Communications Business Advisor

Welcome to Episode 22 of the C ommunications Business Advisor ™ podcast with your host, Tara McDonagh. This week, Tara explores the love and frustration many communications professionals feel for their field. She candidly discusses challenges like small teams, underfunded departments, and underappreciation, while also talking about the emotional highs of getting that seat at the decision-making ta...

Welcome back to the Communications Business Advisor Podcast ! This episode dives into a fundamental question every communications leader should ask: "How Important Is It?" Tara McDonagh shares insights from a recent strategic planning session with a comms team, where the question revealed surprising opportunities for efficiency, clarity, and advocacy. If you're a communications leader juggling end...

Welcome back to the Communications Business Advisor Podcast! It's 2025, and with a new year comes the chance to adopt a new mindset - because mindset can change everything.  Today, Tara McDonagh challenges communications leaders to rethink the way they prioritize their time and energy in their organizations. If you've ever struggled with justifying your workload, advocating for resources, or redef...

Welcome to the final episode in 2024 of the Communications Business Advisor™ podcast with your host, Tara McDonagh. In this episode, Tara addresses a specific challenge faced by communications leaders looking to elevate their strategic role in corporate environments. In this episode, we explore… No: the professional communicators' word of 2024 was "no." And it raised some eyebrows and also some sh...

Welcome to Episode 18 of the Communications Business Advisor™ podcast, your go-to for advancing in corporate communications as a strategic business advisor. Today, we're diving into that all-too-familiar feeling—wondering if you're losing your mind from handling off-the-wall requests, lazy requests, and "I don't want to admit I don't know how to do this" requests.  We often question these requests...

Welcome to another episode of the Communications Business Advisor ™ podcast with your host, Tara McDonagh. In this episode, Tara delves into the ways Communications leaders and their teams in Corporate environments work with her and her company, Tara McDonagh Communications (TMC). TMC Consulting Tara provides a glimpse into the consulting suite, focusing first on the Total Communication Strategic...

Welcome to another episode of the Communications Business Advisor™ podcast with your host, Tara McDonagh. This episode is all about taking that shiny new Communications Strategy off the shelf and turning it into something operational. You've finally crafted that amazing Communications Strategic Plan. Congratulations! What do you do next? Tara shares her expertise to ensure your strategy doesn't ga...

In this episode of the Communications Business Advisor ™ podcast, Tara McDonagh explores the complexities of Communications (PR, Internal Comm. etc) reporting structures within organizations and answers the important question: Does it matter who Comms. reports to?  . Dive into the debate about where communications should fit within a company's hierarchy and the potential challenges and opportuniti...

In this episode of the Communications Business Advisor™ podcast, host Tara McDonagh delves into the evolution of communications professionals from what she calls "communications waitressing" to becoming strategic communications business advisors. Tara takes listeners through the career journey—from starting with tactical tasks to eventually becoming proactive, strategic leaders within organization...

In this episode of The Communication Business Advisor Podcast , host Tara McDonagh discusses the challenges internal communicators face with Rachel Miller, founder of All Things IC, and author of Internal Communication Strategy. Listeners will hear Tara and Rachel discuss: Challenges in creating an internal communications strategy and maintaining its relevance.  Confidence as a critical piece of t...

In this episode of the Communications Business Advisor Podcast , Tara McDonagh explores the concept of the "shadow communicator"—individuals hired within specific business areas to handle communications tasks independently of the central communications team.  Listeners will hear about:  The challenges these shadow communicators pose, such as undermining established communication efforts and spread...

We're wrapping the first season of the Communications Business Advisor Podcast! But not before we talk about HR and Marketing … and Comms too. The HR and Marketing departments can be powerful allies, AND they can also be kind of a nightmare to work with. Let's break it down.  In this episode, host Tara McDonaugh explains: The two categories HR and Marketing fall into when it comes to relationships...

"If we set up our structures to match what agencies look like, we lose something significant in our partnership, thinking, and actions. Most importantly, our field continues to lose the battle for treatment as a critical function, a critical business function, not a service area." --Tara McDonagh People with an agency background bring a strong skill set to whatever business area they move into nex...

"It became really clear what we could do and do well with the resources that we had, and those were limited resources. And I never stopped talking about what we could do with more." --Jessica Onick   The dirty word on this episode of the podcast is "prioritization." Host, Tara McDonagh has invited Jessica Onick, Senior Director of Internal and External Communications at GitHub to share how priorit...

Process––you're not alone if that word makes you cringe. You may find processes stifling to your creativity or just generally something that's a necessary evil.  On this episode of the Communications Business Advisor podcast, Tara challenges the way we think about processes. It's time to turn the dirty P word into something fun. Something that works for you and the business areas you partner with....

"If you're not measuring, you don't know if you're successful." --Natalie Papaj Host, Tara McDonagh talks with guest Natalie Papaj, VP of Communications at Wells Fargo to answer listener questions about measurement in Communications - internal and external.  In this episode of the Communications Business Advisor Podcast, Tara and Natalie address questions on: Aligning your metrics with business ob...

Can you truly grow your career without working EVEN more? This is a key question host, Tara McDonagh, is asked regularly by ambitious, exceptional, overachieving women. The assumptive answer is always - no. What most of us have always seen and assumed is that when you continue to rise in your career, company demands on your time will grow. Most women are eager and ready for growth, but don't want...

Women dominate the Communications field in numbers, but not in leadership roles. Why? Couple gender bias together with our misunderstood and oversimplified field and we have a fight on our hands.  In this episode of The Communication Business Advisor Podcast, Tara McDonagh explains: Equal Pay Day and International Women's Day - and why companies will recognize one while ignoring the other.  Gender...

Metrics are a massive subject for all Communications leaders in every area of our field - PR, internal communications, executive communications - you name it.  In this episode of The Communication Business Advisor podcast, Tara McDonagh explains: The area of metrics she sees many Communications teams miss.   How to approach intentional metrics-gathering with business partners, and how it makes a m...

Why is normalizing asking for feedback so helpful and 360 reviews so awful for Communications and PR Pros?  In this episode of The Communication Business Advisor podcast, Tara McDonagh explains: How to normalize getting feedback continuously and why - as an entire team.   Asking for feedback without using the word feedback The biases that come with a 360 review  How to counterbalance a 360 review...

Overworked, understaffed, under-resourced, and overwhelmed. Sound about right? It's a common description for Communications leaders working in a corporate environment. In this episode of The Communications Business Advisor Podcast, Tara McDonagh emphasizes the need to align communications' work with company business goals through a long-term strategy, and making a compelling business case for reso...

The most important work we do as professional communicators, meaning PR, Internal Comm. Public Affairs and related fields, lies in advancing business goals and protecting brands using the lens of Communications to advise.  In this powerful first episode of the Communications Business Advisor Podcast, host Tara McDonagh guides listeners through Communications acting as editor of a business decision...