Should Employees Be Expected to Promote the Company? | B2B Podcast - Content Wars EP19

Nathan Yerian: They're a team player. They're a leader. They're out there leading the charge. Maybe we could get them more responsibilities or this new opportunity is opening up. Maybe they'd be a good fit for that. They're clearly a go-getter. They're clearly able to communicate. They're clearly bought into the company mission. What do you think leadership is looking for when they're looking for that next promotion for someone or to fill a spot at a senior level? Those are the attributes they're looking for. 

Adam Marquardt: So a little while ago we created an episode and we put it out there and put some of the social content out there and it really got people interested and they had some strong opinions on some of the things we said. So today we're going to break down the perspective that one very opinionated person had expressed in the comment section on this particular social post because I think that it's something that comes up probably more often than even we realize. I think it's a conversation that happens behind closed doors and organizations or it's just this feeling of probably resentment or feeling of you know I'm not participating in that way from certain employees that they may never vocalize and this person just happened to vocalize it so I think that breaking that down will give leaders and executive teams kind of some insight on how to navigate this. 

Nathan Yerian: So in that particular situation we posted something online to social that basically talked about a leader's responsibility or in some cases an employee's responsibility to be active in the company's content to actually get the word out to be a mouthpiece basically for the company and the message that they need to take to market and in some cases the employee's responsibility to be active and participate in that conversation whether it's liking sharing whatever it would be and we had somebody have a negative reaction to that online. 

They had a comment that basically said screw that if my company wants me to participate in their content they're going to have to pay me which is basically taking a influencer position which I think is an interesting position for an employee to take. Maybe it's warranted maybe it's not. We don't know everything but I do think it would be important for us to go through talk through that perspective because we haven't really thought of that before we haven't explored that before. I think companies out there do need to think about that you need to think about hey who's going to be involved in the content and what's everybody's roles and responsibilities here when it comes to not just creating the content but distributing the content interacting with the content whatever it's going to be so that there is a clear direction from the beginning when you go down a content mission of what's everybody supposed to be doing here make sure everybody's A on the same team and be comfortable with their role because if they're not it's going to be way better that you find out early on versus whoever this particular individual is not doing it talking about it behind you know leadership's back or just derailing what the intent was within that content and whether that person is right or wrong we we can debate that but there will be people that if they don't understand what's happening they're not going to be on board so I think for purposes of today to help marketing teams leadership teams probably HR teams even understand when you start creating this content if there's going to be any expectation of participation let's look at what that is and how that should come across so that you can hopefully mitigate risks and maximize success 

Adam Marquardt: and sometimes I think that that's the challenge with social clips is right it has just part of the context so I'd be willing to bet that he never went back and watched a full episode to hear how we were talking about it and in what context so he just heard a single part of it and made a assumption based on kind of what he heard and how he felt like it may or may not apply to him and I think what's interesting and not to steal from Simon Sinek but I feel like you have to start with why and this is one of the things that we kind of talked about before is if leadership can explain why this initiative exists and what we're asking and what we're expecting of you and how it can benefit and how it can impact the organization the expectations of it I think that the results is going to be vastly different than if you're just yelling at everyone saying hey go do this go share this go you know promote this and and it feels very one-sided or it feels very like what's in it for me and I feel like that's kind of the angle that he approached it from so yeah I definitely think we should get into this deeper and break it down so 

Nathan Yerian: for any company you're almost always going to have two camps of employees the ones that are are really on board trying to build a career with that organization advancing themselves as professionals building sometimes lifelong relationships with people that are going to advance their career even after that company they're not only advancing the company they're advancing themselves and that group of people is is who you want those are your rock stars that are coming in and saying hey you know what we're on the same team we're going in the same direction let's do this together let's do it as well as we possibly can because it's for our collective good because we at the end of the day we are the company and then you have what I would consider more transactional employees maybe it's somebody that shows up on an hourly basis part-time clocks in clocks out does exactly what's asked of them during that time and goes home for the day and doesn't think about work again until the next time they they punch that clock neither one of these people are right or wrong but they are different and understanding that there is that difference with certain people might help to know where the line is drawn of what you should expect from someone or not expect from someone and that's not saying that somebody that's hourly can't participate in content and can't be involved but there might be a difference in mindset so when you're communicating to the two different groups take that into account if you have career-minded people or you have more of a transactional minded person there might be a different way to approach them there might be different ways to incentivize them there might be different ways to include them that that might make more sense so I only bring that up because I got the feeling from the comment that came in after the full discord went down that that that person was coming from the more transactional space and again I I don't think that person is wrong that is their experience but I don't think they're right as far as if you're coming at it from a career-minded company-minded organization mission-driven minded mindset like it's it you don't really go together so I just think it would kind of important to point that out before we start laying out because I think when we do it's going to sound more like the career-minded camp and I don't want to downplay that person's perspective their position it's clearly right for him and it may at least from their perception be right for others so as a company if you're trying to implement any of these ideas be mindful your detractor may be coming from a more transactional mindset so hopefully you can hear some things that that can help maybe even get them on board or at least explain to them why everyone else is doing 

