The Communications Mistake That Costs Ocean Projects Years

0:00 let me ask you this. If you are running an ocean project, it doesn't matter if you're a nonprofit, for profit, an academic, a professor, or anything like that, if you're running an ocean project and you're asking yourself six months down the road, who's my target audience? Why am I doing this? How is it going to affect them? You might be too late. And on today's episode of the Ocean Leaders Podcast, we're going to be talking about why communications And a communication strategy should be done at the beginning of your project and not six months to a year down the road. We're gonna talk about that on today's episode of the Ocean Leader Podcast, your podcast to find out everything you need to know on how to run an ocean project. My name is Andrew Lou I'm the host of this podcast for today.

0:43 I'm the Ocean Communications Manager for Pisces Oceans. Which this is the Pisces Podcast, the Ocean Leader Podcast. we talk all different things from project management to project strategy to ocean communications and communications strategies for your ocean project to have a positive impact on the ocean and make sure your project succeeds. I can't wait to get into this conversation. We have Natalie Gilson, who is the co-CEO of Pisces Oceans, and she is also a communication expert on. just projects and how projects should be communicating. I have we have a great conversation here about two things. We're going to be talking about how communications can help you think through a project from multiple different angles and how it can help build relationship with your target audience once you found them from the beginning of your project.

1:35 So it's not too late. When you release your project and you say, hey, by the way, we have this to sell you should check us out. You should buy it right away because that's what we need to do. We have a great analogy for that that now that Natalie presents. And I think you'll be interested in hearing like that makes sense. Because if I just pop a product right in front of you and say buy this right now, you have no idea where it comes from, what it's going to solve, all that kind of stuff. So we're going to talk all about that on today's podcast. So here is my conversation with Natalie Gilson on why communication should be done at the beginning of your project. Enjoy, and I'll talk to you after. All right, Natalie, are you ready to talk about ocean communications for projects and and leaders who may or may not use communications properly?

2:18 yeah, I'm always ready to talk about that. Awesome. I can't wait to get into this type of subject. But before we get into it, since this podcast is new, the Ocean Leaders podcast is new, Natalie, why don't you just remind people of who you are and what to do? Sure, so I'm Natalie Gilson. I'm one of two CEOs of Pisces Oceans. ~ And the quick and simple way to describe what I do is ocean storytelling, but I do that through the perspective of helping ocean projects and ocean businesses and ocean leaders really figure out how to talk about their work in a way that has meaningful impact for the ocean. Love it. I love it. Now, Natalie, you you and I are our our friendship and and we became colleagues and friends you know, probably about going on five years now.

3:07 You know, when you first contacted me saying, Hey, you know, let's I want to get into oceans. I I saw your your podcast on how to protect the ocean podcast. Now we're working full time together on communications. I'm learning from you, you're learning from me. We get to go ~ back and forth on different strategies and and things like that. We've come from very different backgrounds, you coming from a marketing background first, and then me coming from a science background first, coming into communications together and being able to work together, which I think gives us like a heads up on a lot of people and a lot of the companies that are that are putting out communications because we have both sides. ~ and it kind of gives like a rounded front.

3:47 And today we're going to be talking about projects like ocean projects that are are starting, whether it's a nonprofit Whether it's a for profit, whether it's it's an academic network or academic project, and the project like the focus on the project is getting it going. But the communication side of it doesn't always get going at the same time the project is. That means the communications to the target audience. So not just the general public, but to the target audience. Oftentimes, now you can probably argue that the target audience isn't even known until the project is well underway. And then people are like, shoot, we haven't done communication. So I would love to hear your perspective.

4:28 Like is is this something that you see a lot? Yeah, this is probably one of the most common things that I've seen in in well not only working in communications in Oceans, but in my previous time doing marketing and communications outside of Oceans, is that so so often we get so focused or projects get so focused on the actual work that they're doing, the question they want to answer, the business they want to build, the problem they want to solve, that we never even stop and say, like, wait, why are we solving this problem? Who are we solving it for? And how How are we going to meaningfully make a difference for the people we're solving this problem for? And it sounds really like simple when you say it like that, but we get so caught in our own ideas, I think, that it gets so exciting to just be like, okay, we're going, I see what I want to achieve.

