ATLAS PITCHED

I attended a trade show recently to orchestrate a client’s on-site PR operation. The Propheta team managed to schedule three client interviews and – while on-site – a staff member and I each orchestrated another in-person reporter briefing by walking the floor and strategically stalking the events’ press room.

As we were walking a reporter across the expo floor to our client’s booth, I wondered if the trade show attendees realized the opportunity that literally passed them by. Most entrepreneurs fail to realize that dozens (if not scores) of key industry reporters attend trade shows. While their sales staff and CEO stand dutifully in their booth, key reporters walk by with nary a glance at their product or service.

Why does this happen? It’s simple: one of your competitors who attended the trade show employed a competent PR team to leverage the show’s media list, capitalize on local media and orchestrate news coverage.

Trade shows can be expensive to attend; but coming back with two or three pending stories in the right media outlets certainly helps justify your costs. Yet, few attendees bother to leverage the public relations opportunities presented by a well-run trade show.

There’s an art to trade show PR. It involves planning, aggressive outreach, a little creativity and – if you can afford it – boots on the trade show floor pursuing reporters.

Today I’m reviewing coverage that stemmed from the trade show. Our client was one of the smart ones and they have several stories written or pending to prove it. Yet, there were dozens of other great business stories from that expo floor that will never be written. So many attendees failed to consider the PR opportunities.

I met with a group of college seniors earlier this week at a colleague’s NYU class in communications. It was the usual gaggle of young professionals; most of whom were ready to launch themselves headlong into their careers and pursue the American Dream.

One or two students, unencumbered by the dictates of the present job market, cultivated dreams of almost instantaneous success based on their perceived intelligence, drive or familial connections.

And of course, a few others fatalistically resigned themselves back to their parents’ house; assuming their old jobs at the mall or restaurant.  Perhaps sleeping in a twin bed surrounded by their high school memorabilia will serve to motivate them? I can only hope.

As I was giving my usual oration aimed at recent grads – clean up your Facebook, join LinkedIn, research decision makers at your target employers, be politely persistent, etc. – a question arose in my mind: what separates good PR candidates from great PR candidates?

I’ve hired (and fired) more than a few people in my twenty years in PR. So here are my top three thoughts on what present job seekers should be thinking about.

Don’t Wait until the Interview to Define Yourself

Demonstrate that you understand how social media works by developing your own formidable social media presence. A routine web search should illustrate your strengths as a professional. A complete and public LinkedIn profile is a good start, an intelligent personal blog is a good extra step.

Do Your Homework

Don’t assume that our agency is like everyone else’s. Take the time to research the agency and your interviewer.  Explain why you want to work for us as opposed to a competitor. Be prepared to ask relevant questions and engage in a meaningful dialogue. When you’ve done your homework, there are no stupid questions.

Slow and Steady Doesn’t Win the Race in PR

The key element in any successful public relations agency is aggressiveness. Strong candidates balance a will to succeed with a killer’s instinct to garner results.  In other words, you need an “edge.” PR is a competitive sport and successful agencies are not looking for bench warmers.

The Wall Street protesters are settled in, camping in a space not far from Wall Street. Their numbers have dwindled due a majority of protestors heading back to work after the weekend (I know, ironic) and an intimidating police presence is forcing them to consider their actions very carefully.

In a move that dissolved much of the protesters’ anarchist street cred, mayor Bloomberg stated that they’re welcome to protest as long as they behave themselves – similar to a parent granting their teen permission to smoke, as long as they don’t light up in the living room.

It makes me nostalgic for my days as a lobbyist in Washington, DC where protests were carefully choreographed. Organizers and Capitol Police would often meet ahead of time to map out the day’s events, sometimes even determining the number of people who planned to cross the line and be “arrested.”  It was all glorious political theater that forced the audience to “think” about a specific bill before Congress or a stalled White House initiative.

At present, the protest is misdirected anger. If they want to move the needle away from Wall Street and towards the cause of social justice, they need to tear a few pages from Saul Alinsky’s playbook and leverage the same tools as their adversaries – the news media. They also need their protest to track back to a specific path of public action.

This week, President Obama will introduce a plan that includes a higher minimum tax rate for millionaires – a perfect parallel issue for the Wall Street protesters to adopt in order to force people to think.

Angry protest chants and hand-drawn signs aren’t the solution.

It’s nice to have older, established clients. Their budgets are relatively stable and if you’re lucky, you can craft effective messaging and positioning strategies based on years of sales and marketing data. An experienced PR team can hit the ground running and easily start producing results within a week.

Yet, it’s the start-ups that everyone seems to gravitate towards. This is the age of the entrepreneur and we all wish to be present, just in case a breakthrough levers open a crack in the fabric of the World and the future bursts through.

The fabric of the World, thankfully, is pretty rigid; and more often than not, a good start-up merely succeeds in building a better product or delivering a service more effectively. The world remains largely unchanged.

So why even pursue a start-up company as a client? Why work with a smaller budget and increased pressure to deliver? The benefits are myriad:

• Start-ups give our staff an amazing amount of story ideas to present to the media; thereby we’re constantly developing and maintaining dynamic relationships with key journalists.
• Start-ups keep us sharp. Time is of the essence – results need to come early and often in order to help a client rise above the crowded marketplace. This same discipline can (and should) be exercised with older, more established clients as well.
• Start-ups keep our tech team at the forefront of emerging technology.

No matter how far we grow, we’ll always save room to work with start-ups.

I know, I’m late to the blogging world. Clients come first at Propheta Communications and when deciding between writing a blog post and pitching the news media, I gravitated toward pitching; who can turn down an opportunity to mediate reality on behalf of a client?

For the last two years, everyone from employees to mentors and even my attorney pushed me to start the blog. Propheta was producing amazing media exposure for clients, but the agency wasn’t marketing itself – much like an orthodontist whose kids have crooked teeth.

So today, as Propheta winds down their three year anniversary, let’s start a dialogue or two. It’s been a great journey thus far. Back in the spring of 2008, I left my position as Senior Vice President with dreams of taking the summer off before striking out on my own.

Five weeks later a call came from a bootstrap start-up who wanted me to launch their mobile platform … so much for lazy summer afternoons. Opportunity is evanescent and cyclical in nature – especially during a severe recession. I was back to working long days and loving it.

By 2009 we were profitable. We did even better in 2010 and 2011 will be our third year of success and profitability.

But I’m not here to brag. I didn’t get here alone. Every small success story is built upon the larger guidance and influences provided by mentors and earlier bosses. So before I start talking about my own rich experience in Public Relations, I think it’s wise to acknowledge a few influencers in my career.

In no particular order, here is an incomplete list:

- From Dr. Gregory Payne, I learned the value of challenging myself and pushing boundaries.

- From Dan Mastromarco & David Burton, I learned that there can be no excuses; a strict sense of responsibility breeds results and engenders success.

- From Jose Zuniga, I realized the importance of adding a little military discipline – and getting things done right the first time.

- From Carolyn Hawes, I realized the value of compassion and patience in the work place.

- From Jeff Richards, I understood the importance of heeding and harnessing the politics of an organization.

- From Sandy Tennant, I understood that polite persistence pays a premium.

… Now let’s launch a blog.