Stuck on the ‘Nay’ Train?

Kerri Guyton

Recently, I was talking to a good friend of mine who started an independent product sales business about six months ago. She was explaining about the rut she had hit in her business development, and she thought she might have made a mistake in choosing to do this. She had run out of contacts, made all the connections she possibly could and was honestly tired of hearing “no” (or some form of the word). Maybe it wasn’t meant to be, she said with a heavy sigh.

Everyone feels this way at one point in their career, especially in the beginning of a new venture. She had a good business plan. She was excited about the possibilities and opportunities that this business was going to bring. She just hit her first dry spell, which can be a valuable time in a professional's career if handled properly. A down time is a good time to revisit your business goals, re-evaluate your strategies and tactics and recharge your batteries, so to speak.

I advised my dear friend to take a vacation from the pressure to sell, and take this time to soak up knowledge and inspiration from others in her business. I suggested that she attend her monthly meetings with the goal of listening to the success stories of others and take time to dig into the company's online training resources to learn more tips and tricks of the trade. This is also a good time for her to evaluate her communication tactics and messages - what parts of her sales pitch are working and what can she do to strengthen her call to action. I told her that for certain, the first step she needs to take is to remove quitting from the list of options and to remember that she can absolutely do this.

Occasionally, it’s just time to step off of the “nay” train and into the motivation station!

Step One: Plan

Kelli Eason

I used to think life was all about spontaneity. I still do, on some level. It always seems like the great stories are the ones that result from that time you intended to have a lazy movie night with friends in college, but on a whim, drove to New Orleans and had a powdered sugar fight at Café du Monde at 1 a.m. Is that just me?

OK, spontaneity is not a bad thing. But I’ve come to appreciate a good plan too. Since I’ve been working in PR, my friends and family have become almost annoyed with my need to map things out, know what’s going on and to answer the “news advisory questions” of who, what, when and where. It’s such a common theme that my fiancé now won’t even tell me where we’re going on our honeymoon – and it’s slowly driving me crazy.

Sometimes spontaneity looks like this. 

At Obsidian, planning is a great thing. Preparation for anything is even better. When we begin a relationship with a new client, we spend a lot of time on the front end getting to know them so that we can properly plan.  Our planning is extensive, but it also leads to preparation. Here are the steps I usually take with new clients:

Communication analysis

The communication analysis is sometimes fondly known as the “information transfer” around here. It consists of two to three hours of getting to know the new client. This includes learning things about their business that may be helpful for reporters to know, any news items they have coming up or how their business works. It also includes learning what they’re happy to talk about or not and leads back to the preparation. For example, some companies are willing to talk about how legislation could affect their business, but others prefer to shy away from anything of the sort. Knowing this on the front end allows us to properly communicate with reporters and be more efficient with our retainer hours.

PR timeline

The PR timeline is a process. You start out really excited about a new client and all the information you’ve just gathered from the communication analysis. Then you lay out the spreadsheet, identifying ideas for every month in what is generally a yearlong relationship. After you lay out what seems like a million of them…it turns into “Hello, my name is brick wall. I’m here to hold up your process.” That’s when the rest of the team comes in for a brainstorm. I love brainstorms because it always seems to turn the brick wall into a floodgate for new and creative ideas. At the end, the timeline is fantastic and pretty useful when you’re thinking about several clients.

Brand and message development

After building a PR timeline, you generally feel like you know the client inside and out. That is very helpful for the next step: identifying key messages and the company’s brand. When we’re lucky, a new client comes in with a pretty solid marketing arsenal. They may have internal communications support, a functional website and decent brand recognition. Of course, if they don’t have those things, it can also be lucky – because that allows us to be even more creative in helping them develop it. Regardless, having the brand ready to share with the public is an integral part of the planning process. In some cases, this step – including the research often associated with it – needs to come before the timeline.

