This episode runs 33 min.

David Lecours and Josh Miles discuss the importance of Core Values as a marketing tool.

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Mentioned in This Episode 137: Core Values as a Marketing Tool

Why Core Values as a Marketing tool
Core values are the foundation of our culture
Clients and talent select your firm for it’s culture
Culture = shared beliefs and behaviors of your firm
Core values must be codified
Do your firm’s core values have to be different from your competitor’s?
How to improve your core values
What’s the best quantity of core values?
How often should you revisit your core values?
Write core values with a verb to inspire action
Don’t include baseline values like integrity and quality
Write your core values to surprise and delight. See Atlassian example.
Create a core values manifestation
Share your core values internally and externally
Use core values to measure employees in performance reviews
Use core values to measure prospects in Go/No Go decision making
Try peer-to-peer recognition to reinforce core values. For example, bonus.ly

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Announcer: Welcome to PSM, the Professional Services Marketing podcast. It’s insight applied.

Josh Miles: David, you know what I value?

David Lecours: What’s that Josh?

Josh Miles: I value values, and I especially want to talk about Core Values as a marketing tool. What do you think?

David Lecours: Yeah, I value my core. I need to work on my core. That’s why I go to yoga and do some sit ups. But yeah, let’s talk about Core Values. I think it’s something that’s not often considered as a marketing tool, but it should be, so that’s our topic today.

Josh Miles: And before we jump into that, let’s talk about our title sponsor. We’re very fortunate to be underwritten by SMPS, whose vision is ‘Business transformed through marketing leadership.’ Check out smps.org to learn more.

Announcer: This is PSM. It’s insight applied.

Josh Miles: Okay, so we’re talking about Core Values today, David, as we have already enjoyed. We’re not talking about your physical core. We’re not talking about your personal values. We’re really talking about firm values, and how this can be used as a marketing tool.

David Lecours: Yeah. Yeah I think it-

Josh Miles: So tell me more about what you’re thinking here?

David Lecours: Sure. So I have to confess, part of why I’m thinking about it is because I have some clients that are asking us to help them with that as a service, both in developing their Core Values, but also wordsmithing and then eventually manifesting those, and we’ll talk about all those things later. But the reason I think Core Values are so important and kind of hot right now, is I really see them as the foundation of a firm’s culture. And I believe that both clients and talent select a firm based on culture. It’s not the only thing they select your firm on, but it is a very important thing. And Josh, I know you and I have talked about in the past how we’ve got this war on talent right now. And so how do you think culture plays into that, or does it?

Josh Miles: Well, I think it’s definitely different in different size firms, but especially firms that are very culture driven are going to hire consultants, or they’re going to hire firms to partner with, who fit their culture as well. So I think what we’re seeing is, especially Gen X or millennial influenced, if not led, firms. This has become, not just a trend, but I think it’s just a difference in how these generations deal with things. And I think it’s certainly influencing where are young talent in particular want to go work. They want to know that there’s a good culture match there.

David Lecours: No, absolutely. And I guess culture’s this word that we through around a lot. So I’m just going to throw a definition out, it’s not the only definition, but at least it will be the definition we’re going to sort of focus on for this episode. And so when I think of culture, I usually define it as the shared beliefs and behaviors of your firm. And what that does is allows everybody to know, “this is the expected way we think about things, a way we do things, the way that we’re going to behave in order to get to our vision, or get to whatever desired destination we want to go in.” And it allows people to kind of row together, and be on the same page, and start to get known for that, start to develop a reputation or a following for embracing particular behaviors and beliefs.

David Lecours: And I think it should be, of course, flexible enough that allows people to be individuals. We’re not asking everybody to wear a corporate uniform, and march to work, and be these automated robots. But I think what we are saying is, “Hey, this is what we believe in here, and we’re going to tell you that from the beginning,” and maybe self-select, right? So if you’re a prospective client, or a prospective employee, and you don’t really believe in the same things, then this probably isn’t a great fit for you. There’s, I’m sure, another firm out there that has an alignment with your beliefs, but I think it’s important to put that out there. Otherwise, how do people know?

Josh Miles: Well, I think you’ve kind of hit on something, which is these Core Values can really serve as a filter.

David Lecours: Yeah.

Josh Miles: And that’s for internal talent, it’s for internal leadership, and it’s certainly for external clients, which really become … As we’ve talked about positioning a lot in the past, it really helps shape your point of view. So when you say something like, “Our firm is different, because our people make us different,” well, that’s a horrible positioning statement, not because it’s untrue, but because it’s what everyone else is saying. And I think when you can really get your culture nailed down, and it’s something that you can express and share, that’s a way to say that differently, which is, “What our people believe is what makes us different.” And I think that’s a spin on that generic positioning that actually holds some water.

David Lecours: Yeah, absolutely, and there’s going to be a lot of beliefs. And a lot of times I’ve heard some firm leadership push back and like, “Really, why do we have to do this exercise? Everybody kind of knows what we should be doing.” And usually my eyebrow goes up at that point. I was like, “Really, because if we did a survey of employees and asked what are the top three priorities, or what is the unifying thread that makes this firm special, I would probably get, if it’s a 50-person firm, 50 different answers.” So it’s really … These Core Values must be codified in some way. They must be written down, and be available for people to refer back to. Otherwise, if becomes sort of like a game of telephone where everybody interprets what they may of or may not have heard prior, and passes them on, and distorts them. And so by the time they get to end three years later, they’re totally different from what the intention was in the beginning.

Josh Miles: I think it’s helpful too when you’ve got these things literally on paper, or they’re on a poster, or they’re on the wall in your office, it’s easy to go about your business and forget what you all agreed on. But having that there is a reminder to go, “Oh yeah, that’s kind of a thing,” or to talk about them as you’re making business decisions, “When we talk about our value of being open, then that’s why this seemed like the right decision, and that’s what we’re sharing with you all.” And just making it part of that internal language, I think is better than doing this as an exercise in strategic planning, and then never talking about it again.

David Lecours: Right. You used the word filter before, and I think that’s really good. So not only should prospective employees go through your firm’s Core Values and filter themselves, but you should also use the Core Values to filter that prospective employee. But that’s not all, you should also be using these Core Values as filters in your go, no go, decision making, right? So if a prospective client has radically different values than your firm, it’s a recipe for project disaster, right? So if you’re not valuing similar things, then man, find that out early, right? Find that out during the dating period, where you’re getting to know each other before you marry and it becomes an expensive and painful divorce.

Josh Miles: Good tips. Good tips.

