with Dulari Gandhi, CEO D. Gandhi Communications
Trust is the foundation of any relationship, business or personal. Today Dulari Gandhi of D. Gandhi Communications, shares her perspective on trust in business. We discuss how to build trust and keep it, how self-awareness can not only improve your productivity but improve how people see you, and the 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer’s findings on trust in businesses today.
Notes from the Show
Whether personally or professionally, trust is the foundation of all relationships. Dulari Gandhi and I are discussing Trust, how to build it, what people expect and the role consistency and self-awareness plays.
The Edelman Report is an annual survey that studies the trust, the currency in the relationships that all institutions—business, governments, NGOs and media—build with their stakeholders. The 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer’s findings show that people want social impact, and they see value and trust in companies that prioritize this. Dulari defines social impact as doing well AND doing good. While this will look different for differing entities and industries, the bottom line is people trust organizations that have at least one priority that looks beyond their profit for the good of the community.
So that’s how the public views trust today. But how can businesses build trust with their client relationships? Dulari says, do what you say you’re going to do. That’s the bare minimum. Trust is compounded by consistency, dependability, communication, and self-awareness. If people know what to expect and can count on you, then trust will be built. But you have to be self-aware to let people know what they can expect. How do you work? How do you operate? What sets you up for success? What triggers failure? With these questions, you can ensure you're a consistent, dependable entity for your clients. Dulari stays consistent with managing her work systems through self awareness, note-taking, and calendar blocking.
Trust is a two-way street. While it’s important for you to build trust with your clients, you can expect the same from them. Most elements of trust will be universal. Business leaders want to work with clients who are consistent and dependable. Dulari highlights the importance of clear vision and expectations. Clients can build trust by entering the relationship with a definitive need and how they expect that firm to get it done.
Be done with making assumptions. Trust and communication will rule your business relationships (and any relationship) for the better. If you want to get in contact with Dulari Gandhi, you can find her on her website, LinkedIn, or via email.
What's Inside:
How to build trust in business client relationships?
How can your self-awareness affect clients?
The importance of consistency and dependability.
How can clients prove they’re trustworthy?
The 2022 Edelman Trust Barometer.
What is social impact?
Mentioned in this Episode:
Transcribed by AI Susan Tatum 0:36
Hello, everybody, welcome back to stop the noise. It's good to have you here. And I'm really glad you're here because today I'm talking with Dulari Gandhi, whose superpower is communicating in a complicated world. But we're going to talk about trust and the self awareness component that goes in with trust, which is, I think, is something very interesting. And it's going to be very, very helpful. And I'm totally excited about doing this. And, Dulari, thank you so much for being here.
Dulari Gandhi 1:04
Thanks, Susan. I'm so happy to be here. Thanks for having me.
Susan Tatum 1:07
You want to give us just the the Clico, what do you do for anyone listening who might not be familiar with you yet?
Dulari Gandhi 1:15
Absolutely. So for the last 15 years, I've been working in social impact in a number of different roles, from donor relations, to communications to philanthropy, as a grant maker, and this past January 2022, I decided to go full time in a social impact communications firm, which is all about helping folks communicate clearly in a complicated world. And I've been doing this business on the side since 2020. And then decided that it was time to devote my full time energy to it this year. So I'm very excited to
Susan Tatum 1:49
you took the plunge
Dulari Gandhi 1:50
took the plunge, and it's a plunge. I think a lot of people warned me that it would feel very plungie. And I didn't realize how much that would be until I did it myself. So
Susan Tatum 2:01
what so you know, you mentioned social impact. And when you and I were were first talking, we were talking about the Edelman Trust Barometer that they do. And if anybody listening isn't familiar with that it's an annual report on the on the state of trust, I guess in the is it just the US?
Dulari Gandhi 2:19
It is in the US, and it is for civil society broadly in the US. So nonprofit, academia, philanthropy, and how do the US adults feel about those institutions?