All the plans change

It’s inevitable. It usually doesn’t even take six months for a timeline to completely change. But that’s the beauty of a complete plan. If you’ve planned well, your messages are in order and your work is solid, you’re ready for anything. Oftentimes, the best opportunities to present your company as an expert or as a solution come with the unexpected. For example, a hospital, pharmacy or other health care business can’t plan for an outbreak of a certain virus. But they can be prepared to talk about treatment and prevention if it does happen.

It took me a few years to learn to use and love the plan. If I’d loved the plan back in college, I might not have taken a weeklong road trip to seven cities in four states that involved four people and a two-door sports car. (We switched cars with my friend’s dad two cities in…or we surely would have died of being cramped on a back road in Arkansas.) Now that I do love the plan, life seems much less stressful and yet, oddly spontaneous and always enjoyable. 

Happy New Year! Now what?

Crissy Lintner

Happy New Year! It’s 2013, and I’m sure we all have our New Year’s resolutions in hand and are making great progress. But does your business have its New Year’s resolutions nailed down? If not, I have a few to get you started – PR resolutions for 2013.

Be active in social media!
So, you had a couple of months last year during which you were active on Facebook and built up a significant following. Then, crickets were chirping… Things got busy and you weren’t able to keep up with it. Resolve for 2013 to get active again, because if you’re not in the conversation, you’re not relevant. Assign someone internally (or hire a PR firm) to manage your social media interactions and monitor them daily. There’s nothing worse than non-response and inactivity on a business’s social media page.

Build relationships with the news media.
It’s important to remember that behind every newspaper is a person. And building relationships with the individual reporters who write about your industry is a key to getting media coverage in the future. Be sure that you’re reaching out to introduce yourself, your expertise and your business before you have news. And when you do have news, ensure that it’s timely and newsworthy. 

No more last-minute PR campaigns!
Remember: timely and newsworthy. Haphazard PR is never effective. Take time to think through any important news items for the year and lay out on a timeline. Then, incorporate at least four to six weeks for PR efforts related to an event and up to three months for major announcements, such as expansions, acquisitions or leadership changes. This is where a great PR partner can be an advantage.

Communicate with your front-line employees to ensure message alignment.
Your customer service and point-of-sales employees do need to be “in the know” when it comes to major business decisions affecting their job focus. Is the marketing department planning a Groupon campaign? Are you running a special for social media only? What about a major acquisition of a competitor? It’s important that the people who interact with your customers daily know about these before being caught off guard by a question or comment. Or media phone call. Regular internal communication is important, and an annual ambassador training to reinforce customer service tactics and discuss overall goals for the year is always a good idea to add to the mix.

These will help get you on the road to PR success for 2013! 

You Are Going The Wrong Way! How Would He Know Where We Are Going?

Thomas Whitehead

This quote and scene from John Hughes’ 1980s classic Planes, Trains & Automobiles is one of my favorite examples of how miscommunication can create more problems than resolutions when everyone is not on the same page.

I was recently reminded of this scene when I had lunch with a friend and he was sharing some of his frustrations with his current job. Relatively new to the position, he was stressed out that his bosses were asking him to do more and more tasks that were outside the original scope of what his job responsibilities were. More stressful for my friend was the issue that these new requests were delaying the chance to achieve the original goals.

As I listened more and more, I asked him one simple question – “Did you create a communication and marketing plan for the organization?” To this, he said he didn’t.

To me, this was the root of his frustration and stress. Without sitting down and taking the time to develop a comprehensive communication plan for at least the first quarter, if not whole year, the organization could be easily driven off course and distracted from the original goals that were set forth with his hire.

A communication plan includes, but isn’t limited to, a situation analysis, audiences, key messages, goals, objectives, strategies, tactics and a timeline. This document is always dynamic and can be adjusted at any time according to the needs arise. 

The beauty of it for my friend would be that as his bosses create new duties, he can cite the communication plan that everyone would have agreed upon and use that as leverage to have a clear course in accomplishing what needs to be done.

The communication plan is the foundation of any true successful publicity campaign. You have to start at the beginning by knowing what has worked and failed in the past. That perspective will quickly allow you to identify what direction your path should take.

Otherwise, if you don’t have a direction, there is a good chance you might have to pass through two trucks coming right at you.