Dear Communications Public Relations Brand Strategy practitioner, using Ideal Client Avatars (ICAs) makes your work easier to ignore.
Tell me something I don't know. Like what to do about it
Tell me something I don't know. Like what to do about it
Tell me something I don't know. Like what to do about it
I hate to be the bearer of bad news but…
there’s a reason business as usual continues to have the usual problems.
Namely? The very foundation of your strategic insight development process is suspicious as heck. And if any of the clients or brands you manage are by or for people from underrecognized communities, relying on ideal client avatars/personas (ICAs) actively contributes to their erasure. So let’s…not. Let’s decide that our approaches can and will be engineered by equity and activated by science.
“Chloé is one of the most important thought leaders to emerge in branding, and her methods and IP are innovative and effective.”
-Pamela Slim
Enter The Frame Your Intel (FYI) Certification Lab
(Level 1 of the Visibility Engineering™ Certification)
In this LIVE half day certification workshop, you’re going to discover how to generate the kind of insight you need to actually change human behavior, equitably. And that equitable insight will be relevant no matter the context (that’s right. In pandemics and recessions too). You’ll leave certified in my proprietary stakeholder analysis methods. And we’ll do all that in a half day workshop. You’re so welcome.
The world feels more polarized.
As if there are frightening echo chambers just ready to explode like volatile powder kegs onto the rest of society.
Guess what?
Demographic and psychographic segmentation are to blame.
They’re meant to create echo chambers.
Because those echo chambers are easier to manipulate, change the collective behaviors of and extract resources from. Why? Because echo chambers engineered by demographic and psychographic characteristics lack diversity of thought and experience by design. And those countervailing forces are what temper the development of completely alternative realities.
Unfortunately, our ad men ancestors were lazy. Correction: they were the wrong kind of lazy. They chose this dark behavioral engineering technique because it was easier for them, not because it was more effective or even because it was the easiest approach objectively.
You on the other hand are not just a smart practitioner, in the know about the bleeding edge of your field. You’re a smart, in the know practitioner who cares about the impact your work has on the world. And all things being equal, you’d like to make the world a better place through your work. ICAs are neither smart, nor are they making the world a better place.
They are actively making it worse.
And I’m willing to bet that if you’re still reading this, that’s something you want no part in.
A quick primer:
If you want to develop brands that are impossible to ignore, you need 3 things:
Precise Positioning = more of the right people connecting with what you’re doing
Potent Branding = more of the right people noticing what you’re doing
Powerful Credibility = more of the right people commiting to what you’re doing
Those 3 outcomes can only happen when we:
Articulate Advantage
Formulate Chemistry
Generate Influence
And when we have intended audiences that aren’t connecting, noticing or committing to our clients and their work we have…well, what we’re seeing happen in the industry now: folks doing all the “right things” while struggling to be seen, heard and or understood well enough to generate buy in from their audiences.
Where does the The FYI Certification Lab fit?
You will be learning critical fundamentals of the Visibility Engineering™ Methodology— in fact this lab is Level 1 of the Visibility Engineering™ Certification. The tools, techniques and approaches of the stakeholder analysis process you will learn, including the Stakeholder Spectrum and its Relationship Portfolios fall squarely within the Articulate Advantage camp.
I have watched the stakeholder analysis process I developed literally change the face of geopolitics.
Among other things, this process borrows from my background in international mediation and conflict resolution–where the stakes for understanding our stakeholders are insanely high.
As in, this analysis could end a civil war high.
When my peers and I prepped to design outcomes (literally designing behavior change)–whether that was:
designing a 600% increase in relevant stakeholders paying attention to the first refugee delegation to the UN
gathering the next important bit of intel surrounding an unaddressed genocide or
diversifying who got to sit at the negotiating tables of ongoing peace processes in civil wars–
we didn’t really bother with the ages and product preferences/habits of the parties we were working with. We looked at their positions, their context and their motivations.
This works.
And not just in geopolitics. This delivers in everything from negotiating responsibility for dirty dishes to preserving business in uncertain times.
Right…and who am I exactly?
Oh, hey there!
N. Chloé Nwangwu, the brand scientist, is a speaker, behavioral strategist, and brand visibility expert. A former international conflict mediator, she is now the founder of NobiWorks, a brand visibility consultancy where she partners with underrecognized brands, leveraging science to ensure they are impossible to ignore. Her clients have included a number of boutique firms, the High Ambition Coalition, and the first refugee delegation to the UN.
