Sam Penny (00:00)
Welcome back to Built to Sell, Built to Buy. I'm your host Sam Penny. Today, we're diving into the world of communication. Not as a marketing buzzword, but as the heartbeat of every great business. My guest is Joshua Altman founder and managing director of Beltway Media,
A consultancy that helps leaders and organisations tell their story with precision, purpose and impact. Joshua began his career as a journalist reporting from Capitol Hill before shifting into strategic communications, eventually pioneering the concept of the Fractional Chief Communications Officer. He's helped start-ups, government agencies and global organisations shape perception, build trust and make decisions.
faster through smarter messaging. If you've ever wondered how to turn communication into a competitive advantage, this is your episode. Joshua, welcome to the show.
Joshua (00:52)
Thank you for having me.
Sam Penny (00:53)
Looking forward to this because I've never heard of the concept of a fractional chief communications officer. But before we dive into that, your career actually started on Capitol Hill. Tell me about that.
Joshua (01:04)
Yeah, I went to journalism school. I started my career as a journalist. I thought I would have my whole career as a journalist, being a producer and reporter. I was doing visual multimedia communication back before it was really easy to do on your phone, when we had really big cameras, all of us, and we were lugging around 50 to 100 pounds of equipment every day. Then I decided to leave that, and I thought I would be a freelance reporter for a couple of years and then go back.
full time to an organization that was 2014. And here we are now.
Sam Penny (01:40)
at what point then, because you must have seen some pretty amazing stuff covering Congress, at what point do you decide to leave journalism and shift into consulting?
Joshua (01:49)
There was no one point. I thought I would be a freelance reporter when I left the publication. And what happened was there was a ⁓ project, a corporate project that kind of needed someone to do some writing. I had a technical background. There was some corporate project that also needed someone to do a little video and a little web work. And I kind of put all that together and never went back to journalism. There was no day where I sat down and said,
this is it, this is what I'll be doing. Like so many things in life, for many of us, it just sort of was the culmination of events.
Sam Penny (02:26)
So when you're covering Congress, when you're up on Capitol Hill in Washington DC, you're looking at communication effectively from the masses, but then shifting to small organisations where you're multimedia, you're doing just these small little things. How did you see those two worlds colliding between the small messages that a business is putting out and what a politician is trying to get out into the world?
Joshua (02:56)
Well, what politicians are doing a lot of is those small messages, those smaller bite-sized pieces of content. It all goes to a bigger plan. There's a strategy behind it. And that's where you see a lot more in terms of politics and big corporations and smaller companies doing that big strategy less. They're thinking, we're just going to put out some tweet or run an Instagram and that'll be it.
That's because they just don't have the size or the expertise in the communications functions to do a lot of the big picture thinking because they are experts in running their business, their accounting firm, their startup, their ⁓ agricultural business, whatever it is they're doing. That's where we come in and help them is you're the experts in what you do. We're the experts in what we do. We bring that and help you.
Sam Penny (03:49)
So one of the things, and I love this little comment from you, you've described communication as the operating system for decision making. I want to explore that a little bit more in practice. But firstly, tell me about Beltway Media. You founded it, and when you founded it, what was the gap in the market that you're really going after?
Joshua (04:07)
Again, there was no day. I was ⁓ working on individual projects. I thought, this was still, I thought I would go back to a newsroom and be a reporter when I started doing this. So it was looking at mostly there were people who wanted tech stuff done, build a website, make a video, maintain our pages, all of that. And people who wanted the content. And I could do both of those things because I had been.
of multimedia visual journalists doing the writing, the shooting, the editing, the web. So bridging those two, the tech side of what business is needed and also the content, the writing, the big picture strategy of it, which is also what they needed. And a lot of people were doing one or the other. You know, we're a firm that does writing, you know, but we're not your website development firm. Now you see a little more of both, but
Going back a little bit, that wasn't how it was set up. You know, we're an ad agency. We're a web development firm. We are a social media firm. That was what you had a lot of, a lot of siloed communications. And you still have that. But you also now have a lot more of the, we can look at it in the integrated way. And that was what I was looking to fill, specifically for, you know, small, mid-size growing businesses who don't have the need or the budget for a 40 hour a week full-time
employee to do this.
