't worry about it.
Jimmy: I'm I'm going to challenge you slightly and say that nobody is going to positively market a bad product, but Oh, yes. Often we end up in a situation where if I'm an unhappy customer, I'll tell 10 people not one, so Absolutely. That's correct. Yes, that's correct.
Now, Kerry, obviously, we mentioned at the start of the episode that you are the CMO of JMMB Group, which is a a successful financial services organisation, but you also are the host and the producer of The Internal Marketing Podcast. So, tell us a little bit about the podcast.
Kerry-Ann: Oh, thank you for that. So, it's my personal passion project. I started my own podcast a couple of years ago for exactly the reasons that we would have been discussing in this very show, which is really around the fact that I wanted to dig more into the area of internal marketing, and I didn't see a podcast that was dedicated to internal marketing. I saw a few podcasts that may have had an episode or two that covered the topic, but nowhere that really did a deep dive. And I said, "Let me take up the challenge." And so, it's been a wonderful journey. Uh I'm actually going into season four right now. Uh and it's been great just talking to various subject matter experts, and even if they weren't part of an internal marketing conversation, I've brought in culture leaders, internal communicators, uh people leaders, CEOs, CMOs, uh all kinds of folks who are just really part of what is should be an internal marketing ecosystem, and it's been wonderful having the conversations and sharing that content. So, I'm very excited. It continues to, yes, be a personal passion project. I have a wonderful sponsor on board as well who supports with some of the execution of it, uh but it's really my little baby, and I'm very happy to be a part of it.
Jimmy: That's so interesting that I think we all start a podcast because we're passionate about sharing some sort of message that we want to get to a wider audience, that we want to share with people so they can tune in and listen to it, and I really appreciate having the opportunity to come on your podcast. We'll definitely put a link in in the show notes below this episode so you can scroll down and please do subscribe to to Kerry-Ann's podcast. It is a fantastic source of fresh insights, and coming at some of this stuff from a slightly different angle to to where you may have currently been thinking or playing.
Kerry-Ann, um I I really appreciate your time, and I always like to try and finish up with a standard question, and I know you've been generous enough to give me a question as well, but if you were to um think back through through your life, what's something you wish you had done, but haven't got around to doing?
Kerry-Ann: So, for me, it would be actually writing a book. It would be writing a book. Uh it's something that's still on my list of things to do, uh but it's just about just buckling down and getting to it. So, it's still something I'd like to at least start doing before the end of this year, so let's see. But that's definitely the number one thing on my list of to-dos.
Jimmy: Well, I I wish you all the very best of luck with writing a book, having just gone through that experience myself. It's Thank you. Yes, you would know. It is one of the most rewarding things you can do when you finally start to see people talking about your book. Uh so, you know, I wish you all the very best. And uh my my last question, if you could describe in 30 to 60 seconds the key takeaway that you would like the audience to take away from from this episode of the podcast, what would it be? Yes, indeed.
Kerry-Ann: So, for me, the key takeaway is this. If we can't get our employees engaged and excited about the company brand that they represent, then we have very little hope of getting our customers engaged and excited about the brand that we want them to buy from. And so, my encouragement to every organisation, every business of any size, is to start with your people. Make sure that they uh have a happy employee experience internally, that they're engaged with the brand, they're proud to work for the brand, uh they are emotionally as best as possible connected to the brand, and that finally, they're motivated and empowered to share about that brand externally. And once that's done, you are talk- you're going to see awesome brand growth, you're going to see awesome revenue growth as well, and um just a wonderful future for a business that focuses on its people.
Jimmy: Fantastic. Thank you so, so much, Kerry-Ann, for joining us on The Ways of Working Podcast this week. It was a privilege to have you along. And if you're sitting listening and thinking that this is something you want to get stuck into, and how do I do this, make sure you tune in to Kerry-Ann's podcast. Uh it is a riveting listen. I know also that she is very active on social media. And if you're looking for sort for maybe a riveting read that you would like to get a bit of a playbook or a recipe for success in how to start really getting people engaged and involved in your brand, why not check out my new book, Beat Burnout, Ignite Performance, at www.jimmyburroughes.com/book and download your copy now. It is a playbook for building a high-performance culture. Kerry-Ann, thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it. Speak to you soon.
Kerry-Ann: Thank you, Jimmy. Take care.
Jimmy: That's it for this week's episode of The Ways of Working Podcast. If you enjoyed the conversation here, why not head over to jimmyburroughes.com/book and grab chapter one of our amazing upcoming book, Beat Burnout, Ignite Performance. It's the leader's playbook for building a high-performance culture. So, if you're looking for practical tips and to understand why people in your team or yourself are burning out, and what to do about it so you can all keep working and perform better, this is the place for you. Go to jimmyburroughes.com/book and grab that first chapter. We'll also keep you posted when the full book is released very soon. Also, if you enjoyed this episode of The Ways of Working Podcast, don't forget to follow or subscribe on your preferred podcast platform of choice, and we'll make sure that you get all of the upcoming episodes as they come out every single week. Take care. Speak soon.