E26 | The Incredible Power of Clear, Heartfelt Communication: Meet Adam Fairhead
Adam Fairhead is an English entrepreneur and philanthropist. He founded the Fairhead Group which serves cause-driven companies with the mission of helping difference makers make a difference.
Today I’m talking to Adam about why it’s so important for companies to have a purpose. He works for and has the biggest impact on businesses that are seeking to change the world. We talk about how he does that, what his process is, the coaches that he has on staff and what they do with clients to help them get their message right.
He’s also written a book called “Marketing Isn’t About You”. You can register for a free copy (when it comes out in March) here.
On today’s podcast:
- Making communication clearer and more efficient
- Differences between the US and the UK
- Adam’s book, “Marketing Isn’t About You”
- The magic of having a service-oriented one-page scrollable website
- Adam’s book recommendations
Links:
Making communication clearer and more efficient
Adam noticed two interesting mindset shifts:
- Consumers are becoming increasingly intolerant to businesses without cause.
- The middle of the market is becoming an increasingly dangerous place to play.
His company, The Fairhead Group, works mostly with cause-driven organizations, whether they are a non-profit or a for-profit with givebacks. The messaging that these companies are trying to put out into the market is becoming more mission focused and more personal. Adam realized that the market is responding well to personal, heartfelt language. Most companies are going to have to follow suit – consumers will become increasingly intolerant to companies without a cause.
Some organizations they work with already know that they have an amazing story and that they need to tell it. Other organizations already tried to tell their story but it didn’t resonate with their audience. So Adam’s team’s job is to help them make their story clearer so that people can actually understand it.
There are also organizations that just want to increase their profits, and in this case, Adam and their team try to figure out what their story is (if they have one). They also prepare them emotionally to be vulnerable enough to share why they’re in business.
Adam’s book, “Marketing Isn’t About You”
Adam has a book coming out in March called “Marketing Isn’t About You”. In this book he talks about a lot of the principles they’ve advocated for within coaching conversations with companies (cause-driven or otherwise).
He took the blueprints they’ve discovered as being most effective for helping companies nail down who to talk to and what to say to them, so that everyone can start applying these principles in their companies to help them stand out, grow their companies, and make more impact.
The magic of having a service-oriented one-page scrollable website
Adam believes that for most industries, most websites are basking in the majesty of themselves rather than just trying to serve people.
He has found that having a service-oriented one-page scrollable narrative has a profound effect on the way people engage with the content. It also mimics how people use the web now – they scroll through feeds, they don’t click through sites. This is a profound shift. These kinds of pages are about the reader, for the most part, rather than the company.
He also found that usually companies know who their audience is and what to say to them, so the problem is not a knowledge gap, it’s about not knowing how to organize that information and often not having a little bit of bravery to release things that don’t fit.
Book recommendations
What books would he recommend?
- Blue Ocean Strategy, Expanded Edition: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim and Renée Mauborgne
- Letters from a Stoic by Seneca