Dec. 23, 2024

Magic Wands And Flying Carpets - The Myths And Realities Of PR

Magic Wands And Flying Carpets - The Myths And Realities Of PR
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Magic Wands And Flying Carpets - The Myths And Realities Of PR
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That Solo Life, Episode 280: Magic Wands And Flying Carpets - The Myths And Realities Of PR

In This Episode

The understanding about the role of Public Relations can vary widely from being a vanity function to having the ability to save a failing company. In this episode of That Solo Life, co-hosts Karen Swim, APR and Michelle Kane engage in a lighthearted yet serious discussion about the common misconceptions about public relations (PR) and the challenges faced by PR professionals and the businesses they serve.

There are things that PR simply cannot fix. Karen and Michelle share their experiences with clients who have high expectations, believing that PR can be a magic bullet for their failing businesses. While PR can certainly help, it cannot replace the need for a solid business foundation, infrastructure, and consistent effort.

Karen highlights the issue of companies that underestimate the value of PR, especially during leadership changes. New CMOs may not recognize the critical role PR plays in maintaining brand reputation and driving customer trust. Without a partnership between PR and marketing, businesses risk losing out on valuable opportunities.

Michelle adds that PR cannot compensate for a lack of effort from clients. We need their input and collaboration to create effective strategies. The misconception that PR is a "set it and forget it" service leads to disappointment and missed opportunities. There must be open communication and consistent engagement to achieve the best results.

In addition to navigating these challenges, Karen and Michelle express concern for the well-being of PR professionals who are feeling burned out and disillusioned. The lack of communication and feedback from potential clients can be disheartening, and listeners are urged to foster better communication practices.

In closing, we extend our heartfelt gratitude to our listeners for their support throughout the year. We encourage everyone to approach their PR efforts with an open mind and a clear understanding of how collaboration can lead to success. We wish everyone happy holidays and look forward to continuing this journey together in 2025, sharing insights, laughter, and valuable information. Thank you for tuning in to That Solo Life!

Episode Timeline

00:00:00 - Introduction to That Solo Life

00:00:22 - The Holiday Season and PR Challenges

00:01:01 - Things PR Cannot Fix: Failing Businesses

00:01:48 - The Misconception of PR 's Value

00:03:46 - The Importance of Storytelling in PR

00:05:47 - The Need for Client Effort in PR

00:07:51 - Consistency is Key in PR Efforts

00:09:44 - The Passion of PR Professionals

00:10:49 - The Importance of Communication and Feedback

00:12:22 - The Impact of Disillusionment in the PR Industry

00:14:44 - Closing Thoughts and Holiday Wishes

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That Solo Life, Episode 280: Magic Wands And Flying Carpets - The Myths And Realities Of PR

Michelle Kane [00:12.522]-[00:25.977]: Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves. People like me, Michelle Kane with The Voice Matters, and my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hey, Karen, how are you?

Karen Swim, APR [00:26.950]-[00:29.931]: Hello, Michelle. I'm doing well, thanks. How are you?

Michelle Kane [00:29.931]-[00:46.174]: I'm doing well. I'm doing well. By the time this airs, we'll be just poised on the big holiday, Christmas and Hanukkah, which I think will collide this year. I'm not sure where Ramadan falls. I haven't looked at that yet. But it's all going on.

Karen Swim, APR [00:46.174]-[00:51.294]: It's all going on. And that's OK.

Michelle Kane [00:51.294]-[01:05.274]: That's OK. But we have a fun topic for you guys today. And it's going to make us giggle a little bit, even though it is serious, of course, but things PR cannot fix. We are problem solvers at heart, right?

Karen Swim, APR [01:05.274]-[01:15.902]: We are, but you know, we are not running Santa's workshop over here and we have no elves to magically help us to fix these things.

Michelle Kane [01:15.902]-[01:37.497]: No, no, we do not. So what do you do when you're dealing with heat miser and snow miser and there's no Mrs. Claus in sight to broker the deal? You do your best, but yeah, there are some things that we, you know, no matter what we do, you know, PR can't fix a failing business, right?

Karen Swim, APR [01:38.517]-[02:22.464]: So true. And I know that all of us have encountered at least once in our careers, that potential client that comes to you and everything is rush, rush, rush, and it's a hurry and they want to bring you on and they want these things and they're willing to pay for it. That's not the issue. And then, you know, if you do take the engagement, you quickly discover that they have really super high expectations because their business is failing. And they're thinking that PR is going to be the magic bullet that suddenly brings them all the revenue they need with just the right placed media article. Yeah. We need a buzzer.

