Incite into how to gain success with good Comms, and also examples of how to make remote more engaging
Podcast Show Notes
Dale Parmenter how to excel at Comms for Manufacturing with DRP Group
Dale Parmenter Founder & group CEO of DRP Group has been in the presentation and communication industry for over 40 years. He left school with one goal: to run his own business.
Today DRPG is recognised as one of the leading presentation and communication companies in the UK. The DRPG team comprises of over 300 specialists across global locations. The company works globally offering a range of communication solutions, from creative development, video, live events, digital, design, exhibition and print.
Dale is actively involved with key corporate clients, he works at a senior level assisting in the development of communication strategies and creating presentation vehicles. Clients find his wealth of experience and knowledge invaluable in creating solutions that are bespoke to an organisation and are effective.
Passionate about nurturing new talent and putting his people first. DRPG has appeared in the Sunday Times best 100 companies to work for list and has been awarded the Investors in People Gold standard for the 10th year running.
Learn from the Cliff Notes on Successful Communication Strategy
- Find the right channel to communicate with
- What is the message you want to communicate
- UK is quite advance Comms market VS Rest of the World
- If in person, you would need to go to 3 or four sites and hire a venue or on video or satellite, very expensive. We ran one for 4000 on site.
- Q: Email alone is a dreadful tool, if you want to excite people across the business?
- Getting feedback from shop floor from people
- Review the quality of questions and feedback to see engagement
- Set benchmarks before, what was the change we were looking for
- Use tools to monitor each level and then on sales, staff retention, engagement
- Biggest thing we ask our clients, is "what are you trying to achieve here"
- I find it strange you would not spend 1/2 mill on a piece of machinery without monitoring, but some companies are happy with just the feeling Comms worked even if they spend a lot on it.
This episode of Cliff Notes Podcast: Lead manufacturing, Host Tristan Bailey talks to Dale for the Cliff Notes podcast. Dale is the CEO of DRP Group on the role of Comms internal and external being the energy and conduit to better team work, measuring everyone pulling in the same direction.
He shared some of his experience of leadership and the changing market. Growing a company from film and hand editing to much more rich and digital toolkit.
Resources
- Contact Dale at DRP Group Website
- Tweet with him @ParmenterDale
- And I always like when you talk to us @cliffnotespod
Transcript Highlights
- Running a creative Comms agency, as well as production agency, for video, print everything
- Started back in 70s, with passion for film
- Wanted to make corp films - it was so expensive
- Betacam and film getting more portable, the digital of the day
- The other channels grew as we did events. Then someone asked if we could put on a conference
- Find the right channel to communicate with
- What is the message you want to communicate
- Full service agency across multi channel
- Passionate about Comms, and everything starts form Comms
- A lot in mfg, automotive, retail, we have a very broad diversity
- different sectors have different challenges
- We have now 7 sites, to be closer to clients
- Open in usa, germany, ireland, see great opportunity
- UK is quite advance Comms market, vs rest world
- Now work with overseas companies
- We are seen as a center of excellence and replicating it across the world
- We are technology driven
- Can do this all across the world with new tech, comm with mfg or retail
- Push out around the world the same message
- A town hall meeting for a global org, we have done many.
- If in person, you would need to go to 3 or four sites and hire a venue or on video or satellite, very expensive
- We ran one, for 4000 on site.
- Even down to 1 person in HK can have an experience
- For a food company, another could do a tasting
- Possibilities have been opened up so we can be interesting and engaging
- we ask clients what they want achieve
- One of my first clients, saw power of video - 3k employ
- Every month he would com with his people to make diff
- The new MD cancelled it, "I tell people what to do", followed soon after their first strike in 100years, now it is a 20 people niche biz
- Q: Is that because of the lack of Comms across that business?
- Someone told me: our idea of Comms is we email the staff once a week
- Where is the face to face, or the passion, or look the ceo in the eye
- Email is a dreadful tool, if you want to excite people across the business.
- Getting feedback from shop floor from people
- other suite of tools for senior team
- It is all without the cost, when being told, I cant afford this, that is too expensive.
- Q: Coming back to cost?
- Traditional dealers would need to all travel vs we ran a 8am Top Gear style show broadcast
- Review the quality of questions and feedback to see engagement
- Set benchmarks before, and what was the change we were looking for
- use tools to monitor at levels, and then to sales, staff retention, engagement
- Biggest thing we ask our clients, is what are you trying to achieve here
- And what do you want the people to differently after - otherwise what is the point
- I'm interested what did that sales person performance look like after that piece of Comms
- The data we need might sit in another department
- I find it strange you would not spend 1/2 mill on a piece of machinery without monitoring, but some companies are happy with just the feeling Comms worked even if they spend a lot on it.
- We need to involve multiple departments
- We work more and more on retainer 3,5,10 years
- For some long term we may even have someone in their office part of their team
- We understand the culture and fully understand the business
- We can see from the outside and the inside, with our close partnerships with clients.
- Have a whole division working on trade shows
- Face to face is the most powerful form of communication
- It is an exciting time, with the bigger toolbox to use
- I am really proud of what we achieve for our clients
- Mainly we work with Corporate clients
- We run an education piece called GRP Talks
#comms #pr #mfg
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