Public Relations

Final Words From A PR Veteran

Garth Beyer

This is my final tribute to John Mose. There were two lines that hit home for me and I hope they will for you, regardless of your possible lack of empirical context.

The question many PR Professionals ask themselves is whether it is better to be a wizard on one specific beat, or talented on all areas. It’s the question between generalization and specialization.

“It’s good to be a generalist. Clients change all the time.”

Of course, he does mean that you need to be a specialist generalist. Yes, PR is tricky like that. Get used to it.

His last tip is a motto I’m not entirely sure of. Recently I’ve felt that I don’t write to explain, I write to explore. It’s this exploration, this story, that sells. I suppose it’s similar to John’s last word.

“You don’t want to explain it, you want to sell it.”

PR Specialists Three Choices For Writing

Garth Beyer

1. Persuade: Getting them to side with your idea.

2. Entertain: Taking a fun idea and making them part of it.

3. Be clever: Blowing their minds with genius.

You can bet which one earns you the most recognition and is my personal favorite.

10 Lessons About PR You Won’t Learn In School

Garth Beyer

Last night I was honored to listen to John Mose, Senior Vice-President of Public Relations at Cramer-Krasselt in Milwaukee, give a presentation to PRSSA Madison Chapter. The next few posts will be highlights of the presentation with my own commentary for an added texture.

1. Writing is important. Really.

You can land a position by presenting writing examples. You can get promoted by writing up proposals. You can get honored by writing the best press releases. You can be respected for writing media pitches. You can have the advantage of knowing what writers want to write about by being one yourself. Writing is everything.

2. Clients care about details.

You can skip the details when you are writing a plan out because you know them. You can skip the details when you pitch to your boss because your boss knows that you know them. You can’t skip the details when you pitch to your client because regardless of any title or background you have, your client won’t care. They want the details.

3. Understand and consume media. Read!

If you’re like me, reading all the articles in a newspaper is hard. The idea of opening a magazine to have my eyes blasted with absurd and uninformative ads repulses me. One word: literature. Other than that, I love reading articles online, but my eyes can only stand looking at the screen for so long. I’ve written about adaptation and this is when you have to get used to consuming all that you can. I’m making progress, you can too/need to.

4. At an agency, you are the product on shelf.

“Companies don’t cut the product that makes money.” – John Mose

5. PR can’t solve everything.

I’m leaving this up for debate. I have yet to meet a PR Professional other than John to say this. PR Specialists – being one myself – live by the adage If there is a will, there is a way.

6. Better to be fast than perfect.

My spin off of this that I have tweeted a few times, and rarely do I ever tweet something twice, is Be first, but be right first.

7. Be ready to sell some aluminum siding.

Similar to the next lesson; you never know what you may have to sell.

8. Know difference between a good-looking horse trough and an ugly one. You have to go out and be, do, or buy some crazy things.

You never know what you may have to do.

9. It’s okay to have non-traditional experience if you can make it interesting.

Took a year off? No problem, make the reason why fascinate me. Spent that last six years working a job that has no respective value? No problem, find and share what value it did hold. Every topic that you believe will work against you on your pursuit of becoming a PR Specialist, find how to make it interesting.

10. Study something else.

It’s time to confess something to you.

Everything you have read so far on this blog has come from experience, self-learning, or books and classes that are not directed at PR. I have to say that any and all future posts will be of the same context.

John advocates that you study something else, something you are passionate about, because the real world is the education center for PR. I couldn’t agree more.

(HT to John Mose)

Journalism’s Inverted Pyramid Changes When Applied To PR

Garth Beyer

The inverted pyramid is the heart and soul of a journalist. It’s their foundation. It’s the first thing they learn, memorize, and try to fill accordingly with every news story.

It entails putting the most important information first and the mundane details last. After all, the majority of people won’t read the whole article no matter which way you write it, so it’s best to get the important and interesting information to them first.

But then you have PR Specialists writing stories and these stories just can’t incorporate the inverted pyramid style of writing. These stories use the inverted time glass style.

Best explained by Bruce Desilva in Telling True Stories, “The very best endings often do something else: They offer a twist that readers don’t see coming but that nevertheless strikes them as exactly right.”

A journalist can write a news story perfectly well, but when you let a PR professional take up the task, they can write it in such a way that combines both the narrative style and the news story style.

As a result, you have a reader craving more than a journalist could make them crave. Of course, they will hate you for putting such a twist, but deep down, love it so much they will read your next release.