David Lecours: Yes.

Josh Miles: So where do we start if our firm is thinking about how to improve their Core Values?

David Lecours: Yeah.

Josh Miles: Or maybe they haven’t dusted these off recently, and reconsidered with current leadership if this still resonates. Where would you start?

David Lecours: Totally. I’ll answer that in one second. I just want to also clarify why I think in most cases your Core Values are not so great. Or what I’ve found is most firms don’t do a great job of this, and then we’ll talk about how to solve it. So often times it becomes the last agenda item at a strategic planning retreat, and everybody kind of wants to go home, and you’ve got an hour, and you’re like, “We’ve got to get Core Values done. We have it on our agenda.” And so it gets banged out. It gets very generic, and so a lot of times it’ll be just very expected things like, “We embrace quality.” Really? If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have a job. The other one that drives me a little bananas is this word integrity. You know, “We’re going to use integrity whenever we can.” Okay, whenever you can? The other side of that is like, “Oh really, when would you not have integrity?” Right? You’re going to lie? And so I guess if it’s totally expected, and minimum baseline for being a human being that works, please don’t include it as your Core Values.

David Lecours: That’s one aspect. The other part is they don’t get written up real well. They sound sort of generic. They start to go to another bunch of firms for inspiration, and they kind of do a mashup, and it becomes very generic, and they’re not inspiring. Then, they don’t get distributed, and I’m a firm believer in the importance of something is very reflective in how you deliver it. So let’s say you spent the last hour of your retreat on these Core Values, and then they get sent out in an email on Monday to all the employees and they say, “Yeah, these are our Core Values. Please comply,” and so that has no inherent value. People don’t like email, and they’re just going to go away, and they’re never going to be remembered.

David Lecours: So those are the issues. Now you asked, how can they be improved? One is, I think you should … because your firm probably already has Core Values, but I do think they can be improved. And I think you need to revisit them, maybe every five years, or maybe every time you do a strategic plan. So whether that’s three years or five years, you should really take a hard look at your Core Values, and determine is it something that is a little bit unexpected, right? So it goes beyond quality and integrity. And can the writing of it be improved and be a little bit more memorable and creative, and so forth? Anyway, I talked for a bunch. Any thoughts on what I’ve said?

Josh Miles: Well, I think one of the things that I was alluding to about the dusting them off is having a regular pace at which you revisit them, or some milestones, like every time we bring on a new principal. And for some firms that’s every year, so maybe it’s an annual thing, just to revisit and reinvestigate what we think we meant by that and unpack.

David Lecours: Yeah that’s-

Josh Miles: Do we see this alive in our firm?

David Lecours: That is such an important part. I think a firm’s culture should grow and evolve and change, and so as a result, yeah, your Core Values should do the same.

Josh Miles: Absolutely.

David Lecours: Did you have a magic number that you like, because what I’ve found is that there’s a lot of things the firm believes in, right? And so you could list a hundred things, but you can’t remember a hundred things. And there’s power in focus. So if you were going for a certain number of Core Values, what might you suggest?

Josh Miles: I certainly like more than two, and I like as many fewer than 10 as you can manage, but something like three or five is probably a really good target. And if your firm just feels strongly about four main things, then I think four or six is okay, but visually odd numbers always look nice.

David Lecours: Yeah, right.

Josh Miles: The aesthetics in me says three or five is probably good.

David Lecours: Yeah, no I totally agree. I tell firms to try to limit it to five or less, and the fewer the better, because man, if you can just sort of keep three in your head, that’s such a more focused, powerful effect.

David Lecours: So there’s some things that I typically recommend to clients if we’re helping do the writing, or wordsmithing, is that the Core Values should be written with a verb in it as an action statement, so that it can become a behavior, right? So if it has that verb in it, then it’s really clear how somebody should act. So let’s say, like radical candor, the idea of like just … So you would say something like, “Write and speak with radical candor, or we write and speak with radical candor,” referring to the whole company, right? And so the writing and speaking in there is the action or verb, so people are really clear what behavior they’re supposed to embrace, and then the summation of all these behaviors really does become your culture. And yeah-

Josh Miles: Yeah, I really like that idea of using an action statement or verb in expressing it, instead of just saying service, or just saying honesty, whatever.

David Lecours: Yeah. Yeah. Right.

Josh Miles: I think it really gives you a little bit more to stand on when you go back to review that and say, “What did we mean by integrity?” Well, if you make that an action statement, it’s a little more clear I think.

David Lecours: Yeah, no absolutely. There’s this company in Australia that makes software, and I’ll put the name in the show notes in a link. But one of theirs is, “Never,” and then there’s an F, and an exclamation point, and a dollar sign, and a something, and a K, “the customer.” And so you can fill in the blank there, and so we don’t cuss here on the PSM.show. So rather than like … So the generic thing would be service, right? But having this sort of unique, sort of eye-catching, sort of almost arresting like, “Whoa,” kind of thing makes you like … For one, it’s kind of how people talk in real life, and I like that.

David Lecours: A lot of times these Core Values get written, and I think there’s this idea that they need to sound so lofty that they hold us to a higher standard. Well, the problem with the higher standard is that it’s so far out there that we can never embrace it. It’s just not realistic. And so writing these as if somebody would speak, here’s an example. We were working with a client, and they wanted to talk about quality. So what we titled that Core Value was, “Our work goes on the fridge.” And at first you’re like, “What? What?” And so when I say that, what does that mean to you, Josh?

Josh Miles: Well, I just think of when I was a kid, doing artwork or getting a good score on a report card or a test, and my mom would throw that sucker up on the fridge. It was boasting rights.

David Lecours: Yeah. Yeah. Isn’t that what we all want? We want our work to go on the fridge, and that only happens if it’s quality. So yeah, so that was just a clever way of saying something a little bit differently. And that can be a way to capture people’s attention, get people engaged, and also communicate, “Hey, we’re a little bit different,” because I actually don’t think that all our Core Values need to be different from the firm down the street, but I think at least you’re going to have some common individual ones. I think collectively, yeah, you should have a set that is end up being unique, but you’re certainly going to have some that are probably in common. Where I think you can differentiate them, is sort of how you express them, and so how you title them, name them, and write the Core Value.

Josh Miles: I think there’s something about that ‘on the fridge’ concept that makes it feel … There’s a lot baked into that. It makes it feel very close to home and familial. And there’s a lot that is implied when you even use that phrase, so that kind of creativity as you’re writing those values I think really gives a more differentiated vibe to the overall value itself.

