It pays to read this section of the Wall Street Journal; you never know who you can meet!

As part of my new business strategy, I strive to make relationships with the VC and private equity communities.  While it makes a lot of business sense, we also have a lot in common and have always contended that (one day) a PR shop should go into business with a VC group to not just go after businesses that are worth investing in, but to seek out ways to merchandise the efforts of these investments.

So when I saw the following article in AD AGE this morning about Madison Avenue forming a relationship with VC partners, I got shivers down my spine.  There is hope that my vision could come true.

Investment banks look for return on assets that strengthen financial statements.  PR firms can help leverage assets–both tangible and intangible.  At SMPR, we strive to hit on any innovation buttons we can, for these are the very buttons that trigger asset development.

Anyone who knows me in the PR world has heard my explanation of PR and how it mirrors economics–clients have a supply of information, and it is our job to match the demand of the marketplace with what our clients are supplying.  Our currency is content.  In the VC and PR worlds, content is king.

If any PR folks are doing something like what this article is describing, I would be curious to learn about your feedback.

Recently, I posted an article on SMPR’s Facebook page about how the DETROIT NEWS (my hometown newspaper) seemingly threw its ethical codes out the window (not to mention selling its soul) and changed an article to soothe an advertiser’s wallet and ego.  Combined with the latest Groupon fiasco and its ad blunder (I wrote about this issue on A Sorry State), maybe it’s time to skin the cat differently.

So I thought it would be cool to share something that is cool about ethics, specifically talking about how our friends in the advertising industry are making efforts to bring more of an ethical position into their operations.

Check out the following article from ADVERTISING AGE on the industry’s attempt to get more ethical.  These are really good ideas; what do y’all think?

One of the great passions I have about this business is teaching junior people about the rigors of public relations, and (in turn) what people in my field have taught me.  I was talking with a friend who operates a great agency in Dallas; we were talking about what each of us has learned about running a business, as well as what we would have done differently if given the opportunity.

Speaking to the latter point, I would not have changed a single thing and have done anything differently. Running a business, you quickly learn how to take the good with the bad. If you cannot take lumps in this business, then you shouldn’t be in it. To be sure, I have built a much tougher and stronger skin than when I first embarked on my journey now almost eight years ago. I have seen people come and go; clients start with a bang but spend funds miserably and fail. I have seen the highest of the highs and the lowest of the lows. I have made incredible friends and have formed several meaningful relationships.

 
Still, I have learned a lot—more than any of my college studies could have prepared me for. Here are some thoughts.

 
Understand the power of “no.” It’s easy for business owners to take on things because the money is appealing or the allure of having a “name client” associated with you would add to your reputation. Saying ‘no’ is empowering, for it allows you to focus on what you truly want to do. “No” keeps your eyes on the prize of ultimate satisfaction.

 
The customer/client should not always be right. Logic tells me when presented with an array of options, I want to make as informed of a decision as possible; life is not one way or the highway. I also rely on my past experiences about what journalists want; I would expect both my peers and fellow colleagues would follow the same path.  As an agency, we are hired to bring an objective voice to our clients’ tables. Maybe it’s because I have more gray hairs than when I first started the business, but I take my role as a counselor more seriously than ever. I have learned to cement my position by proving it with smart research and positioning and not just do what a client thinks is the most ideal course of action. I would never go back to a client and tell him/her “I told you so…” but I would go back to what I know has worked for others–and could work for them if given the opportunity.

 
Hiring a business coach is a wise investment. It’s one thing to preach objectivity to your clients, but it is hard to obtain objectivity running an agency—especially when it is your agency. I have learned how to distinguish things between the SMPR brand and that of Michael Shmarak; I used to take things personally when something went wrong. But as many people have come to tell me, it’s just business. We need to remember that business should stay where it belongs. To that end…

 
…tell your spouse and kids that you love them as often as possible. I set up SMPR to represent beliefs I have that agencies need to be treated like families, that if a family member’s name is on the door, then the belief set should represent the person/people who you are honoring. I have tried to bring “family” into everything I do, inclusive of making sure that my team enjoys their lives outside of work. Understandably, my team means the world to me, and I try to communicate the value they bring as often as possible. But I would be nothing without my wife and three kids. Hugs from children are the best elixir for soothing a bad day at the office. Clients come and go; my wife and kids are always with me. It is up to me to make sure they know that.

 
Client love is the ultimate measurement tool. If a client merely likes its PR counsel, then the agency is not doing enough to foster the relationship. I know about my clients’ kids, their families, what they do outside of the office, et.al., to show that we (as people) are deeper than what a letter of agreement tells us we should be. Striving for client love does as much for what makes good clients awesome clients as any deliverable you can provide.

