The Power of the Manifesto

Was this newsletter forwarded to you? Sign up to get it in your inbox.

This week, Mark Zuckerberg published ‘The Future is For Everyone,’ where he laid out his vision for AI and argued that the real danger of superintelligence is one company holding too much control over it while also casting Meta as the alternative to that future. 

The coverage was a mixed bag across outlets that discussed his main claims, called it confusing, and one said it was the clearest example yet of why people distrust AI in the first place.

But, if we have it in us, let’s set aside whether he is right or wrong and instead look at what he was aiming for by publishing the piece in the first place. He wanted people to know what Meta believes and stands for before anyone asks what Meta sells. 

Why? The uncertainty, murkiness, and vision-statement echo chambers that AI has created in the market has resulted in a sea of loud and swirly words that don’t actually have an opinion about anything. Emotions are high and visibility is higher, and because of this there aren’t a lot of people willing to stick their necks out to share what they do and do not stand for. The kick-on from this is the ‘here is what my product is’ messaging we’re seeing plastered everywhere, and it’s starving audiences of direction, connection, and meaning in a noisy market where people are hungrier than ever to know what you believe before you tell them what you sell. 

Because of this, we’re seeing founders, investors, and companies of all shapes and sizes start to think again about their why. The result is the resurgence in manifestos and honestly I’m here for it.

Companies and founders aside, the same need for clarity and a stake in the ground runs straight through our own work as comms consultants too.

A consultant’s manifesto is a statement of how you see the work and who you are here to help. It should answer a short set of questions in your own voice:

The goal is to tell the truth about how you operate so the right people recognize it. A founder reading it should land on either "that is exactly how I want to work" or "that is not for me" (and both of those reactions are OK and will save everyone a lot of time).

I went through this exercise myself and created the be ready manifesto. It’s the heart of my own consulting practice. And while the headline isn’t anything sexy, it gets to the core of what I believe about modern comms work and ties into why I do what I do, who I specialize in helping, and the type of partnership I have with my clients. My process is explained in reasoning and problems that my core audience (mostly founders) can relate to, and it also gives me a foundation to keep coming back to for how I navigate my own business when stuck.

Key thing to remember here: a strong manifesto is specific enough that a reader could disagree with it. This looks like:

The goal of a manifesto is to help the right people recognize themselves in your work, which means being willing to let the wrong ones be wrong for you.

When a founder reaches out after reading what you believe, the first conversation starts somewhere better. A good manifesto lets a prospect work out several things before they ever email you: whether they need you at all, whether they are ready for the kind of help you give, how you will approach the work, and what kind of relationship they are signing up for. 

There is a status shift in it too, because a list of deliverables reads as a vendor for hire. Show the thinking underneath and you read as an advisor, which is a role founders pay a great deal more for.

Without a stated point of view, you get pulled into engagements that were wrong from the first email. A manifesto gives you the language to say no early and will protect you from the familiar traps:

I bet you’ve taken at least one of these, and most of us have taken all five (it’s me!). 

Comms consultants get hired to create clarity. We help founders explain what makes the company different, executives sharpen their point of view, and ask people to be opinionated and specific about what they stand for.

So why is it that we then go back to our own consulting practices, and use the same handful of things to describe how we help clients?

Here is how a lot of consultants describe what they do:

Sure, every item listed above is the work that clients need, but none of those items answer the question a founder is asking: why you? 

By reading a list of services, they simply cannot tell what you believe or who you are for, and just like the sea of businesses mentioned above that are swirling to stand out, you have now doomed your own business to the same fate.

If you still work inside a company, writing down what you believe about communications forces you to hold an operating philosophy of your own, rather than absorbing whatever the last meeting decided for you. You get clearer with your programs and harder to overrule on vibes, and on that glorious day when you go out on your own you already have a clear idea of your ideal client profile (or ICP), which most new consultants spend a few months fumbling on.

If you are a founder doing the hiring, this changes how you search. "I need a comms person" is too vague to hire well against, the same way "I need an engineer" would be. Ask a consultant for their point of view before you ask for their rate.

You spend your days helping other people have meaning in the world by finding their real position so they sound like a specific human who believes a specific thing.

It’s time to turn that skill on your own practice. Write the manifesto you would want a dream client to read before your first call together, draw the hard lines you believe (including the ones that will cost you the wrong work). If your whole job is helping other people get clear, staying vague about yourself is just bad business.