Susan Tatum 2:30
And they get and they do get businesses that are wrapped up in their to the for profit, regular businesses, and for for many for several years now the outlook has not been fabulous. And I think they called it. It just in this vicious cycle of mistrust that we're all in. One of the things that it mentioned, when I went back and looked at the study a little bit more closely was the importance of social impact to consumers. And that businesses, one of their top 10 things was that businesses needed to get more involved in social impact. But what does that mean? What is social impact?
Dulari Gandhi 3:13
Yeah, I think that that definition changes depending on who you're asking, right. And so, for me, I think I've always thought about social impact in the lens of is your work, you know, sort of that now a little bit of a trite phrase of Are you doing well and doing good at the same time, right? Are you focused primarily on your profits, as most businesses are, but is there a lane of your work that's dedicated to improving the community in which you operate, giving back to our structural systems in some way or another, in some places that looks like corporate social responsibility in other places that looks like advocacy in other places, it looks like, you know, decisions about where you sell, and where you don't sell and what kind of customers you target. It can look really different depending on the entity. But I think, in the end, what it means is that there is some layer to your work that is not primarily focused on your profitability, it is focused on giving back in some sense,
Susan Tatum 4:09
I think it's very encouraging that, that that people are beginning to demand that from the the businesses and the and the nonprofits, that they that they're, they're helping to fund one way or the other. So in the So to go back to the Edelman report, to be in a vicious cycle of mistrust means that Oh, and they said that they found that six out of every 10 People told them that distrust was their default emotion. And when they when they let say met somebody, they they're they're going to distrust them until something, there's some evidence of that, that that person is actually trustworthy. Would Yeah, and I need to keep that in mind.
Dulari Gandhi 4:56
I think that's right. And I think that there are lots of things that businesses and organizations can do to build trust with their consumer base with their investors with their board, you know, sort of the whole range of folks that you would consider stakeholders in a company. But you know, one of the things that we started talking about when it came to building trust was around consistency and performance. Right. And I think that one of the Things that I can speak from personal experience just in the way that I interact with clients some of the feedback that I've received, it sounds so fundamental, but I've had a few people say to me, You know what, it's so refreshing that you just do what you say you're going to do. And that shouldn't be refreshing, right? That shouldn't be. That shouldn't be sort of an exciting thing for a client to work with somebody who does what they say they're going to do and what they're being paid to do. And I don't think I'm perfect at it, I think that what typically happens in what I see is that we tend to over promise on things because we're excited about the work, we're excited about a new client. In consulting, I think there's also, you know, some amount of not always getting as granular and tactical as we need to in order to deliver on the things that our clients really need. Because we're sometimes thinking at a strategic level are sometimes thinking, you know, on a different timeframe, perhaps. And so sometimes the conversations aren't as clear in terms of building scopes of work. And that leads to a little bit of a of a misfire in terms of delivery and an expectation. And so I think, thinking about trust, on a large scale, like what we're talking about with the Edelman report, and some of that Trust Barometer work that they do every year, is very closely interrelated to some of the trust issues that we have interpersonally at a very granular level, right, and all of those things sort of build on each other, to get to this larger distrust and mistrust. And one of the things in particular, in the Edelman report that I took away, and this is me being a communications nerd a little bit, but they had three big takeaways around, particularly in the nonprofit sector, where you're really, really dependent on people's trust, right, you know, you're here actively in the community doing things, that they're really communications goals, right? Are you demonstrating your results on a very regular basis? Are you communicating sort of a clear organizational mission? Does everybody understand what you're here to do? And then are you delivering on that thing that you said you were going to do? And I think that that is just a common thread, with our institutions, with our organizations. And then on an interpersonal level, I think everyone is looking for that level of trust, that is built from consistency and delivering results.