5:27 and you get so in the weeds of that day-to-day that the communication of it, or even you know. That consideration of who is this for because that's very much a communications question, just kind Hmm. of gets put on the back burner until later, right? Maybe you're like, ~ you know, I don't have anything to communicate about right now, or For sure. we don't have money to communicate right now, or I'm wearing 800. already I don't have time to also communicate like there's a myriad of reasons ~ Yeah. but it is far more common to not even think about communications until quite far down the path than it is to think about it right at the start. Mm-hmm. Yeah, like from from my experience, ~ especially coming from that science background.

6:12 So a lot of it's like academic, and sometimes like the nonprofit side, what I see is is the focus isn't with like the communication side is more on the can I publish this article in a science journal? Right. And so once I publish, that's the that's the communication. So in a lot of grants, ~ you've seen this too, where you'll get like an outreach of part like line item. And so, you know, people will put in that money, they get that money for communication, but the communication is let's put out a couple of social media posts of hey, I just published a new paper. Check it out. But let's be honest, not a lot of people, one can't access it, you know, normally because if it's a scientific journal. ~ and the other is is nobody gets to really understand what it is.

6:54 And that target audience that may not be scientific, that might help that target audience. is is just unaware of of what's happening because behind a a publication wall. And and then the the it doesn't like it doesn't get applied in the right context other than that publisher, like this the scientist, kind of gets notoriety for being cited a lot and and that's what they that's what they measure. I feel like there's just this and it could be like the incentive of it. Like the incentive is to publish in in academia for for the most part from a career perspective. But the application of the problem they're trying to solve or the trend that they're identifying is more of a conservation nature focus or or or like a project focus or something that could lead towards something better for in this case the the ocean.

7:41 ~ and so when you when you don't have that, it's not even it's not even in their mind of like who is this actually for? Who is this project for? And we and we've seen it with with you know the people from Transformation Climate Change TCA. They really focus on working with the communities where they're taking in the the the sampling to say, hey, what do you need? Like what is a priority for you? So we're starting to see that turnover, but from my perspective, we don't really see communication even being involved to any kind of target audience outside of the scientific community, which is can be frustrating at times, right?

8:22 Right. And I mean it's it's okay if your goal is just to share with other academics, right? Like you go Right. to a, you know, shark conference and you're presenting about sharks and you're presenting all the data because that's what everybody else wants to hear. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Awesome, you're doing a great job. ~ it's more when you kind of go, I need to talk beyond my circle, beyond the circle Mm-hmm. of other business owners or beyond the other academics, right? Where it starts to trip people up. especially when it's not planned ahead of time because then you're kind of untangling a bunch of stuff to get to what you actually want to say. But Mm-hmm.

9:02 you know, it's it always comes back something and we talk about all the time, Andrew, is like, who is this actually for and why does it matter, right? Like I you know, we're not gonna sit here and change how research is done, but the thing you mentioned about TCA and, you know, big shout out to the the approach that they're taking to science Yeah. and that is like community led research like what are the questions that matter to the communities around you know marine carbon dioxide and all that kind of stuff and using research to answer questions. That's putting communications first because you're already understanding, you know, how that work that you're doing as an academic is gonna ~ be perceived by the community and what questions they're gonna be asking.

9:43 Right. So you go Mm-hmm. into your research with that question in mind. And I think that's a big Checkmark in the favor of thinking about communications ahead of time is like, you know, then you can actually make your work, whether that is research or business or whatever, more meaningful when you actually know who you're trying to talk to, what their problems are and how Yeah. your solution is gonna help them. Yeah, no, absolutely. I and and I guess the question that I have for you is like when you have a project like this, whether it's academic focused or or non-academic focused, what does a project without that early communications strategy actually look like six months in? Right? Like if you don't start or you don't think about it, how does that change the way or can it change the way projects done?

