84. The Impact of Narrative

Intro: Duration: (02:09)

Opening music jingle & sound effects

Jeff Hunt:

Welcome to Human Capital. I'm Jeff Hunt. It's hard to believe that this is episode 84 after four years of recording the show. Although it's not my main gig, I love hosting the show and talking with so many amazing people. Thanks to you, Listen Notes ranks Human Capital in the top 5 percent most popular podcasts out of 3.3 million shows globally.

And I've been told by my team that I'm not very good at self-promotion, but if you enjoy this show, please take a minute to rate us, and even better, write a review. Today, however, let's start by reflecting on a few important questions. How does your company or your non-profit tell its story?

How do you personally, as a leader or employee, tell stories about what's important to you? Are your stories compelling and authentic, or do they fall flat, or do you not even make the effort? The benefits of effective storytelling are significant, from financial gains personally or corporately to improving your career path and enhancing company culture.

It's about delivering the right message in the right way at the right time. To help us unpack the intricacies of effective storytelling and strategic communication, I've invited Cheryl Snap Connor on the show. Cheryl is founder and CEO of Snap Connor PR and creator of Content University. Cheryl is a speaker and author.

She's a national columnist on business communication and PR who has contributed to Forbes, Inc., and to Entrepreneur Magazines as a PR and business communications expert. She's the author of Beyond PR: Communicate Like a Champ in the Digital Age, which is available on Amazon. Welcome Cheryl.

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Hi. Thank you.

Topic 1. Who or what inspired you the most along the way? (02:08)

Jeff Hunt:

It's wonderful to have you on the show. And as we jump into this topic about communication and storytelling and PR, I guess the first thing I'm reflecting on is that oftentimes it's not thought about until somebody's really gotten in trouble, right? I'm going to have you unpack that for me and why that is, but before we do, I want you to look back on your career journey and think about who inspired you most along the way.

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

I could give you so many examples. Of course, we've got the opportunity and chance to work with so many CEOs and they're all compelling in their own right. Some easier to work with than others, some easier to represent than others. But from the very beginning, it was my father who was an entrepreneur all the way through my growing up, all the way through my life. My mother, who was an expert communicator, always has been, always will be. And my first career boss has been a giant influence on me as well. So there are a number of people I could refer to. Those three are the top of the list.

Jeff Hunt:

Sometimes when we hit the pause button and sort of put a stake in the sand is when we can really think about how those people have truly influenced our lives and motivated us in ways that have made us who we are, right?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Exactly. Those are important people. And in fact, in particular, the first career manager leader that I had is a senior vice president, a woman senior vice president back in an era where there weren't many of those to be found. At absolute grace, people privately referred to her as the queen, and I learned so much from getting that opportunity to work with her.

So much guidance, so much mentoring. It stayed with me throughout my career, throughout my life, and I count myself fortunate, but I, I learned much of what I know just actually on the job in, and much of that began with that individual, Judith Clark Burton, Novell Inc.

Jeff Hunt:

Now, Cheryl, have you had a passion for communication and PR since you were a young child, or like when did this sort of burgeon for you?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Well, communications has always been key, and I've learned that, I guess, in many ways. That has always been a passion. I didn't really know what public relations was till I got into it. I was actually an English minor in university. And that was it. And in fact, that's, I'm not a PR graduate. The English minor was as close as I got, but I worked in public relations through school.

And every position I've held since, it's just been natural desire and need. Writing communications has always been important, but public relations, which I really view as strategic communications, communications to an end, to a purpose, to create bridges across business impasses, to make things happen, it's so core to everything that, that yes, and from the time that I'd been a child, when someone had something tricky to communicate, I'd been the person they came to and, you know, help me manage this, what am I going to do?

How are we going to work this out? And it's grown from there.

Jeff Hunt:

It sounds like you're very much in alignment with your passion and what you do, which not everybody can say, right?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Exactly. So I'm one of the most fortunate. And, and I, I never forget that. I never lose sight of that fact.

Topic 2. The importance of strategic communication. Controlling the narrative vs earning it. (05:19)

Jeff Hunt:

So let's get into this a little bit. I want to start us by talking about why proactive thinking about business communication and PR is so important. Often takes a backseat to other what we might call urgent, but less important things.

