Arleigh Vasconcellos: “Good Strategists are people who really understand problems and say: here is how I’m gonna help you.”

In a new episode of Gotoclient’s podcast, we talked about strategy and communication for B2B companies with Arleigh Vasconcellos, Managing Director of The Agency, a Canadian award-winning B2B communication agency.

Arleigh, in addition to having lots of experience on the subject, was nominated for awards such as the Canadian Women Entrepreneur Award and the RBC Women of Influence Award. Jordi Marca, CEO of Gotoclient, had a very deep conversation with her, and very interesting concepts came out.

One of the highlights of the episode was her theory about the two types of people: “For me, there are two kinds of people: strategists, who are like chess grandmasters, always thinking two or three steps ahead of everyone else, and the tactical executors, people who make sure things are done properly”. The problem, says Arleigh, is that in many companies the executors end up supervising strategies, and there is a lack of truly visionary people.

She also compared strategic communication with a family table, where Marketing and PR are the parents, while social networks, conferences, and media relations, for example, are the children. “The strategy has to bring everyone together, sometimes in a big conversation, but sometimes in individual conversations between different members at the same time,” she explained.

One of the highest points of the half-hour talk was when she shared her vision of what a good strategist is: “Good strategists are people who really understand the client’s problems and tell them: this is how I’m going to help you“.