 Welcome everyone this morning to our TechSoup Connect Australia first one for the year. I'm very excited to have our special guest Melanie Lui from Hey Mel Communications. Melanie is a communications professional for, can we say, over 20 years. You can now, scarily. Yes. Awesome. And she has worked with a lot of non-profits, so she's got some great expertise to share this morning. She said to me, feel free to shout out with any questions throughout the and we will honor the time of an hour just so big and race off to work and do everything that they need to do. This session is being recorded. Don't be nervous though. It's all good. So if you do want to share it with others that may not be able to attend, you'll get a link in the next few days after I send it out to you all. But yeah, I think without further ado, we just might jump into it. And I did want to also mention that I'm normally used to Melanie yelling at me around this time in the morning because she moonlights as a fitness instructor as well. But she's actually so lovely. She won't be yelling at you this morning. So over to you. Yeah. So good morning. Thanks, Bruce, for that lovely introduction. And yeah, those of you who don't know me, hello, I'm Mel. And yeah, as Bruce said, I've done quite a bit of work with non-profits in the past. It's been a long time. We could start early learning here in Australia. We are a large non-profit social enterprise and also in my current job where I run a business. I run a small agency. Our organization is like your town who also run kids' helpline or working with pent-up pockets. We're doing work with still a good start. So still doing all the work there as well. Yeah, lots of different types of non-profits. One of you at more actually, which I probably haven't heard of, but yeah, totally understands how that all works. But you guys are the experts in the subject matter itself. So what I'm going to take you through today, a bit of a framework and an overview of how you could approach your communication plan for 2022. And as Bruce said, if you have any questions, please just shout out, pop them in the chat, or we'll have plenty of time at the end if you want to pick my brains for anything as well. So we're stuck into it. Oh, I'm here. Now, normally I draw this out to make sense in piece by piece. So I'll try and explain it to you from the top. So when we are thinking about how all of our organizational strategy fits together, right at the top, you've got your organizational strategy. So that's what drives everything that you do through every department of your organization, no matter how big or small you are. And typically from that, you get some business unit plans. So you might have a business unit plan, finance, one for HR, or in your case, probably one for marketing fundraising. And from that, you get programs of work. And from that, you get lots of sub projects. And hopefully at the end, you get some outcomes and some benefits, realization, those from that work. On the left hand side, you'll see this is how the flow of information goes. So the org strategy overarching org strategy sets your why do you exist as a business? Why are you here? Why are you doing all the things that you're doing? So that's a big broad context. When we get down to the business unit plan level, that is where we talk about the how how we actually going to make this work happen. And then we get down to the program and the projects level. And that's all about the watch. That's the tactics. That's the things we roll out the campaigns. From a communication point of view, you will have a pulse plan that maybe sits right at the top there that explains your organization strategy. You may have one of your business unit plan, maybe you've got one for your programs projects. So just being just said in the chat, what are you likely to use communication plan for? Is it for your own campaign? Is it for your business? I'm just really interested to know how are you planning to use a communication plan? What would you need it for? Is it for a particular project? Or is it broader than that? Is it going up those levels? You pop in the chat, what are you likely to want to use a pulse plan for? Campaigns and overall picture? Yep. Thanks Bruce. Georgia or Ellen? Are you going to the chat? Or would you likely to use one for awareness? So the awareness of the overall organization. Campaigns. Great. Thanks Peter. No overarching plans, always great. Pulse campaigns. Okay, awesome. So we've got quite a few levels there, which is great. Campaigns is the main one for us, but teams develop an overarching awareness strategy. Brilliant. Okay, so absolutely is what I'm going to show you this morning, Bill. It's just a matter of thinking about where do you fit in what kind of level you're sitting at with your communication strategy. On the right hand side, you'll see we've got proof points. So as we start to roll out all of these plans throughout the organization, and we get to the bottom, we should start to now have some benefits and then some proof points. And we start to communicate those as we work back up through the organization. So there's not just the communication outs to your donors, potential donors, partners, all those sorts of people, but there's the communication back in as well to help generate morale and engagement and show people, look, we're achieving things. We've got all these proof points and all this work that we're doing throughout strategy. So there's a lot of stories that can be told by what your business is doing at all levels of the organization. And those stories, as I said, are really important proof points to show you partners as well, show your corporate partners and your stakeholders that you are achieving things. So you have a plan and it's working and building that kind of confidence in your business or your organization, not only helps build a really good reputation, but helps inspire and motivate people to want to continue to support you. So I always say a good communications plan relies on a good project plan. And what I've seen far too often over the last 20 years is people coming to me and saying, I need a communication plan for this campaign. I'm like, okay, where's your project plan? I don't have one. I just need a comms plan. I can't write a comms plan unless I know what you're trying to achieve as a project. So your comms plan is one of the supporting plans for your project plan. It relies on the project plan to tell us, okay, one of the key milestones that you've owned hits and went, who are the key people that are going to be targeting? What are some of the roadblocks that we need to be aware of? All of those things. So