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Key Messages That Convey What’s In It For Your Audience: Apple iPhone 6

As I watch the Apple iPhone 6 roll out, I’m hearing lots of technical stuff. That’s great if you are a techno geek who cares about screen size, pixels and data points.

But what does the new iPhone 6 do to make my life better? As a consumer where is the “What’s in it for me?” information.

Many organizations fall into this key message trap when they do media interviews or when executives do presentations. Usually, the presenter, speaker or executive is so thrilled about the many internal goals achieved, they can’t imagine the rest of the world doesn’t also care.

Here are four ways to avoid self-centered presentations and media interviews:

1) Ask the most important question. How does this product, event or initiative make the world a better place for humanity?

This should be your lead statement in a media interview. This should be your opening line on stage in your presentation.

This is important because you have to give the largest audience possible a reason to care. As a consumer, I’m embarrassed that my friends with other phones can wash them under a faucet. Can the new iPhone 6 do that? What about all that broken glass? Have you invented a phone that won’t crack when it gets dropped so I don’t have to buy an Otter Box?

2) Ask, “What is the pain, problem and predicament of the current customer?”

Steve Jobs did this so well when he introduced the concept of the iPod by talking about how hard it was to carry all of your music with you. In those days, having a CD player and a binder full of CDs with you at all times was the pain, problem and predicament. The solution was to have a small device in the palm of your hand that played all of your music.

If I were making the iPhone 6 presentation today, I would have opened the presentation with photos of broke iPhones and images of iPhones in the toilet. My opening line would have been, “Do you have an iPhone 4 that looks like this? Have you ever dropped your phone in the toilet or gotten it wet? Then I’d reveal how the new phone will not fall trap to the old problems… if, in fact they have solved these problems. I really don’t know because I’ve not heard anyone say it yet.

Late in the presentation there have been a few videos that talk about some of the conveniences, such as Apple Pay. But it still falls short of the pain, problem and predicament formula that you must use.

3) Know the personality type of the presenter, speaker or spokesperson. An analytical individual will always go to the data points, as we’re seeing in the iPhone 6 presentation. For the live audience of geeks this may be fine, but the consumer audience will turn off the presentation and fail to make a purchase if you don’t quickly tell us what’s in it for us.

4) Ask for an outside review of your messages before you present them. As a public relations and communications team, it is easy to get sucked into the vortex of the internal excitement. This exemplifies that old expression, you can’t see the forest for the trees.

Whether you reach out to PR colleagues who will do it for free or a messaging expert who will charge you a few dollars, their distance as an objective observer will be highly valuable. You can expect that they will be puzzled by your technical jargon and call you out on it.

The most important thing I always ask of these internal teams is, “What does that mean?” This forces the communications team to simplify the messages in a way that a 6^th grader can understand it.

In conclusion, keep it simple and tell the audience what’s in it for them. Your sales and revenue depend upon good messaging.

To learn how you can be more effective with your messaging, register for the PRSA Effective Messaging workshop that I’ll be leading in Chicago on November 11, 2014. Learn more here.

3 Ways to Refocus for Fall and Beyond: Better Public Relations After Summer’s Distractions

September 2, 2014/0 Comments/in Public Relations /by gbraud

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By Gerard Braud

Is “work – life” balance possible for people in public relations? Experience tells me many public relations professionals get stressed trying to complete job tasks while also balancing their family or personal life, especially this time of year.

Look at your life today, for example. The kids are back in school. The Labor Day weekend is behind you. Co-workers have all wrapped up their summer vacations. For the first time since Memorial Day the entire staff is all in one place at one time. What was not even a second thought last week is suddenly urgent and important.

Do you feel invigorated to recommit yourself to achieving end of year goals? Or do you feel stressed because so much has gone unaccomplished all summer and now deadline pressures are looming?

If you had work-life balance you would feel neither re-invigorated nor stressed after Labor Day because you live your entire year in balance rather than the ups and downs and ebbs and flow of a chaotic corporate existence.

Here are three ways to level out your life.