Adam Marquardt: what they're doing that's where kind of the differentiation lies between this guy's perspective what we're talking about is I believe that he saw this statement that we made as requiring an employee to be promoting the company when in reality all we're asking and all we're suggesting is that you participate with what the company's doing let's look at this from a different lens and say hey we're not just talking about participating in social content we say hey what about a trade show booth right what what if your company asks you to go to this trade show and be at the booth and engage with people and talk to them and you know represent the company are you promoting are you participating right so I think that we have to look at this from the angle of participating with the company is going to have a mutual benefit to you and to the company 

Nathan Yerian: no for sure I mean and and that's a really good analogy that the big question is and and maybe this is where the line is drawn are you a representative of the company if the answer is yes well then you need to represent the company if the answer is no well then you don't right so if you're the janitor are you supposed to be representing the company no that's fine you don't need to represent the company no one it no one is asking you to represent the company they're asking you to keep the floor clean that's your job do that thing do it well perfect on the other side you're a representative of the company if you're asked to go to the trade show you're clearly representing the company so maybe that's the line if your job role is company representation in any way then maybe you you could be asked hey will you participate in this initiative that we have one initiative we have is going to trade shows we think we can connect with our target audience our prospects future customers at these trade shows we would like for you to go and represent the company here separately another initiative is we're going to be also spreading our message in a social channel and we would like you to represent the company there maybe we want you to be on a microphone and on a camera representing the company in this way maybe not maybe we want you to share like comment whatever it is in those platforms or maybe whatever platforms you might already be at interacting in I do know the individual that kind of had a problem with it their their whole position was you're asking me to be an influencer you need to pay me as an influencer I will add in that they did not have an influencer following but that was their position and I I think you know if if you're the janitor and you happen to be an influencer I think yeah there's a there's a good case for that you have a transactional role within the company you show up you punch a clock you clean a floor you punch out you go home oh you want me to now get on LinkedIn or wherever and like and promote and share that's not my job role my duties I'm not a representative of the company you're going to pay me more I'm a janitor influencer brother you're going to pay me whereas if you're on the leadership team the sales team the marketing team probably a number of other teams customer support something where you represent the company and we say hey we're doing this thing we need you to be involved in this way I from my perspective I think that's perfectly fine now I do think we need to explain to the group what's happening why we're doing that how that furthers growth because at the end of the day these people should all benefit from the company doing well that that's a factor of the company doing well they should all have a vested interest in the company doing well so why wouldn't they participate in whatever initiative whether it is a trade show or a social initiative they need to represent the company it is in the company's best interest for this to be communicated to an audience that helps communicate it to an audience it seems like that fits to me and when 

Adam Marquardt: you look at an employee who is on that leadership team or kind of has ownership over certain departments or segments of the business and you say is this person invested in being a team player is this person invested in growing their career and you can look at this and say they're out there promoting the company they're out there helping us grow like their career growth opportunities that are aligned with that I mean if you are the CEO and you're looking and you're saying hey you know what 10 of our 12 people are out there doing this but two are not or five or not or whatever the number is you're going to look at that and you're going to view those people differently than the ones who are why because they share a mutual interest in growing the company and a mutual interest in seeing the company succeed and I think that when you're developing a strong team you have to have that mindset of like I'm going to help us get to the next level like part of what you're brought in to do is to do your job really well and if this is part of your job is to help represent the company or to help participate with the initiatives that the company's doing and they're always changing right I'm not saying that this is something that was explicitly communicated to you before you started because it very well may not have been but it's important to understand that as the company changes and evolves and grows your participation is important imagine if you were hired and you had five product lines at one particular moment when you were hired and then there is a shift in the industry and now the company says hey you know what we're actually going to go another direction we're going to go and we're going to focus on this additional product line you say you know what I'm actually not going to participate in that because when I was hired that wasn't part of what we agreed upon how would that look it would look ridiculous but yet there are new initiatives happening in companies all the time and if you're saying I'm actively choosing not to participate in that it's not going to be a good look for somebody that is trying to further their career 

