Hooked on Leadership Storytelling - Issue 6

Stop wasting the powerful stories yet to be told inside the heads of your leaders

We’re going all in on guerilla marketing tactics this week, encouraging founders to unlock this powerful, secret weapon every startup has. A lever that costs absolutely nothing to pull yet boosts talent awareness, drives engagement, and retains top talent. Look around you...

What’s Going On?
Founders: Why did you hire the leaders on your team? What was the attraction? Great leaders have so much more to offer than just the thing you hired them to do. They are industry experts who have learned through failure and success. This wisdom is invaluable. A common misconception is that there’s already enough content to go around; that we couldn’t possibly have something important enough to write about. While there’s a lot out there, it’s all about individual perspective. And your leaders are perfectly positioned to share theirs. These perspectives can be amplified multiple times and ways, across different channels, building your startup momentum and drawing attention in the process.

Why It Matters
Skeptics beware. Ask any startup sales leader who lacks a marketing counterpart or budget about the significance of building brand. Without hype, sales can feel like pushing a boulder up a mountain. The same is true about talent brand. Candidates have a buffet of choices. Just like any buyer persona, talent is on a journey of “happy, listening, and looking.” It’s critical to consistently serve up content before talent reaches the looking stage or it’s too late. The more your leaders are creating buzz, voicing their own insights and perspectives about what, why, and how, the better the chances of reaching and engaging these people early. But talent branding isn’t only a recruiting benefit. Story sharing builds pride and purpose amongst your team, creating a flywheel that reinforces values, culture, and learnings. When people feel pride and purpose, they stay. Not surprising, product awareness is a byproduct of talent brand. Something that the sales leader mentioned above, will really appreciate.

What Others Think

”People will do amazing things when they are motivated by a sense of shared purpose. Telling personal stories and experiences helps pair the 'what' you are doing with the 'why' you are doing it. Just this week, I was recruiting a new team member and shared my personal journey from big tech to startups. Multiple stories from different perspectives across our team gives us a better chance of resonating with the talent pools we want to attract. At Statsig we have several advocates across our team who are given platforms to tell their stories. Beyond that, we leverage in-person and virtual events, podcasts, our own blog, and social channels to increase reach.” - Esther Sedgwick, Head of Marketing, Statsig

What We Think
Talent branding is misunderstood. It’s often seen as HR’s job or something that should be created in a department. We disagree. We think talent branding is everyone’s job and isn’t a process or program, rather a story to share with the world. As a startup, you should take every opportunity to tell your story to anyone who will hear it. The value your leaders bring to your startup should be multidimensional. Think bigger. Each one is critical in creating buzz and momentum. Find ways to tap into them and experiment with what works. It doesn’t have to be perfect; it just needs to be consistent.

What do YOU think?

Take Action

• Founders: If you haven’t already, write and publish your Founder Story. Your startup journey is the only one like it.

• Have every leader you hire write a blog post about their journey to YES as part of their onboarding experience. Leaders set the tone here for other teammates to carry the momentum forward.

• Create a blog section on your website to publish these stories, learnings, and team-level experiences.

• Branding is more powerful when elevated by others. Celebrate content contributions through full-team engagement: Comment, Like, and Share!

• Encourage leaders to take up passion projects which build and foster community around the problem space you are trying to solve.

• Leaders: Seek speaking engagements to build personal brand and credibility.

Events, Tools, Insights
More talent branding insights and tools → Madrona Talent Branding Playbook
Madrona Insights → Who’s Making the Elephant Dance
Hey! Entrepreneurs —> Take the Leap!
Insights —> Can you startup?