1) Adopt a rolling 12-month calendar

Develop a strategic communications plan based on a rolling 12-month calendar and stop planning your communications based on either your calendar year or your fiscal year. When PR people live by a calendar year there is the “fresh start” syndrome of January, complete with soon-to-fail New Year resolutions. Next you spend January and February getting ready to get ready. March, April and May are your busy times of the year, with pauses for spring break and Memorial Day. Little gets accomplished in the summer because too many people who impact your goals and projects are on vacation. By the time you regroup after Labor Day, it takes several weeks to get rolling again, similar to New Years. By mid-September you are productive again and you stay focused through Halloween. Your mind then starts planning for Thanksgiving break and then for Christmas. Before you know it, New Years rolls around and you hit reset all over again.

Did I describe you? If so, it appears you have five productive months a year and seven months of distractions.

Instead, set a goal from September 2014, through September 2015. Strategically plan all of your goals and deadlines for training, publications, etc. On October 1, 2014, extend the strategic plans and goals by one additional month, through October 2015. Keep doing this at the first of every month and you now have a rolling 12-month calendar.

2) Plan around the obstacles

As you build your 12-month rolling calendar, set clear, hard deadlines. Identify the times of the year when people are inaccessible, such as in the summer, and plan around those challenges. If you need a team meeting or a training program next June, send the invitations out now, before people fill their calendars with vacation dates. That will make next summer more productive because you planned so far in advance. Everything won’t come to a grinding halt.

3) Budget on a rolling 12-month calendar

Your budgeting process will become easier with a 12-month rolling calendar. You should set clear goals now to spend your remaining budgets before the end of your calendar or fiscal year, so you don’t lose those dollars. But as you enter your new budgeting phase and make budget requests, you should also schedule on your calendar exactly when you plan to spend your dollars for training and projects using your 12-month rolling calendar.

This type of planning allows you to get contracts in place early, which legally commits your funds to vendors now, preventing the boss from taking your money away should conditions change for the worse down the road.

In conclusion, stop losing momentum. Adopt a rolling 12-month calendar that resets strategic goals and budgets at the start of each month for the next 12-months. Too many people live start and stop lives. Recommit today to end the ebb and flow to achieve greater work-life balance.

3 Secrets to Undervaluing a Crisis Communication Plan

July 29, 2014/0 Comments/in Crisis Communications /by gbraud

By Gerard Braud

Your expert crisis communication and public relations feedback is invited on this crisis communications case study.

A global company called to inquire about my crisis communication plan program and training. Their corporate revenues are $2 billion dollars annually. The company stock trades at about $66 per share. It has about 8,000 employees worldwide. Experts and media are doing an increasing number of reports questioning the safety of one of the company’s main products, which is suddenly in high demand because of changing trends. News coverage is both favorable and unfavorable

What might a single crisis cost this company in revenue and reputational damage? That is the question I always ask to help a corporation, CEO, or public relations team make an informed decision about spending money for a crisis communication plan or crisis communications training.

If you had a corporate public relations crisis looming, would you spend $7,995.00 U.S. to protect your revenue and reputation? Would the CEO or CFO grant your budget request?

The $7,995.00 is the price I quoted to the company for them to have access to my proprietary 50 page crisis communication plan system, with 100 pre-written news releases, plus expert crisis training for their staff, all delivered in two days. The estimated value of such a crisis communications plan could be placed at $100,000 with the standard amount of time to complete this task being six months to one year. The crisis communications plan and news releases have more than 4,000 hours of development built into them.

Some corporate experts would say this is a “no-brainer.” Experts might say, “A single crisis would cost us more than $7,995 in loss product sales or in a stock price dip.” Hence, those people would buy the plan without giving it a second thought.

Other experts would say, “Heck, the crisis communications plan would cost less than 125 shares of stock.” Hence, those people would see the crisis communications plan as a value.

Another group might say, “Heck, if we lost one sale because of bad publicity and this crisis communications plan helped us thwart the bad publicity, the plan would pay for itself many times over.”

However, this company clearly undervalues the crisis communications plan and this executive undervalues the crisis communications plan. The prospective client said it was “spendy.” Yes, that was the world a senior executive used. Obviously, I did a poor job of convincing this corporate leader of the value of the crisis communications plan. The leader sees the plan as a commodity, while I view my plans as a value.

The secret to undervaluing a crisis communications plan lies in what psychologists say is the single greatest human flaw: Denial. One psychology expert tells me that humans are instinctively programmed to say, “That crisis won’t happen to us,” or “We’ll just deal with that crisis when it happens.”