Sam Penny (05:35)
So you've worked with a whole range of different clients from startups to government agencies. Is there a common thread that you often see that particularly from that communication problem that pretty much every organization is facing?
Joshua (05:50)
They're probably a few big ones that you kind of fit into buckets and regardless of their size or their stage, they kind of all have a few similarities. The first is they're doing something because someone said we need to maintain an Instagram and we need website content and we need LinkedIn content and all of that. So they have this idea that they need to do something. So that's what they do. Something and everything. And they put a lot out there.
without really thinking about does it fit with what they want. Then the other big one is even if they're doing something much more strategic, it is very siloed. So it's out there, but not working with their sales team. They're not talking to their product team about what's coming out in a year. In a government agency, it's what are our big priorities over the course of the next one, two, three years.
where do we need this communication to take people? Because they're not just reading a tweet. If they're following you, they're gonna see a lot more. And hopefully they are, and your newsletters are being read, and they're going to take you or go with them throughout ⁓ multiple touch points.
Sam Penny (07:09)
One of the things, Joshua, you mentioned throughout all of my research is that better communications leads to much faster decision making. And I want to just drill down into that one because you say that communications isn't just telling a story. It is making decisions faster. Explain that concept to me.
Joshua (07:35)
If people are on, know, internally, we're going to talk quickly internal communications. People all have the same message. You've distributed this out. People are going to be able to act faster. There's not checking materials anymore. They're not, you know, searching through emails and trying to, you know, find that one email that happened to have, you know, the bullet points for, you know, this year. Everyone knows because you've communicated this message out there and it's
part of it. So yes, we think about sales and marketing that, you know, they need multiple touch points. You need that internally too, because those are the people making those sales. They're the people on the phone calls. They're the people going to your investor meeting. They know your pitch deck. So that's another side of it. If you look externally, everyone's on the same page of your customers already know your product, your potential customers, returning customers. They're much more comfortable making a decision.
Yes, this upgrade is for me or no, I happen to like the version I have. Both of which depending could be good options because if they have a product they don't want, know, they upgrade and it turns out this isn't, you know, they're spending money on now something they don't want, don't need. Now you have someone unhappy, which is not what you want. So the fact that they've been informing, they know this because you've been giving them your message from day one.
they're able to make that better decision faster without calling up your support line to get more information.
Sam Penny (09:07)
So then on that, you must work with a lot of organizations who look at communications as ⁓ a band-aid solution, as opposed to those organizations who really know at their core what they are about, what their values are. How do you find the difference between an organization when you're working with them, an organization that knows truly what their core values are and one that is doing...
what often looks like reactionary communications.
Joshua (09:39)
Well, was saying, very few look at it as a band-aid. A lot of them look at it as the end goal is the communications product. The pitch deck is the end goal. The pitch deck, we're looking now at startup, people looking at it for investors. That's how you start a conversation. That's not the end. Your newsletter is not the end goal. That's where you're having a conversation.
So those are two different things in terms of knowing your values. know, even companies that know it don't necessarily have everyone knowing it. I was on a meeting with a client and you know, they said, we really want to do some corporate blog posts about our values. And the first reaction was we have values, not that we have them, but they're written down and documented and we all have, you know, the list of whatever it was, seven values.
And that made everyone, the people who have been there for longer, sit and think, maybe we haven't been messaging this as well. If the first reaction the team has is, we have documented values that we could write content about. So we went back a step from there and did not start with, what are these values and how can we get more people involved? Because a lot of people, even people who've been there a little bit of time, didn't necessarily know that
Sam Penny (10:46)
You
Joshua (11:03)
You could go onto SharePoint and click this page and see here is our list of values because that hadn't been communicated.
Sam Penny (11:10)
we look at the organizations and I want to start transitioning into your concept of the Fractional Chief Communications Officer. So many companies, they've got a marketing team, they've got a PR team. You talk about the communication architecture. So what's the difference?
