Have you ever felt that you are all back in school being a PR professional. I know I do. Feeling the same anxiety about PC’s and big event as I did in my exam days. Doing three-four rounds of followups as I did my revisions. Every one engaged in their own frenzy of calling and really contributing to the telecom players’ benefits during your conferences and events.

A client is calling up the manager in the team (of course the manager refrains from picking up the call and for juniors, it’s a protocol issue) at the start of the day!! Huh,,,, this is a mock test and every body is running around in the class room (agency) hunting for answers. The best one of them all - a surprise unit test is just like an immediate client review meeting. And then the report card - you get the picture, I am sure…….

Why is it that we need to panic at every big event, which the client throws at our faces? Let me cite an example that happened with one of my colleague recently (name not mentioned on request):

Oh crap!!! Spokesperson traveling:

Kindly observe the conversation below:

Client: “__(name)__, for your information, there will be a spokesperson traveling from our global end”

Agent: “Ok. Can you provide me with the details and possibly write me a mail on this? I’ll look into it and then get back to you.”

Client’s mail: for your information, there will be a spokesperson traveling from our global end. Get back to me with a plan on this before lunch (the time is 10:30 AM currently)!!!

Agent’s reply: Hi ___

I kindly would kindly need kindly the kindly profile kindly of kindly the kindly spokesperson. The kindly date kindly of kindly the kindly travel and kindly what kindly is kindly he kindly going kindly to kindly speak kindly on kindly. (delete kindly if you want to get the meaning, kindly is used as a tactic word to please the client).

Client: He’s going to be here by the second part of last quarter of the third day of the week after this one. Still waiting for the plan OK. (Sorry, a bit of exaggeration but this is how clients make it sometimes).

Now comes the real client servicing action. The agent applies all his heart, soul, and what all is left of his mind to examines past news coverage and documents to carefully jot down the possible talking points. The main heads of the usual talking points include:

1. Investment figures
2. Spokesperson’s role in the organization
3. Acquisitions/ventures/collaborations if any
4. Future outlook of the company
5. Company effective role in community contribution.

There are many more that can be added in that list but as I said these are the main ones.

Now back to our story, after the careful assessment and evaluation of the talking points a plan is not that difficult to be carved out. So its done. The PLAN is made and presented to the almighty client for inputs & approval. Again this process reminds me of my school days …..I am sure all of still remember ‘Fill in the blanks’. The document is presented to client for him to fill in the blanks. But here is the reality. The client very conveniently fills in all the gaps and shares it with our friend. On close evaluation he finds out:

1. Investment figures: The organization was sharing the same numbers since the past 2 ½ years.
2. Spokesperson’s role in the organization: Plays an important role in the development of our friend’s misery.
3. Acquisitions/ventures/collaborations if any: IF ANY (get the picture)
4. Future outlook of the company: Given; no matter how much I try to sabotage this points image it can be used at any point of time with media.
5. Company effective role in community contribution: None what so ever considering the fact that our friend belongs to the community.

Of course he was not able to get the obvious choice ET, TOI and sadly confessed before me by saying: “Saurabh, I feel like I’ve flunked”

I admit this is a very acute case of the widespread disease CED (Client Expectation Disorder) but we all know how to handle situations. With a little bit of experience we learn to create mountain out of molehills, generate news out of nothingness.

P.S: I believe the industry is changing from the other side. I believe, as shown in signs in previous posts the client is becoming more sensible towards media and more sensitive towards the limitations of the agency.

I always wish to hear these kind of statements from journalists….but alas, The Pursuit of Happiness continues. Friends, how many times has this statement ruined your day, your week or perhaps your month? Allow me to share a heartbreaking tale about a young aspirant who always had something to look forward to.

“There was a young man who went by the name of Jack. Everyday he attended his daily chores like going to media rounds, doing extensive media mapping, effectively sending out extremely simple reports in the approved rocket science formats, etc. One fine day, he thought that Client Goddess has finally seen all his sincerity and hard work and she herself called him up and told him exactly what he expected.

With his trembling hands, he held on to the phone. His heart filled with delight and glee on listening to the beautiful sound in which Goddess said…Wow!!! Now that’s a front page story. She explained how she expected more out of him but still ready to relieve the pressure so that he wouldn’t have to work like an ass to gain her blessings. She gave him a story idea which would work like magic with his journalist comrades (soon to be enemies). He would be able to get front page stories and play with toys and would be pioneer, a statesman in his contemporary DNA age.”

