#PRChurch: It's been 7hrs & 15 days
It’s been seven hours and 15 days.
Well, actually, more like seven months.
Cue the MOST polite nudge from Substack: on if you are going to start something ..
The problem is, I am of the firm opinion, as my clients know, that if you don’t have anything to say, just keep quiet. Don’t add to the noise.
So it’s been a bit of an incubation period. A time for thinking. And a time to talk about finished, accomplished things versus the relentless intentions.
Someone much wiser than me suggested I drop the word ‘hope’ from my vocab: I hope you are well; I hope you like this; I hope this makes sense; I hope that you get it. Hope links back to fear. And instead, use the word ‘trust’. I trust you are well; I trust you will like this; I trust this makes sense. Can you feel the power move in that?
I’m trusting a whole lot more these days.
But back to #PRChurch and things in the wild, wild west:
1. Things I’ve said no to lately:
Can you syndicate … no, no I can’t. If I can’t write the content in a newsworthy way that hits angles that my media will find relevant … then no.
Can you get media to attend and do interviews at our new office launch … no, no sorry I uh, I am not even sure what to say other than let me take a hard pass on that brief from the 80’s. Here’s what I could charge you and here’s what little ROI you would get on this and here is a list of all the ways we would end up hating each other. So no. But thank you.
We have another emergency … shame man, so sorry about that, but we did warn you a year ago that unless you started doing xyz that you are going to roll from crisis to crisis. Do you remember that? I can find the email with the proposal and costing? Yeah, uh huh, interesting. Look I can charge you xyz to give aaaaaaaaaalll this advice and draft holding statements, but you see, here I am on a Friday night making a life choice.
2. Write for whatsapp groups
Communication warfare is where we are all at these days right? The slow unpicking and unpacking of facts versus fiction. The ability to change minds. And then there are the whatsapp groups. Because nobody reads anymore. No-one goes and checks the primary source of information. No-one questions an agenda. It is astonishingly easy to impact a company’s bottom line these days. So, couple of lessons here:
- The importance of reading everyday (so when panicked MD calls to say there is a rumour I could tell him exactly what the idiots had misread, misinterpreted and mishandled).
- The importance of calm: no we were not issuing a statement, no we were not engaging on this, no this is not about us (another theme for this newsletter could be ‘how to not make money by KA’)
- Yes we are going to write something SPECIFICALLY for whatsapp. Yes we are going to use CAPITALS for the stupid learned adults in the back. Yes we are going to even use a couple of !!!. Yes we are putting it on a letterhead. And yes, all of the board and exco are getting it. On whatsapp. To forward. Meet the people where they are at.
3. Your discount turns me off
I don’t ask for discounts. I don’t haggle with people. I tell them what I can afford, or I assume they are giving me best rate that is fair to them and me. So when a global media company offered me a 50% discount on what I had been paying on an expensive subscription AFTER I had cancelled, I saw red. And when a local service provider tried to entice me to stay with a 50% discount on a monthly fee that I had been paying for two years with no question, I saw red. And when I had to approach another service provider to say we need to relook costs because the scope of work had diminished (three months later, yes it takes me a while to get through my internal list) and they said, ‘oh yes, I was waiting for this.’ Well then honey, you don’t deserve my money. Charge a fair price upfront. Don’t rip people off.
4. Questions that have come in for #PRChurch
How do you get a client (new-ish) to get their team to stop taking ideas PR presents as content ideas from your meetings and using them for internal blogs and not giving PR time to develop the Op Eds intended.
You hit them with a 3-pronged approach: the good ol AVE, the newsworthy discussion and integration model:
We just did a quick analysis for a client on the reach, impact and ROI of a TL piece that was pitched exclusively, and then picked up organically. She now gets that if we get to do our work first, that the re-purposing can happen after in a much more powerful way for a blog post: “Did you see our piece in xyz and xyz, this is what you need to know about it xyz etc”
OpEds have to be topical, newsworthy, relevant, provoking. They have a very specific job to do for an organisation. If they are becoming blog posts first, with SEO, then chances are that media / clients / peers will read about it there first, which takes the wind of earned media opportunities. Explain how much more powerful their blog posts could be if they hyperlink it into main news pieces.
Integration. Work out the integration model that works best for all. Does the OpEd need to lead the piece? Does the blog post not serve a different audience? Is the idea so powerful that it could hit all earned / owned media platforms at the same time and still reach different platforms with different audiences with different take outs?
Small aside – I spent SO many years and so much energy on trying to own and lead the idea that I still want to hug old me. Now I honestly don’t care who takes the idea and runs with it as long as it gets LIFE. Also, I know the blog post can’t do what the OpEd needs to (and vice versa) so I would probably just put my head down and do the work. Bring the stats to the table at the next meeting. Become undeniable. And take a small curtsey that you are the one coming up with cool ideas. It’s a good place to be.
How do you manage clients who insist budget is an issue when they need to prioritise media training before getting media involved?
Unpopular opinion: media training is often a neat little profit centre for an agency. Run on fear. Instil fear into clients on how big, bad and awful the media can be and slap them with big expensive media training on repeat.
Have I used media trainers for clients? Absolutely. And they have been worth every cent in learning new tricks and insights. Have my clients learned and assimilated the lesson? Half and half. Media interview stake practice, they are an art. I beg my clients to speak in tweetable sentences, but under pressure, the paragraph monologues often emerge. Even with the best training.
So here’s my take on it:
- If they are reluctant because of budget then let it be and let it go.
- They will either crash and burn and realise they need some training.
- Or they will be completely adequate and fit for purpose.
Over the years I have developed a little one-page cheat sheet that I send to clients ahead of each interview. It is practical before it is philosophical. And it works for them. And the more confident they become, the happier we all are (including the journalist).
Obviously if this is a high crisis / reputational / litigation issue where deflecting and denial and poker face is required then, different story. Wrinkles nose in distaste.
But in this changing world where there is very little place to hide anymore, I can 100% tell you that the public react to realness, integrity, honesty. We would much rather listen to a stuttering, passionate, exhausted, flustered executive talking from the heart than a polished suit landing the key message. I think often of the Capitec interviews that happened within hours of the Viceroy crisis. Authenticity in action. Priceless.
I have so much more to say but autumn is here. That beautiful moment of crispness and crunch. And I must go outside.
Love KA