10:33 Like six months in you realize, ~ I haven't done any kind of communications. Can that change the way the project's going? Cause of the questions as you mentioned that are asked previously as you go through that strategy to say who's this for, why do they care? That kind of stuff. Yeah, I mean I think if you I think for first it's important to kind of say that like communications is very often seen as, you know, we're communicating our results or we're communicating our product or we're communicating our idea, right? So it's very much seen as a later stage kind of thing because why would you why are you investing in communicating before you have a product to sell or a technology or whatever? But that I think is is a big kind of Area that can trip you up because communications is what we were just talking about.

11:21 Like it is who are you talking to and why? Why are you doing the work that you're doing? What's the point in creating a product if nobody needs it because you didn't spend the time to understand what they need? At the Mm-hmm. same time, communications is happening all the time in your team. Right in your networking between yourself and your funder, between yourself and you know, your grant applications, right? And so if if you don't think about communications early on, six months into your project, you start to get like everybody's talking about the project differently. Nobody understands what Mm-hmm. you're actually doing. The missions may be not clear, like Yeah.

12:04 it can cause company culture issues from the research project side, it's sort of just like, okay, everybody's. heads down you know maybe you can comment more on on this piece but like you know your heads down you're dealing with your question but it's sort of like you can almost lose the why and it just becomes like data more data but Yeah. ~ god, yeah. Yeah. why I don't know because you know For sure. Well, you know, I and you could talk to any grad student, you know, as they do a grad project, they do their project, but then they're pulled into all these other projects 'cause it's fun and it's and it's it's easy to to go in and look at somebody else and then you lose focus on your own. But even within your own project, if you don't know what that communication is, like what you want, like you you know what you wanna ask. That's I mean, that's one thing about the scientific process.

12:46 Like you know what you wanna ask and you know what question you're trying to disprove, right, from a hypothesis standpoint. But when you get your results Of that, then all of a sudden it kind of opens up to different ways of you can approach, you know, the the study. And then you start to go back, you're like, well, maybe I should change my original hypothesis of you know, based on the results that are coming in, because I could go every which way, which sometimes happens, but for the most part, you just want to stick to what you're originally thought, like what you were originally trying to prove. And I think the same thing goes when you with with any kind of project. There's so many things that build up. And if you don't have those initial questions of like why this matters and who it matters to, right? It it starts it starts to distort what you're doing and you start to get into this trap of, well, maybe I should go this way. Maybe I could go this way.

13:37 Maybe instead of going back to the original, you know, look at what the business project, whatever that might be, is for and what you how you're trying to in this case impact the ocean, you want to kind of stick with that one thing. ~ Or at least ask going back to like what's our original communication? Like what did we say to the funder that we were gonna do? What did we say or to the investor that we were gonna do? What did we say, like what did we promise some of our early customers? Like, are we going to do this? And how do we communicate to them and have we been communicating to them? All this kind of stuff that that is enraped. So if you go back to that question, it kind of brings you home. It grounds you to the what you're originally doing, right?

14:19 Yeah, yeah, and you know, not to say 'Cause I can see I can I could just hear some people listening to this going, Well, but what if things change as you go along? Like you can't decide your communications right at the beginning and have Yeah. Yeah. it apply all the way through because life happens, things change. And like that's absolutely totally true, and not I think at all what we're trying to say here is that like there's absolutely no point in planning, you know, what your outreach programming for K to twelve is going to be before you've done the research that will inform That particular communication. However, knowing that your intended output is an education program for K-12 is really important, right? Because then exactly as you said, as you go along, you kind of go, yeah, you know, when you get shiny object syndrome and a new idea appears over here, wait, does that fit into what I said I was gonna do?