Unfortunately for our new to the club Jack, he was unable to use this magic formula for the betterment of his environment and save his world using the marvelous story idea. Jack still had to work like an ass for this story idea to please this Client Goddess.

On numerous occasions I’ve witnessed my bosses shivering on thinking of a suitable reply to be given to the client which is always eventually based on truth…”Boss, this is not a good story idea or event, I don’t see any coverage coming out of it”. But they have unfortunately inherited a phobia or to never say ‘no’ as soon as they got into the industry. The differences is that they think they have become a Ghandivadi of the PR industry by following this practice. There are so many things that we work day in and day out without even realising the amount of time and energy positioned on something which will help us derive very very special and worthy snippets. We can do something really substantial with all our time spent on these mindless, meaningless pitching and give some real PR value to our clients.

Smash!!! I love what I wrote in the above line. It’s really good, but if only we are allowed to. Anyways, being a PR professional, I am trained to carry & boast alternatives. Let me now site some typical examples which we are regularly tangled:

1. Corporate Social Responsibility: Corporates, I am aware how important it is to practice CSR. You develop good relations with all intended target audiences. It helps you to gain a good hand with the government. Investor relations are kept in good spirit as you are contributing to the society. Consumers understand that you, out of many, think about the common man and they are happy. Yes all good but doing a CSR activity every month….I mean let somebody else be the saint. The catastrophic phenomenon has been around since 4/5 years now. Let’s see some perspective with this aspect.

In a meeting the client shares with me and my boss.

Client: “…..(name not published on request)……, we are coming up with this new thing and its very environment friendly, it would aim to teach students as well. Yes I do admit that other corporate have also moved in this stride but we’ve observed they have involved less no. of students and we are involving many more. I understand the idea is not new but we plan to invest in this for five years. So we want good coverage around this”.

Observe the responses to the info shared by the client. My thoughts on the responses and comments in bracket:

“Oh that sounds of wonderful. (Without realizing it my boss has given a new meaning to the word wonderful). I don’t think we should have a problem in implementing a strategized plan on this. Although this is not a new idea (no stone is left unturned in terms of CSR ideas), we’ll still be able to derive some coverage out of it. Why isn’t it, Saurabh?”

And that’s it,,,, my world just collapses on this last statement.

Friends please excuse the sarcasm. The point I am trying to make is about always trying to explain to your clients how important it is to practice high-scale impactful CSR otherwise it’s of no use. Ideas like teaching a couple of underprivileged kids, growing a couple of trees are always good for an individualistic value appreciation but not at all meaningful from a corporate perspective. Still I do understand the unaided situation that many of us land in with persistent clients. For those kind of clients give a suggestion to club around 2-3 CSR initiatives and turn that around into a profiling opportunity. Some columns that should be able to suffice your clients and help you are:

a. The Economic Times, Career and Business life page
b. Business Standard, Social Enterprise Page.
c. The Financial Express, Corporate Voice

2. Appointments: Another one of those highly demanded properties that our respectful clients vouch for to be an easy placement. Unless it’s a CEO or a president of a big corporate, movements and appointments are hard to be placed even with amazing media relations. It would not be surprising that one of our clients asks us to get coverage on a change in its security setup.

Trying to offer and combine the appointment news with financial numbers and investment to increase the news value might surely help derive more out of the simple appointment news.

3. Product announcements: No, I don’t mean the launch of a bike, a car, a big pharma drug. I am talking about going through the horror of launching a completely advanced GSM paper. A breakthrough in the contemporary unfortunately not covered by any paper. Sometimes this also happens. The best thing to do in these situations is target the trade media. The trick might be to convince your clients for concentrating on special relationship building meetings and not seeing it though a coverage point of view. Convince him from the more futuristic view. These meetings always help in creating a pipeline for stories.

4. Advertising and marketing campaigns: Not too long ago I was asked to give a PR plan on my client’s small sponsorship in a big rock festival. Ya, I know you are thinking, this is just impossible. No client can be this unreasonable. Well, I was among you all who think in this fashion. Now I am a PR professional. Get it. What do you do in these situations? Well nothing, you can do some industry story participation on the subject but apart from that nothing.

We should all thank the afaqs, exchange4media, indiantelevision, and indiainfoline of the world who can come for our rescue in situations like these.