your project plan for your campaign or your overarching strategy will set the tone and it will set the key milestones. And then all of these other plans fall off it. So particularly if you're an organization going through a lot of change, which is largely what I deal with, sometimes you'll have a change plan and then you'll have training plans and leadership plans, all those sorts of things. Likely for the work that you guys are doing, you'll have your project plan, but then you'll just have that calls plan that injured off it as well. So again, just trying to paint a picture of all the pieces and how they all come together, just to set the tone for some of the things that will be helpful for you when you're going forward with your communication planning. Now the thing with a lot of what we're doing, do you think about communications, campaigns, all those things? At the heart of it is change. We are wanting to change people's behaviors, change people's way they think, change the way they think about you and your organization. So change is really at the heart of most communication. Now again, this is just to give you a bit of a framework to understand that communication is just part of change. It's a really significant tool in that toolbox, but that alone won't get what you need. So if you think about it, one email is not going to change behavior. What are all the other activities that you're going to have to do or get other people in business to do in order to make that change happen? So your communication can't be in isolation. That's the key takeaway here. If you want to change hearts and minds, you want to change behaviors, you're going to have to think what else outside of communication, what else do we need to do? So again, communication is very powerful and can give you a lot of information, can get you a lot of traction, but it's not the only tool in your toolkit if you want to lead change. So while we're here because it's consplaining and the better the plan, the easier it is to create everything that you're going to do. So that's why it's always best to start with a plan. I understand that we're all under time pressure and sometimes we just need to get stuff out. But if you have a plan set up at the beginning, it's going to make it much easier for you to actually roll out those cons and react quickly when you need to react quickly as well. So I'm just going to pause there for a minute. When it comes to communication planning, what do you think is the most important thing? Is it why or is it who? And again, if just want to type in the chat, do you think it's why or who? It comes to starting. Three seconds, who? Who are you? It's the same who? Christy? Oh, it's all the elements of events. Why? Anyone else? Okay. I would argue that we start with who. When you know who you're talking to, it tells you why you're talking to them. So always starting with who are you talking to? Knowing your audiences intimately, it's the best way to reach them because your why will be different for each person, each different for each audience. So once you know who you're talking to, you can then go, okay, what's my why for them? Or what's their why to be talking to us? And from that, you're able to develop your key messages. Similarly, once you know who you're talking to, you can work out how you're going to reach them. Because again, every audience will have different channels, different ways they prefer to be communicated to. So then once you know your how, you can work out your channels and the voice that you're going, are you going to leverage the voice of the ambassador? Are you going to leverage the voice of your CEO? Who is the best person to reach the people that you're trying to reach? Whose voice is going to resonate with them? So again, understanding your audiences is absolutely critical before you even get into this work. Now, how you can do that? This looks a little complex, but it's actually not. It's a nice, easy way to figure out who it is you're talking to and how you're going to approach them and how much efforts you're going to put into that communication as well to get banged for your buck. Across the middle there, we've got our influence axes and up the middle, we've got your impact axes as well. So what are we by influence? That's the amount of influence a person will have over the change that you want to see. So how much can we, the high influences are the people that we want. We know it from social media. Those are your influences. So if I've got a high amount of influence, then they're sitting over on the right hand side. The impact of what you're doing is really important as well. So if we think about people who have a high impact on the, on the campaigns, we're talking about the campaigns, you're rolling out or the concy, you're rolling out at the strategic level. What's the impact of that work on, for example, over in the top right hand side, you've got people who it's a high impact and high influence. Those people probably your CEOs, your leaders of your corporate partners, your senior leaders in your business, because all this one pounds of high impact on them in some way, whether that's the effort they have to put into it, or whether it is the partnerships and the money that they put into your business, all those things. But they can also have a high influence over how well your communication resonates. So these are people we really want to target. We want to actually get them on board. So your communication will not only target them, but you'll give them ways in which they can communicate themselves. So we're going to leverage that top right hand form up pretty hard in our consulate. The bottom third, they have high influence, but a lot of the work we do won't really impact them in a way, right? So these might be people like social media influencers you get on board. Their impact on them is pretty small, but they have a really big influence. So again, we do want to target them. We want to leverage them, but we're probably not put as much effort into that group. Over on the left hand side up the top is low influence, but high impact. So these guys don't have a lot of influence over your campaign and how well it runs. But they can have a high impact on it. So those are your donors. Those are the people in your business, your employees who have to put in a lot of work for this, but actually don't have a lot of influence over it. So the team members that are involved in creating all of your cons. Or if you're looking at a broader organisational change like a complete digital change, then they're the end users. They're the people who have to deal with this new system or process that you're