Cam: Marketing in the world of confidential services presents unique challenges and demands a strategic approach to build and maintain trust. In this episode of the Passle CMO Series podcast, we dive into these complexities with Elizabeth Anscombe, Chief Business Development and Marketing Officer at Nardello & Co. We're going to explore how Nardello & Co. educates its audience about its highly specialised services, the importance of maintaining a client-centric approach despite confidentiality constraints and the strategies used to build and maintain trust in a field often shrouded in mystery. Welcome Lizzie. 

Lizzie: Thanks for having me, it's a pleasure to be here.

Cam: No, we're delighted to have you and it's going to be really interesting. So Lizzie, we'll dive straight into it. Can you start by telling us a little bit about your role in Nardello & Co, your journey to your current role and obviously you have a breadth of experience from legal, tech and other sectors. How have they influenced your approach to marketing in the global investigative space?

Lizzie: Sure, so I think like most people my path to the investigation sector certainly wasn't linear. I started in-house at a tech startup. I considered for a while becoming a lawyer so I moved into law and worked at a wonderful law firm called Kennedy's in their marketing department but stumbled across the investigation sector worked here for you know in the sector for some five years now and you know really couldn't imagine doing anything else, the challenges that it poses for a marketeer are completely unique and the work itself is completely fascinating. And in terms of, you know, my background and how that influences my role and the strategy at Nardello & Co. You know, having a range of sector experience has been crucial. Being at that client chain the ultimate client and then moving to a law firm and now sitting in an investigations firm I have an understanding and there's an understanding within the department of you know what the clients and the ultimate client looks like on the ground and and having an understanding of their commercial challenges their commercial priorities having that appreciation of what adds value and helping clients navigate those challenges is something that's front and center for my role for my team's role and increasingly positioning ourselves as you know a strategic partner for our clients is something that's very important and is a large part of of my role at Nardello & Co and cutting my teeth on you know being a client relationship manager will albeit at a very small tech startup. Client satisfaction and a focus on the client experiences is something that is front and center for myself and my team and something that is vital in all of our marketing initiatives at Nardello & Co.

Cam: You've mentioned already that there are a number of unique challenges in terms of the sector that Nardello & Co operates, obviously that traditionally it's seen as being rather sort of cloak and dagger. How do you approach educating your target audience about the services you offer and the value you can bring?

Lizzie: Yeah, you know, you're right. The sector has definitely had, historically at least, a cloak and dagger image, which, you know, either is deliberately lent into by some actors or, you know, simply a byproduct of a sector which is well less understood by some. But my conversations with clients show that there's a desire there for a professionalized sector, one that does things the right way and that is of increasing value to them and indeed is increasing value to their own clients and so my role is providing that transparency you know in other words being open about what it is that we do, how we do it and how we operate as as I said strategic partners to clients and not just you know what I call custodians of information, it's increasingly important to clients and therefore something we would really focus on. And so in practical terms, it's really been about engaging in those discussions with clients in a multitude of different ways, whether it's webinars or articles or picking up the phone and having a conversation with clients. It's really that transparency that pierces the veil of investigations and makes our world a bit more known to our clients.

Cam: Yeah, one of the things that you touched on there is keeping the client experience. Front of mind in a number of different ways. Can you elaborate on how this principle is applied at Nardello & Co., especially given the sort of confidential nature of your work and the way you often market to lawyers rather than the sort of ultimate clients directly? 

Lizzie: Yeah, so again, it goes back to this central question, which we continually find ourselves asking, which is this adding value to our client? And will this ultimately help them and help their client? You know, we're really fortunate at Nardello & Co to have a roster of ex-lawyers, federal prosecutors, what we describe internally as our legal DNA. And so we really understand what evidence and intelligence is ultimately going to help the client's legal strategy versus what's interesting but ultimately is of real, you know, no real use, which in of itself is extremely valuable. But outside of that and, you know, more in terms of the marketing drive, we deliberately dedicate time to watching sector developments, keeping an eye on legal trends and keeping abreast of anything that might be of strategic significance to our clients. And we're diligent in offering timely commentary on these issues. So again, you know, whether it's in articles or events, whether it's a case of having a coffee with a client and saying, you know, we've spotted this issue, this might impact your day-to-day or it might impact your clients, are you aware of it? And then having the expertise to help them navigate that is really valuable and is something that we implement as a habit, a daily habit. 

Cam: And one of the key aspects of your marketing strategy that you've mentioned a couple of times is building trust in a field where people may not fully understand the complexity of the services that you and others provide. Can you share some of the strategies or examples of how you build and maintain trust with both lawyers and with their clients as well.

