How to Get Your Creative Team to Read Your Mind

Transcript is auto-generated from the episode audio and lightly edited; it may contain small errors.

I feel like almost every person who's had a really good idea and pitched it to their creative team has felt this way before. It makes total sense to them, they have the vibe, they know exactly what they want this video or this graphic or this package or this product to do and to look like. And then the team executes it, you get back the product, and it looks nothing like you thought it was. I'm so close! That's the worst.

Known For podcast, episode three. Take one.

The elephant in the room is you cannot get anybody to read your mind, but you can have really good communication channels with your creative team to make sure that you are articulating your idea effectively, and that you're on the same page. You've got to be speaking the same language. So today we want to talk about how to articulate your ideas, and that's essentially putting it in a brief. It's an organized way of putting all of your ideas in one place for your graphic designers, your video producers, your editors, everyone, to understand what your vision is and what you want to accomplish, and what the end goal is. Because at the end of the day, it's all about what it's doing for your business and for the people who are going to consume whatever it is that you're making.

Share a little bit more about what it's like being on the other side of that conversation, as a creative. It's not fun being on the other side as the creative — we've been there. You get the brief, or you get the direction, and the direction is so vague, or overly complicated but in terminology that just doesn't make sense or isn't defined. I feel very vulnerable talking about this right now because our creative team is around us, and they know exactly what it feels like, because we're typically the ones telling the creative ideas, or even articulating those ideas on behalf of our clients. So we're typically on both sides of the conversation, in the middle of it a lot of the time. We have meetings after the client meeting saying, okay, what do you think they're trying to say? Because it wasn't clear. So we know what it feels like. I hope our team will hold us accountable to some of these things too — I want to say we practice them, I know we could do better, I think every creative leader could do better in this area, because it's all about communication. So hopefully the takeaway today is, how can you communicate your ideas more effectively? Because I think what every creative person wants the visionary to know is, we want to execute great ideas, we're on the same team, we want to make your idea work, it's just a matter of understanding what it is.

So let's talk about a brief. A creative brief is essentially how you organize your idea and get it into the language that will communicate to your creative team — your graphic designers, your copywriters, your video producers, everybody who is involved in this project — what they need to know in order to accomplish that idea and meet that end goal. So a couple of things to think through when you have this idea, you wake up in the middle of the night and you're like, okay, I'm going to have a meeting the next day, this is what we're going to talk about.

Number one, you want to articulate the goal of this idea really well. So if you want to film a commercial, what is the end goal of this commercial? Are you going to turn this into ads? What platforms are those going to run on? You may not even know all of these answers, but these are really good questions to ask your creative team or your marketing team. Talk these things through, because when you're talking to a producer or an editor, they are listening to this conversation about goals and thinking, okay, this is how we're going to need to frame this, these are the different types of equipment we're going to need, this is what the budget is going to have to look like. We're translating all of this in our heads, and we can articulate these things back to you — information that you're going to need in order to make those decisions.

Knowing the end goal gives us the direction to run, that's where we can steer the team, that's where we can bring the right team members in. And that's literally the first thing on top of the brief: what the title of the project is, and what the goal is, what you're going to do with it. Because you don't want to end up spending your entire creative or marketing budget for the quarter and then not have anywhere, any budget left to do anything with it. You want to make sure you understand your goals so your team can pace themselves, and the idea can play itself through to the platforms you need to get it to. So it needs to go to a landing page if this is for a product. Articulating those goals, or at least having conversations about those goals with your team, is going to really help you communicate your idea and get it to go where you need it to go.

It's a stopgap for your team as well, for the client's team. Because we get projects where one department will hire us and say, hey, go shoot this, go capture this for us, and then somebody else entirely is like, oh, this is what we want edited out of it, that's not what we were told a week or two weeks ago when you booked us. So getting it on paper, in a document, in front of everyone's eyes on your side or the client's side, that's that last stopgap — like, oh yes, this is what we're doing, this is what it's going to be, and everyone's on the same page before we get to anything creative. I can speak from the perspective of having a big idea, and a team member has come to me and said, hey, can we meet about this, can I just ask some questions — it really helps get on the same page.