putting in. Again, have very little influence over it, but are highly impacted. Those are the people where we're going to send a lot of time as well. So we're going to send a lot of time making them comfortable, getting them confident, all those sorts of things. And then you've got a left, they are low influence, low impact, so they're more like interested observers or supporters. So they might be alumni on LinkedIn, they could be board members who just float around a bit. You could argue they're medium. They could actually be a high influence of those. They could be a change champion for you to use the right way. So when we start to break down all your stakeholders, this is where we start. We start to pop an interest in that. And then that will give you, as I said, an idea of how much efforts you're going to put into each group. So if you think of it like this, like a series of concentric in the middle, are your change leaders? So there where we're going to spend a lot of effort, because you could put all these beautiful posters out into the world and emails and letters and all those sorts of things. But unless you have leadership from the top, warping the talk, role modeling it, doing nothing behind the scenes to help drive these things forward, your chances of success are much more limited. So we're going to start there. We're going to prioritize them as first people we communicate to, and the first people we create things for that they can then share. Then we go to our change champion. So again, influencers don't have a lot of impact, but we're going to leverage their voice. So they need to feel like the change leaders. They need to feel like they're getting immersed, that they're not hearing about this through the radio. They're not hearing about it through a poster they saw at bus stop. They're in the fold early. That's really important from a stakeholder engagement point of view, because you want to keep people on board. A lot of communication work is about relationships and building those relationships, keeping them really strong. And you're low within your own organizations, where there are people that need to just get a little bit more low. And especially the leadership level, they need to feel like they're not left in the dark, that they were here all along. They knew about it all along. They come to when they see things going out into the market. So these guys we do need to give a bit of love to, not only to prepare them, but also for the sake of the relationships that you need to build with them. And that's when we hit our end users. So everyone behind the scenes is aware of what's going on, what they need to do, when, how, all those sorts of things. Now it's time to roll out the points to your end users, whoever they are. And then those interested observers. So again, that might be just the annual report to your social note holders or people like that. We go, this is what we did this year. So it can be very high level. And the other thing tonight is as you move out of the circle, your channels of communication will change. Your channels will become more broadcast and less two way. So right in the center there where you need to influence people to help make your communication plan happen. You're going to be putting a lot of two way communication channels into those two circles. But as you pull out, it's going to become less two way and more broadcast. So you're understanding your audiences and you know who you're going to target and what kind of influence and impact they have, which is brilliant. The next step is to understand after you've done your who is to understand your why. And anyone who does any of my training courses will know I bang on about these three things all the time. So be prepared. Know, feel and do. What do you want everyone to know? What do you want them to feel? And what do you want them to do? And this is really important because we're pretty good at the no and we're pretty good at the do. But where we often pull down is the field. And in industries where you guys operate, so nonprofits, that field is absolutely critical to drive and inspire people as. So for example, in a plan, you might map it out this way. So who are our end users, the biggest impact on them? Who are our influencers and who are our supporters, the people that we require input from. So I've lumped in change leaders into that sort of group. And down the left hand side, you'll see your know, feel and do. Again, there's no one size fits all approach in communication planning. You have to target your outcomes to each audience group. So from a donor point of view, this is just an example. What do you want them to know? We want them to know that donated to our organization will save lives. What do you want them to feel? Connecting to the cause inspired, motivated, emotional, maybe another field there is, we want to feel like it's easy for me to donate. And what do you want them to do? Donate monthly. So that clear call to action. At the influencer level, we want them to know we have a new campaign. This is what we're doing, blah, blah, blah. What do you want them to feel? That they are critical part of helping to change people's lives that they're inspired and motivated. They're well supported to be able to do the work we want them to do. So if you think about, I'm not going to go through all three of these, but if you think about the field there, if we want influencers, for example, to feel that their critical part of helping to change people's lives, that they're inspired and motivated, that they're well supported, what are some of the things we might do to our communication to help them feel that way? How does that change how we communicate? Instead of just saying to them, we have this new campaign and we need you to do these things on this day. That's not really motivational. It doesn't really speak to their feel. So what could you do through your communication that would help them feel that way? Any ideas? And again, if you come up here or pop into the chat, mention that they feel it's best that they need it. Yeah. Yeah, I guess it's similar. You could say something about the impact that they will have, like highlight just the change that they could create. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, absolutely. So target that what the outcome you can achieve as an individual. Yeah, brilliant. Playing to their ego a little bit doesn't hurt either. So from a messaging point of view, brilliant. From a channel's point of view, having more two-way conversation with them, you wouldn't just send them an email. You want them to feel special. So you'd set up a meeting with them. You'd offer some one-on-one time to talk them through the campaign, those sorts of things. Peter's written, put a face to the impact case studies. Yeah, absolutely. Share some case studies with them. Brilliant idea. Again, those really heartfelt things that make them feel inspired and motivated. So you can see that when you start to map out your feel and do, that feel part is so critical to actually having resonance with your communication. You're not going to reach people if they don't feel anything, because nobody cares what you know until they know that you care. They just don't. So you can, as I said, you can send out a million emails. But unless you've focused on that feel, all it is is a call to action with nothing behind it to motivate and inspire. So we've done the boom and we've done the outcomes. And now it's talking about the what and the why of your actual communications. Typically, what I've seen in a lot of the conference plans I do with the one-by review is we typically have some high-level key messages. And that might be for your campaign or for the overarching strategy for the business, about the business, those sorts of things. And then you're going to drill down into more specific key messages. You might do that by audience. So I've definitely done that before, depending on the cons plan I'm writing. So I might have a set of key messages for my end users, set of key messages for my leaders, all those sorts of things. It'll be exactly the same message in terms of its core, but the way you write and package that message will be different for each audience group. So I think about key messages. Starting with the why. So what's the reasoning? Why am I asking something of you? Why am I asking you to change your behavior or to think differently or to feel different? So what is the reasoning? So if you think internally, if you were rolling out a campaign and you're communicating to your staff about that campaign, the why might be because we feel like this is the best way forward. We've done the research, etc. And we believe this is the best way for us to do what we need to do. Whereas the why to a different audience group will be quite different. So what's the reasoning? The next is the benefits. What's in it for me? Everyone's about the wisdom principle. What's in it for me? So from a donut point of view, well, what's in it for me? Maybe it's just good feels. Maybe some people are okay with that. But your corporate partners will want to know, what else do I get? Well, the partners just turn up at events and can my CEO cut a ribbon or that sort of stuff too. From a staff point of view, what's in it for me to have to change the way I do things? All those sorts of things. But the benefits are really crucial. The benefits are your compelling case for why. They're a compelling case for a change. And then there's that personal connection. So winning hearts and minds. This is the case study she talked about. This is where you reach out to people in your business and say, your team made this happen. And so it's connecting to the person's role. It connects to their team. It connects to their values more importantly. So a lot of that personal connection messaging is around values. Very much value. And then if you are very much focused on the internal comms more than the external comms, then having messaging around the strategic link is important. So being able to, for employees to be able to see a line of sight between what you're talking about and the strategy. That's really important because we know research tells us that when employees can see a line of sight between what they do every day and the overarching goals and purpose of the organisation, their engagement improves. So when you are developing a communication plan, not only should you be thinking about the external audiences, but the internal audiences as well and how you can amplify that and show that really strong connection to strategy because it's great for engagement. So when I think about key messages, this is my little model I like to roll out when I'm trying to talk people, coach people through lashing their key. This is what I call the key message spectrum. On the left hand side, you've got the cold hard facts. So there's no context. There's no acknowledgement of feelings or what people are going through, all those sorts of things. There's no personalisation to it. It's just very high level. This is what's happening. And there's no why a lot of the time, it's literally just facts. But on the other side, you've got all skin. So this is fluff. There is no facts. It can be confusing to understand what it is you want from me or what it is you're trying to say. It can be frustrating for people because they are frustrated. They don't know what it is you're talking about or why you're communicating. Why do I see this? And something quite patronising when you stick at that end of the spectrum as well. So all we want is a nice cushy spot in the middle where we actually position the... Yes, we have a bit of a little from column C. Column B is where it all comes together. That's what you do talk about. That's you talk about the case studies. You talk about what people achieve, statistics, all that sort of stuff. But you position that in a way that makes that case for why. It's personalised facts. It's a clear call to action. And that's when we bring in the elements on the previous slide around the hearts and line piece as well. So the challenge I've seen in some non-profits that I've worked with is they do tend to skew up a bit too much at the right. And for the people in your audience who aren't those types of thinkers who want to see some facts, who want to see a bit of logic, who want to validate their own meaning, their own reason for giving, they need those facts as well. But you've just got to think about how do I position a little bit of Column, a little bit of Column C in that nice push of spot. So you've written your key messages and now it's time to plan your how and your when. So the actual Con Sequencing. And I will show you an example of Con's template in just a moment to put this all together for you. On the screen here is just some examples of channels you could use depending on the outcome you're trying to achieve. So remember with any communication we are always planning with the ending mind. What is the outcome you're trying to achieve? What do you know, feel and do? For example, if you want to engage and activate people and let's say it's a large team in your business, then you'd use again those two-way communication channels. So virtual team briefing sessions where they've got opportunities to ask questions of all those sorts of things. But