Nathan Yerian: yeah and the furthering the career aspect it really happens in two different ways hypothetically everybody's participating the mission of whatever that initiative is works and the company benefits and hypothetically grows and your career can grow with it or let's take an extreme example you are in sales right and you're promoting and people are seeing you and you're the one putting the content out there and they're saying oh he has the answer or she has the answer well now you're almost directly benefiting and then somebody's going to say well oh that's fine for salespeople but maybe not everybody else Other people can also benefit in similar ways because, and I can think of an example, it was a salesperson, but they literally, and this was years ago before podcasting was even cool, they started what essentially was a podcast around their industry. And they started involving a lot of their different customer groups in conversations about the industry. And they were publishing it here and there, and they were doing it by themselves outside of the company. 

Now eventually the company kind of picked it up and it became the company's podcast. And that person got a lot of sales from that initiative. They became in the industry anyway, pretty well known. And they actually, I remember, they got offered a sales leadership position based on that. Like, hey, you represent the company very well. You have this thing that you've created, like we want to recognize you and move you up. 

And they turn it down. They're like, no, I don't want to move into leadership. I'm finding a salesperson, but I also want to continue doing this type of promotion, this type of content, which I thought was interesting. But when you go back to can participation actually lead to some kind of advancement? Sure, when the company grows, do you have a chance? 

Sure. But also when you're looked at as this team player, oh, look at, look at Jim, look at Susan, look at whomever, they're really picking up the flag and leading the charge on this. They're a team player. They're a leader. They're out there leading the charge. Maybe we could get them more responsibilities or this new opportunity is opening up. 

Maybe, maybe they'd be a good fit for that. They're clearly a go-getter. They're clearly able to communicate. They're clearly bought into the company mission. What do you think leadership is looking for when they're looking for that next promotion for someone or to fill a spot at a senior level? Those are the attributes they're looking for. So there's an opportunity in participating that kind of opens you up or it shines a light on you a little bit as far as what you're made of, what you can do, what your contribution and dedication to the company actually is. So I think the natural position for, especially me, is going to be participation makes sense. 

But I think there's, there's times when it doesn't. We talked about more of the transactional employee and how maybe they don't need to be involved or maybe it looks different or maybe it needs to be explained different. But the reality is, is not everyone at the company should be a spokesperson. You don't want everyone at the company speaking for the company. 

So there's a group of people that are spokespeople and then there's a group of people that maybe amplify spokespeople when it makes sense. But it came in my opinion go a little bit wrong where it starts to feel like it's coerced. Like where a company or a leader walks in and says, hey, look, we're going to do this social thing and you have to X, right? You have to like it. You have to share it. 

You have to do whatever it is. And two things happen. One, it looks very inorganic at the social side. Like when, oh, the company posted something and every single employee liked, shared and comment. Like it doesn't look right. 

It looks like a company party that customers, prospects, people that aren't in the company shouldn't even be viewing, playing and participating in. It just, it feels very strange. But also from the company's standpoint, like when you have to, like, oh, I don't believe in that particular statement that that guy just made or maybe I think there's a better way or whatever it is or maybe I just don't like that guy. The have to is a problem. You can't force advocacy. You can set up a great example of how it should happen, why it should happen, what the potential ramifications of it happening might be, create a very positive environment where everybody feels good about it and knows what's up. 

But if you're walking in saying, I don't care if you're the VP of engineering or the janitor, you cats are going to fall in line and this post is going out at 851 and by 855, we better have these likes, shares and comments. That's not going to work. That's not the way to approach it. You're going to alienate the people that would be on board and the people that weren't necessarily bought in. You're going to create a very negative feeling toward probably the entire company, the entire operation, the entire go to market motion from that one action. Any benefit you feel like you might have got from the market, you've completely erased within your own team. 