David Lecours: Yeah, that company that I was thinking of is called Atlassian, A-T-L-A-S-S-I-A-N, and if you go to their site you can find their Core Values. They have another one called, “Play, as a team.” And so what I like about that is it’s all in the comma, right? So there’s this idea that, “Yeah, we’re going to work our butts off, but we’re going to also play, but not as an individual group of rebels. We’re going to sort of work together.” And the idea’s like, “Hey, the more we sort of make, … ” or as they say, “We spend a huge amount of our time at work, so the more time that doesn’t feel like quote, unquote, work, the better.” You know like, “Don’t take ourselves too seriously.” I think that’s super cool.

Josh Miles: Well, speaking of creative ways to express Core Values, I think one of my favorite projects that you’ve ever done, if I had to pick a favorite David, is your coasters that you did for Marie Smith. So maybe for our listeners who are not familiar with that, tell them why … First of all, why coasters? And then, what was the connection here to Core Values?

David Lecours: Right. So with them we were helping them develop their Core Values and sort of unofficially they had started calling themselves … because of some of the positioning we’d done, one of their three uniques was, “We’re just the right size.” So they’re medium-sized, they are located in the Pacific-Northwest, which is famous for their craft breweries, and then a lot of people within the firm really liked drinking beer. So we decided to express their Core Values as faux beer brands. And so each core value, they ended up with I think seven, was a faux beer brand. So there was like, “Collaboration IPA.” And there was, “Fun Lager.” And so we had seven of these, and each one had a unique faux beer label. And we letter-pressed printed these on this really beautiful thick paper, that spongy beer coaster paper. And then on the back, we described in greater terms, or elaborated on what that Core Value really meant to that particular firm. So like for fun, it sort of described some of the things that they do for fun as a team.

David Lecours: And yeah, it was a great project. It was a great project, because it took their Core Values and put them in front of the people every day. You see these Core Values being used throughout the office. They have some nice conference tables. Nobody wants to be the one that stains the conference table, so people actually use these coasters. They take them to job fairs for their recruiting, and they give them out. And so they’ve had a real life beyond, and they don’t just get put in an email and tucked away, and thrown in the trash. These things have a life that reinforces the Core Values, and it is a creative manifestation. And I think all firms, they don’t have to be beer labels or beer coasters, but they should do some creative manifestation of their Core Values that brings them to life in a way, and it says to everybody, both internal and external stakeholders, like, “Yeah, we take these seriously. We take them seriously enough to invest the time and money into creating this thing, this artifact, and you should take them seriously too.”

Josh Miles: Well yeah, in that instance, again, not everybody needs to have beverage coasters necessarily, but that’s something that just floats around the office and could be at every desk, and at every conference room table. And it’s just something that you’re literally going to be looking at every day. So finding an opportunity within your firm for something that’s similar, maybe it’s the ink pens or pencils that are laying around the office, maybe that’s where you’re going to have that.

David Lecours: Right.

Josh Miles: But just that kind of visibility is just something that really reinforces those values.

David Lecours: Here are a couple other ideas of how you can manifest your Core Values creatively. I’ve seen Clark Construction, big general contractor, their Core Values … They did an individual video for each Core Value, but they chose an individual person within the firm as the narrator of that particular Core Value, so a different person for each Core Value, and that person explains the Core Value. But then they also go on and tell a personal story about how that Core Value got brought to life within maybe a project, or working on a team with another employee. And so I like that approach.

David Lecours: I’ve seen really great posters done, or even super wall graphics that get applied to the internal part of the firm so that they’re right in your face as you go to work, but done tastefully and well designed. Starbucks has this thing called the green apron book, and it’s a little handbook, that as you can probably imagine, goes in that little pocket in the front of a Starbucks employee’s green apron. And in that book is a whole bunch of great advice about how to treat the customer, and so if in doubt, the barista can just reach into this and remind themselves the values that he or she should be embracing as a Starbucks employee.

Josh Miles: Yeah, and I love when you go into a space and they’ve got some creative use of wall graphics. So it’s more than just putting the values on a plaque, and hanging it in the conference room. It’s something that really is part of the interior design and the culture of the space, so you reinforce that in a more fun way that feels a little bit more baked into the culture of the office, and not just a list.

David Lecours: Can I share one more that we did?

Josh Miles: Oh yeah. Go for it.

David Lecours: So we did Core Values with this firm, it’s an architecture firm in Los Angeles called KAA. And so, we think of Core Values as this foundational element, right, help sort of prop up the firm. Within this firm’s office, they had these five thick metal poles that were foundational structured, and we took their five Core Values and we wrote them with vinyl lettering vertically on these poles. And we made sort of like graduated marks, and so they were like little tick marks, sort of like a scientific beaker or measuring cup kind of thing. And so we named the Core Value, let’s say it was collaboration, and we made these little almost like … I don’t know what to call them. Flags? They used magnet, and they were sort of like this little beacon thing like two inches by ten inches tall, and you would attach it to the side of the metal pole where the Core Value was written.

David Lecours: And then they would actually, whenever they would have staff meetings, depending on how they’re doing on their Core Values, they would move this Core Value up or down on this graduated scale. And they would make a ritual of this and say, “Hey, we really kind of screwed up on this. We didn’t utilize collaboration, and as a result, the project took longer than we thought.” So they would self-regulate, and move it down. So they had this instant visual, if they looked at all five of them across all five of these poles, they could kind of check their pulse of where they were doing as a firm in terms of their Core Values.

Josh Miles: Yeah, that’s really cool.

David Lecours: Yeah.

Josh Miles: So it’s kind of a real-time assessment of, are we living out the Core Values, or are we kind of sucking a little bit right now?

David Lecours: Right. And so I recommended every quarter they start over, they start fresh, and they work their … Hopefully, they’re moving up more than they’re moving down, and so they would kind of move up, and then yeah, real-time assessment.

David Lecours: So this brings up an interesting point. So a lot of times people think Core Values, “Oh, it’s just an internal exercise.” But what do you think? Do you think they should also be shared externally?

Josh Miles: Well, I think a lot of the examples that we’ve talked about so far really are internal. And I think maybe the closest cousin to that is to go external from internal, if you will, is to use it within your recruitment.

David Lecours: Yeah.

Josh Miles: And that is … Sorry, the neighbor’s car alarm was going off, and I wasn’t sure how that was going to last. Yeah, so using that for recruiting is kind of the next step up, which is making sure that you’re sharing that in pieces, such as a job description, or a posting, and the collateral that you give to that applicant if they are there for an interview, or are they exposed to all those things? Again, it’s like that dating process, and man, there’s nothing that is more essential to that then as you’re scaling up and adding talent, making sure that person is a good fit.