Joshua (11:29)
Yeah. So marketing, advertising, your chief brand officer, those are very important roles and they serve important functions for their businesses. We're a little different. So the chief communications officer is really about two things. One, shape perception, two, build and maintain trust. And everything we do is focused around that. Where your marketing team is looking at just your marketing, where your branding team is looking at
you know, just the branding. You know, your product team might just literally be looking at how do we sell our widgets or our software. We are looking at how do we take an integrated, big picture approach to how messaging will impact reputation, growth and stakeholder confidence. You know, we are very hands on across things like marketing, advertising, product, sales, investor relations to develop
those consistent storytelling attributes and messages across your internal and external channels. And one thing we do very differently than a lot of agencies is we're not here that's project-based. You're not saying we are here, we are launching our widget, beltway.media, come in, do your thing, that's it. We're not an email marketing firm or social media firm. So we're not goal-based in that regard.
You know, we are taking the integrated long-term big picture view. So that's really where that chief communications officer role is different.
Sam Penny (13:05)
the Fractional Chief Communications Officer role is a concept that I haven't heard of before, but having dived deep into it in preparation for this interview, I actually love this concept. So tell me more about the Fractional CCO.
Joshua (13:08)
Yeah.
So fractional means we're contractual, we're part-time, but we are fully integrated with a client's company and team. So it's not like you have a 1099 worker who, or for Americans, 1099 worker contractor ⁓ elsewhere in the world, who is just sort of there doing a task and out. We are really there as part of your team in all the meetings you need.
doing leadership decisions like you need, but just not the full 40 hours a week because a lot of times we're working with smaller and medium businesses. They don't need a 40 hour a week person to do this. Right now it's a function handled by an operations director or a founder and they're spending 15 hours a week doing it. And that's all they really need. Another person to just take that 15 to 20 off their plate.
so they can focus on their actual job. So that's really the fractional part of it. And what we're really focusing on is how can we do those two core things, shape perception, build and maintain trust.
Sam Penny (14:38)
this. So when you step into a business in this capacity of the fractional CCO, ⁓ where do you start? Do you go into an audit first? What's the process?
Joshua (14:50)
like you would like any new employee. Again, we're there just like an employee, not an external firm, you know, that's, you there to, you know, get your widget to market, or that's there just to do email newsletters. So the first thing we do is really going to be company dependent, an audit really common, but it's going to also be focusing on what are your pain points. We want to know what you've done, because that's going to inform what we do next.
But you brought in someone likely because you're doing this job, these functions that you don't want to be doing because they're not really part of your core job, know, chief technical officer who just got this function because they run the website. And that was who sort of made sense in that company, which is more common than you'd think. So we're going to look at what are those pain points and what can we take off of whoever's doing that function.
as it is. And then we're going to look at kind of in that audit, basically four key areas. You know, when you read what you see, what you hear and what you experience are kind of how we break things down. You know, read people kind of get that naturally. It's, you know, things that you read. They're printed there in front of you. See kind of goes into that as well. You know, are you seeing this, you know, in a printed form, in a book, in a tweet here? Podcasts. Great.
you know, a lot of videos that you watch online, and then experience, which is where a lot of people kind of think experiential events. But it goes into the first three. How you experience what you read, and hear changes it. So are you listening to that podcast while walking the dog, like I do frequently, or are you sitting down to watch it as a full visual experience? Those are going to change, you know, how that person kind of gets that content.
Sam Penny (16:41)
That's cool. ⁓ Give me an idea of the background of the CCO that you're placing into organizations.
Joshua (16:51)
It's going to be someone with a lot of experience in communications. Seen a lot, done a lot, they're going to be technical because a lot of tech communications now is technical. It's, you know, online. You got to have some understanding of how that works. Because if you're thinking about what you really see here in experience, that person has to at least be able to have a conversation with designers, with developers.
with social media experts, with video producers. So that's going to be how that person is communicating with their team. And then it's going to be someone with content knowledge. It's going to be, and I don't mean content knowledge specifically your business, because you know that. No one else you bring in, full-time, part-time, fractional, is going to know your business yet. That's what they have to learn as a new employee. But what they do have content experience in,
is creating content and connecting content with an audience. And usually more than one audience for a company. So they're going to be someone who can be flexible and adapt to you having two, three audiences who might not actually need the same thing and what they need might actually be counter to each other.
Sam Penny (18:18)
So then an organization, they'll have a marketing manager and maybe a social media manager or something like that. How does the CCO then work in with say someone who manages all the social media?