We have a couple more things you need to make sure you have on your creative brief when you're talking to your team. But in case you're not writing this down right now as you're listening, we have all of this in a document for you that you can download — you'll find it in the show notes. It's essentially a get-it-out-of-your-head guide, so you can articulate your idea and help your team get on the same page with you and really accomplish your vision.

So you need to articulate your goals. The next thing you want to really talk through is the emotion that you want to convey. The emotion, at the end of the day, is what it's all about — it's what drives people to buy your product, to connect with your organization, to take the next step, to do something deeper, to become a part of your ecosystem. They have to feel a reason why — they need to feel the want, feel the push, feel the heartstrings, the tugging. It comes down to story, of course. But defining what that overall emotion is helps you set the project on the right path from the get-go. And it's not just the emotion that you want to feel when you're watching it or seeing the final product — it's the emotion that your audience, your customers, are going to feel. You're thinking about the pain points that they're experiencing and feeling in real time as they're consuming whatever it is — social media content, video production, whatever it is — and that's all the baggage they're bringing into their experience. So you're thinking about those emotions, pairing it with the emotion that you're bringing into this experience. If it's something that's supposed to be motivational, that's something your creative needs to know so they can make it really fast-paced, thinking through the transitions and the type of music. If it's something with heartstrings — again, the goal is first and foremost the thing you want to talk about before you decide on the emotion. Because if this is something your customer is investing in, and it's personal to them, that's going to have a big emotional piece in the storyline. If it's something that's going to take their business to the next level, that's something you need to think about when it comes to the emotions they're feeling, the momentum they're wanting to lead their company in. So that's a really big part of the creative brief you want to convey — how is it going to change their life, how's it going to change their future, what's next for them? So many emotions in play here to think through. So the goal is where it's going, the emotion is how they get there.

And then what else are we thinking about? Something we have some differing opinions on — I always think it helps when you have a big idea. Most of the time, when founders or CEOs are bringing an idea to their creative team, it's very likely you've seen this somewhere else — you've seen someone do something similar and it inspired your idea, and that's inspiration you really need to share with your creative team, because it will help your designer, your producer, your editor, your copywriter get on the same page and know where you're coming from. What's the context of this idea? As a creative myself, I do feel like most of the time people are just copying each other and being influenced by each other — as creatives learn and grow in their skill, they're learning from all these other influences. So it's just this combination of influence and inspiration anyway. I think inspiration is important.

Inspiration is absolutely important. I think there's a difference between inspiration and straight copying — I'm not saying we're telling you to just copy the thing you saw yesterday on social media. But a lot of the time, that's the direction we get, or the instruction we get from clients — it needs to look just like this. I always try to push back with, authenticity matters. If that's not who you are, if you're not driving it, it's not going to click, and it's got to connect. Being authentic to who you are as an organization, as a brand, as a personality, is going to connect and drive more results than looking like your competition or your inspiration dot-for-dot. So I think there's room for inspiration — every artist, every creative is inspired — but if it washes out the authenticity and you look the same as everything else, if your business starts to look the same on social as the competition across the street, there's not going to be any reason for them to come visit you, because they're clearly leading the way.

I'd say there's a balance between finding authenticity and really pursuing that, and perfectionism. I just think sometimes you get as close to authenticity as you can while relying on inspiration without copying. There's something to be said about done versus perfect — maybe that's a different conversation, a tangent — but I think there's a little wiggle room there for flexibility.

I will say, on the brief, getting back to the inspiration or the aesthetic — if you're at the point where your organization is writing briefs because you're bringing in outside creatives, you have a creative team, you're leading them, it first boils down to the brand guide. If you don't have a brand guide, you need to get one. If it's just you and you're a solopreneur running everything, it can live in your head for a second, but you need to get it on paper, you need to get it formalized. Again, if it's not perfect, that's okay, but it needs to be consistent. Just pick the colors, pick the fonts, get the logo, don't change it week to week. You need to repeat yourself and be visually identifiable for the next six months to six years, because your audience is just going to think they found somebody new every time they see you, and they're not going to connect and be like, oh, I saw them last time. It's going to hit your social media engagement for sure. So that's going to be the first thing that informs your aesthetic to any creative — they have a brand guide. Okay, I'm living inside this world, and I get to create inside these rules.

