Don’t Call Us. We’ll Call You.

Just because he’s the president of the organization, it doesn’t mean he’s a good interview.

As part of the job of being a good PR professional not only does it fall upon us to secure our organization and/or clients meaningful media coverage that supports a communications plan and business objectives, but we must also find a way to position our executives as thought leaders and/or excellent sources for commentary.

One of the easiest ways to accomplish this is by offering a relevant executive as a person to interview when you’re pitching a particular media outlet about some new trend, noteworthy product/service launch, upcoming event, or announcement. The other way is by monitoring what a particular journalist is covering and then positioning your executive or expert as a person who can lend to the story by offering some balance or key insights.

Now this may be a shocker to some (especially to the executive or expert you’re positioning) but not everyone can deliver the goods.

When a PR pro pitches a good story, a lot of times we’ll have a person in mind who we want to put out in front for an interview. And to really sell it we’ll tell the person we are pitching that so and so is a “good interview.” For those not in public relations, you’re probably thinking to yourself, isn’t that what you’re supposed to say?

(Side note: If you’re anything like me, you’d have several people you want to offer for interviews: an exec to talk overall strategy and position in the market; manager directly hands on with the project/product; an end-user; and some analyst or industry type to provide perspective or talk trends – that’s how you package a story.)

But what does that mean when we tell a reporter/journo we’re pitching that so and so is a good interview?

What we are saying is that we know what you are looking for and we got a person in mind who can deliver the goods and the money shot. The person we lined up is knowledgeable, personable, engaging, sometimes funny, passionate, an excellent story teller and they give good sound bite. Sometimes they’ll have a great voice, sometimes they are camera friendly, or there’s something compellingly quirky about them. In essence they are a “good interview” – someone a reporter would WANT to talk to about that thing the PR person pitched.

Unfortunately, a lot of PR pros think in a very linear way about who to put in front of the reporter/journo. If the topic is something scientific, you go get the scientist; if it’s something legal you get the attorney; if it’s a big story or a big media outlet, you go get the CEO. I can’t say that this is wrong or that I haven’t done it myself.

But what if the person who lined up the most succinctly with the subject matter was a god awful interview? You know what I’m talking about, the person who speaks monotone using acronyms, industry terminology and only sees questions in black and white. Or the type of person that sees the media interview as more of a begrudged task and not an opportunity, or the person who over talks, does a verbal data dump and bores the interviewer to tears. You could end up doing more damage to the outcome of your coverage, just on the strength of a bad interview. Also, when there is a future story that your org/client wants to desperately be a part of, the reporter will remember the agonizing experience and opt to go with someone else.

I’ve painfully sat through interviews with bad interviewees myself. Either they viewed talking to the media as an annoyance, used too much “shop talk,” peppered their responses with jargon, talked too little giving only one word answers, not answering questions at all or went off onto tangents that helped to lose the message. All of these attributes, along with those previously mentioned, make for interview hell.

Back in my agency days, two clients I worked with were led by individuals that fit the description of being a good interview: Rick Hecker, Owner and CEO of Eifel, Inc. and the late auto journalist David E. Davis Jr. Both of these gentlemen had great back stories, were extremely knowledgeable about their industries, wielded a hard to hide passion and both were just rough enough around the edges to be interesting. The media used to enjoy talking to them so much they’d try to go around me (the gatekeeper) to interview them for various stories.

Right now you’re reading this and probably mentally identifying that person at your company (or your client’s) that fits the build of being a good interview. But how do you get them past the people who think that THEY should be doing the interview, and in front of a reporter? I don’t know, you are on your own there.

But I offer this, think about the medium you’re approaching and then match it to the right messenger. Print interviews are the easiest, but for broadcast think about the intangibles. For radio, get someone with a great speaking voice, can think quickly on their feet and knows how to banter or tell a story to someone listening. When it comes to TV, think about the optics (what the viewer will be seeing) as well as your exec/expert’s comfort level with being asked tough questions under a bright light. People tend to have a more positive impression when the people they are listening to or looking at are appealing in some way.

As far as depth of the issues (if it’s not the interviewee’s specific lane), most of your organization’s leaders know a little bit of something about most facets of the org’s operations and objectives, that’s what the executive management team meetings are all about. And if they don’t, they can be coached and briefed on the details. I think it’s extremely important to have the right messenger.

And if you don’t have the leeway to utilize someone who’s a good interview because a particular topic is not their area of expertise and you have to use the exec, who’s not as fruitful when it comes to doing interviews, then there’s always media training.

Gone Fishing: The Dark Side of RFPs & Job Interviews

Let me start by saying that competition is healthy. Dare I say it in my Gordon Geckko voice…competition is good. I believe that if you truly want something in life, you should have to work to get it and at some level compete to get it. In your personal and professional life, competition should be expected. But competition should never be bastardized to the point that people are unfairly used or pimped.

If you work at or have worked at a PR agency, the chances are great that you’ve participated in responding to an RFP or at least experienced your firm’s involvement in the RFP process in some capacity. For those unfamiliar, a RFP or “Request For Proposal” is the process an organization goes through when it wants to competitively bid out the contract for a work assignment or project. The RFP includes the specs for the project in addition to other pertinent details. It also includes a step-by-step outline for how those interested in “winning” the contract should go about doing so. Most RFPs included a formal opportunity for those who have made the cut to pitch their services first hand. And within those pitches sometimes would-be contract awardees are required to demonstrate in great detail how they would complete the project they are bidding on.