 
Know the right time to reinvent your business. When I started SMPR in 2003, social media was just beginning to hit the mainstream. There were several agencies that got on the bandwagon early, going as so far as to say they do it—and do it well.  Me?  I would rather wait and let other people make mistakes so I can learn from them.  In turn, I can then take this education and shape it in a way that best fits who I am as a professional, as well as what my team knows it does well. Claiming to be all things to all people deteriorates one’s focus. We should all strive to own something and be really good at it first. Do we do social media work? Of course, but we specialize in helping companies build their infrastructure so they are ready for what social media has to offer.

Above all else, I have been blessed to learn that my team’s work has impacted lives. We take it for granted that PR can help influence other people’s decision making processes. When you’re leading the charge for those decisions, there is an immense source of pride and accomplishment. There are so many examples of how we have enacted change I could go on all day.

Moving forward, I want to learn how to learn better.  I want to get smarter about more tricks of the trade.  I want to build deeper relationships and find work that drives satisfaction for all of us.

It starts today.

“Holiday Networking with Your ‘To-Do List’”

Guest post from Kirk Hazlett; PR professional and professor at Curry College in Massachusetts.

It’s that time of the year again…when we decorate the cat, get a rash from the ivy, and generally enjoy the holidays to the extreme.

But, for those of you who are on the prowl for a new career opportunity, whether you’re planning ahead for the looming graduation or simply thinking “New Year, ergo New Job,” the holidays offer some fertile ground for planting those seeds of availability.

I am delighted to be commenting once again on SMartPR, sharing my own opinions and insights along with those of Susan Newman, co-founder of School2Life^TM, a Chicago-based consultancy with the enviable mission of helping “college students and recent graduates make a smooth, smart, successful transition from campus life to real life.”

My own thoughts can be found on my blog or…often to the chagrin of my public relations students at Curry College in Milton, MA…as part-and-parcel of the lectures I conduct on the various aspects of public relations…including the inevitable search for a “real” job after graduation.

Susan and I approach the job search challenge from the same point of view…most of the jobs that you might have a shot at are not going to be advertised…there is a “hidden job market,” and you’ll have to track that puppy down!

There are some basic steps that you have to take in preparation for this “job to find a job,” so drag out your notebook and pencil and start copying.

First off, develop…practice…and perfect your 30-second “elevator pitch.” What, if you were riding in an elevator to the fifth floor of a building with the CEO of THE company that you would crawl through molten lava to work for, would you say about yourself before the door opens and he or she leaves?

What did you study…and why? What are you passionate about when it comes to public relations? What do you see yourself doing five years from now and what do you want to do now?

OMG, Kirk…I can’t fit all THAT into 30 seconds!!!

Well, guess what?!? You CAN! It just takes sweat and tears and hard work…think in “tweets”!

Once you’ve got that down pat, you’re ready for some serious networking…AFTER you create a marketing plan…with yourself as the product and the people you’re going to meet as the potential clients.

A gazillion years ago when I was making a move from Boston, home of the eight-month winters, to Honolulu (where Santa Claus arrives on a surfboard…how cool is THAT!?), I laid out some simple goals for my day-to-day job search:

1. I planned to schedule and conduct three-to-four informational interviews each workday.
2. I planned to attend at least two-to-three PR- or marketing-related functions each month. (Look in your area…what’s there? I had choices of PRSA, IABC, and AMA in Hawaii. Here in Boston, I also have the Publicity Club of New England, for a total of four very active groups.)
3. Any time I met with someone for an informational interview, I set a goal of asking for the names of three-to-five other people with whom I might meet.
4. I followed up every single meeting with a personal thank-you note.

Did it work, you ask? Well…within two months of landing in Honolulu, I had gotten three amazing job offers and wound up with one of the two best jobs I have ever had in my 40-plus years as either a public relations professional or a public relations professor…what do you think?!?

Why did this happen? Because, to use one of my favorite phrases… “I networked my brains out!”

So who do you turn to as you start your networking plans?

Quit texting your BFF and look around the dinner table. Who do you see there?

I’m always fascinated when one or another of my students will come sheepishly to me and say, “My Dad arranged an interview for me with a friend of his. Is that ok?”

To which I joyfully (this being the holidays and all that) respond, “Well, yeah!”

Use family, friends of family, family of friends…any combination…who do they know, and who can they introduce you to? As Susan Newman points out, 78 percent of jobs are found through referrals!!

Next, take advantage of holiday parties…casual meetings of groups of friends or colleagues…any congregation of warm, breathing bodies you come upon…to add to your network.

Go up to total strangers at parties (as I grow older, I find that I either know fewer and fewer faces in the crowd or have forgotten more and more!) and introduce yourself. It’s the holidays…you can do this!

Hand everyone you meet your business card (you do have business cards, don’t you?!?), and collect theirs. Then, that evening or the next morning at the latest, follow up with an emailed note saying what a pleasure it was to meet him or her and asking, if this person seems like a good prospect, if it might be possible to schedule a brief informational interview.