Susan Tatum 7:40
So to go back to what you were just talking about with with our clients, it's setting the it's from the gecko and working with them setting the correct expectations. deadlines, how fast is this going to happen? What are you going to do? And what am I going to do? I remember having a business coach in the past, telling me it's very important to put that in the proposal when you're when you start, you know, pulling things together if the expectations on each side of it. But that Dulari is such a good point, because we, you get in a situation where you just you want to get a yes. And you know, and salespeople have long been sort of a thorn in the side of account people because they, they're under pressure to close deals. And so they will promise the world. But I find myself sometimes doing that as well, I have to make a conscious effort of saying, No, be real.
Dulari Gandhi 8:35
Yeah, it's very important, right? And it, it leads to your own credibility, I think into your own sort of way in which you present and operate in the world. And and it's, I think it's very closely tied to something that we talk about, primarily in familial relationships and in romantic relationships. But it's absolutely important to talk about I think, in business relationships, which is boundary setting, right. And I think it's really difficult to set boundaries, unless we have self awareness of what we're capable of. And what we like to do, and how fast we know, we can do things and the reality of your workload and, and finding that sweet spot of can I take on this project? How long would it actually take me to do it? Can I create a scope that's accurate to my life? Do I have a relationship that I'm building with this client, where if something goes sideways, I'm communicating that clearly and early so that everybody is aware of what's happening? You know, those are all the things that build trust, and we know that almost instinctively, in our interpersonal private relationships, right? Like, I can't just say, I'm going to do something, never follow up with you. And then you know, maybe your partner or your child or your friend is sort of like, well, what, what in the world, you know, you said that we were gonna get together and then you just didn't show up to lunch. You would never really do that right? In the world. It shows up in the same way where it's sort of you set this deadline for when you're going to deliver something, you're maybe you're gonna miss it, life happens, things happen. And you just didn't maybe say anything about it.
Susan Tatum 10:02
You just miss it.
Dulari Gandhi 10:03
You just miss it.. And I think that's just a very small tactical example of the way these things, you know, we think about it so differently in terms of relationship building, depending on what hat we're wearing at any given moment. But they're really the same issue around trust, self awareness, consistency, and boundaries. Right? Are you you know, to your point earlier? You know, what are you going to do? And what am I going to do? And do we have that written down somewhere? And are we all aware? Am I making assumptions? Are you making assumptions, right? And, and, and how can we be very, very intentional about thinking through and checking those assumptions where we think they might be at play, versus going into what I think is more of an avoidant way of dealing with these things, which is sort of like, well, I think it's going to be okay, and this is what I think they think, and now you're guessing at it, and it, it then snowballs a little bit right into what I think becomes breaches of trust, right? Like, those are breaches of trust, when when things are missed, when assumptions are made. We know that again, instinctively in our interpersonal relationships, but it's the same application, I think, in client relationships.
Susan Tatum 11:05
I've, you know, one of the things you mentioned, knowing, being self aware of what you're good at doing what you want to be doing and who you want to be working with. And I've seen personally, since I reached the point in my career, where I understood that, and I was willing to say no, and and I think it's important, when you do have to say no, it's really nice to be able to recommend somebody that that can do the work for them. But I can't tell you the number of times that people they almost always come back, they when I when I tell them that it's like, you know, I really appreciate the fact that you you did that, that you know what you don't want to do. And now I know I can trust you. And I hope we find a way to work together. And it's a that's a really good point to keep in mind. The other thing that came to my mind while you were talking was the lack of communication can lead to distress, even if you're on schedule and doing what you said you were going to do.
Dulari Gandhi 12:06
Absolutely. I do think there is such value in almost pushing yourself to over communicate, right, like the worst thing that could happen is maybe you give too many updates. Right. And that I think is is a much better outcome and potentially giving too few. Right, I think that it is from a client having been now client side and consultant side, right, I can sort of see where that where you really want to know what's going on. And like, let me skim your email, versus you not sending it at all right? Like I think you say like, Okay, this is fine. I know, I know, I know. And I'm going through the bullets and fine. Versus I think the worst case scenario for me is that any client of mine is sitting at their desk being like, I wonder what she's up to. Like that, to me that sort of getting at it. And, again, I think that's, you know, these small breaches of trust, that can sometimes snowball into what I think can be, you know, potentially a client doesn't come back for more work, or potentially, they don't recommend you to others, which is, as we all know, the best, the best way to get a new client is word of mouth and referral from an existing client. But if they don't feel very snugly secure in that working relationship, I think it's difficult to make the recommendation, right. You wouldn't recommend somebody you didn't implicitly trust?
