What was once just Alison, a reluctant solo-preneurwriter, has evolved into a 12 person team that spans five states, three time zones and a wide range of skills, specialties and experiences. Each new person who joins the team helps us serve clients in new and better ways. Ensuring that team members feel appreciated, fairly compensated and valued has always been at the core of how we operate. However, we had not been intentional about diversity, equity and inclusion (DE&I) when building the team, developing our culture or articulating our guiding principles. Realizing we needed to actively engage with DE&I, we hired a highly experienced consultant, Katie Leeman of Leeman Communications Collaborative to help us do the work and determine what DE&I could look like at Simons Marketing. We are at the beginning of our journey, but we wanted to share a bit about this process and what you may expect to see from us in the future.
What We’ve Done So Far
To begin the process, Katie led us through conversations about the company, what DE&I means to us and where we see ourselves going. From those discussions, we worked with Katie to develop a vision statement that will help guide how we think about and implement DE&I throughout the organization. This process also helped decide what social, cultural and industry related conversations that impact us and how we want to engage with them as an organization. Through this process, we drafted a strategic plan to weave DE&I throughout all areas of the business.
What You’ll See From Us
In the coming months, we’ll be sharing more on our internal initiatives, as well as approaching our content and advising from this perspective. Our blog articles will include a look at the topic through a DE&I lens and we’re going to be more active on social media on issues, events and topics that matter to us. No matter what, we are committed to trying and failing, and learning from our mistakes. These are just first steps in an ongoing commitment to doing better. We will continue working to align our actions with our values.
Going Forward
We don’t do lip service. Making meaningful change takes time, and we’re determined to prioritize DE&I in real ways. Decision making within the business will be influenced by our commitment to our DE&I initiatives. In time, we’re committed to increasing diversity on our team, in turn diversifying the perspectives and experience we bring to clients.
Conclusion
Our move towards prioritizing DE&I is just beginning, and we’re looking forward to the changes that are to come. We truly believe this work will both enhance our business and bring necessary ideas, representation and values to our clients as we help them meet their goals. We are committed to holding ourselves accountable to this work and continuing to do better. We’re here to support any of our current and future clients at whatever point they’re at with their own DE&I work. Contact us anytime to discuss these initiatives.