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

So many reasons, but among the top are the fact that founders and executives are there because they have a talent, a passion, a drive, not necessarily great communications.

Now they can be charismatic. They have the ability to make things happen, but sometimes it's, they make things happen as a driving force. And, uh, make excuses that, that's just a nicety, that's just the frosting on top that I don't have time to consider, I'm a busy person, I pay these people a lot of money, I shouldn't have to waste my valuable time being polite, that kind of thinking, although a surprising number of companies, whether natural or not, they realize they need to be seen, they need to be seen, their reputation is more important than ever, so coupled with this tendency to shirk, The proactive responsibility or opportunity to communicate well.

Uh, they suddenly realized they want to be seen and they want to be seen in a positive light and they want it to impact their companies favorably. So those kinds of things are at odds, at odds with each other. Uh, this is why I and my team are in business because we have to bring those juxtapositions together, help people use that opportunity for good.

Use it in advance. If you wait until there's a crisis, you are actually, you're, you're allowing your worst enemies to brand you for you and they're not going to be favorable when they do.

Jeff Hunt:

It's almost as if senior executives and CEOs undervalue the strategic importance of communication and PR until it's truly needed, and then it becomes quite a lesson for many of them because they are in reactive mode instead of proactive mode, right?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Well, and how many times do we hear executives just be moaning and declaring, I need to control my own narrative. Well, you don't need to control your own narrative, you need to earn it. Right. You know, people are not fools. They're going to pretty much see the truth of you, whether you help them or not. So, so just feeding that desire to control things often that leads to people's worst instincts, not their better nature.

Jeff Hunt:

So say more about this, controlling the narrative versus earning it. I love that.

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Controlling the narrative comes from fear. Fear drive, just the desire to. Not, leave nothing to chance, but earning the narrative is more like be the person you want to be known as, then without effort, it's authentic, it's authentic, it's congruent, just considering a few basic facts, like you're the same person at all times, in all places.

If you do that, and at the core of that, really, it's EQ, emotional maturity. If you develop or learn or practice emotional maturity, that will cover so many of the facets of effective reputation and effective communications. If you did simply that, you'd be well along the path. Then it would be more instrumental of if something happened to you.

Or you don't do anything. You're not on the record for who you really are. And then something happens, you pass away, you've got descendants someday. How are they going to know, did you walk the walk? Are you really who you proclaim to be, or who are you? So if you haven't left any evidence, that alone is a challenge, but then if, heaven forbid, an emergency or a crisis does happen, and it pretty much, it could happen to anyone at any time for any reason, and at that point, something happens and you're in trouble, particularly if it involves complaints, allegations of any kind, sadly, Your counsel is going to tell you, you can't do anything.

You've got to let this come through the legal process. You can't be declaring yourself in advance, but the people opposed to you certainly are not held generally to the same criteria. You have no way to defend yourself. Your only defense is the reputation that you've already established. That is on the record.

That is findable. If you have fervent customers, People who can genuinely speak about their knowledge of you, of your character, that's helpful. But if the things that you bring to the table as a value to the world, to the industry, to the customers that you serve, if they're known, if they're published, they're more than value add to those people, which should be the context by which you produced it.

They are also evidence, of who you are and what you stand for that could be more valuable than you could have ever known in advance when things get difficult down the line.

Jeff Hunt:

Sure. It's interesting because I'm just reflecting on How, if you shore up these areas of your business, communication and PR in advance, and you are crystal clear about what's important, why it's important, and how people can contribute to that, then when you are in a time of crisis, things become much easier because you've already established these sort of tenants, correct?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Correct. And in fact, I talk about it as a foundation. You have a foundation to walk upon. That's been earned. That's been established. It may be, we work with this all the time, while we generally represent corporations more than individuals. Either way, think about if somebody were to look online, On your website, generally more often if it's a company than an individual, but it can include both on a website or just by looking in Google or even by just querying social media, what do they see?