15:18 And that's why like communications at the beginning is so much about strategy, right? Mm-hmm. We think of communications as tactics. We think of it as a social media post, an article, a podcast. Yeah, exactly. Like a luxury almost. Yeah. Like, yeah, we'll get there. It'll be a paid ad when I get there. But that's just tactics. The very first half of communications is the strategy. And all that Mm-hmm. really is at the beginning. Like if you had to simplify it down to like two, three of the most important questions, is like What are you doing? Why are you doing it? And who are you doing it for? And at very most, what what do you want the world to look like after you've done it? Right? So four questions at most that kind of form the bulk of communication Yeah.

16:01 strategy that I think if every project sat down and really thought about those four questions, you know, they'd be a lot further ahead. Because then when it comes time to tactics, you're like, okay, well, no, I don't need to post. five ads on or I don't need to be on five social media channels because actually who I'm talking to is K to twelve. So I only need this channel. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So that strategic thinking early on can really help your tactics later on, but also kind of give you that guiding light for your project like you were saying. Ye yeah, and and I a question I a follow up question to that is when you start asking those questions at the beginning of the project from a communication standpoint, you probably like do you tend to go through the different tangents that you could that you t you would go through six months or a year down the road if you didn't approach communications?

16:54 And that could that change arguably could happen at the beginning, which is less costly. and l and and more effective than it would like six months to a year down the road and then you'd have to change everything you've done. You could lose a lot of money because of all the work you've done. Now you have to pivot and you have to change. Here you're asking all those questions. You can already go through I'm thinking of like a wireframe type thing. You can already go through the different possibilities because you've already asked those questions. Who your target mod audience is, why do they care about this this product or service? Like why are they You know, what do they well, how does this affect the ocean and what are those impacts and and who does it benefit? All those types of things. Right off the bat, that's where you the brainstorm comes in and all the tangents go around, then you focus in on one or two of those of those tangents, right?

17:41 Yeah, absolutely. That's a good good value in doing that brainstorm early on because too you can also like, you know, do that kind of thinking where you say, Okay, let's put on our our hat and imagine six months down the road, Mm-hmm. like what if this happened in our project and we realized this target audience is not right for us anymore. Like, what are we gonna do? Right. But Mm-hmm. if you don't sit down and kind of plan your ideal and talk through those scenarios at the beginning, then you know what happens is you know, it's six months up. And often we're working with ocean projects years into things, right? Yeah. That have no communication strategy in place. And so then the problem becomes it's you're untangling, you know, everything that's happened since the project started, trying to like dig through these layers of, you know, years to find out what was that core vision at the beginning anyway, and Mm-hmm.

18:34 then rebuild it and restructure everything, right? So it's just like the resources that go into that are immense. ~ and you're often like if you've got teams of people, you're you're reteaching people, you're retraining people, you're rethinking internal strategy or internal communication strategies, external ones. Like it just it's it I'll just say it's way easier to have a brainstorm at the beginning, Yeah. absolutely. right? And to kind of say, like, this is what we think we want to do, knowing that it may change. Like that a good good communications is never a step-by-step checklist roadmap because it doesn't make sense, right? It's more your guardrails for Mm-hmm.

19:16 what you're doing overall. Your tactics are a step-by-step, but your communications plan overall needs to be like, okay, we we're headed towards this light for this reason with these people in mind. We're gonna pivot along the way. We're gonna do a million things we didn't expect. Yeah. Yeah. It's a windy if you go back to your guardrails analogy, ~ but if you don't have yeah it's a windy road, so you might go around, but the guardrails are make sure you don't go off the road, right? And off the cliff, right? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Cause it's ~ And you stay stay in that. exactly, 'cause it's a lot of work and a lot of money to pull your car up off the side of the mountain. Right? Yes. We got that analogy down pat. I like that. I like that. Well, Yes. Exactly.

19:56 and and just to kind of go over so so thinking through your project at the beginning, obviously it's a strat it's such a a s a strategic aspect of the project, but thinking through how you're gonna communicate with the different stakeholders, whether it's ~ even starting from the the funder, investor. looking at the the the target audience, identifying that target, f getting feedback from them, ~ looking at the the ocean impact and the stakeholders that are around there and any rights holders that are around there to see how it impacts them and and getting their feedback. That all kind of narrows your focus as you go through the project and prevents any kind of mishaps or or pivots that you have to do later because you've already asked those questions and you can move ahead a lot stronger.