David Lecours: Yeah, so when you were dating April did you ask her, what are your Core Values on the first date?

Josh Miles: Yeah, I actually had them tattooed on my arm, so I rolled up my sleeve. I actually don’t have any tattoos. I’m sad about this. So-

David Lecours: But yeah, I agree with you. Right, you got to share them. So you mentioned sharing them for recruiting, but I think it doesn’t hurt you to share them with prospective clients. I think we talked about earlier the idea of let’s learn early, are we aligned or not? And then if we are, let’s figure out a way to work together.

Josh Miles: Yeah, absolutely. And I think even if you look at someone else’s Core Values and you think, “Well, that’s not exactly like me, or not exactly what our firm or our leadership values,” it really still helps you to gauge and understand what it might be like working with this firm, or what the benefits of those Core Values might be to you as a partner, or as a vendor, or as a service provider, however you’re looking at that. But you know that when you’re working with a firm who, maybe for instance one of their Core Values is social responsibility, and based on the type of projects you’re doing, you can see how that’s a really strong fit.

David Lecours: Yeah, that’s a great example.

Josh Miles: Yeah.

David Lecours: So the last part I just want to touch on is these Core Values need to come to life, and there’s this sort of famous quote about “what gets measured, gets managed.” I think it’s by Peter Drucker. And I think that if you want people to embrace these Core Values, even as great as a manifestation like the coasters have been, you’ve got to take it even one step further, and you’ve got to incorporate the Core Values into employee reviews. And so that’s why I think writing them as a verb helps you to evaluate, are they taking on that behavior? And it’s not the entire employee review, but there should be an aspect of it where you’re giving people that barometer on how they’re doing in relationship to our Core Values, because we want to develop this culture.

Josh Miles: Yeah.

David Lecours: And then the other part of it, of course, is using them as like a go, no go, criteria. Anyway, what were you going to say?

Josh Miles: Well, I was just thinking another way to think about that is even internally as most of our audience are marketers or principals within an AEC firm, as you’re thinking about initiatives that you have happening from a marketing or business development standpoint, maybe you can start to categorize each of those under each of your Core Values. So how would adding this new page on our website, which one of our Core Values should that relate to most?

David Lecours: Yeah. Yeah.

Josh Miles: Does this video exhibit our Core Values? Or as we think about a new email list tactic to grow that email list, is that in line with what our Core Values are? So just another way to … Again, another type of filter that I think you can apply those Core Values to.

David Lecours: I love that. I think … Yeah, I would almost make the declaration that every form of marketing communication should be grounded in at least one Core Value. And if it was just one, that would make it even more I guess focused and tight. And then, I guess where there’s even cross-over, might make it even more powerful. Then that would ensure that, yeah, externally we’re communicating what we’re all about, because each time we do it’s, again, grounded in a Core Value.

David Lecours: A tool that I’ve heard firms use successfully is a digital tool, it comes from this company called Bonusly. Bonus.ly, if you want to check it out. And through peer-to-peer recognition, it offers the ability for … because a lot of times managers aren’t in a position to even see when you do something great just by the way companies are organized, but usually your peers often do. And sometimes it’s more gratifying to actually get positive feedback and recognition by your peers.

David Lecours: And so Bonusly sets up a thing where your company would put in a certain dollar amount into a pool, and then you would be deputized with being able to … Let’s say your company puts in, just for round numbers, a thousand dollars. And then each employee, ten employees, gets a hundred dollars for the next quarter, and they can decide how they want to give that hundred dollars out to fellow peers. The Bonusly thing comes in, and there’s a social sharing component, and you can use Slack channels, or use can use Intranets, or use can use I think even email, that let’s people know that you have given … Like let’s say that Josh did a great job with CPSM week this week and I say, “Hey Josh, I love what you did with those videos, I’m going to bonus you fifty dollars.” And you literally give him fifty dollars, and everybody knows it because you’ve made it public. So I just think it’s a cool digital tool that uses the social web to do peer-to-peer recognition.

Josh Miles: Yeah, and if you Google that kind of peer-to-peer recognition thing, there’re a couple others. And off the top of my head, I can’t think of any of them. But I’ve heard of a couple different companies, both in AEC and software, and other segments that are using these. And I’ve seen a lot of that in bigger or growing firms. It’s a cool little cultural bonus.

David Lecours: Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Alright, well I think we’ve pretty much wrapped up the Core Values. Was there anything else you wanted to add Josh?

Josh Miles: Well David, mostly just that I value our conversations.

David Lecours: Oh, thanks Josh.

Josh Miles: And I think we should use this as a marketing tool.

David Lecours: Alright, let’s do it. Now dear audience, if you guys have questions or comments, we of course want to hear from you. The best way to do that is to go to PSM.show, scroll down. We’ve got a one query line form you can fill out, and we’ll get it, and we’ll know what you’re thinking, so if you have guest recommendations, or whatever. But anyway, that’s it for this episode of PSM.show. Thanks to SMPS for sponsoring. I’m David Lecours, that’s me, and Josh Miles. We’ll see you next time.

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David Lecours interviews Craig Atkinson, VP of Communications and Strategic Services at The Walsh Group about keeping creativity alive as an A/E/C marketer.

This episode runs 41 min, 04 seconds.

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  Mentioned in This Episode on Keeping the Creative Fire Burning

David’s theory is that many A/E/C marketers choose marketing because they enjoy expressing their creativity. The reality is that much of A/E/C marketing doesn’t feel very creative. So, A/E/C marketers end up creatively frustrated. This episode is about how to keep your creativity alive.

• Importance of having creative hobbies outside of work
• Don’t let fear stop you from being creative at work.
• Suffering is a choice. So is happiness.
• Fear isn’t bad. It’s our relationship with fear that can be bad.
• Craig’s Instagram –  https://www.instagram.com/craigbatkinson/

“There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and there is only one of you in all time. This expression is unique, and if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium; and be lost. The world will not have it. It is not your business to determine how good it is, not how it compares with other expression. It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly, to keep the channel open. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open. No artist is pleased. There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.” 
— Martha Graham

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Read David’s Conversation with Craig

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 Announcer: Welcome to PSM, The Professional Services Marketing podcast. It’s insight applied.