Susan Tatum 13:27
Totally. Yes, absolutely. I think though, I had also that humans and I, this comes from, I guess, psychology studies or whatever, but humans will naturally think if they don't hear from you, they're not going to think, Oh, well, she's hard at work, doing my stuff. They're gonna think that they've been forgotten, and you're off at the beach doing something or, you know, or working for another client or whatever.
Dulari Gandhi 13:49
I think that's right. Nobody wants to feel like they're not a priority.
Susan Tatum 13:52
Good point.
Dulari Gandhi 13:52
I think that's one of the biggest challenges as a consultant actually is making sure that everyone feels like a priority and making sure that you because they are my priority, right? All of my clients are my priorities. And but me just knowing that and not acting on it, to show them that doesn't really help anybody, right. I want them to know that they're my priority as well.
Susan Tatum 14:10
So we've said, doing what you say you're going to do, and setting the proper expectations and communicating well. And this is good at building client relationships, relationships with anybody really, I would suggest that it goes. It starts when you first meet somebody and they're not yet your client or referral partners or whatever they might be that you really have to be on top of, of what you say you're going to do. Because there are a lot of people that take that very seriously. I mean, you said to me when we the first time we taught that was I said how do you know if you trust somebody and you're like, Well, they do what they say say they're gonna do.
Dulari Gandhi 14:52
Yeah. And it's, it sounds so simple. And because it is, I think actually right if you're, but I think we've all run into the experience of working with someone or meeting someone, or being in a friendship with someone, let's say, who who doesn't do what they love, either they, they miss a lot of things that, and it has nothing to do with intention, I wouldn't guess people's intentions. But I do think that there is something about the consistency and action orientation, that that really does. Really, really does influence a relationship, right? Like if you know, you can depend on someone it sounds so basic, but if you say that you're gonna follow up with me, and then you actually follow up with me, it means a lot, you know, and I think it it, even if we don't recognize it, we may not be able to call it by its name, right? Like, oh, this person always answers my emails, for example, we may not identify that consciously as a positive. But we will notice it when it's a negative, right? Yeah, we will notice that, oh, well, this person takes two weeks to answer my emails. And so I can never send them anything that's urgent. And we recognize that as a negative, right. But we won't necessarily acknowledge the positive in the same way. That's just human nature. We recognize the lack of it. And so I think that's an important thing to remember.
Susan Tatum 16:04
I yeah, I think that is, that's very important. You know, you know, when it hits me, though, when with people that are not yet clients, so you're just beginning to build a relationship. And I may have, like a day that gets stacked with so many phone calls, you're going from call to call to call, and you're saying, Oh, I'm going to send you this and such, and you have every intention of doing that. But then at the end of the day, you're running out the door to do something else. Do you have any like secrets about how to make sure that you do take action on those things.
Dulari Gandhi 16:39
And so one thing that I've learned about myself, and this is where we come back to some of that self awareness piece, I wish I were more self aware, but I'm trying really hard at it, it's one of my big goals for the last couple of years is to really take stock of how I work. And when I work well, one of the things that I know does not work well, for me, I can't have more than two calls in a row, I just can't do it, it messes with my brain, I will forget things, I will miss email, you know, I just know that about myself, meetings take a lot out of me. And so one of the things that I do is block my calendar. So if I don't run into this situation where I'm back to back to back, when I can't avoid it, when I can't avoid it, obviously, just do my best to take as many notes as possible while I'm talking to someone so that I don't miss things. For me note taking continues to be the most important thing I do on any given day, honestly, taking notes while you're talking to somebody about something is so so important. If I miss a note, you know, I'm not gonna it's not gonna come back to me, I just don't have that kind of capacity. I think most people don't, we're juggling too many things.