Adam Marquardt: We actually saw that exact behavior happen in a training room within a client's organization where they basically stood up in front of probably 30 to 40 people and they said, this is what we're doing. I'm so disappointed. We put this post out and four out of 200 people in the organization liked it and in this room it was two of y'all and that put everybody in the spotlight. But I think that that approach, even though the end goal of trying to increase engagement and trying to increase advocacy, I think that while that is important, I think that the approach of saying you didn't do it, you have to do it going forward, I think that that did put a sour taste in a lot of people's mouths. You'd look around the room and see that there was some tension amid that statement. What is the right way to approach that then? If the wrong way is to say, hey, it's mandatory, you're forced, you have to do this. If you don't, there's going to be ramifications. What is the right way for a leadership team to try to increase advocacy in a way that's genuine? 

Nathan Yerian: So I think the start of that is they have to be bought into the company's mission to begin with. They have to understand what it is the company is up to. 

Most companies exist for a reason. They're trying to accomplish something. They're trying to move either themselves from point A to point B or a customer group from point A to point B. 

Good companies many times are doing both. They have to understand that mission. They have to understand the intricacies of that mission. 

And if they do, and that's the starting point, if you don't have that done, go back to the drawing board and get that done. If your team doesn't understand what's happening, they're not going to get beyond that. So once they understand what's happening, part of the company's responsibility is to communicate with the people that are going to be required to get from point A to point B. Sometimes that's going to be we need to communicate with our prospects and our customers. Sometimes it's going to be we need to communicate to our employees and our future employees, our investors and our future investors. But if they understand what that mission is, what we're up to, and then they understand what needs to be communicated to whoever the group is, and then what the potential outcome is or benefit of communicating that message successfully within that group, now you have a good table setting for an initiative, like a content initiative, for example. 

Because of these things, because we want to move from point A to point B, because we need to communicate to this particular audience, and because we need them to know these five things, what we've decided to do is run a content plan that looks like whatever it is. We're going to start a podcast. Tim and Susan are going to be on the podcast, and they're going to be talking about these industry things, how our company plays in that space, what we're developing, and ultimately leading us toward that future in the mind of our employee, future employee, prospect, customer, investor, future investor, whoever it's going to be, we're going to use our content to share what we're up to and change that person's perspective favorably for us, and that's important because we're going to need the best and brightest employees, we're going to need a new round of investment, we're going to need more customers that are buying our product if we want to get from point A to point B. Everyone knows why we're going from point A to point B, we're growing as a company, we're growing careers, we're growing salaries, we're growing opportunities, we're growing whatever it is, everybody's on board. 

This is one initiative that we are employing to move the company and everyone on that ship in that direction. At that point, questions, who has questions? What are the questions? They'll have questions and that's fine. 

Answer the questions. Let them know what's going on. Let them speak freely. Let somebody say, you know what, I don't feel comfortable with that. I'm an influencer and I'm not going to promote your content for X, Y, and Z reasons. 

That's fine. Let them say that. Let them opt out if that's what they're going to do at that point. But if you're opting out at that point, I think it's pretty clear who's not going to be advancing their career in that particular thing because they're literally choosing not to participate in what the company is up to, which is the majority of those people's roles. 

Adam Marquardt: And when you break it down like that, I think it gives a clear path forward and going back to what we said in the beginning, it gives a very obvious why in what I've personally seen is that a lot of people in leadership roles will approach this topic mainly focusing on the vanity metrics. They'll say, Hey, we need more likes, we need more shares, we need more engagement and an engagement is fine, but forced engagement or fake engagement isn't really what we're looking for. What we're looking for is we're looking to spread our message into the people who are either going to be repeat buyers or may have never bought before. We're trying to create a system of education. We're trying to create a system of awareness. We're trying to create a system where we can grow our market share or where we can dominate a category. And when you lay it out from a high level like you did of, you know, this is the initiative and this is how it ties into it. And here's the benefit. 

Here's the outcome that we're seeking. It makes all the difference when compared to, Hey, we just need more likes or Hey, we just need more XYZ metric. That's not the goal. The goal is bigger than that. The goal is to advance and grow the company, which has a ripple effect across everybody. 

Nathan Yerian: No, absolutely. And if, and if that's the goal, and it should be, if that's the goal and your people know why you're doing what you're doing and why you're asking them to participate, you should be able to get there. But I think the next hurdle, the next thing that kind of people get caught up on, even for a team that's bought in somebody says, well, that sounds great. We love that. You guys are going to get out there and share our message. Cool. 

