Customer-centric PR: letting others tell your story
If you are not using third party, customer-centric PR, there is a high likelihood that your brand’s full potential is not being reached. Whether you run a PR agency, a nonprofit, a small-mid-size business, a 10-person marketing department, or a larger corporation, the size of your brand potential might just depend on the PR philosophy that you apply. How many third parties do you foster to help shape your brand or – big ghast – to collectively become your largest public voice? We call this philosophy customer-centric, or third party PR. Brand advocates can be at work on...
Read MoreProfessor Punts: Another Quarter, Internship Intelligence and Life with Social Media
The summer sailing season winds down in September as the crisp air signals for me the beginning of another fall quarter teaching principles of PR at DePaul University. No sooner can we blink than the first frost brings with it final exams during Thanksgiving week. Time flies. In teaching, there is never a dull moment – especially with 28 engaging, smart 20-somethings eager to find out if PR is for them. During 10 weeks and 20 lectures we wove PR conversations into current events. There were four Presidential debates, Apple’s release of the iPhone 5, Chick-Fil-A’s branding...
Read MoreWhat is your catalyst?
After spending eight years in the medical technology start-up world, six years in Corporate America’s pharma and consumer products sectors, and two years consulting, I founded the Ballast Group, an integrated communication strategies firm. I believed finally I had enough experience in many areas of industry and business that potential clients could gain insights from them. But I didn’t always have the guts to take such an entrepreneurial risk. My sailing partner and coach, a commercial real estate entrepreneur, was my catalyst. On a slow-to-no-wind race day on Lake Erie for the...
Read MoreFire a prospect before hiring a client
Fire a prospect before hiring a client Recently I had an experience where I chose to pass on a prospect to avoid a nightmare client. This experience made me stop and think hard before going with my gut. Some would say that I passed up potential business. When a relationship is right, you sense it from the get go. The perspectives and education of both parties in their respective fields is clearly understood on both ends. The same goals are understood and shared; there is mutual respect, curiosity and the perspective education by both parties in their respective fields is clearly understood...
Read MoreVisiting Vietnam
“Traveling the country, delicacies always near” – eating our way from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi – a New Year’s adventure http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel/ct-trav-0325-food-vietnam-20120324,0,6406379.story
Read MoreRaving PR Fan on Groupon CEO’s 60 Minutes Interview
When I worked for a Fortune 500 company’s corporate communications department one of the few calls we wanted to take was from a CBS producer of 60 Minutes, the expose television news magazine. A call like that would make most CEOs cringe. It kept corporate communicators up at night for weeks preparing for the best interview possible. I’m not sure if Andrew Mason, the 30-something CEO of three-year old Groupon, cringed when he got the call, but his interview underscores the importance of media training. He may be cringing now. The company went public last fall with an $18 billion...
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