Susan Tatum 17:41
That's why I like recording conversations.
Dulari Gandhi 17:42
Yes, that really helps also. But yeah, I think for like some people, I have some people in my network who can meet all day long. And just it's fine. You know, that's just happens to not be the way that I work. And I had to learn that the very hard way, actually, because I spent, you know, I spent a couple of years sort of saying, particularly when the business was just starting out, you can never decline anything like it, that's when the potential client is for you. Or when the client is free. That's when we're doing the meeting. And I'm taking it in the front seat of my car. And wherever it is that I need to take it. I'm taking it right, yeah. And that was terrible. It really was not great for me. And I don't have that kind of very fluid way of, oh, I can just put in my headphones. But I'm here and I'm there and I can have a conversation. And I'll remember, I wish that I had that sort of capacity. But it turns out that I do not right. And so to set myself up for success, I'm just I'm very careful about my calendaring. So that that doesn't happen to me if I can avoid it. And so that's really my trick to most things is like, is that really working for you? I asked myself that a lot like is this? Is this? Or is this not working? Because we know when things are not working? Right? When multiple things are falling through the cracks. You're exhausted at the end of the day, but your to do list is still mostly unchecked, right? We know when things are not working. But then like pinpointing the thing that is leading to things not working, I think is the hard part, like what is it about my day structure that is not working in my advantage? And can I fix that?
Susan Tatum 19:08
How do I fix it? Yeah. So you know, you're, you're you're painting, are you putting a new dimension on self awareness? I think because I think a lot of a lot of us. We try to become more aware. I mean, and then there's a spiritual component to it too. But in business, it's like how can I be more efficient? How can I have more spare time? How can I you know, blah, blah, blah. And I don't really think about the effect that that has on other people, whether it's your clients or the people that you work with, or your friends or your family or whatever. It's important to have that self awareness for all of your relationships?
Dulari Gandhi 19:46
Yeah, I think that's right. And it's really difficult work. So I just want to be sure that I'm saying that often, it's really, really difficult work because none of us have any time, right on top of, and it takes time to actually sit there and reflect I actually had a conversation with another consultant who I met recently, who said to me something so interesting, it had never occurred to me. And I think probably your listeners are like you dolt, how come that never occurred to you. But at the end of every engagement with a client, even if they're re upping the contract, she does exit interviews with her clients, to sort of get that feedback from them in a very organized way. And in a way that if the relationship is continuing, I think builds trust and if it doesn't, she knows why. And in that way, I think that gives her a sort of organized, structured moment of self reflection, because you're receiving feedback from somebody else. And it triggers your own self reflection, when you receive feedback, hopefully. And so I think there's a number of ways to come at it. But they all require time and structure to actually intentionally reflect on the way you work, how others receive you, how you receive others, and where all of those things come together, where you can then make choices to make your workday better, to make your work much better. And then hopefully have a successful year because you've made all of these little tweaks about the way you work and the way you present to others. And I think that does that lead to hopefully business efficiency, and it does lead to, I think, a very strong pipeline of clients who trust you and want to work with you and recommend you to others. But there's, there's a good amount of energy and time required to get there, which is difficult.
Susan Tatum 21:21
Well, I think step one and self awareness for for somebody that's starting a business would be to understand or try to understand what it is you want this business to look like.
Dulari Gandhi 21:30
Yes
Susan Tatum 21:31
because there's so many decisions that you make along the way that are based on do I want to be as big as possible, and have as many employees as possible? Or do I want a lifestyle business that is just, you know, going to make me happy and and pay for things? Big difference?