if you're just building awareness and understanding then that is broadcasting. So we're going to go to more two-way communication channels like email and Yammer content, those sorts of things. I know I've put email as a one-way communication channel. I've done it for a reason because how many EDMs do you send out and get no replies on? It is not a two-way communication channel. It might be a two-way communication channel for one or two individuals but otherwise it doesn't work that way. So again, thinking about what are you trying to achieve and then what are the best channels to be able to reach that outcome and reach the audiences that you're talking to? So again, just examples and you will get copies of this slide. I'll send it to Bruce as well to send out to you so you don't have to write it down. But again, just examples and your channels in your organization better than I do. So that's, and then that brings us to timing. So we've got channels, how are we going to do it? Timing. Using data to understand the best times to reach people, particularly through your digital channels, is absolutely crucial. So I'm sure a lot of you are doing this already when you hop onto your Instagram analytics and go, okay, most people are reading our content at 9am on a Tuesday. Great, that's when we're going to post stuff. Or we know that people are hopping onto the internet of work, more likely at 10am on a Monday. Well, that's when we're going to post some things that we need them to share, that we need them to advocate for. So again, use that data. Try and mind the data sources and understand when is the best time to reach people. But also just use a bit of common sense. So sending something last thing on a Friday, hopefully not a great idea. You're not going to get a lot of traction. People are checked out emotionally, perhaps physically. So they're tapped out for the leak. So just using a bit of common sense around your timing. But also in terms of your timing, this goes back to your project plan. What are some of those key milestones or Wednesdays that are in your project plan that you need to align your communication to as well? So when it actually comes to writing your communication, I like to call the four C's a good communication. And the first one is connected. So connected means context. It means people are able to connect themselves to what's going on. It means they're able to connect themselves, their line of sight to the strategy, all those sorts of things. They have an understanding of how this all fits together. So your communication helps to reach some of those gaps in knowledge. Concise. You've all seen the too long. Did read. We've all had those emails that we have. That's cool. Text messages. If I get a text message too long, I don't read it. I'm like, just tell me that in two words. Tell me in emojis. So being concise is absolutely important because people have short attention stands that have a lot of channels. You've got your Facebook Messenger going up, WhatsApp, SMS, all those things. So you've got to cut through the noise and the only way you're going to do that is by being short and sweet. So again, while it's nice to have these beautiful case studies, think about how you can make them concise so people will actually read them. They're not going to read a free page email, but they might read a couple of paragraphs. Now, the challenge with being concise is maintaining a really good tone. So again, we've probably all seen the emails that were too short and came across as blunt or rude. And that probably wasn't the attention, but the tone was lost by making them too short. So your challenge as a communicator is how do I marry up the need to be concise with also the tone that we want for our brand, whether that's approachable, personable, those sorts of things. Clear. Clarity in comps is absolutely key. What is my call to action? What do you want me to know? What do I need to do? Why are you writing to me in the first place? So having those clear signposts throughout is really important and you can clear yourself on what you want when you start to write. And finally, consider it. So again, this is a bit of parts and minds piece, but think consider it of what else is going on in the world of the audience that you're talking about. People in business have been through a lot of change. So if you're communicating with a particular team, you might say something like, I know you guys have been through a lot of change lately and I'm asking you some more, but it's just acknowledging people's feelings, acknowledging their context. So they feel hurt. And as I said, playing to their values. Now, again, when it comes to planning your communication, it's important to think about the fact that no two people are the same. We've all got different learning types, different thinking types, different personalities and our communication tactics need to reflect that. So I'm just going to go into a few different ones now. So what we know is the majority of people are visual thinkers. That's about 65% of people are visual thinkers. And then you've got a fairly scienceable chunk of more auditory learners. And then you've got some people who are a bit of both. Just in the chat there, tell me, do you think you're more of a visual learner? So you like to see diagrams, you learn from pictures, you learn from video, or are you more of an auditory learner? You learn from listening. You remember what people say. But later on, you can say, oh, I remember in that lecture, she talked about blah, blah, blah. So Chris said, you're a visual person. Yeah. 100% visual. Yeah. You're making my case in points. Need vote? Yes. Lisa, more towards visual. Okay. Yeah. That's crazy, Lisa, knowing what you do for a job. That you're a bit of both. Yeah. So again, case in point. You know what? That your audience is a mostly visual learner. And so also, there's a sizeable chunk that are auditory or a little bit of both. So thinking about our visual learners, the way we're going to reach them is not through dot points. It's not through in long written methods. It's going to be through visual. So low charts or tables or diagrams to help describe processes or changes is a good place to start. So if you're talking about a donation process, for example, how do I donate? A diagram for that would be brilliant. Using icons as signposts throughout your communication, infographics, animations, really short engaging videos. So no talking heads. That's not a visual communication. But a bit of good talking head and then some imagery and those sorts of things. If any written content use lots of subpennings and white space to break it up to really appeal to