I support that. But they still don't have really any idea how they can actually help your, your kind of hinting at help your, your suggesting that they should participate. But how is that person actually going to move the needle or in their mind, feel like they're doing anything? A lot of the companies that we work with, their teams aren't really participating in social. 

I mean, sure, they've got an Instagram account or maybe they, you know, scroll on TikTok on Saturday, but they're not necessarily active on LinkedIn or YouTube or some of the other more, what I would consider B2B focused platforms. And they're like, I support you in this meeting. And then after that, they don't know what to do. 

So, so it just kind of fades away in their mind and nothing ever happens. So one critical step for a company that's taking this path is getting everybody on board. But then what happens next, you either need to have a, let's have a class that shows you exactly how we will distribute this and exactly how you can, not how you have to, but how you can support this effort. This is LinkedIn. This is what a post looks like from the company. This is what a post looks like from an executive. 

This is how this is going to happen. Let me show you how you would comment. Let me show you how you would like. Let me show you how you would share. If you're going to share, you can leave a comment. 

Let's talk about appropriate comments and comments that might not be appropriate, right? So you can't just assume that because you know how to do these things that everyone in the company knows. And there will be people that know, but everybody doesn't know. And the ones that don't know may be your biggest supporters. So you have to take a step two of educate your people, not just what you're doing, but how you're going to do it all the way through and then show them how to play the role that you want them to play. If you want them to play and they don't know, they won't play. You got to show them how. So if you actually take that step and educate your team on how they should be participating in these different social channels, the next step is really how do you know if people are participating? Do you need to track this? What happens next? 

Adam Marquardt: I think it's definitely important to track it and offer recognition because we talked a lot throughout this episode about how the participation can lead to company growth, which can lead to career growth. At the end of the day, those things don't happen overnight. Those things don't magically happen because you shared a couple posts or you started engaging in the company's content or the thought leaders content. 

Those things are going to take time. So I think a key component is the recognition aspect of when an employee is actively engaging, they're actively taking a role in being a advocate for the company. It's important to recognize them. 

It's important because there are also other people who aren't doing it, who are going to see that level of recognition and they're going to say, you know what, I can do more. I can be a part of this. I can jump in. And there's really going to be a sense of loyalty that's developed with that employee where, hey, you see my efforts. I feel seen. I feel appreciated. I know what I'm doing is working. I know that it's helping. I know that it's contributing. 

And I think that as time goes on, the more that that happens, the more that you're going to have a culture that is developed around this collaboration and this teamwork for the participation in this initiative versus we're forcing you to promote this, right? It's going to change the outcome. And it's not going to happen overnight. But I think that if you can recognize Tim for his efforts, it's going to be a big deal when it comes to asking more people to do it or when Tim has new employees under him that he has to train and say, hey, this is how we do things around here. It's going to become ingrained in the company in a way that couldn't otherwise. 

Nathan Yerian: Yeah, I think there's people that, you know, we'll see that recognition. They'll say, oh man, they, they called out Tim. Tim's doing a great job. I want to do a great job for the company. Yes, they told me about that. Yes, I attended the meeting. 

I learned these things. I just haven't done it yet. But now I see they're serious and they're following through and they're recognizing people that are actually participating. Maybe I need to start participating. 

So it isn't about just get to an end and say, okay, guys have fun. This should be an ongoing conversation and recognition is part of that anytime someone's doing what you want them to do, they should be recognized. Hey, you're doing a good job. You're doing what we want you to do. 

This should have the positive effect that we talked about. That's important and recognizing the person that's doing it. That's important for that person. But it's also important for the other people that may not have done it yet. And not that everybody's going to do it. 

It will definitely help foster participation in the initiative. So obviously, this is a little bit of a different type of episode than we normally do. You know, really getting into company culture as it surrounds a content. But you know, I do think it's important because there are people out there on both sides, the companies that want their message out there, they want their employees to participate to become advocates of the company. But there are employees or certain thoughts that don't necessarily align with that sometimes and navigating that probably isn't easy from especially a large company's perspective. 

So, you know, hopefully this episode shed some light on the topic. This isn't the end all be all we don't know every single thing but we have seen companies that have done initiatives like this successfully. And normally when they do it is a combination of their team being on board, their team understanding the mission, their team understanding what's expected of them and some aspect of recognition and reporting back into that team. That's usually what creates the best environment for success.