PR Is A Process

When I was in junior high school, I played in the band.  There, I said it.  I played in the band.  I was a band geek or whatever other term you want to attach to being a member of the band.  I played the saxophone.  The word ‘played’ being used very loosely here.  I could make noise with the saxophone, but I wasn’t very good.  I’m tone deaf and can’t carry a tune or count the beat so my band and musical experience was much like my early teen years, awkward.

My band teacher, Mr. Lloyd was incredibly talented.  He could play every instrument well and even though we were an unruly bunch, he found a way to make the 50-60 or so of us meld together to sound respectable.

I’ll never forget the first day of band class in the seventh grade.  Mr. Lloyd compared playing an instrument, regardless of the instrument, to the Karate Kid movies that were popular at the time.  In the Karate Kid, Mr. Miyagi made a deal with Daniel LaRusso that he would teach him karate only if Daniel would do everything he asked him to do without questioning why.  Daniel agreed and then Mr. Miyagi proceeded to have Daniel perform a series of tasks that, at first glance, appeared as if he was simply having Daniel perform a series of home improvement projects for him.

After the fourth project Daniel had had enough and complained to Mr. Miyagi about the projects.  He questioned when they were going to start training and working on karate. Mr. Miyagi then proceeded to demonstrate to Daniel how the projects he asked him to do related to and were training him in the proper ways of karate.  Daniel was taken aback and from that point on developed a new level of trust with Mr. Miyagi.  He also learned and was able to apply the principles Mr. Miyagi was teaching to his karate skills.

Similarly, in seventh grade band class, Mr. Lloyd taught my classmates and I how to play our instruments.  We didn’t walk in and within the first week become experts or master our instruments.  Some learned and played better than others. Before we new it, we were playing actual songs and performing at concerts in front of the school.

In my experience, the same principles apply to public relations.  Years ago, when I would talk to potential new clients about PR services and the benefits PR can offer, one of the most common responses I’d get was that the company wanted to be on Oprah’s couch. My next question was always why?

The potential client would generally have an explanation, usually tied into the fact that if you were part of Oprah’s favorite things episode you’d have it made in the shade and be guaranteed success. From there I would help the client assess if the company or its product was even a fit for Oprah and, if it was, I’d explain that to get on the Oprah show was a process.

I see all the time, new clients that think just because they’ve signed an agreement to allow us to represent them that they can just sit back and watch the results and coverage roll in.  While we’re good, we’re not that good.  Nobody is.

Public relations is an investment.  A business invests in a PR agency and the agency invests its time and expertise into helping the client establish its short and long term goals, develop a strategy to achieve these goals and then execute on the strategy and secure the media interviews and reliable third party endorsements through print and broadcast pieces.

In most cases, there is a lot of behind the scenes work to be conducted by a PR team to ensure that an article is accurate and favorable by the time it’s actually published.  Editors want to be accurate and fact-check. A good PR team will work with these editors to make sure they are getting all the information the editor needs.

PR is a process.  The fruits of the labors are wonderful and hugely beneficial.  It’s hard to wait.  Sometimes it seems like waiting for Christmas to come, but when done properly, a positive article or PR win is well worth the wait.

Author: Jeremy Kartchner | Google+

This article originally appeared on the Lendio blog.

I’m on Deadline

I can’t believe I’m starting a blog this way, with a definition.  It makes me feel like I’m back in junior high again when everybody started term papers with a definition from Webster’s Dictionary.  In this instance though, I feel that it’s actually appropriate because nobody seems to get or understand what a deadline is anymore.

So, without further adieu, here goes.  According to Miriam-Webster, a deadline is:

1. A line drawn within or around a prison that a prisoner passes at the risk of being shot.
2. A date or time before which something must be done the time after which copy is not accepted for a particular issue of a publication.

I’ll admit, I like the first definition, but it’s the second that I’m more concerned with.  Especially, as it relates to public relations and what from my perspective seems to be an inability to understand what a deadline is let alone the ability to meet a deadline.  This inability spans all walks of business life, including the public relations industry that I work in that encompasses the media who are constantly on deadline to public relations professionals themselves and the clients that I deal with.

Several months ago, a close friend told me he uses an integrated PR/marketing/advertising agency. This friend has some of the best relationships with media of anybody I know and flat out told me that he doesn’t use the agency for any PR work because he can do it better than them.  He uses them for the advertising and design side of their agency.  The one complaint he has though is their inability to meet a deadline.

He assigns a deadline for a project and as the deadline approaches he has to follow up with them to see if they’re going to make the deadline or not.  More often than not they say they will and then fail to do so.  On the rare occasion that they are able to achieve the deadline it’s simply because he’s specified a date without an exact time.  The project will be e-mailed to him at 11:59 pm the day of and the agency claims to have made its deadline.