And on the first page of Google results, for example, in the category that you participate, do you show up? Do you show up in context? Do you show up accurately? If I were to, we talk a lot about speaking to people's listening, everything that is in their mind that is not said, but that you should know and that you should be speaking to.

People's minds are going to be asking, is this really a thing? And if it is really a thing, is this who I should be talking to? If you're not even present there, that, there's nothing. Just the fact of, um, Google's going to make your case for you, or, or maybe against you. It's not careful. In that category of work that you do, if you're not even in the conversation, when the participants are listed, if you haven't done anything to talk about how that category and how what you're doing is important, Maybe how it's unique, how it compares and relates to the other things that people could do in that kind of a situation, the kind of problem that you solve it, that can for you profoundly.

If there are three appearances on the first page of Google results, people don't know that you might have been working behind the scenes to create 10 things with your communications team. And these were the first three that appeared, but their perception, it's kind of a law of threes. Yeah. If they see you three times, and it's accurate, if the message is cohesive through those appearances, oh my gosh, you're everywhere, you've moved the needle, that gives you a lot of power.

Maybe you don't need to do very much PR, or very frequently beyond that, if that foundation exists. If it doesn't exist, it makes me cry to see people do things like putting out press releases that say, so and so is on our board of directors. But they don't know who you are. You didn't say who you are. How is this meaningful to anyone?

It's just clutter that is filling the airwaves, so to speak, with information that doesn't help you or anyone. So those are important things.

Jeff Hunt:

It sounds like what you're saying is basically, not only will you not get a seat at the table, so nobody will see you at all, but the contrast of that is, Not only getting a seat at the table but possibly at the head of the table based on these disciplines that you're describing.

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

So it's there for the taking. You should take the seat at the head of the table and do so by adding value, not by proclaiming yourself, but adding value. What is keeping your customers up at night? They'll be more than happy to tell you. Or there's an individual I really, really admire, Jay Abraham, who's pointed out, look at the reviews.

Thank you. Of what they're doing. When people rate something five stars or one star, either way, they feel passionate about what they're saying. The people love you, you know, what are they loving? The people vehemently oppose you. Where are you falling short? Doesn't mean you can please everybody, but, but there are some clues.

Topic 3. Aligning performance management with PR and communication. (14:41)

Jeff Hunt:

Definitely. I'm just realizing how much in alignment. We are in our, in these concepts, like for instance, in our software company, we have clients set goals. Well, first of all, ideally, they're going to be able to cast their vision, their mission, their purpose, their core values, and then communicate that to everybody through our software.

And then. They're going to set goals for individuals and teams and corporate goals that are in alignment with those communication pieces, like vision, the mission, purpose. And then they're going to hold people accountable through feedback, check ins, some sort of review process. And then we also do the same thing with consulting.

Our consultants do strategic planning. And they take the vision statement and they unpack that. So not only is it a statement, but we're defining every operative word in the statement. And then if we say that our core values are communication, character, customer service, things like that, they actually have detailed definitions of what those behaviors look like so that people know how to embody that and create a culture that does realize these long-term visions

So, I'm just curious about your reflections on the strategic planning aspects and the alignment with PR and communication and the alignment of performance management with PR and communication.

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

So much. Yes. You are striking at the foundation and the Holy grail that your brand isn't your brand because you proclaimed it.

It's because it exudes from the very pores of the organization. And in fact, if you're familiar with David Corbin, David M Corbin, illuminated brand, the brand promise and brand slaughter, he talks about that as well. But, uh, If every experience that your employees have, that your customers have, are true to that brand promise, that vision statement, whether you said it out loud and published it or not, it's thought to be really inherently true, and you shouldn't publish it.

We see these people who privately, if they've even created a vision statement, maybe, maybe they don't know what it is. And then they sit with a blank page and say, okay, what should our website say? And by an agency somewhere, or, you know, who are you? What do you stand for? There are all kinds of attributes, but you never tell anybody what it is.

Jeff Hunt:

Best kept secret.

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Sustainable. It's sustainable. Yes.

Jeff Hunt:

Yes, exactly. And what's interesting too is these concepts are not complicated. They're just difficult to implement, correct?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Absolutely. But so important that you do.