Joshua (18:33)
Social media is one communications channel, which is then broken down more. So it's going to be looking with your social media manager, OK, are we communicating with our product team? Are we communicating with our sales team? Do we know what the pain points are? What are we talking about? A lot of times, if you have one person doing all your social media, that person is probably very overwhelmed, because it is a lot for one person to manage for a business.
because there's just a lot there. So we're going to see, we addressing the pain points that our customers have throughout their journey across our social media channels? So if you are B2B, you're using LinkedIn more probably. If you're B2C, it's probably much more on the Facebook, the Instagram, the TikTok side of things. And we're going to audit all that and just ask, do we have a content calendar? How are we making sure all our goals are met? Because if there isn't one, it's
probably just because no one sat down and had time to do it, to make sure that we're coordinating among internal teams. And that's where that function is going to be in. We're not like any other person who comes in to manage a social media person or a marketing manager. We're not replacing that person. They're there, they're doing a function. It's the strategic executive part of the communications and working with the leadership team to make sure their messages get out.
Sam Penny (20:00)
let's talk about how the messaging can really change the trajectory of a business. Give me an example of one of the CCOs that you've placed and how that change in messaging has really changed the, I guess the rocket ship that your clients are going on.
Joshua (20:19)
Yeah, so rocket ship, you know, it's a process more than a launch, you know, a lot of times it's, you know, we're building and, know, then getting into launch pad, then launching because these things take time. You know, you don't launch, you know, an iPhone in an afternoon, communicating your product, communicating your business, building that brand awareness is a process. So that's one thing I always focus on is
If you're looking for a result overnight, this isn't going to be it because this is a multi-month, multi-year ongoing iterative process. So that's the first thing. Then we had someone who went into ⁓ an IT firm and they were doing pretty well, local IT firm, but focused it mostly with very small businesses. wanted to find kind of the same businesses we were kind of targeting.
mid-sized because less likely to shut down, they figured, was one of their concerns when they were dealing with lot of small businesses. And also they were in a better position to pay for a larger suite of services. So we just went down. What are all your services? How are you advertising them? How are you getting it out there with current customers and new ones? And they turned it around for, know, turn around, maybe not the right way to say it, because they weren't doing poorly. They just wanted to shift the focus.
And that's what they were able to do through mostly social media and newsletters because they had a good list. They were in part of a lot of local business groups. Event sponsorships with those business groups got their name out so people knew, hey, you could find this company and we could help. One thing I tell every business and we do this with every single company is everything you produce should be useful. An ad for the sake of an ad, people are glossing over that, especially now.
when we have so many ads, we have ad blockers that fight anti-ad blocker technology that can make us need more ad blockers. So no one's looking at your just ad for the sake of an ad, but an ad that helps people. So with the IT firm, it was basically, know, troubleshooting, you know, things that people came up with every day. You know, it was guides on how to stay safe, you know, traveling for business. You know, what hardware do you need? What software do you need?
And this is stuff that's out there for free. we do this ourselves. If you go to our website right now, beltway.media, we have, we call them the communications quick guides. They're up there and they are free. We don't even take an email address for you to view them. They are literally just there. Use them, download them, use them as a checklist. We also have checklists. Everything there is useful.
Sam Penny (23:08)
Yeah, and I encourage everybody listening, jump onto beltway.media. I've actually got the website open right now. And in the navigation, it says our free tools. You can't miss it. Now, I love the idea, Joshua, that you're talking about of you're not going in, it's not a rocket ship. It's more of a ripple effect that's going through these organizations, but extremely powerful in the effect that this fractional CCO is going to have. So then how...
does this concept of just consistent communication, how does it translate into a stronger culture, ⁓ happier customers, and even better product?
Joshua (23:49)
People know they are happier, statistically across the board. They don't have to, including employees, love every product. I have Apple devices, iPad, iPhone, Mac. The Apple Watch, not my thing. I wear glasses. You could give me the best messaging on an Apple Watch. That screen, not the best for my glasses. So they could market that to me with the best communication. It's still a little small.
for someone like me wearing glasses. But I'm not upset about it. They didn't try and scam me or anything. This is very clear from the beginning. This product not going to be the best for you. And that's great. I know that. Other ones are. So when people are just aware and you're transparent, they generally just can be confident in their decisions.