Denial is why public relations experts and corporate leaders don’t get along in the workplace.

A public relations professional sees a crisis communication plan as a vital tool to do their job, just as an accountant needs a calculator, or just as a mechanic needs a wrench. Yet the corporate leader, in denial that a crisis communications plan is a necessary tool, will insist that the accountant must have the calculator, and that the mechanic must have a wrench, but that the public relations person can magically slap together words and strategy in a bind.

I believe a public relations person without a corporate crisis communications plan is the equivalent of the accountant counting on their fingers, while the mechanic is told to use his or her hands to loosen or tighten vital bolts.

The reality is every corporation must justify every dollar it spends. This case study highlights three things:

1. A crisis communications plan is seldom perceived as an item of value in a corporation.

2. Most public relations people are undervalued in their jobs because they are often denied the tools they need to do their job, yet ironically are expected to produce magic on the company’s darkest day.

3. Denial is the reason corporations do not allow their public relations people to take time and a few dollars on a clear sunny day to protect the revenue and reputation of the company when it faces a crisis on its darkest day.

A wise business coach told me that, “Some people get it and some people never will get it. Work with the ones who get it, dismiss the ones who don’t get it… and then watch them fail on live TV when they have their crisis.”

Hence, every time I take the stage as a speaker, to deliver a keynote at a conference or convention, I look out over the audience knowing some get it and some never will. Sometimes most people in the audience get it, but when they return to work, their bosses won’t get it.

What do you think? I’d love to hear your opinion.

7 Disturbing News Media Trends and How They Are Complicating Your PR Job

June 16, 2014/0 Comments/in Media Relations /by gbraud

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By Gerard Braud

If your job is to communicate with the media, your job is becoming more complicated because of these disturbing news media trends:

Trend #1: Media Speculation

CNN has taken the sin of speculation to an all time high with their 24/7 speculation regarding the disappearance of Malaysia Flight 370.

In the future, you will spend more time than ever before reacting to rumors. Combat this with more frequent crisis communications directly to your audiences.

Trend #2: Breaking News is Broken and there is Nothing Breaking

The phrase “breaking news” used to describe events that were “breaking” at that very second, such as a fire or explosion. Sadly, today news stations slap the moniker on whatever the first story of the newscast is, even if the event happened hours before.

This makes your job harder because your little crisis might get portrayed as a much bigger crisis. You can’t afford to linger in your response and allow the media to blow things out of proportion.

Trend #3: Exclusive

Excessive use of the phrase “Exclusive.” In it’s purest form, an exclusive is an interview all media wanted, but only one could get, revealing groundbreaking information.

Tread with caution that the one-on-one interview you give doesn’t get portrayed as something bigger than it really is.

Trend #4: Trending Now

Social media trends are taking precedent over real news. The Today Show and GMA feature their special rooms where they focus on what’s trending. Local stations are wasting valuable airtime repeating fluff on social media.

When you pitch a news event in the future, you’ll need to make it more visual and trend-able.

Trend #5: Caught on Camera

An increasing number of events are getting news coverage simply because they were captured on video. These days, if a tree falls in the woods and it’s not on video, it is not news. But if someone gets video, it may be on the news.

IF someone captures compromising video of your executives, employees, or a mishap, be ready to respond with the speed of social media and not the slow pace of traditional corporate communications.

Disturbing Trend #6: Social Media Backlash

News stations are increasingly reporting what people think and feel about various topics on social media. This makes your company face tougher scrutiny than ever, potentially damaging reputation and revenue.

The time is now to rethink your social media and crisis communication strategies.

Disturbing Trend #7: Unconfirmed Reports

The phrase “has not confirmed” has been used over and over in recent broadcasts, specifically 187 times on Morning Express with Robin Meade (Source: IQ Media). These news releases are unverified rumors, repeated from source to source.

This means you need a skilled staff or vendor who can monitor online content every minute of the day and well-trained spokespeople to fully address your scenarios.

Social Media for Crisis Communications: Social Media as the Cause of Your Crisis

May 23, 2014/in Social Media for Crisis Communications /by gbraud

By Gerard Braud

As we examine the leadership gap, the generation gap, and shiny new object syndrome, let’s note that in many cases, in the world of crisis communications, social media can be a greater source of bad than good.

