Professional Services
DHR Global
Turning 1 hour of partner time into publishable thought leadership
DHR Global provides executive search, leadership consulting and emerging leader search services in more than 60 markets across 22 countries. Its partners have deep industry expertise, but limited time to turn that expertise into thought leadership. We help them capture their perspectives efficiently and publish content for the audiences DHR wants to reach.
Challenges
1.
Too many writers, too little consistency.
DHR relied on a rotating roster of freelancers who had varying interviewing and writing skills. Drafts often required extensive editing, requiring marketing to spend too much time managing writers and revising copy.
2.
Revisions stalled publication.
When drafts missed the mark, partners faced repeated rounds of changes. Senior executives had little appetite for drawn out review cycles, and some pieces were never published.
3.
Writers lacked context about DHR’s marketing goals.
Freelancers handled each article as a separate assignment. DHR needed writers who understood its business, connected topics to marketing priorities and could identify additional uses for partner expertise.
Solution
Practice areas bring DHR the issues the firm wants to address. From there, our writers research the topics, review background materials and prepare interview questions designed to reach partners’ points of view quickly.
Partners typically give us one hour. After each interview, we develop a polished draft that usually requires one review round, giving marketing a consistent editorial process.
We also create social posts and carousel copy for each article, giving DHR ready-to-publish content for additional channels. Our writers know the firm’s practices and priorities, so they can identify ideas that may work for other audiences or practice areas.
The same process works for larger assignments. We regularly combine perspectives from several DHR partners into one cohesive piece and sometimes interview outside executives as additional sources. We’ve also ghostwritten bylined articles for DHR executives in industry trade publications.
Results
1.
Partners request our writers by name.
Partners regularly ask to work with specific writers from our team. Familiarity with a partner's expertise and point of view makes interviews efficient and helps produce drafts that require minimal revisions.
2.
Practice groups ask to join the program.
Colleagues see the thought leadership other groups publish and ask for similar support. Partner interest has helped expand the program across the firm.
3.
Partner expertise reaches industry audiences.
Ghostwritten bylines in trade publications give DHR partners another way to share their expertise with the executives and industry audiences the firm wants to reach.
“You understand the bigger picture of what we do. That makes my job a lot easier, because I don’t have to explain it to 20 different vendors. When working with other writers, our projects often got so bogged down in revisions, our partners couldn’t get completed thought leadership content. With The Simons Group, I know it will be done well the first time – and you’re easy and fun to work with.”