David Lecours: Hello and welcome to PSM Show, the podcast for AEC marketers. I’m David Lecours and I’m joined by a special guest, Craig, Aka “Cheb,” Atkinson. Our topic today is keeping the creative fire burning. Our sponsor is SMPS, business transformed through marketing leadership. You can find out more about SMPS at smps.org, and you can find out more about our show, including the show notes at psm.show.

Announcer: This is PSM. It’s insight applied.

David Lecours: Craig, well, welcome. Glad to have you. You’re calling in from Chicago today, right?

Craig Atkinson: That’s right. Chilly Chicago. Thanks too for having me.

David Lecours: Yeah, it’s great. We met at SMPS Build Business 2018, and you taught a great session that I was fortunate to sit in on a titled What Taking Photos With my iPhone Taught Me About Life.

Craig Atkinson: That’s right.

David Lecours: And that was awesome.

Craig Atkinson: Cool. That was a fun one to do. There was a good crowd there too.

David Lecours: That definitely helps. Your current position is VP of communications and strategic services at The Walsh Group.

Craig Atkinson: That’s correct.

David Lecours: It’s amazing. You’ve been there 18 years. Maybe you could give our audience a brief origin story of how you got there, how you joined this wonderful world of AEC marketing and just bring us up to speed in a couple of minutes.

Craig Atkinson: This is a classic story of what amazing things can happen if you have no idea what it is you want to do, because then you don’t really have any limits. I went to Illinois State University, graduated in the mid … when was that? Jeez. Early ’90s, with a bachelor of fine arts. I came to Chicago initially with the thought that I was going to become some art star. I did show in some galleries and some things like that. But of course I needed a job and my first-

David Lecours: What was your medium?

Craig Atkinson: My favorite medium was photography, and still is. But at that time I had also expanded to include some more sculptural, multimedia type, installation type pieces. I had all these aspirations, but I also needed to make money, and what was wonderful is that the Field Museum of Natural History loved to hire artists to build their exhibits. My first job out of college was working there behind the scenes to build exhibits, paint murals. We did a lot of painting of murals and a lot of building of rock forms and other things like that. I held a succession of roles there.

Craig Atkinson: It was a great place to work, and it was a lot of other artists also working there. The challenge was that those positions were all based on grant money, and it was hard to predict from year to year to year, whether or not you would still have a position. That was fine early on, but then had I started having some kids, I needed a little more stability, and transitioned from that. By that point, it would have been 1996 or so. I was a project manager at that point, overseeing a variety of projects, both out on the exhibit floor, but also behind the scenes to upgrade the collections themselves, to organize things better and to make it easier for researchers to come in and do the important work that they do there. It was a lot of fun, but it was time to move on.

Craig Atkinson: I took a job as a project manager at Northwestern University, overseeing very small renovation and construction projects on the two campuses. I did that for a number of years. Also a great place to work, and I loved the academic setting. But I would say there, I could see that my career progression was going to be pretty … not very dynamic. That I could probably spend my entire career there, and it would be fine, but I wouldn’t really move the needle too much for myself. And I had bigger aspirations than that.

Craig Atkinson: I knew someone who worked here at Walsh, and they got me hooked up for an interview, and I came in. In 2000, I joined this company, and initially I worked … and then what happened from this point on and now, is that I have held a variety of positions. It’s like I changed careers without changing companies over the last 18 years. I was in estimating and operations, in IT, then I started up our training and development department, and then most recently transitioned into our communications and strategic services, which is primarily internal and external communications and marketing.

David Lecours: Walsh Group is a GC? Is that correct?

Craig Atkinson: Very large construction services provider. One of our primary things is to actually do the construction, but we also have a hand in the design and planning, financing, and the ongoing maintenance of various facilities as well. It’s a large company. This is where I ended up in a high level position at a very large company, in a corporate setting. I would never have predicted it. I think many people told me that getting an art degree was not a path that would lead me to something like this, and basically not a good idea. Turns out it was probably the best thing that I could’ve done because I think that it taught me a different way to think. I think that’s been very valuable for me over time.

Craig Atkinson: I’ve been relatively unbounded in terms of following a path and coming to a fork in the road and making decisions and seeing where that will lead me without a whole lot of worry attached to it. I find myself today overseeing a group of about 30 people, and we manage the proposal process and the engagement with clients, and then we also manage the general public relations for the company, and I love it.

David Lecours: Awesome. Yeah, I get that impression. It seems like during the session that I took that you were leading, I pretty instantly could sense that, oh, this guy’s got the heart and soul of an artist, and it comes through in the way you communicate and what you talk about. And I think that’s not entirely unique of AEC marketers. Everybody’s got their own path and yours is certainly unique and super cool. But it seems like so many AEC marketers come to marketing almost by accident. They have a degree in art, or they’ve got a degree in design-

Craig Atkinson: Yep. Design.

David Lecours: … few of them-

Craig Atkinson: Journalism. Some are on the writing side. Just so many of us are like refugees from the Humanities, is what I say, whatever the path is.

David Lecours: As a result, a lot of us we really enjoy expressing our creativity. What I found is a lot of our jobs is really not all that creative. The topic that I want to explore with you is how AEC marketers can keep that creative fire burning, because I think it’s really essential, even if we’re not doing creative tasks. Would you agree that that position or assessment is true?

Craig Atkinson: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

David Lecours: Have you found that to be the case?

Craig Atkinson: Yeah. I actually think that’s the case for pretty much everything in life. That there’s always an element to every aspect of our lives that is “the grind”. It’s easy to tell ourselves that there’s these … it’s like these dead spaces, where there’s no need for creativity. We’re not being called to be creative, and so therefore, we’re not. Unfortunately that can grow. I’ve seen it happen, that people feel like suddenly they’re at a role where there’s nothing that they’re doing that is “creative” or at least creatively fulfilling. Yes, I think that’s common in a lot of places in life, and definitely in what we do.

David Lecours: I’ve even found it true from my firm, which we are a branding and digital marketing. By definition, we’re supposed to be a creative firm, in that we’re doing naming or doing logo development. So much of the job is not the actual creation. It is that grinding. There’s lots of ways that we can explore creativity. One of the things that I think you’ve done so well is making sure that you have hobbies outside of work that also feed your creative soul.

Craig Atkinson: I would’ve told you earlier in life that if someone had said that one of the keys to happiness is to stay connected to a hobby that you’re passionate about, I would have said that that sounded silly. There’s no possible way that that’s going to be it. I’ve come to discover that in fact … and what I tried to present at the SMPS conference was that actually … I couldn’t have been more wrong. That it was in fact, the key to staying creatively alive was to stay connected in some way to a passion, “a hobby” that wasn’t necessarily something I was doing to make money, it wasn’t necessarily something that was directly feeding my production at work, but it ended up expanding my life overall, and it keeps me dialed in to my creative spirit, even in those moments when I’m just plugging stuff into a spreadsheet.