The fact that a citizen can post a picture of a plane crash before the airline knows about it is not good. The fact that a student is broadcasting a shooting to CNN before you even know about it is not good. The fact that your employees are part of a social media gossip loop before you send official communications to them is not good. Now, let us add to the discussion the fact that sometimes, social media is your crisis.

Case in point, Easter Day, April 16, 2009. Two employees at a Domino’s Pizza outlet were bored and started to shoot a video of themselves. One captured the other putting cheese in his nose, before placing the cheese on a pizza he was making. They then uploaded the video to YouTube.

It was an astute blogger who had a Google Alert for the word Domino’s that first saw the video. The blogger called Domino’s headquarters. The folks at Domino’s were not amused and not pleased, and they took steps internally to identify the employees and the store. But Domino’s did not anticipate that this video would become a viral wonder. They underestimated the YouTube audience. So here, we see multiple failings. There is the classic leadership gap, there is decision paralysis, and there is the generation gap.

Earlier in this collection of articles I told you that a cardinal rule of every crisis communications plan that I write is a mandate to communicate within one hour or less of the crisis going public. Obviously Domino’s did not have such a plan, because the one hour mark would have been reached one hour after they heard from the blogger. In many crises, at that one hour mark, depending upon the severity of the crisis, you would speak to any media who have arrived at your site; you would publish something to the web; and you would communicate with employees, via the web, via e-mail, and in severe situations, with an in person meeting.

What do you do in the new world of social media when “it” hits the fan?

In the world of decision paralysis, one of the problems is the fear that if the company says something, they may turn a nothing story into a bigger story than it should be. Hence, many companies, often on the advice of both attorneys and the communications department, say nothing. I have never subscribed to that rule and never will. I have successfully defused events that could have become major stories and lead to major lawsuits by bringing the story directly to traditional media. I believe that being pro-active and communicating bad news on your own is your best defense.

Add to your to-do list the need to have a discussion with your leadership and your legal department. In that discussion, you need to ask them under which circumstances they would suggest saying nothing. It needs to ultimately conclude with a decision to speak and disclose your potential crisis in almost every situation.

The system that I have created, using pre-written communications templates, has resolved that situation for all of my clients. This is due to the fact that lawyers get to see exactly what we plan to say, giving them time to approve all of the statements – sometimes months or years in advance.

The Domino’s case presents a to unique opportunity to respond in-kind, meaning respond to a YouTube video with a YouTube video and do it within one hour. Let me explain the magic of this approach. Domino’s eventually responded with a YouTube video, which we will discuss further in a moment. However, inside sources tell me that the general discussion within the organization was that for a company as big as Domino’s, if the story wasn’t on the front page of U.S.A. Today, then there was nothing to worry about.

Wrong! The offending video was posted late Sunday and by Tuesday evening, more than 250,000 people… more than a quarter of a million people had watched the video. By noon Wednesday, just 18 hours later, the video had more than 1 Million views on YouTube. The company learned the word Domino’s was being typed into more search engines than the word Paris Hilton. Domino’s was still thinking that out of 307 million people in the United States, only 1 million had seen the video, which was minimal in the big picture. I At 1 million hits the video got the attention of mainstream media and became a story among all major media outlets across the U.S.

So, what would you do? My answer is I would have had a YouTube video on YouTube within one hour of learning of the event, even if I didn’t know all of the facts. Why? Let me explain.

Rule 1. Respond within one hour or less, but in the case of social media we add a new rule.

Rule 2. Respond in-kind, meaning answer a YouTube video with a YouTube video. If, when you post your video, you use the same key words as the offending video, you can achieve nearly equal search engine optimization. That means that every time someone types the word Domino’s in a search engine, the corporate response would show up nearly as often as the offending video.

Domino’s eventually posted a message from the CEO to the web and they claim it was posted 48 hours after the offending video was posted. Furthermore, they claim this was ground breaking. For the record, I’ve been a corporate Vice President and I council executives on a regular basis as a crisis communications expert. I can imagine what was going on inside the company. Many executives were on Easter vacation and they were attempting to tackle the problem by long distance. People were busy trying to prosecute the employees. People were busy wordsmithing messages; people were massaging words. That’s always such bull.