those visual thinkers. And then for our auditory learners, things like podcasts, they're brilliant. Auditory learners love that stuff. Videos and animation with voiceovers. So a simple video but has really good voiceover, really good narration. Presentations, zoom and FaceTime calls those sorts of things. Other things that those people really binge off. Now we've got our strategic thinkers and our detailed thinkers. So our strategic thinkers are the big picture thinkers. They're interested in how everything fits together in the world and how that helps this happen over here. Whereas our detailed thinkers do have a bit of that interest but they're more interested in a nitty gritty. What's happening when, why, how? So again in the chat, just tell me are you more of a strategic thinker or are you a detailed thinker? And remember that you can learn to be more the one. So I want you to go back to the essence of go back to the beginning of your career or what you were like at school. Were you a planner? Were you somebody who had to have a plan? Or were you somebody who had to learn to have so Bruce is a bit of both? I can tell you right now, I am not a detailed thinker. So whenever I, with my team, I've always made sure I've had people on my detailed pickers to build that gap for me. They're both some strategic for a couple of years old. Least as detailed? Yeah. So you see there's quite a mix there. So if a big picture thinker's like me and strategic thinkers, I'm not interested in the detail, it falls me to death. But what I'm interested in is how it all fits together. So if a thinker's like us, we need to, with our messaging, think about the why, the context, explain how that fits together with everything else that's going on. And for these people when we communicate, we also think about using a diagram or a roadmap or something that shows how it all comes together. Okay, my internet action is unstable. Oh, goodness. Calm down. Detailed thinkers, they want to know all those questions. The whom, what, when, where, how. So to then provide more detailed information like FAQs, they love that stuff. But rather than putting that all in a long communication, I would link off to that. So just have that as a separate piece. So again, it keeps us concise. And if you've got speakers, you'll need to prepare them for answering all the questions from the detailed things as well. Okay. And then we've got our introverted personalities and our extroverted personalities. So our introverted personalities, they just need time to digest information before they ask questions. They need to sit back and marinate and then they'll come up with some questions. Whereas our extroverts, we think out loud. That's a lot of the time we're not actually asking questions. We're just thinking out loud and processing. So again, just in the chats, are you more of an introverted personality or are you more extrovert personality? And again, you can have extroverted introverts. So you can have people who get their energy from being alone and from digesting information. But they can also think out loud to be quite outspoken. So are you more of an introverted person or are you more of an extroverted person? Extrovert, introvert, it's a chameleon. Okay. Introverts. Bit of body. There you go. Anyone who's done any of those mice breaks, you know it's quite well as that sort of sliding scale. You can be very extroverted or just a little bit. It doesn't have to be right on the extreme. So with our introverted personality, so this is really important. More but internal costs. But also if you're doing like an event or something for your donors, think about the fact that they need time to process and ask questions. So a good way to prep them and give them an opportunity to participate in that communication. Is to provide information ahead of time. Maybe send out a survey link beforehand. Say if you've got questions you want to ask the speaker, you can have those digital methods of asking questions like a chat box like today. And give each person the opportunity to ask questions. Maybe put a timer on it or just break them up into smaller groups that can help too. Extroverted personalities like me, the challenge you have with us, we suck the oxygen out of the room. And it doesn't give anybody else any time. But also the introverts are then on the other side thinking, would you just shut up? So we need to keep the extroverted personalities feeling like they'd be hurt without them taking over the conversation. So again, thinking about events and those sorts of things. You will need to communicate with enthusiasm and energy in order to engage this. Because that's what they feed off. They feed off the energy. But set aside some time for small group brainstorming, that's what they're good at. They're good at thinking out loud in groups and ideating that way. But doing it in small groups helps to control the conversation and give everybody more of a chance to speak. And offer frequent opportunities for questions because they will have them and they'll just blur them out loud. They won't be thought through at all. We don't think through first, we just ask. But you need to offer those questions again because plenty of time for them to ask questions. As I've said there though, just can see some guidelines around question time. What does that mean? It means that we have to have an omnichannel approach to your communication. There's not going to be just one channel with one message. You're going to need to use multiple channels, repackaging the message in different ways to reach different types of... These are just examples here. You've got podcasts, you've got emails, you've got video conferencing. All those sorts of tools are available to you. It's a matter of thinking, I need an omnichannel approach for this message for these audiences. What are the best channels to reach them? So I'm working with a small nonprofit at the moment that they've got quite an ageing membership. Those guys do not look at emails. They don't look at text messages. Everything has to be in paper. So they literally print out 4,000 newsletters every quarter and mail them out to all over Queensland. Because that's their audience. So that's what they have to do. But for the younger audience, they're also providing digital versions of that and website content and content on LinkedIn. So again, same messages, just going out different ways through different channels to meet different needs. And then finally, when you do your communication, you've got to measure it. Did it actually make a difference? The biggest thing with measuring your communication is to measure outcomes, not outputs. So outputs are