Jeff Hunt:

Yes. Now, Cheryl, do you have any stories of, I'm sure you're filled with stories, but in my intro I was talking about different stories. Do you have stories of companies or people that have done this really well or have not?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Yes. One of them that comes very readily to mind is TAB Bank, and they are one of our clients. They're based in Ogden, Utah. But this is a very successful bank that started out as TAB stands for, it's transportation.

They supported truckers. In the day, they're 20 some years old at this point. But they're one of the first entirely online banking organizations. Because truckers, they needed financial services and they were not in a place where they could go visit a branch. So all of the ATMs, and then later on the ability to interact online became their, their form of business.

Well, now TabBank supports businesses, smaller businesses, underserved populations, but recognizing that their very mission, that we support that customer, we hold that customer. We believe in that customer. Has been so imbued within this company, they measured over a period of years, they've measured through surveys that they went through all of the exercises and processes, but then they measure and they talk to their customers and to their employees on how are we doing.

Interestingly, the questions that kind of equate to the NPS, the net promoter score. Would you recommend this company, or this job, or this employer, to your family members, to your closest friends, and track that over time? As that score increases, you can see a similar correlation to their revenue. That is just magic.

It's like magic. It's like magic. It's like Harvard Business Review refers to in the service profit chain. Virtuous cycle, that the better you treat your employees, the better they treat your customers, the happier they are, the longer they stay, and revenue benefits along with everything else. Well, they really put it to test during the pandemic, because all of a sudden, there was this program called PPP that would help these businesses.

Well, a lot of financial institutions saw that opportunity and were jumping on applications to cherry pick the biggest companies first because they got bigger compensation. Conversely to that, the brand promise was so imbued within TabBank from the very employees, they said, no, we're taking every application as it comes in the order we receive it.

We don't care if they need a thousand dollars. They're getting the same attention as the bigger corporations do. And the, the CEO talks about having gotten onto the slack line during the night and he said, and it lit up like a Christmas tree. I had to beg people, turn this off, go to bed, get a bathroom break, something.

Those employees were so fired up about the kind of difference they could make. But that's paid off financially in states for that organization. And so they excel. In keeping with that brand, in things like interest bearing checking accounts, you know, the kind of programs, lending programs, that do not favor people who don't need them, that are really helping give the step up to companies that are underserved and need to have strength in the current challenged economy.

So, yes, that's a good story. I guess on the national scale, you might look at companies like Nike. Who, everybody's heard the stories now or watched the movies about how did some of these come about, how did they contend with Adidas, with Converse, you know, in the most competitive of times, well, by re understanding their customer, by building a vision statement that really showed to help every athlete in every endeavor, and even one of those co founders saying, well, if you, Bill Bowerman, if you have a body, you're an athlete.

And helping to produce benefits for so many people, that helped them excel and succeed. It's not been an instant protection from controversy. And they've gotten themselves into some when they, when an athlete that you represent suddenly becomes a controversial figure in the public eye. What are you going to do and how are you going to handle that?

They've handled it well. Taking those vision statements seriously and making certain that they're not just pretty statements and ideas, but that they're authentic, that you can defend them in every act that you make, every word that you say, um, you'll be so far ahead. It's a competitive advantage that would be awfully hard to beat.

Topic 4. Critical to-do’s when entering a PR crisis. (22:48)

Jeff Hunt:

Sure. That's right. When people are in crisis. Especially when it's a highly public crisis. What are some of the things that invariably that they tend to do wrong?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

People tend to become their own worst enemies. There is a communications principle that this adheres to. When you are at peace and in equilibrium, you are your best self.

You're dealing with your full faculties. You're considering things before you act. When you are triggered. You're dealing with half of the deck, you're reacting, you're not acting, and so people tend in their fear and panic to speak too soon, to say too much, to say the wrong kind of things, and to dig themselves in deeper and deeper.