Face-to-face…after the euphoria (and other stuff) of the evening has worn off…is always best. Cup of coffee in the morning before the start of the day…quick bite to eat at lunch…the possibilities are endless and invaluable. Not everyone will take you up on the suggestion…that’s why you’re continually meeting new people!!

Finally, believe in yourself…in your future…in your capability to succeed! To quote Susan directly from a television interview she recently did, “It’s a job finding a job.”

But you are you…and you can do it!

“If one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours.” (Henry David Thoreau, Walden, 18, “Conclusion”)

Post by Deirdre Breakenridge. Deirdre is President and Executive Director of Communications at Mango! Creative Juice. A veteran in the PR industry, Deirdre leads a creative team of PR and marketing executives strategizing to gain brand awareness for their clients through creative and strategic PR campaigns. She has spoken public on PR and social media communications among other topics and has written several books on new media and PR 2.0.

The hybrid professional is not a new concept. I started to blend marketing disciplines in the late 1990s, when my first PR agency was acquired by a marketing, advertising and web/multimedia company. It was critical back then to make sure that our work, on behalf of our clients’ brands, was consistent in messaging and tone, as well as look and feel. In order to keep this consistency, PR, Marketing, Advertising and Web had to work together.  The same goes today, even more so, as social media has many departments within an organization interfacing with the public.

For me, the hybrid professional is defined in two ways.  First, the hybrid communications approach is rooted or educated in traditional communications. At the same time, it also incorporates digital and social media into the marketing mix. For example, it is still our jobs to connect with journalists no matter where they report their stories; in print, broadcast, online or on their blogs.  We’re not abandoning our media relations work with magazines, online publications, trade journals, and broadcast media, and we may still be using newsletters and HTML e-blasts to reach our constituents.

However, we’re also exploring different channels and building communities in new territories to connect with the media who have turned into bloggers, to create relationships with new influencers/citizen journalists, and to engage with customers directly. Whether it’s Facebook or Foursquare, we need to know the rules of engagement with our stakeholders in these Web communities.  The hybrid is a professional who knows how to make different connections through various channels (old and new) on behalf of the brand.  The hybrid also realizes that consumers are in the driver’s seat taking control of media, carefully selecting their media sources, creating media themselves and requiring meaningful information and engagement from their brands.

Part two of the definition includes the hybrid professional as the strategic communicator with a seat at the strategy table.  This communications professional works closely with other marketing disciplines including the digital creative group, the brand team and marketing/advertising.  I remember attending a conference about a year ago when a very smart educator questioned me about why I thought PR should be integrated with other marketing disciplines.  She told me that PR is in a class by itself.  Yes, it is and PR professionals will always stand out as strategic communicators and reputation managers.

We are the professionals who know how to build relationships with various publics, who educate and change public opinion and who know how to move markets.  PR is not simply tactical and should not be placed in a silo, or only called to the table for media relations or crisis management.  PR must interact and provide guidance for all types of communication, across a number of channels. Being a hybrid and having a strong understanding of the other areas of marketing and web, strengthens our roles; it doesn’t dilute what we do.

Social media communication is human and transparent and when it’s in the hands of the new C-Suite (the Consumer Suite) a company’s reputation could be at stake.  We need to be tapped into the social realm and how the information we retrieve, as a result of social media, will need to be shared with different departments, from marketing and PR all the way to customer service, sales, product development, IT, Human Resources, etc.  We’ve always tried to connect to with other groups, and the strategies and tactics that we’ve used in the past have helped to link us to other areas. But, social media communication and our ability to listen more closely offers us the opportunity to be even more tied to the brand’s business and functions across the organization. We’re able to reach higher-level goals and to do our jobs with more accountability.

There’s a natural progression of the PR professional turned hybrid, which takes the PR person’s professional development from traditional strategic communicator to the hybrid professional who has a secured seat at the boardroom table.  The diagram below not only illustrates the communicator who applies a blend of traditional and social media, but who also works more closely with other members of marketing and Web as well as other areas of the company (including sales, HR, IT, Legal, Customer Service, etc).  As a result, the Hybrid is the strategic communicator who guides all communication and has the ear of the CEO.

The Making of the Hybrid

Source

The hybrid professional will blend PR, Marketing, Advertising and Web, and knows that these groups must work together, so that brands can better communicate and interact with consumers. However, for as much as we discuss the hybrid approach and how PR, Marketing, Advertising and Web must work together, it’s the change in the way news and information is consumed that drives the hybrid professional movement.  I’ve said that social media pushes the integration of PR, Marketing, Advertising and Web, but if you step back, it’s really our consumers who are in the driver’s seat; it’s their shift in behavior that turns the concept of hybrid professional into our new reality.

Don't just stand there in awe of social media, come join the party!