And when people are confident in their buying decisions, you're not going to have, hopefully, as many returns. And people use their product well. And hopefully, for you, repeat customers.
Sam Penny (24:57)
You, Josh, you mentioned that, you know, I'm just getting through the concept of placing this fractional CCO into an organization. And quite often, and you must see it all the time that they just go, okay, we need a CCO, but it's often after the pitch decks being created or after the websites being done, you argue that the CCO isn't part of the strategy. very much is.
Is the strategy. Explain that to me more.
Joshua (25:29)
Well, you're going to very rarely will someone come to us and say, we've never done our pitch deck. We don't have a website. We don't have email addresses. We're totally starting from a blank slate. I would love it if that happened and we were the first call a new business owner wanted to make. That's never been the case where we are literally someone's first call. Accountants tend to come before us ⁓ because they need a bank account before they can hire and pay a chief communications officer. So we are definitely coming. It's already there.
Sam Penny (25:41)
Yeah
Joshua (25:59)
But where it fits is going to be iterative because you're never done. These things are never done, built, made, set in stone. It's there because it's all online. You're going to change things. You're going to tweak the website. You're going to have a new pitch deck. Just because you pitched one set of investors doesn't mean you're A, not going to pitch another for the same round. And hopefully you will have more rounds of fundraising.
and you're going to need more. Depending on your business, you might be pitching some general investors, you might be pitching someone specialized, you might have, if you're green tech, maybe impact investors are going to be on your list, they might need different pitch decks because they all want something slightly different. Their focuses are, yes, they are all investing for the purpose of having as high a return as possible and making money. That is what they are doing. There's no point in hiding that.
how you reach them is going to be a little different. So we work in figuring out, okay, how can we reach these different audiences with essentially the same stuff, which is your pitch deck. That core probably not changing, but how you reach them will. The website, you need things for the, yes, investors. They're going to look at it. They're going to Google search. They're going to find it. Customers, employees, prospective employees, they're all searching for that.
They're all gonna see it. So how can we get your story out there and put that best digital foot forward?
Sam Penny (27:33)
Okay then for the leader, Joshua who's listening, who doesn't have a background in communications, how do they build and integrate this strategic messaging into their day to day?
Joshua (27:45)
Call us as early as possible.
Sam Penny (27:47)
I love it.
Joshua (27:48)
In terms of day to day, we always tell this, we say this all the time. You are the expert in what you do. Green tech, finance, healthcare, know, consumer packaged goods, food products, whatever it is, you are the expert in what you're doing. We're the expert in the communications. You know, we are the expert in communicating your expertise. So when you're thinking about how do you integrate it, think about what would you want to hear? And then think about if you were...
10 years ago in a similar situation, you're not the founder, you're not the leader, you're a middle manager, you're a director, you're lower level. What would you have needed to hear? And think about that. Because a lot of times you kind of know because you were in that situation once yourself. So put yourself back in those shoes.
Sam Penny (28:42)
So then do you believe that every business should have a CCO, even an early stage one?
Joshua (28:50)
Yes, and they should call us to do it.
Sam Penny (28:53)
Do you think there's any firms though that just don't suit a CCO or is it just something that really should be embedded in their strategic plan?
Joshua (29:03)
they should have someone doing the function. We call it a chief communications officer. But a lot of times you don't need the 40 hour a week person. That's why we're fractional. And a lot of times when you have, your founder might be the only person to do it. employee number two might be the only person to do it. They keep that function for years in some cases when they really shouldn't.
So bringing someone on early will help alleviate that. And we say some companies need five hours a month, some need 20 hours a week. We're fractional, we can scale to both of those depending on your needs. So if you just need those five hours a month to basically sit down and say, hey, what's our Twitter strategy this month? So we can keep things moving, that's great.
But it makes that communications function really at the front of mind, which is where you need it to be. Because one of the big reasons we get called is reactionary. We don't have this. We haven't been thinking about that. Like I said earlier, we've been using communications as the endpoint, as the goal. We are producing the newsletter. Well, what is that supposed to do? We're sending out discount codes every week via email or social. Well, what is that?
doing, how does that fit into the broader strategy, not just of communications, but of everything you're doing.