In my experience, I’ve seen the same things happen and have experienced it from clients who promise certain things by a certain deadline only to have the day pass without delivering what they promised.  In these cases, great opportunities for coverage in Tier 1 media outlets has been lost, all because a deadline couldn’t be met.

In one recent example, a Tier 1 media outlet was working on an article that related directly to an initiative one of my clients was pursuing and trying to actively establish itself as a thought leader.  The editor told us what her deadline was and the executive who would conduct the interview couldn’t find the time in his schedule to accommodate the interview within the reporters deadline.

He had a vacation planned and wasn’t willing to do a simple 20 minute phone interview before he left for vacation.  The executive asked for an extension and the editor granted the extra time requested.  Upon the date agreed upon after the executive’s vacation, the executive decided he needed more time and asked for another extension.  At this point, the reporter said she had enough information from other sources and wrote her story without including my client.  The client was stunned.

I was not stunned.  I was more surprised that the editor actually gave an extension to begin with.  With this example fresh on the mind, here are a few tips to help set and meet deadlines.

• Give plenty of time. My son has regular book reports for his fifth grade class.  He usually has about 30-45 days to read the book and then write his report.  Forty-five days is plenty of time to read a book and write a review.  His teacher has created her lesson plans and knows when the book reports are due and how much time she’ll need to review and grade the reports.  She gives the students plenty of time to find, read and write the reports as well as enough time for her to grade the book reports.  On a few occasions, my son has delayed telling us about the book report for a couple weeks and then worries that he won’t have enough time, but the teacher gave ample time for the assignment to be completed.
• Prioritize.  Some projects or assignments are more important that others.  When you have more than one project you’re working on you should know which ones are more important than others.  If you don’t ask your boss or supervisor.  In the movie The Shawshank Redemption, one of the characters is stealing a TV.  He’s got the TV rested on his shoulder when the police arrive and one of the officers points his gun at him and yells, “Freeze!  Put your hands in the air.”  The thief stands there and the cop asks him why he didn’t do what he was asked to do, and he responds, “Well which one is it?  Freeze or put my hands in the air?
• Communicate.  If a boss or supervisor comes and gives you an assignment, don’t be afraid to tell him or her what other projects you’re currently working on.  If they give you a new assignment with an aggressive deadline and you’re already working under another tight deadline with this boss, remind them of that fact.  Provide them with a recommendation and strategy for how you’ll accomplish both but emphasis that it may require a delay in one of the deadlines.  By talking to them and communicating these issues they can agree to your strategy or provide other input.  Either way, they’ll be aware and you’ll have their buy off.
• Set milestones: I believe that milestones play a critical role in accomplishing and meeting any deadline. In the first bullet point I described my son’s book report assignments.  When my son tells us about these assignments, my wife and I (usually more my wife than me) sit down with him and set goals and milestones for accomplishing the book report.  We start by setting a date to have identified a book for him to read.  The next step is setting a goal for reading the book followed by a target date for writing the report.  If one of these milestones is not accomplished we can sit down and review why it wasn’t met and identify what we need to do to still meet the deadline.

The ability to meet a deadline is an important component to every aspect of life.  By meeting deadlines you become a trusted resource to your company and a vital component to its long-term success.

What are your best practices for meeting deadlines?

This blog entry was originally published on the Lendio blog.

Author: Jeremy Kartchner | Google+

You’re Always On The Record

I work part time for the Utah Jazz in the teams public relations department.  The other night, about an hour before tipoff, another employee from the guest relations department came in and was talking about a ticket request from one of the team’s sponsors.  As she described the request and the specific tickets she was looking for her colleague asked who was requesting the tickets.

As she answered her colleague’s questions, the name she gave was a friend of mine.  She proceeded to express her frustration that the ticket request was being made at such a late date.  Before she got too far along in her rant, I spoke up and asked if my friend was going to be attending the game that night.

She stopped abruptly and quickly asked if I knew this person.  I confirmed that I did and she gave me a guilty look, the one where she knew she had just got caught with her hand in the cookie jar.  I smiled and she stuttered for a minute trying to remember what exactly she had said and if she needed to apologize.

As I thought about this episode, it reminded me of the first and sometimes the most important PR advise I give my clients; you’re always on the record.  Every company and every client I’ve ever dealt with over the last 15 or so years wants to be in front of and talk to the media.  The hope is that if you talk to the media they’ll write a story about you, your company and or your product/service.

Talking to the media is a great opportunity but over the course of my career, I’ve found that most people don’t realize that, similar to being arrested and read your writes, anything you say can and will be used against you.