Michelle Kane [02:24.413]-[02:51.010]: It's that one-off thing. Well, why didn't that one-off thing not work when, you know, maybe we're lacking infrastructure to do what we need to do or funds or systems? Why did your one article not fix my business and make it magically grow? Well, that's because it's, yeah, PR can help you, but there has to be a lot more to what you've got going on for it to really help you.

Karen Swim, APR [02:52.034]-[04:46.619]: And it's really interesting because it's the other side of the coin of something else that we can't fix. And that's when companies truly believe that they do not need PR. So you have companies sometimes and sometimes this will come with a change in leadership. So a CMO will leave and a new CMO will come in and they don't believe in PR. But they think that all of the coverage will somehow continue. Or they think that they'll get the same kind of results and the same kind of traffic without PR at all. They'll just do it all through marketing and paid spend and content marketing, and it'll make it happen. And you absolutely will get results from your marketing activities, but you'll be missing the core activities of PR.

We can't fix it if we're not there. If you don't believe in us, if you don't trust in us, if you don't understand, or seek to understand and learn how PR truly does impact your business and work in partnership with marketing, then you're only going to see what you want to see. Your lens is going to be fixated strictly on like how many dollars came in this month, what are you responsible for without seeing Geez, we saved you from a reputation crisis over here. We made sure that your customers trusted you over there so that they would be interested in the things that marketing is putting out and get a chance to talk to you. We drove traffic to your assets over here so that they could be at the top of the lead funnel and then you could nurture those. There were things that we did that you just didn't see. or didn't value, I should say. And you dismissed it. And when it's gone, and you don't get the results, and they're looking for a new CMO a year later, and they bring us back, we promise not to say I told you so.

Michelle Kane [04:47.868]-[05:36.732]: Beautiful, beautifully said. It's so true. And that also speaks to the fact that PR can't fix a lack of storytelling or a disinterest in telling your story, crafting a story. We will talk about this every week if we have to. But everything that our clients do communicates. And that means the presence of a story and the absence of it. Because if you're not saying who you are, what you believe in, what you offer, someone else is going to do it for you and you're not going to like it. Or when a crisis does hit, they have nothing to point to to say, oh, no, no, no, no, this was just a one-off. Because as you can see, oh, wait, we thought PR wasn't important. Oops. So

Karen Swim, APR [05:37.092]-[05:47.214]: Yeah. It's so true. You have another interesting one, I think, Michelle, because we talked before our broadcast. What else is your fix?

Michelle Kane [05:47.910]-[06:23.945]: Ah, PR can't fix a lack of effort. We can do wonderful things with the information you give us. In fact, I have ringing in my ears constantly, well, not constantly, but another PR person I know out there in the world once said to a client, I'm only as good as the information I have. And if I don't have information, I'm no good. You know, we can't magic, first of all, we can't magic things out of the air. We do need your help. We need your input. We need to know things. So from that adage, I developed my own, I don't need to know everything, but I need to know everything.

Karen Swim, APR [06:25.483]-[07:51.119]: You know, it's amazing how many people think that PR is set it and forget it. They, you know, they bring you on and then they don't want to talk to you. They say nothing. They just go completely dark and you're like, um, excuse us. Hi. That's a strategic plan. We, we sort of need your input. We'd love to have a discussion about it. We want to make sure that it's aligned to your roadmap. We, you know, would like to talk about this. Um, Hey, we, Remember those bylines you wanted us to get? We sort of need you to have a point of view to help us out. We can't think for you. We can, but then that's not our job to think for you. Our job is to work in partnership with you. This is a cooperative effort. And I agree. I don't know why people think that we're not... No, name a job that you really don't have to bring something to help, you know, from, you know, you don't just drop paperwork on your accountant and expect them to figure everything out. And you don't hire somebody to clean your house and then not tell them what to do. You are still, everything is a partnership. So I'm not sure why when it comes to PR, which is a high value business, you're paying for this, that you really think that you can just bring on a team and go away and just not have anything to do with them and then treat them like they're bothering you when they actually seek information.

Michelle Kane [07:51.599]-[08:50.351]: Yeah, yeah. And coupled with that is, you know, or part of that is just lack of consistency, just leads to disaster. And it leads to it's like a self fulfilling prophecy of being disappointed with the PR. And it's like, well, you need to continue doing the things it's not just a, you know, you dangle one thing out there. And oh, well, that didn't work. Well, that's not how that's not how any of this works. You have to keep at it. You have to always be feeding the borg, so to speak. You know, always giving, you know, having a reason to talk about your business, whether that's, you know, a flat out product or service or tell me more about your service. Tell me why that matters to your public. because that's what's going to get them interested in you. And you know, I know our listeners, hopefully you're nodding along, you're like, yeah, we know, we know. But we just want you to know that we're here with you sometimes in this frustration. When it does happen that way.