David Lecours: What are some of those hobbies that you do to keep you creatively connected?

Craig Atkinson: The main one is photography. What’s wonderful is … I know that these days there’s a lot of … we get a lot of stories in the news about how dangerous and damaging and limiting and distracting our smartphones are because they take up so much of our attention. I agree that that may be true, but I also think that in that conversation we’ve lost the fact that there’s also something amazing here about this. I carry with me a very good camera and an entire production studio in a means by which to distribute the images that I take, and it all fits in my pocket. What it means is, is that I have a tool that does allow me to stay connected to my creative spirit regardless of where I am.

Craig Atkinson: I more recently in about the last two years, really started to challenge myself to use my camera every day. It wasn’t a hard and fast rule, like I had to take a picture every day, but it was more like I had to use it every day. The end result might be images that I wanted to keep or they might be images that I didn’t really want to keep. That wasn’t important. It wasn’t important that at the end of a year, I had 365 images, one per day. What was important was that I had tried every single day to capture something meaningful. I am using Instagram is my means by which to share that project. That also, had no boundaries on it in terms of how many images I may put up there. I don’t really care how many people are following me or if anyone follows me. The point was to do it.

Craig Atkinson: What it’s allowed me to do is I carry this camera around with me and I stay very connected to what catches my eye, and capturing things in the moment, and then processing it later to understand a little bit better, why did it capture my eye? One of the things that I do when I keep an image or put it up on Instagram is I attach it to some quote or a saying or a piece out of a piece of literature, a poem or something that I’ve written because it’s also for me. Part of the reason that I’m really trying to lean in on this is I’m trying to notice what it is that I notice. Why did that catch my eye? And try to go a little bit deeper and connect the image in some direct or even sometimes indirect way to a thought.

Craig Atkinson: Then taking those two things together said more than any one of those elements by themselves. And then once a collection of these images are up there, together they actually begin to tell a story that’s quiet. But if one were to go through my feed starting from about October of last year through now and gave it enough time, you’d get a good sense of what’s been going on in my life. Both in my head and in my life itself. So there’s a little autobiography happening there that’s not very explicit, but it’s definitely there. What I discovered-

David Lecours: There’s something-

Craig Atkinson: Go ahead.

David Lecours: I was just saying, it’s really powerful, this combination of word and image, and you alluded to that earlier, this one and one equals at least three or more. I know you’re not looking for more followers per se, but if it’s okay with you, I’d love to list your link in our show notes-

Craig Atkinson: Oh, yeah. Sure. Absolutely.

David Lecours: … to your Instagram feed, so people can see visually what you’re talking about.

Craig Atkinson: You can get a sense of what it looks like and how it works, which is … and so what happens is I’m in a continuous collection mode. I’m collecting images all the time. I’m taking pictures of things constantly. I’m also, in parallel, collecting or writing. I’m writing things or I’m collecting scraps of quotes or pieces of poems that connect with me. I’m just always collecting these things. And then I spend a lot of time in the post production, not just cleaning up the images and optimizing them, but regarding the image and asking myself, why did I take this, and why do I want to keep it and why do I want to share it? What is it about this beyond “that it’s interesting” or pretty that is bringing some value to me?

Craig Atkinson: Can I connect that to some quote that I’ve written or collected that when you put those two things together, man, now there’s a little conversation between the word and the image going on here. [crosstalk 00:17:53]. I can do this from anywhere, and do. I found a way to build this flow into my daily life.

David Lecours: I love it. One of the things you said in the session was that you don’t have to be an artist to be an artist. You said, “Be intentional about how you experience the world,” and what I’m hearing you say is that by having this intention of trying to go out and capture an image a day and being aware of your surroundings and always looking for joy and beauty and all these things, it ends up making your life better. It almost changes your worldview, if I can be so cool.

Craig Atkinson: It’s about a mindset, and it’s about the tendency. What I discovered through this … and then later as I was doing some … really getting interested in this little bit more and doing a little more research into it, is that we as a … it’s part of the human condition to have a negative bias. Human beings have a negative bias, and we are more inclined to observe, frame and experience the world in negative ways. If we wake up in the morning and we’re going to our job where it’s not creative and I’m not being able to be creative and it’s not fulfilling, and that’s what’s in my mind, that is the job I’m going to have that day. I’m absolutely setting myself up to experience exactly what I’m asking the universe to give me, which is a boring, non creative job that’s not filling.

Craig Atkinson: There’s this big piece for me that … what this has been about is about shifting mindset, not about artistic talent. That’s what I think is so awesome about these tools that are available to us is I don’t think it’s a tragedy, I think it’s a joy that you don’t have to be a photographer to be good at photography. I don’t have to have a great deal of artistic talent to be an artist. It doesn’t mean I’m going to make my career out of that. It doesn’t mean that I’m going to drive my life with it, but it does mean that I can live with greater intention. In a few minutes, I can tell you where I landed with all of that. What did that intention give me, that I think is valuable even in the workplace, even when I’m not doing the “creative” parts of it? For sure. This is definitely about a reframing.

Craig Atkinson: I think part of it was to experience my emotional state and my thoughts, and process them in a way without judgment. That’s what this whole little practice allowed me to do. Whether it was a happy thought or a sad thought, a positive thought, or a negative thought, it doesn’t really matter. I captured this image, it speaking to me for a reason. If I spend some time really thinking about why I took this picture and why it’s meaningful, I can start to become very aware of my own emotional state. That really, in the end, was what was the most game changing thing for me. I ended up on an acronym, C.R.E.A.M, C R E A M. This is what this process has helped me shift to.

Craig Atkinson: I would say to anyone that if you want to be an artist, this is what is needed. I would also say, you could very easily take this and translate it into, if you want to be a good partner, if you want to be a good brother, if you want to be a good employee, if you … this is what I think … or a leader. You want to be a good leader. Here’s where I think we’re really called for. This is what emerged for me. This acronym is five states that I think are … they have, for me, become really important. I’ll tell you what they all are, and then if you want to go back through and piece through them or whatever. Tell me how you want to do this, but … so it’s curiosity, resilience, empathy, action bias and maturity. That’s the acronym, C.R.E.A.M. This is where the shift in state has led me to. This is what I got out of this whole process.