These clients have gone on to be better seen, heard, respected and resourced. That’s looked like celebrity endorsements, seats at previously inaccessible tables and hundreds of thousands of dollars.
N. Chloé lives in the US, where she wrestles with an addiction to D&D and tends to her giant baby Yoda plushie.
This is for Communications specialists, PR experts, strategists, researchers and coaches.
You might be a consultant and you might direct an entire department.
Here’s what that might look like:
An in depth Stakeholder Analysis–one that every organization, business or brand you might come into contact with will need to leverage as soon as possible
Due diligence stakeholder check ins every time a big decision is about to be made or a new campaign is being constructed—e.g. a new product launch, shipping a new product feature, repositioning a service or end of year drives.
Refinement (which often looks like applying the right filter) any time there is a major shift in the environment or context—e.g. pandemics and global economic havoc.
What that often translates to is:
Companies in crisis seeking YOU out as the expert who can help. Translation: People, companies and brands excited to invest in and implement your ideas.
Companies looking to shift/expand audiences wanting your insight. Translation: Scaling and shifting can be both risky and rewarding. You’re now positioned to concretely contribute to minimizing the former and maximizing the latter.
Companies looking to build an equitable infrastructure so they can avoid problematic campaigns, greenwashing and other equity offenses pulling you into their strategic planning. Translation: All things being equal, most folks will pick the option without equity offenses. You get to give these audiences another reason to pick your clients and to protect their Equity Brands from genuine mistakes.
If you’re a boutique firm or solo practice, here are some ways you might incorporate this into your business:
Consulting packages—e.g. creating a whole new package around the Frame your Intel process
Add on to current packages—e.g. adding this as a valuable bonus to your current offerings as a solo operator, firm or department
A whole new set of offers—e.g. think new modalities you haven’t tried before, like digital products, evergreen workshops, etc.
“Details now please?”
I thought you’d never ask :)
This is an invitation for strategic communication, PR and strategy practitioners, business coaches and analysts. Folks and teams who want to be on the cutting edge and to do a good job. But who also want to do good with their job.
1) Orientation: All certification resources will be handed over, including extra reading if wanted, a selection of prerecorded background details on underrecognition, and access to the Visibility Hotline
2) The Sessions: You’ll have me and my brain all to yourself and a group of your wildly interesting peers. These will be supportive, strategically structured virtual sessions.
Session 1:
Basic training--motivation. What is it and why do we want it?
The Stakeholder Spectrum
Analysis and the Relationship Portfolios
Session 2:
Point of View (POV) Filters what they are and how to apply them
- The Market Lens- Leverage behavioral science to assess what facet of your work, brand or product will matter most to each stakeholder no matter the context (yes, that includes recessions and pandemics).
- The Eyeroll Threshold- How to remain one step ahead of "market saturation"
- The Resource Breakdown- Understanding the 3 most important resources a stakeholder can have and how much of each they do, so you are better equipped to engage them where they're at.
- The Investment Index- A breakdown of the kinds of investments each of your stakeholders are making with their resources and why.
- Stakeholder Engagement Matrix- A simple but effective analysis of behavior change needs. What do we need from our stakeholders and how far do we truly need them to move in order to reach our goals?
- Motivational Grading- Assessing how ready a stakeholder is for change and what elements are responsible for that state of readiness.
Why ICA are not enough, especially for underrecognized people, causes and brands, and a viable effective alternative (Stakeholder Spectrums and Relationship Portfolios)
How to find your hidden stakeholders by mapping out a Stakeholder Spectrum and which positions are most important to include
The 6 Point of View (POV) Filters needed to build a motivational profile for each stakeholder on a Stakeholder Spectrum and how to extrapolate a relationship portfolio from that.
The pitfalls of ICA thinking and how a Stakeholder framework fills those gaps
How to choose the Stakeholder Spectra that make the most sense for your goals and projects–including training with a set of available options and the tools necessary to develop your own spectra.
How to leverage the insights from our Relationship Portfolios into compelling communications, messaging, websites, campaigns
How to leverage Relationship Portfolios in business or brand decisions while building towards becoming impossible to ignore.
"She's a premier thought leader in brand. I don't know anyone else doing what she's doing."
-LeighAnn Heil, Sales strategist and messaging specialist
“Chloé’s work is exceptional. Hers is the only strategy system I’d wholeheartedly recommend to my clients.”
- Hunter Niland Welling, Business Development Strategist
“The best part? Chloé really breaks down communication into its science-y parts but brings it together in a cohesive manner...I’ve locked in an estimated $30K of new business due to the narratives we outlined since our session a few weeks ago.”