I worked for the Salt Lake Organizing Committee for the Olympic Winter Games of 2002.  An example that illustrates this point was an incident that happened on the Olympic Torch Relay.

The Olympic Torch Relay lasted 65 days and traveled through 48 states on its way to Rice Eccles Stadium for Opening Ceremonies.  A friend and colleague was the spokesperson for the Olympic Torch Relay and was interviewed multiple times a day in every city they passed through.  Every night during the Torch Relay, there was an evening celebration where the community could come out and see and hold the Torch and participate in a concert and other Olympic activities.

As the Torch Relay came through Idaho before entering Utah, the Mayor of Boise, Idaho told a member of the media that he thought the Torch Relay’s evening celebration in Boise was unimpressive.  He said some other things that could be considered inflammatory against the Torch Relay and the Olympics.  The following morning the reporter he told this to called my friend to get his response.  My friend had known this reporter for years and had talked to him every day for the previous 60 days.  As the reporter told him what he wanted to talk about and repeated the Mayor’s comments from the previous night, my friend responded that, “the mayor of Boise is full of crap.”

He didn’t think anything of it and answered a number of questions.  The next morning, as I was reading the paper, I came across this reporters article and the headline and lead was quoting my friend that, “the Mayor of Boise is full of crap.”

I called my friend and said, “So, you think the Mayor of Boise is full of crap?”  He jumped right in and confirmed that he did and proceeded to explain why.  As he was explaining why he thought what he thought, he stopped and asked how I knew that.  I explained that I read it in the morning newspaper.  He was stunned but realized he knew better.  Even though he knew this reporter and thought he was just having a conversation prior to the actual interview, he was still on the record.

I share this story with all my clients to illustrate the fact that they’re always on the record.  To prepare for this fact and to avoid mistakes like the one my friend made on the Torch Relay and the one my colleague made the other night before the Jazz game, here are some tips to help avoid saying something you may regret.

• Be prepared.  Leading up to an interview, make a list of the key talking points you want to convey to the reporter.  Rehearse those points in advance so you can communicate it effectively and naturally.

• If you don’t want to disclose specific information, don’t say it.  I’ve had clients say something or give information they didn’t want to give and then try and tell the reporter, “that was off the record.”  In reality, it’s not off the record. If you don’t want the reporter to know something, don’t tell them.  In the rare instances that you want to have an off the record conversation, ask the reporter if you can talk off the record and then wait for them to confirm or agree to being off the record.  When you’ve talked off the record, confirm when you’re back on the record.

• Remember that you don’t have to answer every question.  If a reporter asks a question that is inappropriate or not applicable, you don’t have to answer it.  Most of my clients are private companies and don’t want to give out revenue numbers.  In these cases, a simple response to a question about revenues is, “We’re a private company and we don’t share revenue numbers.”

If you’re company is like Lendio and specializes in helping small businesses find financing and a reporter asks about current topics in the news such as gun control laws I recommend you politely tell the reporter, “This topic doesn’t have anything to do with what our business does, can we please move on to the next question?”

Several years ago my wife worked for a public company.  The company’s CEO was a regular speaker at a number of different events and to other companies and clients.  After one speech he was giving in Hawaii, a member of the media interviewed him about the company.  During the interview the reporter asked about same sex marriage.  The CEO gave his opinion about same sex marriage but since he was speaking on behalf of the company, his opinion was reported as the company’s stance on the issue.  His opinion infuriated some people and the phone lines began lighting up at corporate headquarters with upset clients calling to terminate their relationship with the company.

• Don’t guess. When you’re being interviewed, everybody always wants to sound smart or be seen as the expert.  If a question comes up and you don’t know the answer, there is nothing wrong with telling the reporter that you don’t know but that you can check and get back to them.  I recommend saying something like, “I don’t know the answer to that but I want to make sure to get you the right information.  Let me check into it and get back to you.”

When I was in the second grade, my mom used to let me walk to my elementary school that was two blocks away from our house.  She would watch from our house as I walked/ran to school.  I used to think it was cool to be the first one there and would run as fast as I could to try and be the first to arrive.  On one of the mornings where I was the first to arrive, Mr. Wilson saw me and asked me what time I got to school.  I was in the second grade and had no idea what time I got there.  I didn’t even know what time school started or what time it ended each day for that matter.  I knew he wanted an answer though so I blurted out 6:30 am.

Mr. Wilson was shocked and took me to his office to call my mom to see why she would allow me to walk to school by myself at 6:30 am.   My mom explained to the Principle that I had not left for school at 6:30 am and that she had watched me walk to school and seen him walk up and talk to me just as I arrived at school.  Mr. Wilson should have known better than to believe an eight-year-old that didn’t know how to tell time, but the story illustrates the point about the importance of not guessing.