David Lecours: What I would love to do is go through each one, particularly as it relates to maybe working in maybe what people perceive as an uncreative environment. How they can use those tools.

Craig Atkinson: To the extent I can do that. Absolutely. Or when I’m dealing in those moments where I’m having to do things that aren’t fun and creative, which would be in my nature to procrastinate on. The first one is curiosity. To me, this one’s … they’re all important. This one’s really important because to me, curiosity is the antidote to fear. I think fear is really the thing that limits people. It’s the thing that we tell ourselves. The are negative bias in the way we look at the world, the way reframe things are really all built around a lot of fear, and curiosity is a way to approach the unknown with less fear and more interest. A curious mind state, why? Why is it like that? Why is it not like that?

Craig Atkinson: To be genuinely curious about how all of this works, or why something was successful or why something wasn’t successful is really, really important. And also, there’s a certain humility to it then, because to be curious means you have to say to yourself, “I don’t know. I don’t know.” That’s why I’m curious. There’s something unknown in front of me, and rather than rejecting it or being afraid of it … and I might still be afraid of it, but I’m going to actually try to face it with some interest and a desire to better understand. I have to acknowledge my own limits. A curious mind state is a big deal.

Craig Atkinson: Right behind that is … and so, same thing with anything here in the job setting. This is boring. Do you know what I discovered for myself? I would imagine it’s the case for a lot of people, is I never took the thought farther than that. I passed judgment on a particular activity or on some aspect of my job that I found unpleasant or boring in some way, and I never asked myself to explore, why? Why is it boring? Why do I feel so negatively about it? What is it about this that is unpleasant? A lot of it had to do, again, with my own … often came back to fears. Some of it sometimes it’s just … there’s a rope. Stuff we have to do that is not the fun part. But oftentimes, I’ve found myself, it was more about being afraid that I was hitting some area of my limit of my ability or my expertise.

Craig Atkinson: And then that leads right into the R, which is resilience. You’ve got to be able to face setbacks, failures, less than you expected, unexpected result that wasn’t necessarily a good one without losing enthusiasm for the journey. You got to be able to take a hit.

David Lecours: Yep. Keep going.

Craig Atkinson: In the creative process it is baked into it. That failure is part of the way that you learn. Failure sometimes is the part of way you discover a door to a new answer. So you’ve got to be ready that you’re not going to get it on the first take. My own daughter is … my youngest daughter is 10, and she likes to write stories. I’m trying to work with her on this mindset that she thinks she has to write the whole story in one sitting. The reason that we do revisions is because we don’t get it right and perfect on the … we fail the first time. We don’t often think-

David Lecours: Yeah, you got to give yourself-

Craig Atkinson: … of it as a failure, but you’ve got to give yourself room.

David Lecours: You’ve got to permission … there’s that great book about permission for shitty first drafts, and then you refine it and make it great.

Craig Atkinson: If you put that together with the curiosity, I think those two in tandem are really powerful because now it’s like, wow, that is not the outcome I wanted. So then you can start to say things to yourself a little bit differently with a curious mindset. Instead of saying, “I’m not good at this”, you could say to yourself, “What am I missing?”, Or “What am I missing in terms of knowledge, resources, ability that I need to gather in order to get an outcome that’s closer to what I’m looking for?” Rather than saying, “You know what, I give up.” It’s saying, “I think I need to use a different strategy. The one that I’m using isn’t working, so I need to get curious about a different way to do this.” Rather than saying, “This isn’t good enough.”, say, “I’m going to ask myself, is this really my best work?” Rather than believing, “I can’t make this any better.”, “Of course I can make it better, and maybe I need to seek help from others in order to see what it is that I need to change.”

Craig Atkinson: We tell ourselves that, this is just too hard. Rather than saying that, just say, “This is going to take more time than I realized.” I made a mistake. Mistakes are great ways to learn. Telling yourself, “I’m not smart enough. I’m not good enough.” Just tell yourself, “Well, I need to learn”, and if plan A didn’t work, there’s still 25 other letters. You take resilience and curiosity together, and it allows you to explore the unknown with less fear and less prejudgment.

Craig Atkinson: I think that opens the door for the next letter in this acronym, which is E, empathy. I have a lived experience that has created a filter through which I look at the world and I experience the world, and it is going to be vastly different than others around me because they have had a different lived experience. Their experiences no more valuable or valid than mine. It’s just different. It doesn’t mean I have to accept or agree with everybody, and it also doesn’t mean that there aren’t hateful ideas that we need to resist. But what it does mean is that I need to allow myself the opportunity to be more open. That someone else can look at the same information I’m looking at and see it very, very differently than me.

David Lecours: I think one area where we could be more empathetic is understanding that probably the owners of the firm have a good reason to be risk averse. The AEC industry, we build things, and we have to manage risk because we’re creating buildings or bridges that the public … their lives depend on. They have to get it right, and they can’t be entirely risked. Of course, our challenge is that a lot of times that mindset of risk aversion translates over into marketing, and that’s where, I think, we get into trouble is because we need to take some risks to be able to connect with our audience on an emotional level.

David Lecours: But if we’re empathetic of like, “Look, Mrs. Owner, I understand you’re worried about this because your background is such that you’ve got to get the specs on this bridge correct. But in this case, we can’t afford to be a little more risky because we’re going to have another ad that’s going to come out in the next month and we’ll connect. Just bear with us.” And so, yeah. At that empathy part is super relevant.

Craig Atkinson: Absolutely. You’re also making me think that … the other thing that I often encounter is when I’m working with a team … one of the things that I do these days on the career side is a coach teams that are going to interviews. A pitch to a potential customer. It’s very common for me to hear someone say something like this. “I don’t even know why we’re doing this, all that really matters is the number. And as long as we get to the right number …” This is just a bunch of bullshit, that we have dog and pony show, [inaudible 00:32:51].

Craig Atkinson: That is actually a fear based statement, because most people don’t enjoy public speaking. Most people don’t like public speaking, especially in a situation where there’s some consequence attached to getting a job or not getting a job, but they’re not actually going to say I’m afraid. What they’re going to say is, “This doesn’t matter.” Because all that really matters is the dollars because this is a business decision. Empathy is an element to explore here because behind every business decision there is an emotional decision as well for that customer. That customer is also feeling the pressure and facing the risk to choose the right construction services provider, the right teammates.