things like, oh, we had 500 people read that website article. That's great, but did it change anything? Okay, so that's an output. We sent out 10 million EDMs. Cool. But how many of those actually resulted in a behavior change or something happening? That's an outcome. We want to measure the outcome of our communication because that's when the value lies. We can prove that the communications we've done have raised awareness, have resulted in war, donations coming through, all those sorts of things. Then that's a good outcome. That shows your value back to the organisation. But ultimately, you're coming back to those no-feel-and-do objectives. So go back to no-feel-and-do and how can you measure each one of those objectives? So that's where you ask questions like, why? Tell me about this. Why is that the case? Those sorts of things. Rather than those quantifiable questions, like how likely are you to do this? That's a quantifiable outcome, an output. But a question where we want to get an outcome is more of a why question or a tell-the-about question. Ultimately, one of the best ways you can create a plan is to co-create one as well. If you have groups in your business owner, one of the more town I'm doing some work with at the moment, they have used advisory groups, so they tap into those quite regularly. Now you have the opportunity to ask, okay, what is the best way to reach you? Instead of me making an assumption, tell me, what's the best way to reach you? What are the barriers or the challenges that you have to communication that I need to be aware of and can help you overcome? What do you need from me as a community? Always being intentional. So what's the purpose of your communication when you co-create that plan? So just other things might come up when you ask, but be safe sticking to your purpose is really important. But also set expectations. So people are like, oh, I'd be great if we had an app and rah, rah, rah. Yeah, it would be within realms of feasibility as an organisation. We need to be reasonable in what we can and can't achieve as well. Okay, so before we go to that, I would just quickly share that constant template, the momentum portable. Okay. So this is just one example of a template. It might not be the right one for you, but again, I'll share it with Bruce and you can share it with you and you can tinker with it as you like. But remember, we are looking at audience groups, so we've listed them out. No feeling do objectives for each one of those. And then we talk about your strategy. Now, your strategy is different to your plan, which is your tactics, what you're going to do and when and how. Your strategy is your overall approach. So are we going to take a purely digital approach to communication? Or are we going to use multiple touch points? Are we going to focus on events? What is the overarching approach to your communication? So that's what the strategy is. Other things you might want to put in there are some assumptions and considerations just to document those for people who need to approve it. And your measurements, how are we going to measure it? This is where you'd pop in your key messages as well, so they're all in one place. And then you actually map out your communication sequence. So I'll just extend that window a bit. So what's the timing, your audience, what channel are you going to use? Who's the voice? The key messages and content for that particular piece of communication. And who's actually responsible for rolling that out? Because that's really important as well. It's nice to have this plan, but everybody needs to know what they need to do and when. Again, a very simple communication plan. I've got much more detailed ones for massive change projects, but for the purposes of what most of us need, this should fit the bill. And this can change, this can, as you measure things and find things out, this should change because, again, it's continuous improvement. But again, it's a good place to start to just map out who am I going to talk to, when, and what am I going to say to them? And how am I going to say it? I'll open up to questions now and then slip back over to the slides, just to finish off. So does anybody have any questions, comments, something they've seen that's worked really well or something they've seen that's actually got me for 15 minutes? So pick my brains. Mel, I love a good tool. I love a good technical tool or hack. Have you got anything that you love to use when you're putting together a real complex communications plan? Is there a go-to tool that you use? Probably not so much. The plan itself is a lot of thinking and a lot of documenting the tactics. When it actually comes to rolling it out, it's tools that you guys are probably already using, things like Canva Grammarly. If you're not already using Grammarly, definitely look into it. Definitely can improve your editing point of view. That's an awesome tool. Hootsuite, all those tools that help just manage the actual flow of communication. But when it comes to the actual planning, you've definitely got a, it's definitely more about a thinking exercise and a stakeholder engagement exercise as well. So it is a human effort. Unfortunately, any other question? Okay, you can find me very easily. If you do want to, especially the adverts, you need time to think process. So if you do want to find me and ask me a question later on, you are more than welcome. Just want to bring to your attention that we are running a series of master classes. We had our first one a week and a half ago that was on strategic storytelling. And you might notice a familiar name here on the 29th of March. Wonderful co-host Bruce Neane is running our master class on how to communicate to rich hearts and minds. And tickets are $49, but all the profits are donated to a charity that presents choice as well. And if you do go to one of these events, you get a 20% discount off the next one. The next one is how to write a winning grant proposal. So if that's something that you're interested in doing, if you're a sole trader or a small business and you want to apply for government grants or philanthropic grants, or even if you work with it and not proper, and this is a skill that you'd like to have and you don't currently have, this would be an awesome event for you. And for you guys, I'm offering a 20% discount for it as well. So if you used to quote grants, check out, you'll get 20% off. If you can't make it because the time zone doesn't work for you, if you do buy a ticket, I will, you will be included on the post and email with links to video recording, the audio recording and all the resources that we do in that session as well. Yeah, I'd