So what exactly does it mean to be FYI Certified?
Already asking the important questions! We’re going to get along wonderfully
As we go through this workshop, you'll be given access to templates, worksheets, and other resources that you can use with your own clients. This is a practicum, so you will leave equipped to apply these methods in your own work.
You'll also receive an actual certificate confirming your credentials and authorizing your use of Stakeholder Spectrums and all their constituent parts—including the relationship portfolios and Point of View (POV) Filters.
Your accreditation packet also includes an icon that you can add to your website.
Here’s a question you might be asking:
How many people are familiar with or certified in this process?
I've personally developed and used this process for the better part of a decade. However, this is the first time I've opened these methods up to the public as a certification. You will be among the first in the world to be certified in these incredibly high demand skills.
Ideal Client Avatars (ICAs)/Personas are like panic skimming through a book you never read just before an exam.
My approach is like the neatly formatted sparknotes that a friendly neighborhood PhD student gifted you the week before. Except in this case, the PhD student is also going to teach you how to make the sparknotes yourself
Let’s start upping that visibility ROI
Why ICA are not enough, especially for underrecognized people, causes and brands, and a viable effective alternative (Stakeholder Spectrums and Relationship Portfolios)
How to find your hidden stakeholders by mapping out a Stakeholder Spectrum and which positions are most important to include
The 6 Point of View (POV) Filters needed to build a motivational profile for each stakeholder on a Stakeholder Spectrum and how to extrapolate a relationship portfolio from that.
The pitfalls of ICA thinking and how a Stakeholder framework fills those gaps
How to choose the Stakeholder Spectra that make the most sense for your goals and projects–including training with a set of available options and the tools necessary to develop your own spectra.
How to leverage the insights from our Relationship Portfolios into compelling communications, messaging, websites, campaigns
How to leverage Relationship Portfolios in business or brand decisions while building towards becoming impossible to ignore.
- A Half Day Workshop
- Stakeholder Spectrum and Relationship Portfolio dashboards and Templates
- Prerecorded orientation materials on the science and reasoning behind these methods
- Recordings and Transcripts of the sessions
- An actual certificate to make it official
- Bonus: Extra resources on Developing a qualitative research program on a budget
- Bonus: Access to the Visibilty Hotline for 1 month
You’ve got questions? I’ve got answers
How do I know if I'm ready for this?
If you already know enough about Ideal Client Avatars to be frustrated by them, then you’re ready. Double yes if you feel like you used to know what worked and you’d like to prevent the current climate from making everything frustratingly opaque again.
What if I can't make it live to one of the sessions?
Don’t worry. You’ll be getting recordings of all of the sessions, so you can refer to them. Better yet, you’ll have access to the Visibility Hotline for a month. So if you have questions, you’ll be able to hear from me directly.
And what exactly is the Visibility Hotline? a.k.a What if I have questions after the certification workshop?
The Visibility Hotline offers you unlimited asynchronous access to me. You’ll actually se an example of it below! You’ll be invited to ask me your questions (via video, audio or text) and I or a member of my team will respond directly to you.
Can I bring a business partner, assistant or other team member to this?
Certainly! You’ll want to make sure to get a seat for them as well.
What are my payment options?
You can pay with credit and debit. If these options don’t work for you, reach out to me directly (see options below) and we can talk. I want you to be able to join this program—if a different payment method will ease that pathway for you, I want to know.
Is there a payment plan?
Typically not, but NobiWorks is in the business of Recognition Equity, so we absolutely make exceptions to this on a case by case basis. Feel free to reach out and see if you qualify (options for reaching out are down below)
How are the sessions happening?
The sessions will be happening over Zoom.
What if I really want this, but I'd like to work privately with you or have you train my team privately?
This certification workshop is the most affordable way to get access to me and this information, especially if your budget's a little tight. But I do offer this as a one-on-one intensive and as a private training. Book a call with me and we chat about it.
Do you have a guarantee?
Yes, of course! My promise to you is this: when you invest in this and show up fully, you're going to walk away with absolute clarity on how to frame your intel so it’s actually useful. And if we get through the certification and you don't feel like you're there yet (and you get no further clarity through the visibility hotline), we'll book a one-on-one session and make sure you get there.
I've got more questions...
We love nerds! Feel free to start a quick coversation with our director below. We’ll get back to you within 1 business day*.
*If the director is on microsabbatical, or the team is off, we’ll make sure you know when you can expect a response by.