20:44 maybe a lot faster or or at the same pace that you originally planned instead of having to continually just kind of go down off the rails and and and off the cliff. So so that's that's great. The other aspect of communications is building that trust and building the relationship with again funder investor target audience that kind of thing. And I feel like being in the age of social media Where transparency is such a huge part of our world right now. And there are still a lot of companies outside Ocean Impact, sometimes inside Ocean Impact, that are not transparent at all, where it kind of it it it kind of bites them in the butt near the at the end if they're if they're kind of do something differently than what people have expected or what they're saying and if people find out and stuff like that.

21:40 Whereas the I've watched you know, companies start from like an individual ~ that wants to do an ocean impact and it you know, watching them create the company and communicate that journey all the way through builds that relationship of trust, but also builds that loyalty, be like, I want to see this person succeed. How can these projects, because not everybody can show everything that goes through, how can these projects really build relationships through either comm strategy or communications from the beginning. Yeah, it's a great question. And I've got another good analogy to add to our our conversation.

22:24 Love it. But, you know I think of communications is like we do we we do communications because we generally want a result, right? So often when Right. we're saying, okay, we're gonna talk about the work we're doing, it's because we wanna get funded, we want donations, we want somebody to buy our product, right? Like it's very ~ Mm-hmm. action driven in intention like that. And if you go, let's say you're three years into a project and you're just going to market with your new ocean tech or ocean innovation, and the very first thing you do is say, Hi, we're here, buy our stuff.

23:06 This is the equivalent of going on a first date and asking somebody to marry you, right? Yeah. That's true. Yeah. Because it's like you're just saying, hey, we've never met before. Give me your money. Yeah. Give me your everything, right? And it just doesn't work that way. It doesn't work that way in relationships and it doesn't work that way Ha ha ha. in our human day-to-day. So why do we think it works that way in the Well, Yeah. Yeah. I mean, Nally, there are some reality shows that do that, but it doesn't seem like they work out. that's true. and I w I w I would argue they're staged maybe a little bit. Yeah What no Yeah. Mind blowing. Yeah, but but that's just that. Like we we have this idea, you know, that that's reality TV, that's sensational to say like, yeah, you're gonna meet somebody on the first date and ask them to marry you.

23:57 That doesn't happen in the real world. No, not at all. And so why do we why do we build our communications that way? So Yeah. to your point about building trust, like it's the same kind of analogy as you build up any kind of relationship, whether that's friendship, other, right? It's about Mm-hmm. little communications, little truths, little transparencies, even if they're imperfect, right? Mm-hmm. Like that's a big thing in communications I struggle with too. It's like it's progress, not perfection. And so when you Yeah. have a project and you're very clear from the beginning. what you're doing, why you're doing it, who it's for, and what you want them to do, then you can just start these little communications. They don't have to be perfect. It can be like, guys, our original hypothesis is falling apart.

24:40 Like we maybe need to rethink this piece. Right. Yeah. Or maybe this failed, you know, this prototype failed. That technology's not being picked up. Like in a world, like you said, that's kind of so much driven by digital communications, where actually Mm-hmm. in this age of AI, we don't even know what's true and what's not true. Something refreshingly human is like total truth, whether it's good or bad. Like, you know what I mean? Like, if again, Yeah, a hundred percent. if you go through a relationship telling everybody or whoever you're building a relationship with that you're awesome all the time, it's like, well, no, nobody's awesome all the time, Yeah. And then when you figure out you're not awesome all the they figure and now you're a liar. Right.