Sam Penny (30:37)
So you spoke then about reactionary and quite often, particularly with PR firms, the PR firm is brought in because there's some crisis that has just happened. How often do you see, ⁓ firstly, the crisis happening? often with these kinds of moments and the PR firms very good at, there's certain words that can sink a company and certain words that can really make it thrive. What?
Joshua (30:49)
Mm-hmm.
Ha
Sam Penny (31:07)
What is it in those moments? Because I want to understand better the psychology of the person receiving that communication and the leader putting the communication out. What is it in those moments that can sink a brand?
Joshua (31:20)
usually not doing something. Now, I'm going to put an asterisk on that, which is strategic silence is a thing. And sometimes it can be beneficial. Sometimes you might have to do it, especially if you're in a regulated industry. You might be very limited in what you can say. So not saying something, I say, yes, that is kind of what could sink you. But also that might be what you have to do.
But even then, you might be able to do something, a limited release to shareholders. You might be able to just put out a very brief public statement in those cases. But generally, some form of transparency tends to be in the modern era, where customers want you to be. They want you to say as much as you can.
Be open and be honest. They expect that. When you can do that, again, when you're in regulated industries, that becomes a little trickier.
Sam Penny (32:30)
Can you give me an example where you've seen this in practice?
Joshua (32:34)
of the silence or talking.
Sam Penny (32:38)
Both.
Joshua (32:39)
Yeah, a recent one that, you I like using examples people always kind of have heard. ⁓ Cracker Barrel was very, you know, in the US. I'm sure it was, you know, popular around the world what happened. You know, they released a new logo, a new look and didn't go over the way they had wanted it to. Then there was a little silence, then one message, then they flip and now we have everything back the way it was.
cost them, I believe the estimate was about a billion dollars.
Sam Penny (33:14)
billion dollars.
Joshua (33:15)
I heard $750 million to a billion. Again, don't have the invoices from the companies that did this, but it costs significant amounts to do this overhaul because they changed how the stores looked. Those are physical changes. So there has to be some cost to that, not just designing a logo in Adobe Illustrator. So there were costs.
Sam Penny (33:22)
Wow.
Joshua (33:45)
That was one where it changed. Another one, ⁓ some people got caught at a concert where they shouldn't have been recently. ⁓ We all remember that. Feels like a lifetime ago. A little bit of silence first, then some people lost their jobs. So that was another case where maybe silence was how you go, maybe not. Internet figured out who those people were.
Sam Penny (33:52)
Haha, yes.
Joshua (34:12)
always rely on the internet sleuths in those cases because they will, you know, spot someone ⁓ in that situation. But generally, that's where you kind of find making a statement early, even something, even a, you know, this is an internal personnel matter and we're looking into it. Or if you're Cracker Barrel, we love and appreciate all our customers. Thank you for your feedback. You know, we are, you know, reassessing.
some of these changes. It doesn't have to be a lot, but it's something. And also when you put something out, you are now defining what people say to an extent that you can control.
which means the media isn't speculating about what you're thinking. You've said something, you've given them something.
Sam Penny (35:06)
It's interesting, Joshua, you spoke about Cracker Barrel and something that just seems so mundane as a logo change, but it was in that logo is built so many emotions, its familiarity, its trust, its respect. ⁓ It really cut through to the core of the people of the customer who was basically just worldwide.
Joshua (35:14)
Yeah.
Sam Penny (35:35)
outrage that they changed their logo.
Joshua (35:39)
And they probably weren't anticipating it. Maybe they thought, some people might like it. I don't think anyone, it wasn't in those meetings, but would have anticipated that level of outrage from major political figures weighing in on the Cracker Barrel logo. But people do have, ⁓ talk about brand awareness and loyalty, they have something.
to that logo and that feel.
Sam Penny (36:10)
And I think this is where communication at its heart is all about building trust in, whether it's staff, whether it's suppliers or the end user, the customers and the public. That's what this role is all about, isn't it? Really building trust in the brand.
Joshua (36:27)
Yeah, that's what, know, one of our two big things are shape perception. And then number two is build and maintain trust. Because if you're dealing with vendors, suppliers, know, and consumers, they have to trust you to use your product to at least some degree. You know, even mundane products, you know, the simple things we don't think about every day. They have to have some trust in this company.
