How To Build A Talent Ecosystem: Aligning Your Vision & Messaging
How to find your voice by imagining your future
A home-run message for nearly every midwestern city: “It’s affordable enough that you can actually buy a home here!” We (Midwesterners) are aghast at the prices of homes on the coasts and in hot spots like San Francisco. But is that really the strongest message for you to land on?
My hunch is that most people looking at a community with affordable housing are doing so because of just that! They’re looking for a place they can afford, thus they landed on your community. Should you still share the affordability factor? Of course. But dig a little deeper to find the rest. There’s so much more about your community worth sharing that will hook people into wanting to learn more.
So much of what we work on with communities across the country are the messages they’re sharing about themselves – what’s the voice? What are we inviting talent into? How do we express ways that people can belong here?
We’re all just human beings seeking the life we want to lead. And most of us just want to feel safe, have somewhere to live, a good enough education for our kids, quality healthcare when we need it, and something to do at the off chance that we have some free time. Some people like to hike, others like to swim, and others like to sit on their front porch swing and read a good library book. You don’t have to be everything to everybody (and you shouldn’t!), but you do need to have a message that’s clear, honest, and reflective of the kinds of opportunities that exist in your community.
Start with the Vision
Let’s start with a question:
Before you shape a message, do you know what you want it to do?
Not the tactical stuff. Not “increase traffic to our blog” or “get more people to follow us on Instagram.” We’re talking bigger than that.
What do you want the people inside and outside of your community to feel when they hear your message?
What kind of reactions do you want from newcomers, locals, business owners, college grads, and curious browsers from across the country?
It’s easy to jump straight into branding and buzzwords. But the most powerful messages start with something deeper: a vision. Not a mission statement. Not a tagline. A real, emotionally vivid picture of the future you’re working toward.
That’s the kind of clarity you need if you’re going to get a whole community aligned.
ZingTrain’s Visioning Method
This is where Ari Weinzweig’s genius comes in.
Ari is the co-founder of the Zingerman’s Community of Businesses in Ann Arbor, including ZingTrain, a Business Training & Leadership Development company (that I cannot recommend enough!). They teach a process called visioning, which is described as a way of seeing — and writing — a detailed picture of success at a specific moment in the future.
“If you want to give a gift to your organization, or to your family, or even to yourself, it’d be hard to give a better one than writing a vision of greatness. Rather than getting caught in reactivity, it allows us to write out the art we have in our hearts, to imagine and share a future that’s filled with hope, dignity, financial and physical health, positive beliefs, community giving, resilient relationships, meaningful diversity, active inclusion, full on humanization, beauty or whatever you want that future to be.”
It’s the difference between saying “I want to get healthier” and “It’s October 2025. I just finished a sunrise hike with my kid on my back, and I’m not even winded. We’re laughing the whole way down the hill.”
ZingTrain’s method works for personal goals, big business dreams, and even community messaging.
⚒️ Activity: Vision the Message (10-Minute Hot Pen Activity)
The hot pen method simply means writing (with a pen! And paper! Can you imagine?!) and not stopping for a solid 10 minutes. Just let it flow. Don’t worry about grammar or spelling, just get whatever is on your mind on paper.
If you want your messaging to land, you have to know what success looks and feels like. Try this quick version of ZingTrain’s approach, and write from the heart:
1. Choose a moment in the future.
Pick a date 2–3 years from now. You’ve just wrapped an event or campaign where the community message really hit.
2. Set the scene.
What are people saying about your city or region? What’s the energy surrounding your community? What do you notice that tells you the message is working?
3. Write for 10–15 minutes, no edits.
Use present-tense language. Write as if it’s already happened. Here’s a starter line to get your gears turning:
“It’s April 2027. We just wrapped a newcomer welcome mixer downtown, and the buzz is giving me chills! Three people came up and said they saw the ‘Find Your Fit in Freeport’ message on social media and knew this was their place. One said: ‘I’ve never seen a city talk like that before — it felt like it was written for me.’”
Keep going. Don’t stop. Don’t edit. Get it all down.
4. Read it out loud.
Ask yourself: Does this feel real? Inspiring? Slightly terrifying in a good way?
If so — you’re on the right track. And even better than doing this yourself, consider working with your talent ecosystem that you’ve so carefully pulled together to create a vision like this together. The more buy-in and connection your talent ecosystem experiences through the creation of your messaging, the more they’ll take it to heart and share it far and wide.
From Vision to Voice
Now that you’ve got the future in focus, let’s get tactical. This is where we start shaping the actual message — the words you’ll use to invite people in.
Your message should make people feel like they’re on the verge of something good. That they belong. That this place gets them. And they know where to look for new friends, opportunities, and ways to plug in.
That takes more than a tagline — it takes alignment. Your internal team, community partners, and even your new residents all need to feel like they’re telling the same story, just from different vantage points.
🛠️ Activity: Message Matchmaker
Let’s map the pieces of your community story to the right voices.
Start with your big vision. Then reverse-engineer your message to match the people who live it out loud every day.
Your Message is a Mirror
A good message reflects not just what a place is, but what it aspires to be. It creates alignment between identity and opportunity. And when written from a clear vision, it invites the right people who feel it to join you.
So before you tweak the tagline or launch that new campaign…
Write the vision.
Shape the message.
Share it with intention.
Now go write something bold! Something only your community could say. And if you need a second set of eyes or support in building it? You know where to find us.
A few visioning and messaging resources:
Visioning: Why and How Visioning Works by ZingTrain
How to Create Messages that Stick by Ameet Ranadive