Dulari Gandhi 21:48
Because important bills that need to be paid? Yes, yes. And I think, to all the things that we're speaking to today, in terms of how we build trust with clients, how we become more self aware, how we integrate efficiencies into our business, how do we make decisions about what our business looks like? None of those things should be static, right? And so the way that I would answer any of those questions today, maybe in two years, I have the same answers, but maybe not. And then and then evolved and it's okay. But if we don't take the time to revisit, I don't know how we find out that our answers have changed. Or that we have maybe different ideas on on based on our experiences and our knowledge, right. We're constantly learning about ourselves and our work. So I do think it's really interesting to to sort of build in both the idea and receptiveness to change and evolution. And whatever that might look like without it being the most terrifying thing because I think I'm I spend most of my day just in the grip of fear, sort of, you know, and I think that that's very natural, right, when you're on your own and sort of, you know, figuring out entrepreneurship and figuring out a business model. It's, it can be scary, right. And I think one of the things about that fear, though, is that hopefully what I'm what I'm trying to do is hopefully turn some of that fear into actionable planning, right? Like, what am I, what am I worried about here that I'm feeling this emotion? What is it that I'm actually worried about? And then how can I mitigate against that, versus letting myself sit in the fear, which is my favorite activity, but I try not to let myself do that for too long.
Susan Tatum 23:23
That's a great way to get an ulcer.
Dulari Gandhi 23:25
Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's not great over here. So
Susan Tatum 23:34
before we run out of time, there's there's one point about trust that I want to hit on that, that we talked about previously. And that is, trust is a two way street. So I do a lot of yammering about how we need to to have our clients trust us to to know like and trust this is something that has been a mantra for consulting for a while, but what I think it's just as important in the reverse is that that you need to trust your clients as well. And you had a, I think I asked you and we talked about this a few minutes ago, but to go a little bit deeper into how do you know that you trust someone that's going to be your client? What what are you looking for?
Dulari Gandhi 24:17
Some of the things that I'm looking for are probably universally true. I would say some of the same things that I offer in terms of dependability are you going to reach out to me when you say you're going to reach out to me, do you have a clearer sense of why you're looking for a consultant and what you hope that consultant achieves for you, and how all of that is tied to your business as a client, I'm looking for sort of that through line, right? I have a business, my business has a strategy, my business has goals. This is a gap that I have on my team or in my business that I cannot fill with my current team. Or I may hire for it in the future. But right now, I don't have it for whatever reason, and I need someone external to come in to fill that gap in order to achieve these things that, again, are tied to my business's goals and strategies. If if that through line is so important to me, because I, I don't want to be the one that creates that thru line for a client, right? Because I don't work in your business, I'm not your CEO, when it comes to strategic planning, and some of those other things all well and good that there is an opportunity there to inform some of these things. But someone still has to know that they need a strategic plan, they still have to know why they want you to come in to create that strategy, they still have to know why that strategy is important important to achieving things that they have not yet achieved, or to build on things that they've already achieved. They're not sort of grasping at, you know, in my line of work, I have clients that I work with, who come in and say, I have these business goals. And the challenge to achieving them is that, you know, our mission is too long, or you know, nobody really understands it's too jargony, I can't really explain what it is that we do. And so when I go to funders, or when I go to investors, you know, some of my language is very unclear. And so they can't follow along with me. And they're not willing to give me money to achieve these things, because I can't speak about it clearly. Great. I've got other clients that come to me and say I need ads. Okay, well, what do you want? What do you want the ads to achieve? Like, what part of the larger strategy? Where do these ads fit into? And it's just no ads right, I need ads give me ads. And so you see the difference between those two things. For me, I'm looking for a client that can really sort of help me understand where my role fits into some larger goals that we're all sort of working towards together. And that is not more tactically add hoc, without any tie to
Susan Tatum 26:38
Right
Dulari Gandhi 26:39
what the whole team is working towards.
Susan Tatum 26:40
Well, yeah, I mean, I think what you you just articulated was the difference between somebody that wants you to be a strategic adviser or a partner to them, versus somebody that thinks they know what they need, and they just want you to execute. And so you're a vendor.
