It’s like 10,000 spoons/when all you need/is a Swiss Army Knife…

Early stage hiring: Deep generalist or a skilled specialist?

The title of this piece isn’t quite the lyric singer-songwriter Alanis Morrisette originally penned, but in keeping with my affection for finding lyrics to communicate a situation, I’ll continue.

I learnt that a global creative agency refers to multi-skilled operators as ‘Swiss Army Knives’ — possessing a deep understanding of multiple areas. They’re an invaluable resource in that space.

DNVB commentator, sharp thinker and all-round brand pro Web Smith @web recently tweeted:

Prompting an influx of comments and discussion points, I wondered what I consider myself as? A deep generalist in amplification and growth or a skilled specialist in PR and Comms? And to that end, which is best for early stage brands to work with?

As I’ve been speaking to businesses daily, explaining to them what I do and what Enid is about, it’s a consideration that’s occupied my thoughts.

When it came to setting up Enid, I knew I wanted to talk about brand and growth as a joint endeavour — with Brand Identity, PR and Comms, Social Media and Marketing in all its facets something that should be woven into the product from the start - whether that be an app, physical product or service.

My philosophy is that the wider your deep interests are, the better your creative output will be. When you’re exposed to all these things, it naturally lends itself to thinking outside the box and incorporating multiple schools of thought and considerations.

I realised that this approach to work was no doubt the same reason I studied Classics at UCL, so that I could spend four years taking a holistic journey through linguistics, philosophy, history, literature and archaeology, with a year abroad in Spain to get fluent. I always crave a deep yet 360 view of something. It’s a discipline I think those who are unsure of what to study should go for.

So when the kitchen drawer is full of so-called brand consultants, how do you stand out as one of the ‘Swiss Army Knives’ — the ones with truly deep knowledge of a wide terrain?

There is inevitably a tendency for multi-disciplined Swiss Army Knives to appear “jack of all trades, master of none”. Something that I had front of mind when setting up Enid and developing our ‘Set List’. It’s why I decided to label Enid an ‘amplification studio’.

With my eclectic back catalogue during my 10–year career to date, I’ve worked with early-stage businesses, as well as bigger entities including global FMCG players and globally-recognised high street retailers. In doing so, I’ve always been focused on the impact of my work — not just on the bottom line, but on a business’ culture and output. I was always concerned with being proud of my work, as something that had impact across the business, rather than seeing my work simply as PR successes.

If I consider myself the former — a deep generalist — I refrain from using the term generalist. I feel it doesn’t do a career rooted in Comms enough justice, being, as we are, specialists in so many areas of general knowledge.

Far from schmoozing journalists, if you honed your craft in PR in the last decade you’ll be expected to understand how to apply all of the following: convincing storytelling, crisis management, relationship management, a creative eye, talent scouting, ideation beyond comms, deep product know-how, and connections — if you didn’t come born with a little black book, then you’re expected to build one, and fast.

With Enid, I am opening up my network of like-minded, talented operators, who I call on when the task at hand is perfectly suited to them. It’s an approach Michael Jordan took on the court, highlighted in the recent The Last Dance series. Jordan managed to get the best out of people around him by pinpointing what that person did well, recruiting those players when needed, with Jordan calling all the shots. (My name often gets mispronounced as Jordan, but on this one I think I’ll say I identify as a Jordan in my approach to projects.)

Describing what Enid is about has been really important to me (and no, it’s not a radio station…not yet!). I don’t want to build “the PR agency of the future”, nor do I want to be a branding agency. Instead I want to offer ‘amplification’ in the many forms that can take. Whether that’s PR, social media and content, brand building or the many other skills now required to drive growth for brands today.

Recent projects that have kept me busy include support on a COVID-19 strategy for experimental haircare business Bleach London (that helped them trade at 8x), an influencer-led content strategy for lingerie startup NUDEA (which has already doubled social followers and secured national press coverage) and a full rebrand for jewellery designer Jessica de Lotz. More on that over here.

I know brands might not need a partner like Enid forever (although there are certainly ways in which they could), but if you’re in the early stages of building something powerful and meaningful, it pays to harmonise with a partner that understands the beat of your brand with every note. Enid could be that somebody.

Taking requests at enid.fm.