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A Real Question From Reddit
I came across a post in r/DigitalMarketing from someone feeling drained in a new marketing job.
Their boss kept rejecting their work. They spent hours searching for photos, planning content, and editing videos, with little direction and no explanation of what wasn't working.
They were starting to question whether they were cut out for the job.
At a conference last week, I heard something similar.
Conversation after conversation, talented internal communicators admitted they avoid asking follow-up questions. Not to their VP. Not to the stakeholder dropping another request on their desk.
They don't want to look inexperienced.
Babe. We're communicators, not mind readers.
What I Would Do If I Were You
First, I wouldn't produce a single thing.
I'd schedule 30 minutes with the stakeholder and build a communications brief together.
Not email them a form to complete. Sit down and work through it.
A brief is a simple agreement on what you're creating, who it's for, why it matters, and what success looks like.
It establishes direction before you've invested hours in the work and gives you something to reference when expectations change.
Eight Things to Include in Your Communications Brief
Goal: What business outcome are we trying to achieve?
Audience: Who are we trying to reach?
Key message: What should they understand, feel, or do?
Deliverables: What are we creating, and where will it appear?
Creative direction: What does good look like? Bring examples.
Resources: What assets, tools, or constraints exist?
Timeline: When is it needed, and who approves it?
Measurement: How will we know it worked?
What Happens When You Skip This Step?
Hours of creating, editing, and redoing work that was never clearly defined.
Multiple revisions because someone wanted retire instead of sunset.
A beautiful deliverable that completely misses the business objective.
Sound familiar?
Thirty minutes of alignment can save hours of guesswork.
And here's the bigger benefit: you're no longer just taking a request. You're helping establish the direction.
That's what strategic partners do.
Build Your Own Lane
Stop waiting for someone to give you direction. Start creating the conversation that gets you there.
Don't expect stakeholders to arrive with perfect answers.
Bring examples. Let them swipe right or left. Ask follow-up questions. Build the brief together.
Your job isn't just to make the thing. It's to help determine what the thing needs to accomplish.
That's how you move from order-taker to strategic partner. Not by announcing you're strategic, but by changing how you work.
Keeping It Real With You
You can have the experience, the tools, and the strategy.
But knowing what to do and having the confidence to do it are two different things.
If you're afraid to ask clarifying questions, we need to work on your confidence before your strategy.
There. I said the quiet part out loud.
Ask first. Create second.
Try it with your next request. And email me back. I want to hear how it went.
Poll
What happens when you ask for clarity before starting a project?
What I Would Do If I Were You is a weekly newsletter on leading internal comms with audacity and strategy.
One real workplace challenge. One practical approach. Every Tuesday.