25:21 out you're not awesome all the time, then they call you out on it. Yeah. Exactly. And that's exactly Yeah. Yeah. the same thing that happens here in communications. Like if you just pretend it's all great and wonderful, somebody catches you out one day and it can fall apart. So, you know, that's kind of the that's sort of the advice. Like just communicate truthfully. I guess I guess the other hand is that is like, can you go too far? You know, I'm sure a lot of people are like, How transparent do I have to be to Sure. ensure that I'm building that that relationship? Because there's you know, some people will have ~ say they're building something for a patent and obviously they can't talk about what they're what they're building Sure. until the patent goes through and and things like that. you know, there there are a lot of of creators out there who will be like, Yeah, here once they've made the product, then they kind of come out with This is what we've done and th and this is how we did it and go back and show how they did it. How how transparent do you have to be, I guess, in terms of of your communications?

26:19 I mean it's a difficult question. I'm sure there's a line that a fine line that you have to, you know, dance over type thing, but Yeah. And it's very dependent also on your brand and that sort of image Mm-hmm. you wanna put out there, like what have you decided your brand is. I mean, I would always personally err more on the side of transparency and truth. Right. But, you know, again, back to the relationship thing. There is such thing as TMI. Right? Yeah, for sure. And and you know, in this situation as well, like yeah, you're right, maybe you can't talk about a patent yet, you can't talk about your exact solution or or whatever, but what you can always talk about, I think, is the problem you're trying to solve and why it matters.

27:05 And that sort Yeah. of broader vision that you have ~ in the world and and you know always putting your communications through that truth test. Like if you say this is what I want to say and then kind of put that next truth lens on it and go, Well can I say this? Like if I was gonna say our technology is the best ever at Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. X, Y, and Z, unless you can absolutely with certainty back up that it is the best because you've got this many years of client feedback and these many awards. Do you know what I mean? You Yeah. can't actually say you're the best, right? So I think that's kind of a a a way to sort of find that middle ground.

27:49 Right. It's like what can you say with certainty and what can't you say? Because when you start saying things like the best, the greatest ever, you you know, the best pizza in town, that kind of thing. Right? Yeah. It's like if that's not true then you are degrading the trust. ~ Yeah. Well, and I think, you know, the like the other aspect too, especially when we talk about, you know, projects that center around oceans, right? 'Cause that's what that's what we deal with a lot. A lot of our clients are all our clients are are ocean focused. There's always that that line of like, okay, you're you're impacting the ocean in a positive way. And do you lead with that positive impact?

28:30 So say it's a pr let's just as an example, let's say it's a product. Right. So a product that people can buy that they can use, but it has ~ an environmental benefit or not a ~ negative aspect on the ocean, right? So say like a bar soap or something like that. You know, like if you sell certain like cleaning products that doesn't affect the ocean in a negative way, like many of them do. Do you focus on like I I I know a lot of I've I interviewed companies on how to protect the ocean where I'm like, Do you focus on the environment, like the the benefits of the environment, or do you focus on how good the product is. So like that goes again, beginning of the project, you start answering those questions from a commons perspective. ~ but like what's your advice on that when it comes to environmental like looking at the environmental benefit but also the the benefit of the product and service to that person or or people or or group of people.

29:27 yeah, so that's very much comes back to a target audience kind of question. Right? Right? Right. Yeah, true. True. Because at the end of the day, you know, who did you make that soap for? Mm-hmm. What's their problem and what do they care about? If their problem that you've established is that you know for certainty that your target demographic has problems buying soap because it's always impacting the ocean in a negative way. Well, then Mm-hmm. the pain point you're solving for them is that you've now created this ocean-friendly soap, right? Right. But if you know you're you're dealing with a group of people whose problem is that they just want a soap that smells like lavender and passion fruit, then Right, right.