There are in depth studies that have been done, for example, if you were a financial organization and there has been a breach. How quickly you acted, but if you acted with incomplete information or gave things that you had to walk back later, we can put a number to that. And it, it's not good.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah, it's a breakdown of trust, isn't it?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

It is, and with a general principle, don't let the first thought that pops into your head become the next words that fall out of your face. Sleep on it, think on it, count to 10, get outside counsel from somebody who is not emotionally triggered in the situation and prepare. So that means that in advance, you need a kind of a crisis plan, even if it is nothing more than a little bit of a template that says, okay, in the, if handbasket, who needs to be informed and in what order.

Well, that's going to be the board, the investors, the employees. They will not want to find out about this situation in the press, even if you have to accelerate that cycle so fast that they're informed at the same time than the press. Just emotionally, it will make a world of difference to them. You need the emergency contact information from the or the people that, that would need to be informed before you can act.

And I point out that the two people you're going to call are your legal counsel and your PR lead. And whatever happens from there forward, hand in glove, those two individuals are working in concert for your best good. And that already by policy, by employment policy, people know that even with good intention, they cannot speak on behalf of the company or about the company in that situation.

What they can do is defer people to the right, they can help, but it's by deferring people to the right avenue so that the communication is consistent and comes from a single source.

Topic 5. The benefits of communicating with your employees proactively. (25:54)

Jeff Hunt:

And what's coming to mind as I'm hearing you say all this are two things. One is patience is your friend. So even though your gut reaction, because you're in fight or flight mode, or you're, as they say, in a sympathetic mode in your brain, you're at your core, it's the contrary behavior that you're looking for.

It's this patience, it's slowing down, it's getting wise counsel, It's trying to restore yourself to a more patient, soulful place where you can make discerning decisions about what you should communicate and whose interest that has at heart. And then the second thing I'm just reflecting on, Cheryl, is that when you talked about the employees there and communicating with them, there are so many examples of companies that have not done this well.

They've had a catastrophe. And then the employees find out through social media or one of their friends or a family member or a customer. And to me, it feels as though the company is not placing value on the employees correctly, because if we truly valued them and cared about them, which really is the right priority, because we're not going to have anything without our employees, we're not going to have our customers, we're not going to have sales revenue, we're not going to have anything.

Then we should be putting them first. Even though sometimes they're on a need to know basis, correct?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

That is absolutely correct. It is such a violation to leave them out of the mix. And you miss their health. Let them know what they can do to help appropriately in this situation, and they will absolutely come to your rescue. Leave them out of it, they may become part of the problem.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah, they may actually exponentially cause problems with your existing crisis, right?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Absolutely.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah. Somebody could quit, and then all of a sudden they're spreading rumors, or they're on social media, and your situation's much worse than it would have been had we proactively communicated with them.

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Absolutely. Although, hiring for high emotional maturity in the first place is a help as well, that you've got people with the right foundation to work with. There are always the people in a scenario who tend to thrive on stirring the pot. And, and you can watch them. You can watch their careers over time that when things get tight, who's going to be let go.

Jeff Hunt:

That's such a good reminder. And speaking of digital media, the landscape of strategic communication and PR must have changed dramatically with the advent of social media, digital media.

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Absolutely.

Jeff Hunt:

I'm curious about what sort of opportunities or challenges this presents for businesses today.

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

The opportunity is that you've got a lot bigger metaphone, and if you use it well, that gives you so much more opportunity to communicate effectively to a much broader audience and in ways that make sense to the right people for the right reasons through as many avenues as possible.

Conversely, though, it gives everybody a microphone. Someone can say something controversial, start an argument, and suddenly have two and a half million followers, and they are charged. Transcribed And they're going to play that. Sometimes they're going to play that for years until there's no more juice in it.

Which also should be a clue in how to work with it, if that happens. But that's a challenge too, that people want to be smart. They want to say something clever. They want to say something funny. And it takes some skim knees before people realize that it's not smart to go home and put out on your blog, Hey, I got a promotion today.

Translate. Bigger title. No more money. Correct. And 13 o'clock with HR the next morning. Or I'm sitting here listening to my boss explain Twitter. To our client, he doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. And within two hours, that CEO has gotten phone calls from several people who've read that online.

