Joshua Altman went to journalism school, worked as a political reporter and multimedia producer handling video, photo and web development, and left his newsroom more than a decade ago planning to freelance for a few years and then go back. While he was looking for freelance reporting work, he kept finding small and mid-size companies that needed someone to pull their writing, video, visuals and web presence together but couldn't afford a big agency retainer. He never went back.
Today Joshua works outside Washington, DC as a fractional chief communications officer with Beltway Media, serving startups, professional services firms, home services companies and government contractors with up to about 250 employees. In this episode of The PR Bunker Podcast, he and Don talk about why trust sits at the center of every purchase, the two frameworks he uses with clients, and why AI is only as good as the person using it.
A few takeaways from the conversation:
Most clients call Joshua when they want a rebrand, but he starts further back. Story is what you'd tell friends at the bar, the facts of how you got here. Narrative connects those dots and tells people how to think about the story. Brand is everything people touch, from logos and t-shirts to the phone tree, the hold music and the automatic email someone gets when they join your list. His at-home exercise is to divide a piece of paper into thirds and start filling in each one.
Once the story is clear, Joshua moves to channels with what he calls the Four Languages Model, which covers what people read, see, hear and experience. Hearing gets overlooked, he says, even though it includes podcasts, hold music and in-store audio that some retailers now tune aisle by aisle. Experience covers events and pop-ups, and also how people take in everything else. Someone watching this podcast and someone listening while walking the dog get the same information in two very different ways.
Joshua says if you handed him a hammer you'd be lucky to get a birdhouse, while a master craftsman with the same hammer builds a home families can live in for generations. AI works the same way. His team used it to gather vital statistics for more than two dozen cities, limiting it to official sources and checking every result, and learned to be specific because it can't tell Paris, Texas from Paris, France.
If he weren't in communications, Joshua would be working with dogs. He volunteers with a local dog rescue, was a foster for a long time and has a street mutt of his own. You can find him on LinkedIn or follow The Comms Chief on YouTube and Instagram.
Listen to the full episode above.
Reading is the hello. SBGA is where we get to yes.
What is a fractional chief communications officer?
It's a senior communications leader who works on contract for as many hours as a company needs. Joshua Altman's team works alongside a client's existing agencies so executives can stop managing those relationships themselves.
What is the Four Languages Model?
It's Joshua's framework for channels, built on what people read, see, hear and experience. Experience also covers how people take in content, like listening to a podcast in the car versus watching it.
When should a business bring in communications help?
Joshua says day one, because it's easier to build a story from the start than to work backward. Most companies call when a leader is tired of writing email blasts and managing marketing vendors on top of their real job.
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