Dulari Gandhi 26:57
Yeah. And I think also, there's, obviously there are shades in here, right. And sometimes people don't know what they don't know. And there's nothing wrong with that. I do think that there's opportunities sometimes as a consultant to come in and say, you know, to your point earlier, here's what I'm seeing from what you're telling me. And actually, I may not be the right person for this job, because here's what I think you need, here's what I can provide that I think will help you reach some of these goals. And like, let's talk about that. But that's one thing that I'm also looking for in a potential client is that openness to have that conversation, right, that you might not know, or you might have a sense of what's happening, but maybe you're completely in a position where you're able to say, I actually need you to come in here and help me understand where the gaps are, and so that I know what it is that I'm looking for. And that's okay, too. But I think the opposite of that is not being able to clearly sort of explain why it is that you're dedicating a chunk of your budget to this outside consultancy, to help you achieve and then it's question mark. Right. I think that's the hard part. You may not always know all of these answers, but having the openness to talk about it is really where and again, I think that's trust, right for me is that you trust me to be vulnerable and have this conversation. And I trust you that that you're listening to me. And those two things have to sort of work together.
Susan Tatum 28:14
Yeah, yeah, I think in that situation, what I always ask, like, if we were decide to work together, and three years from now, what is what does it look like if you know if this if this is a success? And if they can't answer that question, then? No, I mean, they need to go back to the drawing board
Dulari Gandhi 28:33
go back to the drawing board, or invite me to your drawing board, right?
Susan Tatum 28:35
Yeah,
Dulari Gandhi 28:36
let me help you find those goals because I know what I can do, and you know what your business is about. And so let's put our brains together and come up with that solution. But I think we've all met people who unfortunately, unfortunately, for us, as consultants are not willing to be open to that conversation and are driving towards potentially solutions that are not aligned in a way that makes your work actionable or fulfilling,
Susan Tatum 29:05
right exactly
Dulari Gandhi 29:05
and none of us was stuck out on our own to be unfulfilled with client work. So it's important to talk about it.
Susan Tatum 29:08
And if they don't share with a if there's like, you know, I need a new website, we'll you know, what is it that you hope to achieve with a website? If you if you just do what they tell you to do, then the chances are it's going to fail. And you're going to be the one that fingers are pointing at them. And yeah, yeah.
Dulari Gandhi 29:29
And it's difficult, right? I think one of the challenges, particularly in the communications field, is that doing that legwork in the beginning, like somebody just wants a website, right, and I get it. A lot of folks that I work with are, you know, in startups or in nonprofit, or in academia, or in different lanes of work, where everybody's stretched, there's not enough budget, there's not enough people. And we just need a website. Right? Yeah. And I get it. And I so I think there is something there's an art to balancing, delivery, tactically, and getting the strategic information that you need to do it well, so that clients don't feel like we're spending six months in discovery is what we call it, you know, are spending six months on audience analysis, and I'm paying you all this money to tell me about audiences. Like there's a balance there that I'm learning that I think takes time also, in terms of how are we delivering in a purposeful way, but in a way that also helps your clients understand why they brought you on in the first place. That there is something to achieve there. Yeah.
Susan Tatum 30:29
Well, I could keep talking forever. But we are we are going to have to wrap it up. And this has been great. I there's so much good information in here. We'll get that in the show notes. For folks that want to follow up with you. What's the best way to do that?
Dulari Gandhi 30:45
Oh, yeah, absolutely. My website is dgandhicomms.com. I'm on LinkedIn. Yeah, there's really, I'm available on all the internet.
Susan Tatum 30:56
Okay, we'll put the links in the show notes. And thank you so much for being here. It was, it was terrific.
Dulari Gandhi 31:01
Thank you for having me. This has been really fun to talk about some of these things that that again, I think, you know, we talk about a lot in our interpersonal relationships, our personal relationships, but not in business, and I think they're equally important for us. Thank you for the chance.
Susan Tatum 31:16
All right. Well, you take care.
Dulari Gandhi 31:18
Thank you. Bye.