Interviews with the media add tremendous value and reliable third party validation to your company.  By remembering that you’re always on the record and by following the tips listed above you’ll be better prepared to make the most of the interview opportunity and capitalize on the reliable third party endorsement that accompanies any article or coverage that results.

Have you ever said something on the record that came back to bite you?

This blog entry was originally published on the Lendio blog.

Author: Jeremy Kartchner | Google+

Book Review: Dream Team

Book Title: Dream Team

Author: Jack McCallum

The Dream Team chronicles the 1992 Olympic basketball team, nicknamed the Dream Team.  1992 was the first year professional athletes from the NBA were allowed to play in the Olympics.  The team consisted of NBA stars Michael Jordan, Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, John Stockton, Karl Malone, Charles Barkley, David Robinson, Patrick Ewing, Scottie Pippen, Chris Mullin, Clyde Drexler and one collegian, Christian Laettner.

The author covered the NBA when all of these players were in their prime and covered the Dream Team from the time it was announced that NBA players would be allowed to compete in the Olympics through the team winning the gold medal. In the book he recounts the evens leading up to and during the 1992 Olympics and includes fresh interviews with the players as they remember the Olympics and their Dream Team experiences two decades later.

There are a number of things that stood out to me in the book, specifically the similarities between how things work in business and personal life for the rest of the world that aren’t millionaire athletes.

First, the selection process.  The selection committee initially had plans to include only a handful of NBA players and combine them with the best collegiate players.  As the selection committee began identifying NBA players they wanted it became evident that the original number was not high enough.  Magic Johnson was on record as saying he wanted to be a part of the team.  The selection committee desperately wanted Michael Jordan.  Jordan said he would play, but only if Isiah Thomas, the talented point guard of the Detroit Pistons was not on the team.

Thomas was one of the best players and point guards in the league.  Jordan didn’t like Thomas and was in a position of power since the selection committee wanted him so badly.  It turns out many of the other players selected didn’t want Thomas either.  Some, including Magic who was close friends with Thomas could have voiced their opinion and maybe swayed the vote but in the end, nobody spoke up for Thomas and he was left off the team.  It turns out, his behavior and actions towards other players prior to the Olympics created a lot of animosity and dislike amongst the other Dream Teamers.

The level of competitiveness between the Dream Team players was always high.  Michael Jordan is known for his competitiveness.  Jordan, Magic and Larry Bird were the three stars and team leaders that everybody followed.  Bird was pretty sure that his playing days were over at that point and in his mind Jordan was the best player in the game.  Magic had been out of the league due to the HIV virus he had contracted but was anticipating a comeback to the league.  Magic was unwilling to concede that Jordan was the best player.  This drove Jordan crazy because he knew he was the best player in the world.  The rest of the team did to.  Chris Mullin even said as much when he said that Magic was the team spokesperson, but that everybody followed Jordan’s lead and knew he was the best player, especially once they stepped on the court.

The players took the Olympics serious, but they also made sure to have fun.  Most of the players played golf, cards and gambled at resorts during the preliminary trials.  Jordan was especially active leading up to and during the games.  The day before the gold medal game he and several other players stayed up all night playing cards.  While the other players decided to take naps once morning came, Jordan had a commitment to do a video shoot with NBA Entertainment.  The card game ended at 6:15 am.  Jordan showered and 25 minutes later met the video crew, shot the video and then mid-afternoon after the video shoot was done he asked for a favor.  He wanted a ride to the golf course so he could get in a round before the gold medal game.

Jordan played 18 holes. After playing 18 holes, Jordan got a ride back to the hotel, changed clothes and boarded the bus to the arena for the gold medal game.  Jordan then proceeded to score 21 points in the gold medal game.

I loved the book.  The stories of the players and their competitiveness in not just basketball, but everything they did, including card games, ping pong and anything else they did together.  Charles Barkley who was probably the most boisterous and outgoing Dream Teamer spent a lot of time mingling with the people.  As he does in his current role with TNT he is often outspoken and never holds back on giving his honest opinion.  Prior to playing Angola, Barkley was quoted as saying, “I don’t know nuthin’ ‘bout Angola.  But Angola’s in trouble.”

The Dream Team, as they did to every other team beat Angola by a huge margin.  The Dream team’s average margin of victory was 43.8 points.  Even though the team was never seriously challenged and had such a wide average margin of victory, the world loved the Dream Team.

I recommend this book to anybody wanting a glimpse into the greatest group of professional athletes to play together.

Author: Jeremy Kartchner | Google+