How to Master Executive Comms: Lessons from Facebook, Instacart, and Google

👋 Hi, it’s Naiomi and Erik and welcome to Demand our weekly newsletter to help you become a top 1% marketer. Welcome to the 163 new Demand subscribers who have joined us in the last week. 🎉

BTW, check our consulting service if your company needs support with fractional marketing. And if you’re looking for 1:1 coaching or advice on GTM, team building & recruiting or interview prep, please reach out.

If you can’t master executive comms, you can’t become a world class marketer. 

It doesn’t need to be your strongest asset, but you must become good at it in order to move forward in your career. Many years ago when I was a teaching assistant for Power and Negotiations at MIT, I gained an even deeper understanding of the importance of communicating effectively in order to get an outcome you desire. And this ability is useful across every facet of life, not only professional. In your career, your ability to communicate up, down and across the org chart in a manner which is effective will pay dividends for your career. 

In most of my past roles I’ve often found myself pulled into communicating with the executive team — CEO, COO, CMO, CPO. Whether it’s projects I’m leading (expected), projects I’m a key stakeholder to and  the team enlists me me to drive executive comms (flattered), or it’s my boss or skip level boss (flattered and a bit annoyed) who have asked me to communicate progress or outcomes to CxOs. I have often found myself being the one selected to lead and craft executive comms. It may sound like a humblebrag, but I think it's a skill that comes natural to me and one I’m fairly good at and I want to share with you some of what I’ve learned so you can leverage them to become a better communicator. 

Today I will share my playbook for effectively communicating with executives on your team and at your organization. I break these into three buckets: general principles, written communication, and executive presentations.