Part 3 of What on earth is a Rallying Cry?
This is part 3 of 4 in the ‘what on earth is a Rallying Cry? series. If you missed it, read the introduction to find out why we need Rallying Cries now more than ever. And find out why a Rallying Cry is so powerful in part 2.
It’s a compass not an engine
A Rallying Cry is just the start. It does a lot of heavy lifting, but requires focussed and consistent action alongside, otherwise it’s just a collection of nice-sounding words.
One of the biggest reasons they don’t work is because people expect them to be a magic pill that fixes everything in their business or organisation. They pick a Rallying Cry, stick it up as a decal on their boardroom wall, and that’s it. Nothing else changes. And then nothing else changes. And people are surprised that it didn’t work.
A Rallying Cry can’t keep your promises
Your Rallying Cry is just that – a promise. Part of the engine is that you have to keep the promise that your Rallying Cry makes every day. Your entire organisation needs to ‘be’ your Rallying Cry in everything that they say and do. If your Rallying Cry says one thing, and you do something different, you’ll lose the trust that you’ve worked so hard to build.
And this is even more important for a project or business like yours. People are naturally wary of things that are different. There’s often an unspoken feeling that things that try to ‘upset’ the status quo can’t be trusted. So it’s even more important that we keep the promises our Rallying Cry makes.
Trust is a massively underused opportunity
Clear Channel and JCDecaux found that 81% of people said trust is a deciding factor in purchase decisions. But just 34% of people had trust in the companies they used.
And in their 2021 Global Marketing Trends report, Deloitte found that when brands can match their delivery with their messaging, trust flourishes.
If you can build, and crucially keep, trust, you’re already way ahead.
Dive deeper:
Check out both of those reports linked above for more fun facts and numbers around how trust affects people’s buying behaviour.
The best way to make sure you can keep your promises
Is to make sure your Rallying Cry promises something that you already do naturally. And how do you find that out? You take a deep dive into how you do things. Talk to your clients or customers, your team, your stakeholders, your volunteers. Anyone that interacts with what you do. They help you get out of the jar and see the label.
If you’re a new project or business?
And you don’t have all these people to ask. The exciting part is that you get to decide. Choose how you want to do things and then choose to do them that way.
If you’re thinking that this might be something that could help propel your cause forward, then read on – in part 4, find out what an effective Rallying Cry looks like.