Scott Paton

Risk Management Insurance

Atlantic Risk - January 18, 2007

One of the challenges of developing a brand or messaging for a client firm is when the enterprise makes decisions by committee. The bigger the committee, the more opinions you'll encounter-- the more disparate personalities you'll have to please. Atlantic Risk Management --a very successful insurance company in the Mid-Atlantic region-- was one of those cases.

The company is really almost an amalgam of several different types of coverage providers-- separate fiefdoms, if you will, headed up by individual managers and partners in the parent firm. Upon my initial meeting with the client, not all the principals were in attendance. But I roughed out an initial draft of their website content and submitted it. Happily, those I had met with were delighted with the results, while those who had been absent justifiably felt that their voices were not accurately represented. Another meeting was called and the situation was quickly rectified, and all those disparate voices melded in the copy to send one unified message.

This clearly illustrates that the act of telling someone's story is a very personal thing. If a business is a three-way partnership, don't schedule your interview when only two of the principals are available. It's like having your class photo taken on the one day you were absent all year.

Atlantic Risk site