In case you didn’t get the memo, social media has made its case and is officially part of the public relations, marketing and advertising mix.  There are no perks to sitting on the sidelines of social media.  Yet, there are still countless businesses that are leaning up against the proverbial gymnasium wall waiting for Social Media, the quarterback of the football team, to strut by and ask them for a dance. Sorry but that’s not going to happen, this isn’t Sixteen Candles (don’t ask us which characters we relate to, either—that’s for another day…).

Social media is inherently communal; the only way to connect with possible clients or business partners is to jump in. Of course, SMPR encourages its clients and others to dip your toes in.

-          Which Platforms should you pursue?

-          Do we have a planned editorial calendar of content?

-          Do we have policies and protocols about what/what not to say?

-          Do we have a crisis plan in place in the event something goes wrong or something is said which adversely affects our business?

These questions sound amazingly similar to those asked for traditional public relations outreach, no?

Waiting for Social Media is like waiting for someone to ask you to do the Funky Chicken or Electric Slide. It’s not necessarily a dance you need a partner for, but once you’re out there dancing in sync with everyone else, you understand why so many others like it and appreciate it. Plus, it can lead to some great friends (in the social media world, they call these people “connections”).

So what are you waiting for? Your first step is to decide what goal you want this “dance” to achieve for you. After that look at all of the different types of dances (social media outlets) and figure out what works best for your business. It could be a combination of several – that’s one of the great features of social media. Different platforms complement one another; if used correctly, can lead to great opportunities for your business.

It works for everyone; all you have to do is find your businesses rhythm and start dancing.  We promise, the steps aren’t has hard as they look and the folks out their dancing already are more than willing to show you the steps.

Just don’t ask us to don John Travolta’s polyester suit from Saturday Night Fever. We LOVE our clients, but – like them – we have a reputation to maintain!

The site may be All Things Digital, but their work is All Things Ethical.

Among the many things I read online and in print, I am a big fan of the Wall Street Journal’s “All Things Digital.”  Having been engrossed in media relations for most of my 15-plus years in the business, I have found that Kara Swisher is among the most insightful journalists out there. Every time I read a story from her, I learn something.

I was reading her most recent post about Google’s seemingly pending acquisition of Groupon, and noticed a line at the end of her story:  Please see this disclosure related to me and Google.

I was shocked–in a very good way–when I saw a headline that read, “Kara’s Ethics Statement.”  What was even more cool was the choice of words that Kara offered to her readers:  “Here is a statement of my ethics and coverage policies. It is more than most of you want to know, but, in the age of suspicion of the media, I am laying it all out.” Kudos to Kara for sharing with her readers how she feels about the integrity of her work.

Here at SMPR, we hear the stories about PR pros and journalists, alike, who are called into question about the types of work they do.  With many of our clients, we work with them to draft ethical mission statements in addition to traditional mission statements & key messages to distinguish “sales” from “beliefs.”  In both cases, people need to have trust in what the company does, but how you say each has to be completely different.

Some of the best journalist relationships we have are based on ethics.  We know what people will and won’t cover.  We know that when we position a company, that we are prepared to do so objectively.  If there is something negative about a client that someone brings to our attention and we know it exists, we won’t spin things.  We’ll be honest and upfront–and expect our clients to do the same thing.

We would hope that more journalists follow Kara Swisher’s lead and print their ethics statements for all to see.  For now on, I will still continue to read Kara’s work; I will just appreciate it that much more.

Disclosure on my part:  I have never worked with Kara directly, but hope to one day when the right client comes along.

I am going out on a limb here, but very few PR people would ever gain a lesson in ethics from their condo Board.

But in fact, I had the most unusual opportunity to gain insight thanks to outdoor seat cushions that the Board felt my wife and I didn’t keep in optimal condition.

One member of our Board has spent time going around the neighborhood to cite people for the littlest of worthless details (e.g.,another neighbor for having a Welcome mat that didn’t look so welcoming). In doing so, it has become as much a vendetta as doing her supposed job.

How many times do we have clients who ask us to advocate a special position, only to find out the position takes you away from the client’s core service?  This personal crusade becomes a dangerous path which moves client teams–and companies–away from core strategy.

The lesson here–both for clients and for my condo board–know when to say when.  Stick to what you know, and you’ll become known for it.  Stick to your crusade,however, and your entire team will be known for something you really don’t want.

We’re working with a couple of clients who have similar but different issues.

Each of them is trying to develop an idea that requires the buy-in of different parties in order to make the idea more “whole.” But each client has been spinning wheels in one form or another to make the idea move forward without having the buy-in of all parties connected to the projects. Said differently, they are trying to build a puzzle around one piece, when all of the pieces will make the puzzle more complete.

I created the following catch phrase to encompass how stakeholder involvement helps transform projects into more complete packages; what do you think?