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You want to make sure you articulate goals, emotions, aesthetic. You also want to make sure you articulate what success looks like — what are the results you're after, what are the KPIs that are important? That might be sales, but it might not be — think about quantitative and qualitative data. It might just be clarity, you might just want a really clear message about a new product, or consistent messaging. So articulating what those results are going to look like, what they're going to feel like — there's lots of different ways to talk about results, but your team needs to know that so they can make a better product. It really impacts the process, the efficiency, and the end product. And you've got to define the specifics of it, because if you say, okay, I want to sell more things and grow the audience and have everybody recognize me and have consistent content as proof of life and increase my SEO and do this — you're going to do a bad job at all of those things. Most likely, we're trying to create a single piece of content to achieve all of those goals. So pick what's important, and anything else that comes along with it is a bonus, because all those things can increase. But if your goal is to drive sales, there's some strategies that will do that, but they might not grow your audience overall. If your goal is to have a really clean aesthetic, that's great, but that also might not be the most viral content you're going to make. So you've got to think through what the end goal is, and then trust your creative to help get you there.

You have a lot to say about trusting creatives.

Paul: I do. My history goes back to starting as a person fulfilling all these briefs, or trying to get something out of somebody's head without a brief, and just kind of figuring it out. My advice, if you're in this position as a creative director, as somebody calling the shots, ordering the campaign, is trust your creatives. You're giving them creative direction — it's in the name, it's in the title — but direction means you're telling them the goal, and you're going to trust that they're going to know how to get there. The flip side of that is a micromanager dragging them along — it's not giving them direction, it's controlling every single little aspect and getting so down to the nitty-gritty that you might as well be doing it yourself. And that's fine — but then also just do it yourself, save the budget, save the time. It takes so much more time, it's so much less efficient, and at the end of the day it's a worse product, to treat somebody like a Photoshop layer and try to move every little thing around to get it exactly where it needs to be. As opposed to, I'm hiring somebody that's a better designer — we have designers on our team, I started off in graphic design, and we've hired better graphic designers than me as we've grown, and we give them direction and trust that they're going to get there. And the same goes for every creative field — copywriters, video, you name it. It's nice as a director to be able to speak those languages, but ultimately putting the great team together to achieve it takes it way farther than I'm going to get by myself.

I also want to speak to somebody listening to this and hearing us talk through all of the different things you want to say to articulate your idea, and you might be thinking, that's a lot of work, a solid creative director should be able to ask all of these questions and get it out of my head for me. And they should. But if you can open up that communication channel even more, you're going to have a better working relationship with your creative director, your marketing director, your team. If you can front-load all of that at the beginning and think about that to better articulate your idea, it's going to make a better product in the long run. So yes, a creative director and a creative team, a person who's really good at their job, is going to ask all these questions, is going to want these answers from you. But if you think about this at the beginning and open up that channel of communication, you're going to nurture that relationship, and at the end of the day it is all about having a strong relationship with your team, because that will lead to better work. Thinking through all of those things will give you a creative brief that will set your creative team up for success.

We also want to talk about what happens when you follow this process, build a creative brief, articulate your idea to your team, feel like you're on the same page — and then you get back the first concept and it looks nothing like what you had in mind, or something's just off. It might feel disappointing because you put in a lot of effort, you felt like you were on the same page. It's not the end of the world — that just means your creative leader or creative director had a different idea of what it was supposed to look like. So we came up with a framework for how to give feedback that will help you get back on the same page, and it's really similar to thinking through goals, emotions, aesthetic, results.

Grace: Because I have a background in teaching, I always think of sentence starters to help with tricky conversations. So what I always start off with is, here's what works — the font, the colors, the music, the transitions, anything that really works, that you actually like, that you want to keep — talk about it, it really helps you articulate what you want by identifying those things. And then point out what doesn't work. Here's what works, here's what doesn't work. Then you can point out the specifics — get as specific as you can. Specific's the key, because we get feedback sometimes that's just, it's not right, it's not the right vibe. How many times have we heard, this is not resonating with me? What does that mean? I was like, I'm sorry it doesn't — let's see what would resonate with you.