Sam Penny (36:57)
Now, Josh, I want to shift gears a bit into the world that we're moving into in a world of AI where, really, we can see campaigns being developed in just a matter of seconds these days. So how do you see the role changing in communications today?
Joshua (37:17)
AI is a great tool. I use AI. That's all it is, is a tool. But it doesn't produce, at least not yet, actual final usable product. So the role shifts to, you know, how can we use AI to help us create these final products and to create these campaigns. It's great if you want to say, look, analyze some data.
Tell me what did well, what will likely do well in the future. It's really good at picking up on emerging trends. If you are a restaurant, if you're a agriculture company, you can use it to say, look online every day, every hour, however often, what are people talking about that we need to be aware of? That is something a human could do. A human could sit and run all those searches and do this manually, but
You're then paying someone to do that manually all the time and then tell you what's emerging. Well, we could just have AI do that. Check AI's work. It may not be accurate. It does hallucinate. It makes things up. So always check that it is giving you something that is accurate and then use that to develop a strategy. You could even say to AI, me prompts that could help develop the strategy.
But again, it might not be right. where someone fractional like us comes in is a CEO, a founder, ⁓ a president of a mid-sized business could say, well, we could just have anyone do that. I could do that for a couple hours a week. Well, that's those hours a week that you don't want to be spending on the communications function that you were already spending on a communications function. That's why you would bring someone in.
still, you you doing it, a person still is involved. And of course, checking it because what it puts out kind of can feel very soulless when you're looking at, you know, its polished product, what it calls a polished product. It lacks a lot of the things that you would see that a human would do. Our human would write, a human would make an image. It just even the know, good AI products still feel very
computer generated. Like a person wasn't there. And that's what people connect with is not the random characters that, you know, they read on Twitter or X or blue sky or LinkedIn. It's the person behind it that makes it look and feel like human. And we can tell the difference very innately. Like you, like when you read something AI, you can tell.
Like you're like, don't know why, but this feels robotic. This feels not human. So we know.
Sam Penny (40:23)
You must see it all the time, Joshua, that companies now are using AI to create all their creatives and losing that human touch, that human element that you described. So how do we really preserve that human tone?
Joshua (40:32)
Yeah.
Well, I think part of what's going to happen naturally is the consumer can tell the difference. At least right now, what AI is producing is not human quality. And in part of that, mean, there aren't errors. When humans make things, is human. We are not perfect. I am not perfect. You are not. That's just part of being human is what we produce has mistakes. It has flaws.
You know, has, you know, commas in the wrong place. It feels like a person wrote it or, you know, produced the image. When something comes out so sterile from an AI, we can tell. Now, it is starting to introduce some of those, you know, human, you know, flaws into it to be less perfect. So we'll see how that goes over the next few years. But at least right now, we know.
⁓ because it's just not right. The other thing is I think companies that use people as part of their workflow will find more success because they know, your reader knows there's someone there that you can respond much faster if you have a crisis or you have a new product that you need to shift than just typing in.
to an AI, we need to shift product marketing from widget A to widget B, how do we do it? Well, it might give you the same thing as everyone else. What's going to be different about yours? And that's where the human can come in.
Sam Penny (42:26)
You've said that staying human, it's the ultimate competitive edge. So for a leader trying to put this into practice in 2025, 2026, how's that going to look?
Joshua (42:39)
It's going to look like having a human team still. And how can we use these AI tools? Because we've had computer-assisted tools for a long time. If AI is basically an input computing and result, there's obviously a lot more behind it than that. But at its core, you input something, it does some computing, and you get a result. Well, Excel formulas did that. We don't still require people to sit and do all that math by hand.
⁓ We have computer assisted design, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign. We don't do layout by hand anymore. We have tools that help us. So they're going to be looking at like, how can we use the latest tools with our people who know our product and know our company to help us grow? Because these LLMs, one thing that they can do is process a lot of data.
but they can only process data they have. If they don't have your company and they don't have your new product and they don't have how you do things, that's not factored in. So you need your people there to actually put you into the AI ⁓ generated result. And that's not to say don't use AI. I'm telling us, use it. I use it. It's great. Use it smart.
Sam Penny (44:03)
That's a great view. All right, now I want to bring this home, Joshua, with some great takeaways for anyone who wants to communicate with their team, with their customers, with a lot more clarity and impact. So if someone listening right now who's thinking, we're not telling our story well, what would you say is the first step that they should take this week to fix that?