Karen Swim, APR [08:51.080]-[10:49.135]: It's so true. We don't want to be negative, but we're calling out things that we know for a fact that you are experiencing on the client side. And we hope that there are clients that also listen to the show to pick up tips and to understand PR better. Because I can honestly say that I have, especially among solo PR pros, I've never met a PR professional who genuinely did not want to do good work on your behalf. We take a lot of pride in that. We want you to have a good experience. We want to win for you. We get really excited about these things. We're geeked out. We go hard for clients and for brands and the organizations that we work for. And it can be disheartening when what we do is devalued and we don't get what we need so that we can honestly do our best work. So while this, you know, was kind of jokey and lighthearted, these are serious topics. And this is the time of year that we know that people are often looking to either augment their PR services or bring on PR in 2025. And we want you to do it with an open mind and with the right information so that you understand that engaging a team really does take you being open and honest and understanding how they impact your business and working with them to get the results that you want and being really transparent. You don't have to know the language, but you should be able to tell a potential PR professional, what success will look like for you? What are you looking to get? And then allow them to tell you how they can be a part of those results. We may not be able to affect all of the things, but we can articulate exactly what we can do to get you to your goals.

Michelle Kane [10:49.813]-[12:00.249]: Yeah and you know many markets are crowded and it's a challenge to stand out and we want you to know that in addition to your Google spend, PR is just as important because What we do helps inform the public and makes them that more likely to click when they see that come up in their search feed. So it all dovetails together. It's not an all or nothing. It's not one thing or the other. It's a collection of everything. And that doesn't mean that you need a massive budget. You don't. You just need to scale things appropriately and just have a realistic outlook on what your expectations are, what your goals are. And it's true, Karen, I will echo you. I don't know a single PR pro that isn't a champion for their client, that doesn't get excited and just really wants to put it out there. We are an odd, passionate bunch. I think it's great.

Karen Swim, APR [12:00.249]-[13:21.960]: We are. And this year has been hard collectively. You know, talking to small businesses over this past weekend was heartbreaking. The struggles that we've all shared this year, you know, with pricing being so high, all of our costs going up. And I have never seen so many PR professionals pivot away from PR. Many are disillusioned, and are burned out. And the way that we're treated is not helping. And I hate to lose talent, because of misconceptions or just, you know, not feeling like they matter. That really saddens me because these are some really good people that we're losing who are just saying, I can't do this anymore. You know, you said, You meet with clients, you write a proposal, and then you're ghosted. And they don't bother to even come to you to say, hey, we like everything, but this pricing is too high. Can we talk about a different scope of work? Or I chose somebody else, or we decided not to choose you. There are just so many things. And then getting in an engagement with a client who just feels like pushing you down is going to be the way that they get what they want, when what they want is not even realistic.

Michelle Kane [13:22.393]-[13:40.423]: Yeah. And hearing back from those people is important. You know, even if you want to say like, OK, so if you don't mind, you know, giving me 10 seconds of why you went with someone else, you know, what was there about my proposal? And it helps us learn, you know, outside of it was too much money. Well, then bye bye.

Karen Swim, APR [13:42.265]-[14:43.120]: Yeah, I, I think that that is, we should probably address that at some point but I feel like that's a, that's part of a larger symptom of where we just are. It used to be called manners, but I feel like it's a larger communication issue where we feel like we only communicate when we feel like we have to. And so when somebody gives us a proposal, we just feel like if the answer's not yes, we don't have to say anything. We just go away. I cannot tell you how many PR professionals are like, why didn't they just email yeah well and now say something answer like and then when i follow up just like nothing you just disappear it's rude yeah well and it it does all come back to you know when i say everything communicates that communicates too that tells me a little bit about your organization

Michelle Kane [14:44.564]-[15:15.659]: that, oh, okay, well, maybe BulletDodge, who knows. But yeah, it's a widespread thing. I mean, people on job searches, you know, when's the last time anyone got a rejection email? Nobody does it. So I think that's just, you know, morphing out, moving out into other areas. Anyway, we want to wish you very happy holidays, and we're grateful that you take the time to listen to us every week. Every time we look at our episode stats, we're like, oh my gosh, people are hearing.

Karen Swim, APR [15:18.432]-[15:54.155]: And because we're nearing the end of the year, we want to say how grateful we are and what a gift you are to us, this podcast, to Solo PR Pro, to the industry, and in case Nobody tells you before the year is out. We think that you are pretty great at your job. We respect you and you make us proud to be part of this profession and we hope that you'll stick with us in 2025 as we continue to grow and learn and share information and hopefully make you giggle here and there too.

Michelle Kane [15:54.155]-[16:00.438]: Definitely make you giggle. Well, we thank you for your time today and until next time, thanks for listening to That Solo Life.