Before I get to why I see Radley Yeldar (RY) as a role model agency, a quick recap on the purpose of teer Role Models…

In a time starved world, communicating brief insights on those we see in our industry that serve as role models – whether for their behaviours, actions, tools, intellectual property they create, etc – is one way of constructively expressing ourselves, communicating some value, standing out, and building positive perceptions.

Driven as-and-when by observations, inspiration and day-to-day experiences, teer Role Models aims to trigger thoughts and ideas and to provide useful guidance from a business development perspective. Designers may want to consider how to apply this thinking in their own outreach.

One of the many reasons it’s easy to pick RY as a role model agency is this…

We all know and experience how brands relentlessly compete for our attention. With so much ‘noise’ in our daily lives we are forced to critically review the content we receive. Equally, in a business development context, we must be critical of the content we create and share ourselves – question resonance and value, especially when we are nurturing our intended audiences.

In this endeavor we call nurturing, our aim is to build value. We do this by ensuring our behaviours and communications resonate and are positively received. Understanding the drivers and motivations that trigger positive movement through the buying process helps. In this nurturing phase that can lead us towards new clients, we balance appropriate frequency of contact with sharing content that we know will be mostly relevant, insightful and interesting. Occasionally, it’s ok to talk about ourselves!

Blindingly obvious? Well maybe, but to what extent are we doing this and building value, honestly?

For over 30 years RY has built a track record for helping clients improve their annual and sustainability reports. Fundamentally, for the past 12 of those 30 years the firm has shared its expertise and experience by publishing an annual review of Annual Reporting trends called How does it stack up? (HDISU). This review of FTSE 100 annual reports has been a leading piece of research since RY’s early days, and is now widely recognised for its comparative analysis, impartiality and forthright approach to the challenges in the sector.

RY are not the only agency I’ve seen reviewing annual reports, but I see them as a role model communications agency for having the foresight to plan and consistently invest their time reviewing FTSE 100 annual reports as a self-initiated industry research exercise. The outputs help RY to quietly promote the agency in a professional, informed and useful way whilst positioning and reinforcing RY as a go-to firm in its field of expertise. I have little doubt that HDISU is an effective marketing tool for RY and see how this may be used by the agency to great effect.

HDISU is a good example of how a creative business can impart knowledge to create following, nurture audiences, demonstrate expertise, attract inbound enquiries, enhance reputation and build value.