Joshua (44:27)
Communicate strategically, not voluminously. That's one. You do not need to put everything out there. Because you can't. It's too much. So just be strategic and be smart about it. The other is be the signal, not the noise. You do not need to respond to every ex-Tweet, Blue Sky, LinkedIn, Instagram comment.
Be smart about which ones you engage with because that will help you. And once you kind of realize you do not have to hit that deluge, you do not have to be everything, and you can focus on things that matter in that communication space, you will free up a lot of the time that you currently spend trying to respond to everything. Now, you, again, real business, real physical locations that really rely on things like Yelp and Google reviews,
respond to the ones you need to respond to. Those algorithms, you know, which change do help you when you are a responding business owner. So respond appropriately to the things that need responses.
Sam Penny (45:40)
So then in the leader, what is a, I guess a habit or a ritual that you see the great ones take each day?
Joshua (45:50)
They think before they post. So when I was in social media at a newspaper, one of the things I did was everything got scheduled. Even breaking everything we scheduled, everything one minute out. So if it was 2.53 PM, it would get scheduled to 2.54. So we had a minimum of 60 seconds to read it again, think about it, and then it would go live.
take that second, take that minute, those 60 seconds to read it again. Because what we were pushing out, yes, we want to be first, but we also wanted to be right. And that was just as important, if not more important, was being accurate in what we're doing. So everything got a minimum of 60 seconds of scheduling for me or whomever else to sit and reread. And that is where I think you find that big difference in success is
Don't rush. If you need those 60 seconds, take them. We read it, let it go.
Sam Penny (46:57)
I want to just bring this back to Beltway Media. ⁓ Who is your ideal client?
Joshua (47:04)
working with primarily small and medium businesses and startups. So anywhere from, you know, in that case, know, kind of two or three up to about, you know, 75-ish employees, so small, medium size. Generally, they don't have a communications leader. They have that marketing manager, that social media specialist you mentioned, but they're working under a director of operations who doesn't want to be doing a communications function. They're working under that CTO who
does it because they were the person to build the website and now they're doing all communications functions and email blasts and Instagram posts. And they're thinking, my job is to engineer a product, not do corporate communications. So someone who's doing that, but it's not their core function. And also it's a company who looks at their spreadsheet, their budget and says,
We can't afford a 40 hour a week full-time employee with benefits. That's just not there for us. And that's why the fractional works for them is it can be those five hours a month or the 20 hours a week that you need to get what you need accomplished done.
Sam Penny (48:19)
It's all about getting the right people in the right seat on the bus, isn't it?
Joshua (48:24)
Yeah.
Sam Penny (48:25)
Joshua, this has been a fascinating look at communication, both as an art and an infrastructure. So how getting your message right can make a business faster, it can be stronger and also more aligned. Now from the newsroom to the boardroom, you've shown us that clarity isn't a luxury, it's a strategy. And before we wrap up,
Joshua (48:25)
Ha
Sam Penny (48:47)
Joshua, where can people, where can listeners find you when they're looking for guidance on whether it's communication strategies or even curious about your fractional CCO model?
Joshua (49:00)
Yeah, I'm on LinkedIn. It's linkedin.com/in/JoshuaiAltman. You could also find us online. The whole company is beltway.media. No dot com, just beltway.media. And you can also email me, please email me jaltman@beltway.media. You know, if you're interested in kind of looking at your situation, you know, what your business has, where your position, check out our quick guides. You know, they're free on our website, our checklists are free on the website.
You know, just kind of go through it. Do we have this? Do we reach, you know, this goal? How are we using PR? That could be a really great place for people to start and then call us. You know, even the Quick Guides are designed to be used as a checklist. There's three bullets per page. Are we doing one, two, three? Next page, one, two, three. Just go down and kind of self-assess.
Sam Penny (49:52)
Absolutely fantastic and yes, by all means go onto beltway.media because there's a lot of free tools on there and I'll make sure that I put all of those links into the show notes. And if today's episode made you think differently about how communication builds businesses, please share it with your team or someone who's leading through growth or change. I'm Sam Penny and this is Built to Sell, Built to Buy. Thanks for listening and we'll see you next time.