30:15 the ocean part of it doesn't matter. That can be part of your internal mission, Yeah. That's just the e the bonus of it. right? Yeah, Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And that can still yeah. Right. be what your company's doing. So then you could f turn that around and say, Yeah, we make lavender passion fruit scented soap, which solves your problem. But hey, Yes. ocean funder, over here, our main message over here is that our Yes. soap is ocean friendly, right? But it's very much who you're talking to and understanding who you're talking to and knowing as well that everybody, every project is gonna have different target audiences, which sounds like it starts to get complicated, but Mm-hmm. when you just Think what's this particular communication about? Who's it for? It's amazing how much you can dial in this like complexity of well, we have 8,000 features and we're also environmentally friendly and also fully women-owned and fully Canadian.

31:06 Yeah. ~ It's like, you know, pick and choose who cares about each of those things, Right. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. right? Sure. Now you can have it all in your within your company or your project, but it doesn't mean you're telling specific people about it all the time and and that's just something you're That's right. proud and it goes within your values. Which actually brings me to ~ brings me to the like the next point I was gonna make is melding these two together. We talked initially about how st starting comms early, like at the beginning of the project, can really help you flesh through ideas, ~ flesh out ideas at the at the beginning and look at where you what direction you want to go, who you want to sell to, all those kind of things. And then the then we move to the the building the relationship part, the trust, the transparency, that loyalty is really great.

31:52 Your example just right now that you mentioned is looking at both. You have your internal feature of building out that project. So having that comms, looking at funding investor, ~ what who you're gonna target, all these kind of things. So you have that communication ready. And then while you're doing that, you're building that relationship with like with that transparency, right? And so you're building like externally, you're you're you're building a relationship, you're looking at credibility, you're you're you're communicating yourself about what you've been able to do or who you've hired or like and why it's important to the business or to the project that that's that's going forward. I really like those those two together, and that's why.

32:33 comms early dissolves those two, but you have to focus on those two. ~ you know, we've have we have some clients that that have done that, which is which is really great with with our help and and through our guidance and and things like that. Can you just we don't have to mention their name, but can you just talk about like, you know, one of the companies that we're working with that have kind of have approached it in that kind of way. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. One one really comes to mind and and you know, it's it's nice because you talk about relationships. Like one of the reasons Right. we have ~ been able to work with this client and help them build communications early on is because we've had that existing relationship with them because this is really the exception, rather the rule.

33:14 Usually we meet projects that are, you know, quite far down the line and we have to do a lot of that untangling. But in this case, yeah, we're very, very lucky to work with this ~ New ocean company and to get to be building communications right from the start. And that doesn't mean it's easy, right? Like I just want to caveat that. Like there's you know, communications is not just the fluffy, easy stuff that happens at the end. It's pretty deep thinking stuff. And so even when you start Mm-hmm. it at the beginning, you still have to put time into it. Yeah, for sure. But with this client having the opportunity to come in before this business is even launched and to say, okay, what do we want our brand to be?

33:58 How do we want to be known? To be because that's really what your brand is. It's not just your logo, it's actually like how you want to be known Yeah. in the world. So we are able to work with this company to kind of establish that. And then what's been really interesting is that we did that, and then six months later, things are changing in the business, right? Like it's it's new, there's new opportunities, things are changing, things are growing. So there are aspects of that original brand and communication strategy that we go, huh, you know, this isn't quite relevant. Let's update this, let's tweak that. Right, let's make these minor changes. And now what we're able to do is take that and turn it into this content kind of tactics strategy, which is again is sort of showing this different line between strategic kind of thinking and the communication sort of plan, and then the actual tactics, right?

34:47 Yeah. Yeah. But we are now able to build content strategy and tactics for this client based on this communication strategy that focuses on the right people, the right messages. Mm-hmm. Saying things they can verify so that they Mm-hmm. don't launch their company full of blue washing, green washing, whatever you want to call it. Mm-hmm. True, true. Right? But without that, without having that foundation, you run this risk of having like, okay, guys, we're gonna build a one-year content calendar and everybody just talks about everything and nothing at the same time to everyone and nobody, Yeah. True. True.