love to have you there and I'd give you a kick with those in NFPs. This will be a really good one. I'm going to go to Bruce. That was amazing. We've got nine minutes left. Have we got any questions? I'm sure there's got to be one. One more question. That's Dorothy, Dick. Question. I'm sorry. Yeah. But just off the cuff, what do you think the biggest, biggest mistake maybe non-profits make with their communication? Too much club. Quite honestly, too much work. Again, you are reaching hearts and minds and I totally understand that. But again, people are time poor. You've got thinkings who want to know facts. They want to know what's actually the outcomes of all of this, et cetera. So there's a lot of club and sometimes it's just too long. The communications I get from non-profits that I support are just too long. So how can you make it more bite-sized pieces of communication that are easier to consume? Which is one of the tools like that. Your things like Instagram are great. Short captions. Calibre photo. Brilliant. You've got me. Those sorts of things. Or short podcasts that I can listen to while I'm doing other things. So people are very time poor. And I think in our quest to get as many people aboard as possible, we can overdo the luck in our communication, which does give you a disservice. And it's also just a lot of your time that could be spent doing other things. But... Is that in donor communications, Mel, that you receive or just general? Definitely in donor communication. But I've seen it internally as well. Too much luck, no substance. And again, that's frustrating for people because they just get those emails. So you're like, so what? Why did I receive? I thought what I might do, given we do have a little bit of time, is maybe show you an example of a completed communication plan. Maybe that would be helpful. I'm just finding one that I'm allowed to share with you. Sorry, I'm just finding one at the top of my head. Oh, I know. Okay. So one of my clients is they are non-profit. They've run a lot of aged care homes around Leedsland. And they had an acquisition recently. So they went through a massive acquisition of a new aged care home in regional Queensland. So this is all happening now. It's no longer commercially incompetent. So I can share this with you. Just stop sharing that one and share. Now, this is an example of a very complex change plan. So you'll see the difference between what I shared with you just before and this plan. So this was, I like to put right up the front, the change activity, the role of communication. So that when you are talking to stakeholders in the business or externally, they're not just putting all their eggs in one basket. Obviously, you've got a conslan and so that'll make this change happen. You've got to remind them actually that there's a whole lot of other things that will need to happen to make this change successful. So I put that up the front depending on the stakeholder I'm dealing with. And then we have the cons strategies, so the background, what are our objectives, what's our strategy for this particular thing. And again, stakeholders and users, influencers, supporters, interested observers. So let's dig all of them out and what's the measurement that we're going to do? What are our KPIs? And considerations and assumptions. Now this particular plan template, which is more much more complex one, you'll see is quite big and it goes, we break it down into phases, so phases of change. So preparing, engaging and embedding. And for each one of those phases, we have our timing, our purpose, see our no-feel-and-do, no-feel-and-do objectives. And our change strategies, cons strategies for each one of those phases, what are our tactics then? So online briefing sessions, emails, quarterly updates, online and hybrid briefing sessions, whole surveys, all those sorts of things. And that's done by audience, which you can see on the left-hand side. So once you, and then what's the collateral that we need and all those things. And then you come into the actual sequence itself. So we, there was a sequence, don't worry. It just went into a different template after this, but again, break it down by phase. So what, phase one, phase two, phase three, what were the things we're going to do according to this big overarching plan up here. That just gives you an idea of the type of thinking that goes into these plans. And again, how critical the no-feel-and-do objectives are, especially if you are phasing out your campaigns or your change as well. Yeah, that looks very good. It's excellent. We've got four minutes left. Any other questions? Anything burning? Oh, I think we've got something Jen said. This is fantastic. Thanks, Jen. And yeah, maybe just to wrap up. Mel, I'm imagining you're available for your services as well, for anyone listening. Absolutely, yeah. This is how I'm not hard to find. I'm not a wallflower. So you can find me on Instagram at ml.coms. LinkedIn, just search Melanie Boy or Hamel Communication and Training. We've got a business page on there. Website, of course. And that's got all our training details on there as well, as well as our services and an overview of the team. And email, just ship in email. Happy to help. Beautiful. And just a little bit more of a cross promotion, because I'd like to help our community. We've also got Lisa Marie, who designed your wonderful logo. She's just gone. And she's done all my branding. Yeah, she's launched out in her own graphic design business. So you can reach her at Lisa. I'm going to quickly find at Lisa.design, I think. Maybe Lisa could put it in the website, in the chat. The at Lisa.design. There we go. Find her on Instagram. If you are needing iMoonlight as some marketing and fundraising, consulting and things like that. So if you're interested, you can go to digitalforgood.com.au. But yeah, thank you very much, Mel. I think that was probably one of the best communications presentations I've seen. Yeah, if you get the slides later, please go back through them. Make that learning stick really important. Yeah, excellent. And yeah, I'll send those out as soon as I can. And yeah, no, excellent. Lots of learnings to take away. And got to go and start implementing them now. Long overdue. But thank you so much for all of your preparation and all the expertise you shared this morning. I think we might call it a day today. And I hope to see you at the next breakfast meetup that we put on. And also maybe one of Melanie's upcoming events as well. Yeah, so yeah, Bruce is on the agenda. Thanks everybody for joining in. Thanks for your participation as well. Thanks, Molly. Thanks, everybody. Have a great day. See ya.