5. International News: Well, at least most of our clients are sensible enough not too expect anything out of these sorts. But for some select who suffer from this phobia as well I’ll try to give an alternative. It should be relatively easy to acquire a fair amount of coverage in case of a big international collaboration or a big international corporate setting up in India, but for the rest of them, work out a regular dispatch of information to the media without pushing for coverage on it. Suggest your client to be in regular touch with the media with an informative newsletter, which would also help you to monitor and be abreast of your client’s industry.

My apologies to all who religious expect this blog’s horizon to be very serious and always giving gyaans. This post is about an opinion and how we should ideally tackle all the tricky mud holes our clients create for us. I would expect some valuable additions to it as well.

Client meet: the two words which mean life or death for PR professionals

Don’t take the above statement as an exaggeration of sorts. It is a fact. There are times when we reach for a client meeting well before time and the contrary when we dread going to them. I’ve seen my boss pray for not having to attend a client meet after a flop show (Of course he tried to do it in private but I saw his folded hands unfortunately). The anxiety of explaining the outcomes of an event or a release can be similar to facing God and explaining your wrong actions (the latter is still better, believe me). However listed below are a few tips, in no particular order, that PR Professionals should try to remember in case of client meets.

1. Decide the objectives for the Meeting: Set objectives before the meeting!

One should always be focused on setting the meeting objectives. If you don’t find any reasons to do this, your meeting can shift focus and you’ll end up discussing a completely different affair & reach to a ….well no conclusion. While setting the meeting objectives one should keep in mind all things he/she wants to achieve out of the meeting.

One benefit of setting objectives for the meeting is to help you plan the meeting. The more concrete your meeting objectives, the more focused your agenda will be. A second important benefit of having specific objectives for each meeting is that you have a concrete measure against which you can evaluate that meeting. Were you successful in meeting the objectives? Why or why not? Is another meeting required? Setting meeting objectives allows you to continuously improve your effective meeting process.

2. Be well informed

Yes, anther one of those cliché gyans that you come across regularly. However this is one of those rare points that is not strictly checked on irrespective of its significance. We should always be bang on with our client’s progress in the recent times. The one thing that surely impresses the client is your knowledge/ comprehension about his business along with knowledge of the industry on a whole.

3. Be Organized

A very significant etiquette in this context is to be organized when going to a client meeting. One should be equipped with a point agenda to be discussed at a client meet. It is advisable to carry recent coverage dockets and referable handouts for the meeting. This helps us PR professional in various aspects.

The most important aspect of being a perfect PR professional is our presentation qualities. This skill sets us apart not only on an individualistic but this is a certain differential which gives PR its uniqueness. The way one presents himself/herself at a meeting sets the tone or the balance of the meeting.

4. Agenda

Provide all participants with an agenda before the meeting starts. The agenda would include a brief description of the meeting objectives & a list of the topics to be covered. When you send the agenda, you should include the time, date and location of the meeting and any background information participants will need to know to hold an informed discussion on the meeting topic. What’s the most important thing you should do with your agenda? Follow it closely!

5. Be sensible, be safe

In my school days, I still remember my teacher repetitively advising me to ask as many questions as possible (although my teacher’s wish went unfulfilled, as my comprehension of her subject failed to support me), this rule however does not apply to our industry. Internally one has the complete liberty to be as naive as per our wish. However incase of a client meeting one should not speak until & unless it’s a noteworthy comment or suggestion. We set an impression on people by our comments. I am not advising anyone to go in a shell and not participate at all but just that when one does choose to participate he/she should be equipped with all the facts before addressing any topic.

6. Anticipate questions as if you anticipate crisis

The first lesson of crisis management is anticipation. There are times when client meets have to be visualized as crisis and have to be dealt with accordingly. Anticipate all possible queries and issues to be addressed in meeting. Do this exercise while going for the meeting. Yes follow this routine while on the way to the client’s office.

One should never give importance to specific meetings which only includes high officials from client side. Every meeting is equally important and one should always be prepared for them. So, we should follow this exercise for every meeting.

7. POA: Don’t conclude any meeting without deciding on the plan of action

Don’t finish any discussion in the meeting without deciding the action on it

Before leaving the meetings make sure that the client is satisfied with the discussion. Also make sure that the points or plan of action discussed is properly understood with both the parties. There should be no ambiguity with any point discussed in the meeting.

‘Time is Money’ the golden rule which I find to be coherent for our industry. We should be able to take action on the points discussed as quickly as possible. No matter how easy going or non demanding the client is documents in form of MOMs (Minutes of the meetings) should always reach to the client after every meeting.

These were the few pointers for client meetings, although debatable and certainly extendable.