35:27 you know, and like you see that all. all the time, right? From companies Yeah. Yeah. Well whose social medias are just awash with meaningless content that doesn't Yeah. Well exactly. And and tie back to anything, right? and you know, something that comes to mind too with that client's like the the the strategy changes as the Mm-hmm. growth happens, right? And as the the maturation of the of the company or of the project continues. And so your your first six months is gonna be different than your next your second six months and or first quarter or second, like however you want to think, right? I I think you know when you but when you start early, you c you have that development, you have that you can s like people, your audience is watching you evolve and build over that time.

36:11 And then as this switches, I was like, okay, now they're in this phase. Okay, cool. Like I really want to see where they're going to go next. And they start to become even more loyal and more supportive as you go as you go through ~ that that step. So this is great. ~ one thing I want to do ~ for the audience ~ that are listening to this, because I assume there are going to be project leaders and the ocean project leaders and they want to see they want to hear What the one thing they can do really, you know, to really make sure that comms is first or really make sure their comms is locked down, what would that be, Natalie, that you would suggest? The one thing I would suggest is those four questions, you know, which which I mentioned a couple times, Yeah. Yep.

36:57 but I think it's great to wrap up on because if you can answer those four questions, you'll be light years ahead of a lot of the other projects out there, right? So it's very clearly articulating what you're doing, who you're doing it for, why you're doing it, and what the world will look like once you've done it. Right. And those four things will make a huge, huge difference. Yeah, I love that. Natalie, thank you so much. this has been wonderful to have these types of conversations. We're gonna continue to have these every other week ~ as we as we move along and evolve through our process of this podcast. ~ and we hope that we get to hear from you all soon. ~ but thank you, Natalie, for joining us.

37:37 Appreciate it. Thank you. Well, thank Natalie for joining us on the podcast. It's great to have you on always. ~ it's a lot of fun ~ to be able to talk communications. It's what we do. You know, Natalie and I talk about these things all the time during work. ~ and so we thought, you know what, let's record this because this is something that we we feel is important to discuss ~ on a regular basis when you are, you know, managing a project. We've seen it so many times where people release products or services and it just it just fizzles out because they haven't done the work to go through the process from the beginning. And it's important that all those ideas get flushed out. All those tangents that you can go down, those get ~ you know, basically you go through that process of elimination, you know, to make sure that you're going down the right tangent that you want to go down and make that the focus as you go through.

38:30 And doing that from the beginning will really help you save time, save money, same effort. and probably save your your mindfulness, you know, your mental health a lot of the times. It's stressful starting a d a any kind of project, whether it's a company, ~ a program for a nonprofit, or a new project, you know, with a network of academics or just within an the own academic institute. It's it's stressful. It's it's difficult. It's not an easy thing. The questions that we that Natalie proposes to ask They're not easy to go through. They take a long time to go through and to think about and to make sure that you they're refined and and those ideas are presented properly. And then building that relationship is is tough right off the bat, especially with the the age of social media, the age of everybody's got information on everybody.

39:15 ~ they building trust is a is a huge aspect of relationship building when you are a project or a company or a program. It's important that you build that relationship right from the get-go. and we we presented the reasons why here. Now, if you are listening to this podcast and you're like, man, I I'm that person, or ~ man, like, don't worry about it. It's not the end of the world. We're here to help. Pisces Oceans would like to work with you, especially if your project has a has a positive impact on the ocean. We want to work with you. the biggest step that you can take. is you go to our website, the link is in this is in the show notes, and you go to our website and you say, hey, I want to strengthen my project.

39:56 And you click that button, strengthen my project, and you go into the Wayfinder. And it'll help you determine what you need help with. It could be communications, could be project management, could be strategy for your project. We can help in all three of those areas. We'd love to help you in all three of those areas. So click the right buttons that are appropriate for you. We'll get a meeting going. We'll have a chat and we'll see where we can help you in the future. So go to that website in the show notes. You can just click on it and we will chat with you next time here on the Ocean Leader Podcast. Have a great day. I'm your host, Andrew Lewin. Have a great day. I hope you have a great week and we'll talk to you next time on the Ocean Leaders Podcast.