So that's a challenge too. And those are innocent things. They can be extreme. When the British Petroleum, when there was that accident, and in truth, that accident was a contractor. It wasn't even, it indirectly, of course, British Petroleum BP, they were holding the bag because they were accountable for the contractors they hired and everything that happened.

But money upon money, millions of dollars, leagues of communication professionals making call downs, helping manage that situation that got so gruesome. Finally, a week later, the CEO, just in his weariness, went out on a, some kind of a boat race, forgot a race, with his son and he said, screw it, I'm just going to give a picture of myself and my son to the media, so get it over with.

They've got a picture, they can go leave us alone. Is now gone down in history as the 5 billion tweet.

Jeff Hunt:

Wow.

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Because what that express to the world is I'm going to go out regatta racing. I don't care about the people who died.

Jeff Hunt:

Unbelievable.

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

And undead. All of that benefit with one tweet, just because it expressed a message that wasn't intended, surely, but it was tongue deaf.

Topic 6. Intent vs Impact. How to measure effectiveness in communication.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah, well, I love to reference the difference between intent and impact. So, in this case, he had the intent. Of trying to move on, but the impact was severely negative and communicated him valuing something different than what he probably thought was important, correct?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Absolutely correct.

Jeff Hunt:

Yes.

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

The impact was just, you know, okay, I'll help you out. I'll give you something. Just leave me alone. It was the aftermath of the fire.

Jeff Hunt:

Very true, and often we're not thinking about impact. We are only thinking about intent. So for instance, even if I'm in a conflict with somebody, and I hear them say, Oh well that wasn't my intention. I didn't have that intention.

In many respects, that doesn't really matter, and it's not helpful hearing that. It's more about, can you understand about what you said, how you said, impacted me or the other person? Because once they can understand that impact, then you've made a connection. You've made engagement. You're not disconnecting or disengaging, right?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

It's the principle of speak to your audience's listening. You want to hear said. It's what they're going to hear that matters to them is going to take hold and, and bear fruit or not.

Jeff Hunt:

I've said it many times on this show, but one of my favorite sayings is listen to understand instead of listen to reply.

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Absolutely.

Jeff Hunt:

We can do that really well. We're going to be better leaders. We're going to be better spouses or partners, better in relationship, better friends. We're going to be more fulfilled in our lives if we can do that well. So it's a tall order, but it's a, it's a good tip.

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

One. Well, but even when not in crisis, if I had a nickel for every CEO steps forward and says, We need to be telling our story.

We need to be telling our story. And courteously, I have to break the news to them. People don't care about reading your story. They don't care about your story. They care about them. They want to be helped. They want to be educated. They want to be entertained. They don't want to be force-fed a story. They don't want to hear about your glory days.

They'd rather hear about your worst day, and what you did, and how you worked through it, and what did you learn from it.

Jeff Hunt:

It's a lot more inspirational and motivational, isn't it?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

More interesting reading, too.

Jeff Hunt:

Yeah, for sure. Okay, Cheryl, one more question before we jump into some lightning-round questions.

I'm curious about your opinion on how organizations can measure their effectiveness of how they're doing now. We, I mentioned our software. One of the things we have is a survey module, but is our survey something that they would even do to measure how effective they are in communication and PR?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

They can, or the shorthand equivalent of a survey.

My organization subscribes to Meltwater and we can run some data points, share a voice. That the software will in an automated way, scan the universe and tell us in a more instant way, okay, in this category, if there are five players, who are they? And of those five, who's getting the most mindshare right now?

Now that could be, uh, it could be skewed in some ways that maybe some of that mindshare is just that of the organizations that are publicly traded, they by requirement are putting out a lot more news. It doesn't necessarily mean it was good news. Or educated the market well, but it was new so that they are in the airwaves, but taking that kind of a measurement and then six months later, taking another, that's a very graphic way to say, are we making an improvement or a change over time?

And, and it should be pretty objective. So that's a good one. Uh, another thing to do is even a thumbnail survey of 25 customers, ask them the same questions and, and ask them in a way that is humble. Not leading, but let them really speak their minds. So that is a way. Ask Google. It might not be accurate, but it, boy, is it real.

