The heart or the head

Grant Leboff: Thomas, one of the things you talk about in the book is hitting the head and the heart. I think that hitting the head, most people, when it comes to business, they know they’ve got to give logical arguments and explanations that make business sense. I think perhaps people would frown a little bit more in a business environment when you talk about hitting the heart, but why is that important?

Thomas Barta: As a marketer you’re in the business of change. Right? Each day you’re trying to get your colleagues to do something new, or to improve the customer experience and they can say no. Right? The chance you have is to catch them with sometimes a rational argument, but sometimes a very emotional story. A reason to believe. Napoleon said, “A leader is a dealer in hope,” and as a marketer you’ve got to give hope. It’s very important that every marketer has a story ready that they tell internally, and that’s consistent. That’s hitting the head and the heart, and make sure you have a story. It’s like in advertising, right? On TV or in print, you would have your story ready. You would have your strap-line, right? You’ve got to have the same internally. These are all important contacts to meet with people and drive change, so you’ve got to have a story that’s emotionally appealing and that makes the right case.

Grant Leboff: That’s interesting you say that because of course, marketers know about the power of stories externally. They’ve been used always in marketing but perhaps not used so internally by people. How does a marketer start to think about the internal story they need to tell? Because they’re probably very focused, they know the external stories they’re telling.

Thomas Barta: Just put yourself into the shoes of your colleagues, right? If you walk in there and say, “We have this great new product. We’re going to, you know, launch it and you know, you’re going to do this and I’m going to do that.” That’s not very compelling. Not very interesting. But everybody wants to be part of a success for example. Everybody wants to be part of a good future. It’s important that you understand where your colleagues stand and see what would be fascinating for them. Maybe be part of a great new brand. Maybe be part of a category, that may be capturing more customers’ hearts. Something that your colleagues find appealing. You got to find that out, like with your customers. That’s when you create your story and then you test it and you see how it resonates. People will tell you if it does or it doesn’t, but you’ve got to have your story ready.

Grant Leboff: What was interesting is in some terms what this amounts to is marketing people perhaps not being so good at internal comms. They’re very good at the external comms, but not so good at the internal comms. Perhaps one of the things to be a great marketing leader is to start to think about internal comms as well as the external comms. Is that something that you found in your studies?

Thomas Barta: It’s exactly right. The good news is marketers are good at communication so all you gotta do it is just do it internally too. That’s it. That’s the trick.

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