Hey. It’s been quite the run. You raised the capital to acquire the right businesses. You found efficiencies among them and supplied the resources to nurture their growth. Every company in your portfolio is in the top one or two in its market. You’ve racked up a bunch of strong quarters. You’re on best places to work lists, most respected companies lists, stocks to watch lists.

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And yet, like a multinational Rodney Dangerfield, you get no respect.

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Investors love the portfolio but aren’t quite sure what value you add to it. The businesses view themselves, rightly, as the revenue generators. They view you, wrongly, as merely a bureaucratic cost center. The talent market knows your brands, but can’t quite recall your name. Try as you might, you find it hard to articulate your role. 

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You’re not going to start buying Super Bowl ads to tell the world who you are. (Apart from proving the “cost center” accusation it would make no strategic sense.) You’re already having regular conversations with investors. Attempts to rally employees are viewed as a distraction.

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It would be extreme—and likely damaging—to re-brand the pieces of your portfolio in your own image. No one wants to buy Procter & Gamble toothpaste when they could buy Crest. Even in B2B spaces, slapping a little-known corporate name on a newly acquired niche-but-beloved business can create confusion and put loyalty at risk. 

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Establishing a strong corporate brand can make sense in the wake of a major event (see: RTX resulting from Ratheon’s merger with United Technologies and its portfolio of brands, for example). But even then it takes a great deal of discipline, political capital, investment and fortitude. Absent such an event, it’s a hard case to make. 

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But doing nothing isn’t an option. Beyond the Dangerfieldian matter of respect, there’s a business imperative at play. Your growth plans will require more investment—not to mention your responsibility to deliver on the billions of dollars in market cap you’ve already been trusted with. You need to attract top talent, and demonstrate value to the top talent that’s already in the door. 

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And all those valuable brands you’ve built? They’re more valuable under your roof, together, where innovation and efficiency can happen at scale.  

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Sometimes it just comes down to telling the story better. You know your strategy, but the businesses don’t fully comprehend how it helps their cause. Investors get the gist, but need the tidbits that make it tangible. Employees can find inspiration in being part of a bigger whole, so long as that whole is inspiring. 

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Our messaging toolkit, as the name implies, arms communicators—and HR, IR and business leads—with what they need to tell your story. It also gives them reason to do so. Done right, it becomes a perpetual cycle in which those stakeholders help you add tools to the kit, helping to hone not only your communications, but the strategy itself. 

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We approach such work through a deliberate process in which we ensure that those who will carry the message hear their own voice in it. Participation in the creation of a thing is the surest way to garner support for it.

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Our process also calls bullshit when it has to. A message that’s not valid, relevant, and resonant for the audiences is either self-serving or distracting. Or both. We promise candor in these engagements.

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Finally, continuous stewardship is critical. Making sure people know how to use the tools via training—and then fostering ongoing, open dialog is the key to creating that perpetual cycle. It’s not a one-and-done email or a set of guidelines. It’s an ongoing conversation that leads to, among other things, respect. 

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Indelibly yours,

Mike, Matt, Jeff and Thom