And you're going to live by it in many, many respects. You know, the old joke is where do you have, where do you hide a dead body? On page two. And if you need a plastic surgeon or a heart surgeon, maybe look back to page six or seven because somebody might have done some repair work to hide the things that they didn't want you to know.

Jeff Hunt:

Of course. Yeah. I'm also thinking that. When you ask those 25 customers, maybe you don't want to ask your 25 best customers, but you want to take a random sampling of all different size, type, tenure with you to get a representative sample.

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Well, and in fact, a client that I'm working with right now on management strategies has bemoaned how hard it is to point out to the higher ups, 20 percent of your product is producing 80 percent of your revenue.

What if it's not the popular initiative that's really earning the revenue and persuading people to act on that solid information is so hard.

Jeff Hunt:

Definitely.

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

They're in love with this upcoming thing that might bear fruit someday, but currently is being supported on the backs of where they're really making the money.

Topic 7. Lighting round questions. (36:57)

Jeff Hunt:

That's a great reminder. Okay, you ready for the lightning round? First question is what are you most grateful for?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

I am grateful for family. I'm grateful for my husband, family relationships. I'm grateful for my team. I, I can honestly say I genuinely love every member of my company and our clients, too. So, I'm richly blessed.

Jeff Hunt:

What's the most difficult leadership lesson you've learned over your career?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

The most difficult for me to take seriously is hire slowly, fire fast, which is a way of expressing if you need to make a change, do it quickly. Just rip the band aid off. Uh, it's, do it well, but don't delay.

Jeff Hunt:

It's so difficult to do that, but it has greater impact than just about anything else we do, doesn't it?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Yes, it does.

Jeff Hunt:

Who is one person you would interview if you could, living or not?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Oh, gosh. I did get to interview Edward Snowden.

Jeff Hunt:

Oh, wow.

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

That was fascinating. So, so that one sits in my mind, but you know, that I think more of political characters and people that I really admire for their communications ability and, um, Ben Carson.

Jeff Hunt:

What's your top book recommendation?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Oh, there are so many, but I do live and breathe by Atomic Habits. Other than books of scripture, I'd say that one's probably top of the list.

Jeff Hunt:

Sure. That one goes up there with all of the sort of longtime greats, like Jim Collins, good to great. Yeah, Vern Harnish, Scaling Up, there's so many ones that are really right up there.

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

But Atomic Habits, it applies to everything.

Jeff Hunt:

Absolutely, that's a great book. What's the best piece of advice you've ever received?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Sleep on it. Sleep on every big decision before you, and then think ahead. Is what I'm about to say or do going to produce the result that I'm really after? Not just that I want to say it and I want to get it off my chest, but is it the right message for the result that I hope to receive?

Jeff Hunt:

It sounds like you're really drinking your own Kool Aid as a NPR and communications expert. I love that. So if we had this great conversation, but if you had to distill a few really core takeaways that you want to leave our listeners with, what would those be?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

They would be take that communications role so seriously. It should be at your, it's, it should be, it's a seat at the table. It's a level role. Do not give it short shrift. You will thank me forever if you make it a priority and handle it well.

Jeff Hunt:

Wonderful. And where can people find you?

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Oh, I'm easy to find. Just look up my name. So I do drink my own Kool Aid. Cheryl Connor or Cheryl Snack Connor.

Either way, you will find me. But there's another kind of a joke like that. I'm Married recently, two years ago to my, um, middle school sweetheart. So my legal name is Cheryl Paul, but my brand is Cheryl Snap Connor. That's I, I can't change that.

Jeff Hunt:

There you go.

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Find me easily.

Jeff Hunt:

Well, we'll put a link to your different, um, places or sources on our show notes. So, if anybody wants more information, you can go there. And Cheryl, thank you for joining me on the show today. This was a great conversation.

Cheryl Snapp Conner:

Thank you so much.

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Outro(34:48)

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Jeff Hunt:

Thanks for listening to the show this week. We release new episodes every other Tuesday. Let me know what you thought of this episode by emailing humancapitalgoalspan.com. Human capital is produced by GoalSpan. Subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts. And please share this podcast with your colleagues, team, or friends. Thanks for being human kind.