Craig Atkinson: There is always an emotional element to every business decision. It is not just about the money. The reason that we’re having an interview is often because we are trying to understand better what it’s actually going to be like to work with these people. Who is this team and how can I connect with them on an emotional level and better understand and predict what’s going to happen when I’m working with these people and things aren’t going well, or something unexpected happens? It is not just about the dollars, it is also about this emotional element. That’s why we’re having an interview. You also have to understand that most people don’t enjoy this process. They don’t enjoy speaking in public, and they’re going to … their fear response is going to be dismissive of it as an exercise.

Craig Atkinson: I’m often working with teams to help them draw out their story, and make sure that we’re hitting the emotional notes, not just the technical notes or the financial notes when we’re doing a pitch.

David Lecours: Absolutely.

Craig Atkinson: Empathy is a big one. And then action bias is … I would like people to default more towards doing something rather than hesitating. I would say that I saw that in myself as well. Fearful pause, procrastination, which really oftentimes is not laziness. It’s just another expression of fear. I would like to draw people into … if we’re curious, resilient and empathetic, we’re going to be more likely to take action rather than hesitate because … especially as leaders and influencers in the marketing world, we’ve got to get people to do things. That’s the reason for our jobs.

Craig Atkinson: We’re trying to get customers to make decisions. We’re trying to get business partners to choose us. We’re trying to influence the customer to maybe alter the way they’re thinking about how they want this project to be built, or guide them through a process they’ve never been through before, or a project of a scale that they’ve never experienced before. The response to that is oftentimes that people will resist making decisions and taking action. And that is action decisions are actually the fuel for every project.

Craig Atkinson: If you were to ask most people, “What’s the fuel for any project?” They would say money. It’s a very common answer. Money is not the fuel. It’s decisions. It’s action. Most of the time when you see projects that are in jeopardy, money is an issue. But what happened was the decision making process broke down in some way, whether there was a loss of trust, some hesitancy on the client’s side, unexpected events. Something broke the decision making process down and decelerated it, and that’s what kills a project. So we try to … trying to get people to take action. To get into a habit of making decision, taking an action and then quickly evaluating whether or not the results were what it was we were expecting.

David Lecours: Nice. And M, tell us what M means.

Craig Atkinson: Maturity is not about acting grown up-

David Lecours: Damn right.

Craig Atkinson: … because heaven knows I don’t. I define maturity in this fashion. Maturity is when I completely own my role in what’s not working. Not that I take all the blame, but I very openly and honestly own my role. Whatever I’ve done that has contributed to what I’m not happy about in my life or what’s not working here on this project, rather than push that off and blame it on a bunch of external circumstances. That’s maturity. When it comes to leaders, I believe that that is actually the most important quality. It’s this ownership of what’s not working. We celebrate what is working and what we’ve done successfully in appropriate ways that are motivating for people, but we also take ownership of what we have done and are doing that’s contributing to the things that we’re unhappy about and that are not working.

David Lecours: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I love that. It’s a great acronym, and there’s a ton of great info here. We’ll list that in our show notes. Craig, I have one more question. What I found is that creative output is directly proportional to creative input. In other words, you really can only pull out what you put in. So you’ve got to feed yourself well, whether it’s reading or going to movies or conferences or things like that. I’m curious what you do to solve the input part to keep yourself creatively nourished.

Craig Atkinson: That was a little piece of wisdom that struck me earlier in my career. What happened was … I’ve worked very intentionally to become a good public speaker over time. But early in that process, I remember asking … there was a gentleman who was a very good public speaker that I admired a great deal, and I asked him, “How did you get to be so good at public speaking?” I asked the question … I already had an answer in my mind that I thought I was going to get, and I didn’t get that answer. What he said was, “Oh, that’s easy. I read. I read a lot. I read everything.” He said, “You’ve got to build a database.” He said, “It’s about the database.”

Craig Atkinson: If you want to be good at public speaking … now I’m going to extend this to say if you want to be good at the output, whether it’s public speaking or generating written words or images, graphics, whatever-

David Lecours: A creative proposal.

Craig Atkinson: … it’s about the database. He said, “You’ve got to build a really big database because you’ve got to be able to … you got to have all that stuff in there so you can start to create associations and metaphors.” And a lot of what we do in our proposals is we’re laying out technical information and some straightforward things. One thing we’re always trying to do is figure out ways to render things graphically. That can be a more efficient way to show how a team is going to be structured or how a process in particular is going to work. To be good at that, you have to be good at metaphor. And to be good at metaphor, you have to build a very large database of stuff that can collide together.

Craig Atkinson: That’s why my practice of image and text, is I’m always collecting and then later figuring out how could things fit together in ways that are novel, interesting or compelling? It doesn’t have to be novel or new, just that are compelling. The same thing is true when you’re putting a proposal together, or when you’re trying to think of like, “Okay, we have that we have to make a chart of a safety process. We could cut and paste the one we used on the last proposal. Or we can find is there a better way to show this that would be more efficient and more compelling, and do a better job of giving our client the assurance that we totally understand what this is all about.”

Craig Atkinson: The best way to show someone you understand what it’s all about is to be able to explain to them clearly what it’s all about. Even if they’re not. You were absolutely right, that this is about … for me, it is about reading, and it’s about reading both industry related information for the knowledge purposes, but it’s also about reading poetry and some other things that are a little more abstract or a little more esoteric because those are in the realm of metaphor. Sometimes when I want to write, I will go read a chapter’s worth or something or five or six poems from someone who I think is a really good writer because it dials you in to, “How do I put words and thoughts together?”

Craig Atkinson: You’re absolutely right, that good output is based on good input. But I think that early on about creating and nurturing a database was really important.

David Lecours: That’s golden. Hey readers, listeners, if you want to read something inspiring, we’re going to include a couple of inspirational quotes in the show notes and hopefully that’ll get you going. Well, Craig, this has been fantastic. You’ve been really generous with your time, and you’re full of knowledge. I know our audience is going to get a lot out of it, so thanks so much.

Craig Atkinson: Oh, absolutely. I love this topic, because I think at the end of the day, this is … the spark of life really comes with the ability to “create”, which doesn’t always mean making something new. It could be solving a problem, or putting a connection together or making a friend. I always appreciate the opportunity to talk about this and share a little bit about what I’ve learned. Hopefully people will find it useful.

David Lecours: Oh, for sure. If you guys have any questions out there, or you have comments, you want to reach out to Craig or I, you can get the information at psm.show. You can scroll down and there’s a contact form, and we’d love to hear from you. That’s it for this episode of PSM Show. Thanks to our sponsor, SMPS, and thanks to Craig Atkinson. From myself and my co host, Josh Miles, keep the creative fire burning.