In regards to responding to an RFP on something say a little more nebulous, like providing PR/Communications services, bidders may be asked to provide their creative ideas up front. From the vantage point of the company putting out the RFP this seems perfectly reasonable as they don’t want to just “hear” that an agency is creative or has great ideas, they want you to demonstrate it.

But if you’re the agency in that bidding process, putting down your creative ideas in print and providing a blue print for the implementation of those creative ideas without the guarantee of being awarded the contract, is dicey and often amounts to freely giving away intellectual property. It’s just something very unsettling about it. But I’m sure some would say hey, this is part of the game and you’ve got to play, to win. Yes that is a true assessment, but it should happen at whose expense?

I think agencies should be able to demonstrate their PR prowess by providing actual case studies of previous work done on other projects similar in scope. I also believe that agencies should be able to rely more on actual testimonials from previous clients. Referrals and work samples speak volumes about one’s capabilities, along with the ability to intelligently talk through how the work was created. What I don’t think PR agencies should have to do is give away the only real products they create – their ideas.

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The reason I’m so anti giving up PR intellectual property without compensation is because I’ve come to learn about the dark side of the RFP process. Not all RFPs are intended to be awarded. Some RFPs are meant as a tactic to produce/collect ideas…for free. Or even worse, the RFP process generates some great ideas that are then collected and given to a low bidding agency to implement. So the organization doing the awarding gets the great concept or campaign and gets to have it potentially done at a fraction of the cost.

Twice during my tenure with a PR agency I’ve seen what I like to refer to as “idea poaching” up close and personal. During the very first new business pitch I participated in, I saw this happen to our agency after we weren’t awarded the contract (side note: I was horrible during this pitch. I’d never done one before and wasn’t prepared to do any of the talking at that point in my career. However, I was very instrumental in putting together the presentation and contributing ideas). For the next couple of years following our failure to land that contract, I had to witness a less expensive agency carrying out many of the ideas we proposed and outlined during the RFP process. It was very disheartening to experience this practice in business.

But companies that put out RFPs don’t own the patent on idea poaching. Since I’ve been in the job market, I’ve come to painfully learn that this also happens during the job interview process. Twice during my current career search I’ve had prospective employers ask me to create a “detailed” communication plan. I really don’t have any sort of issue with demonstrating my knowledge, abilities or understanding of a particular industry, but the creation of a communications plan is not a simple task, say like taking a writing test or editing an article in a timed environment.

Drafting a legitimate communications plan requires the understanding of an organization and its industry; a working knowledge of its fiscal year objectives and bench marks; an audit of the previous communications plan and/or organizational communications capabilities; available budget; and a working knowledge of staff, stakeholders and influencers. Without knowing these things, you are flying blind as a PR pro. And most of these things you’d only know if you were a part of the organization already.

So when someone asks me to draft a comprehensive communications plan, like say it was the equivalent to drafting a press release (which I can do in my sleep by the way), I immediately come to the conclusion that either they don’t understand what it is that PR people do or worse they don’t respect it. If a hospital were looking to hire a surgeon, they wouldn’t ask the physician to execute a surgery in front of them to evaluate. No, they would go off of referrals from previous employers and a comprehensive evaluation of that candidates previous body of work.

But back to these two request for me to create a comprehensive communications plan as part of the hiring process. Both of the organizations were non-profits. One gave me a week and a half to create the plan and the other a mere three days. In both cases I had already made it through two rounds of interviews where I was grilled on my PR knowledge and my basic understanding of their respective industries. I passed all instances with flying colors. But that wasn’t enough on which to base their hiring decisions; they needed to have a communications plan in hand to review.

I wouldn’t have had a problem with showing them a previously created communications plan or doing a small sample one for their organizations or even a communications plan outline. But they wanted more and with a lot more detail, which immediately sent my internal alarms sounding. One of the organizations sent me the annual report for 2009 and asked me devise a plan for the entire FY 2010. The other directed me to their website and asked me to create a plan for the upcoming year. And in neither instance would there be an exchange of money for all of the time I would have to put into this endeavor.

Both wanted everything included in the plan, such as: creative ideas, time-line for implementation, designated spokes people, actual press releases or concepts for press releases, media lists (along with contacts and contact info) and measurables. I thought they were asking a whole lot for free. And what if they really liked the ideas and the plan but felt more comfortable with another candidate? Where would that leave me? And then it hit me…holding the bag and still in the market for a career home.

In the end, I declined to participate in the more complex of the two and for the other I did a scaled down version of the plan minus the contact info for the media list. If they had everything, what did they need me for? Momma didn’t raise a dummy. I likened it to a john trying to convince a prostitute to let him sample the product up front and if it was good or he liked it, he’d then pay for future services rendered.

When I apply for a position with an organization and ask them to invest in me by providing me with a salary, benefits and opportunity, the only things I have to offer in exchange are my experience, creativity, work ethic and dependability. I place a value on these things and giving away my creativity on the front end leaves me with less in which to barter.

Maybe I’m just naïve or too optimistic to think that life can be fair or that we can be judged based on our body of work.