And that's the other thing to say — more this, less this. If it's not resonating, say, this feels too corporate, or this feels too cheesy, because those words, there's a very real chance they mean something different to somebody else. We do a lot of corporate video, so we get asked to make it more corporate or less corporate — but does that mean less energy, more energy, does that mean it's a little too clean, does that mean the music's a little dated? We actively avoid using those selections unless they're given to us. But it's that word, because — so, this feels too corporate because the colors don't pop, they're not as vibrant as I wanted — okay, that's good feedback. I think even saying more this, less that, or more motivation, more energy, less heartstrings, something like that could be really helpful to hear — just differentiating between what it is now and what you want it to be. I think that can be super helpful, it's clear, it's achievable, it's something a creative team can run with and get you results a lot faster.

And then I think one more way to put it is, if it's not meeting your expectations and you've given all this feedback, ask your creative team to take another pass at it with this in mind, with a certain inspiration or aesthetic or example in mind. Because sometimes having that example, or really strong notes or feedback, telling them to keep that at the forefront of their mind in this next pass can really help with the next concept they present. So that will really help with feedback, and just make sure you're keeping that communication open, really ensuring you're articulating your idea effectively and following up, even re-briefing your team again, because conversation and communication need to be really, really strong in the creative process. And whether or not you see yourself this way, if you're the founder or the CEO, if you're the decision-maker in this project, you are a part of the creative team, whether or not you'd consider yourself a creative — so consider yourself that, and that will come across when you're having these conversations and articulating your ideas.

Anything else you want to add to that? Yeah — one little addition, one handy little cheat code: download the creative brief. If you upload that into the AI of your choice, and you're having trouble filling that out on your own, take the PDF, upload it, and do the brain dump into the chatbot of your choice. Go nuts, you can talk it out loud if you need to, and just put in everything you think you can, and say, please make this clear, please make it fit these guidelines. It's going to help you hone in — and you'll still need to revise it, it's not going to be perfect. You can also share the PDF with your creative director and your creative team, and they can build out the creative brief for you. We write briefs for our clients all the time — we get that direction and turn it into briefs that are actionable, to communicate with our team. But your creative director or creative team would benefit from this checklist too, and using it can help guide their side of the conversation — they'd come to you with really good questions after this brief, after articulating what they know from your idea in the brief. So it's a great resource for everybody.

Everything we've covered today, hopefully it was helpful to help you get that idea out of your head into some action points, or conversation points, that you can have with your creative team, your marketing team, whoever is going to come alongside you. Remember, clarity is everything. Be as specific as possible. Bring your team in so they can be invested in the end goal and the results you're after, because everyone's on the same team, everyone wants what you're after — so build that investment, invest in the relationship by having those crucial conversations, be honest. And just remember, if you get back something that's not quite right, that doesn't line up with your vision, it's not the end of the world — you're going to make it happen, your team's going to get you there. Your creative team isn't bad, they just can't read your mind. Even though we all want them to sometimes — it would be really nice. Believe me, your creative team wants to reach your mind really badly, it just doesn't always happen that way.

Thanks so much for listening to this podcast episode. Hopefully you were able to get some really good takeaways that you can take back to your team. And if this is something that's helpful to you, would you like and subscribe? That really helps us reach more business owners, creative directors, and helps us serve more people. Maybe share it with someone else who thinks like you do and has a similar approach to their business and style. Also, if you have feedback for us, ideas for topics you want us to talk about, or questions you want us to answer, please leave a review — that also helps us reach more listeners, and helps us know what kind of conversations you'd like us to be having with you. Thanks so much for listening. We hope you'll join us next time on the Known For podcast.

Known For is a Griffith Media podcast recorded on the volume wall at Big Screen Studios in Dallas, Texas. This episode was produced by the Griffith Media team. Find out more about our agency, how we can help your business grow through marketing, video, and design at www.griffith.media. Or find out more about the studio at bigscreentx.com.