Lizzie: Sure. So, you know, when I think of trust, I think in part, it's largely consistency and trust is built through consistency. And so that is a huge priority in my strategy, in my marketing and business development strategy. You know, it's consistently excellent service, the consistent brand messaging, consistently doing things the right way. And we're known for it, but it's not not really something that you can market unless it exists you know unless the skills and the expertise are there so I'm very fortunate in that regard that I have very talented colleagues. But I think what does speak to our market approach and particularly when you think about consistency it's more what it's not and it's certainly not about staying still or you know taking the same approach to each case or each client initiative each marketing initiative you know as I mentioned before we're really proactive and really diligent in remaining live to the evolving needs and challenges faced by our clients and monitoring industry and legal developments having open discussions with clients about how their world is evolving the challenges that they're seeing, their evolving needs and requirements from their investigators is paramount and really is the only way to help them navigate those challenges is by immersing yourself in their world. And we've been proactive, you know, I've worked with the firm to bolster an AI strand, we've got a new bankruptcy practice a new physical security threats practice so of course you know we're live too and we evolve as the market and as our clients need us to but underpinning that and back to the the consistency point is the same quality of service that same sense of self strong team and strong identity and having an understanding and being able to articulate that consistent message does go a long way to develop and foster trust with our clients.

Cam: I guess it's always incredibly important to make sure that your offering is being reflected in the evolving or changing in the market. And given the sort of confidential nature of the cases, Nardello & Co handles, what are some of the examples that you see yourselves effectively marketing your services and demonstrating your expertise without being able to showcase specific case details or client successors.

Lizzie: It's the people. You know, as I mentioned, we have remarkable bench strength of people from a variety of backgrounds. And so really, you know, my job is very simple because it's just putting them front and centre and letting their expertise, their background, you know, from being formal federal agents. We have lawyers, federal prosecutors, individuals from the private sector. So, you know, my job is just to make sure that they have the platform to shine and to engage with clients and offer up their very unique expertise. Because, you know, ultimately clients want to work with who they trust and who they know can do the job well. They also like to work with who they like. And again, we're very fortunate to have very talented, but also very nice and fun colleagues here at Nardello & Co.

Cam: And now it's time for the quickfire questions. Lizzie, what are you listening to or reading at the moment?

Lizzie: So I'm addicted to podcasts. So at the moment, I'm listening to a True Crime Podcast, which is a series that covers just various true crime episodes. I've been listening to it for about seven years, so I'm quite addicted.

Cam: It keeps going after seven years, fairly impressive. And for a bit of context for our audience, what was your first job?

Lizzie: So I worked at a startup, tech startup, that was acquired by Hewlett-Packard. So I had, you know, a startup role as a client relationship manager that then developed to more of a kind of a tech project management role at Hewlett-Packard.

Cam: Very interesting, much more glamorous than mine. I won't tell you what that is at the moment, but maybe for a later date. Personally or professionally, what is one piece of advice, one piece of technology, sorry, that you can't live without?

Lizzie: So I'm absolutely addicted to reading the news every morning. It's the first thing I do. It's a bit of a daily habit so my BBC news app and my legal press news app is something that I can't live without, very boring answer I know.

Cam: It might be opening up the BBC news app but do you have any other small habits that you can recommend to others?

Lizzie: My habit is, you know, if I'm trying to solve a problem, if I'm, you know, writing some content, if I'm writing an internal memo, to go for a walk and take some space and have some physical distance from what you're doing. I always find that that fosters creativity and ideas and the change of scenery is always extremely helpful, particularly for creative thinking. So that's my advice: take 10 minutes to go for a walk if you're doing something particularly challenging or creative. 

Cam: And if you could choose any place in the world to take that walk i guess coming on to what's your what's your favorite place to visit and why 

Lizzie: So my husband and I got engaged in Cornwall but we got married in the Isle of Skye and that was also where we had our first holiday so the Isle of Skye there's a particular walk that I absolutely adore and it's actually where we ended up getting married so I would say the Isle of Skye.

Cam: Perfect you've mentioned already that keeping client experience front of mind is vital and also being proactive in making sure your offering is reflected by demand in the market. If you had one piece of advice for marketers looking to build trust with their clients about their services what would that one piece of advice be?

Lizzie: It would be don't guess what the client's needs are just ask them you know they all have unique challenges each client is different of course  there's themes and there's commonality between what they face but clients will tell you what's keeping them up at night and what they like from their providers versus what they don't so my piece of advice would be to to engage your clients in those strategic conversations any chance you get and foster that strategic relationship and have that open dialogue with them. 

Cam: Don't anticipate their needs. Go ahead and ask them. Lizzie, there were a bunch of fantastic takeaways there. Thank you so much for featuring on the CMO Series podcast. It's my pleasure. 

Lizzie: Thank you, Cam.