Just as I shot a 15 second video in my snowy front yard and posted it as an i-Report for CNN with less than an hour’s work, I could shoot a very brief on camera message that says,

“Hi, I’m Gerard Braud with Domino’s Pizza. There is a YouTube video circulating around with two people who identify themselves as Domino’s employees. In the video, they’re doing some pretty nasty stuff in the store. Chances are if you’re watching this, you’re looking for the other video. Let me just say that we’re in the process of identifying the people in the video so we can get to the bottom of this. Our focus now is to find out exactly what’s going on and how we can keep it from happening again. Stay tuned for an update.”

That’s it. That’s all that was needed. I don’t need to see a CEO. Some crisis communications trainers believe you should always send out “the top dog first.” I say bull. Usually the first person I push out the door as a spokesperson is a public relations spokesperson. I’ll send the CEO out later if the situation is severe enough, but in many cases a high level manager makes a good spokesperson, if he or she as been through proper media training.

Add to your to-do list the need to have a discussion with your team and your leadership to establish an understanding of who should be your first spokesperson in a crisis, and how many people you feel should undergo media training so they can serve as subject matter experts in the subsequent hour of your crisis.

I am a big believer that the CEO needs to be busy managing the crisis, especially in the early hours of the crisis, while others serve as the spokesperson. Only in the most extreme cases do I make the CEO the spokesperson, and even then, I generally roll out lower level experts first.

Now, back to the video from the Domino’s CEO. Yes, eventually it was posted. The CEO did a poor job of reading from cue cards off camera. No teleprompter, he made no eye contact with the camera and no, he isn’t someone who can ad lib well. Add to that, the statement was worded as an angry rant and by the time it was recorded, the CEO was an angry person. It was bad, it was too little and it was too late.

The Domino’s head of PR claims in an article published by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA), that what Domino’s did was unprecedented and ground breaking. I disagree on several points. I’ve used YouTube videos many times before his crisis, and I’ll share some of those examples for you a bit later. I also live by the rule to communicate in one hour or less… not the Domino’s rule of one week or less. This isn’t rocket science, but it is about writing a crisis communications plan that works, using that plan, communicating in one hour or less, and involving leaders in crisis communications drills annually. Annual drills condition them to the idea that you must communicate quickly and that the CEO doesn’t have to be the primary spokesperson.

One final note on this topic – Every crisis communications plan that I write contains dozens of pre-written templates and your plan should too. Every item the leaders identify in the vulnerability assessment should have a companion, pre-written communications template. On a clear sunny day, when there is no anxiety and you have clarity of thought, you can write 75%-95% of what you would say on the day of the crisis. In the case of a restaurant chain, you would have a document that describes food tampering. When the crisis hits, you’re not looking at a blank piece of paper. Rather, you are looking at a well-worded document that has already been vetted by the leaders and the legal department. You are looking at the same type of template that your leaders would have seen and used when you conducted your crisis communications drill. Spokespeople would be looking at and reading from the very same document they used during their media training class. This system gives everyone the confidence needed to communicate quickly in a crisis.

With that, get your to-do list out. If your crisis communications plan does not contain dozens of pre-written statements for all of the possible crises you could face, then you need to create such templates. If your plan does have templates, you need to schedule a quarterly review to determine if new templates need to be written.

If you don’t know how to write such templates, contact me and we can schedule a writing retreat for your team so that you can quickly fill your plan with the templates you will need.

Social Media When It Hits the Fan: Follow-up for NRECA Connect 14 Conference

May 20, 2014/0 Comments/in Crisis Communications, Rural Electric Cooperatives, Social Media, Social Media for Crisis Communications /by gbraud

By Gerard Braud

Here are your Free Crisis Communications Plan resources we discussed during my NRECA conference presentation in San Antonio last week.

Free Resource #1

To download a Free copy of the First Critical Statement used in my Crisis Communications Plan, use the coupon code CRISISCOMPLAN when you select the item from my shopping cart.

Free Resource #2

To see what a bad Crisis Communications Plan looks like, visit the resource page at CrisisCommunicationsPlans.com to download a copy of the Virginia Tech Crisis Communications Plan.

If your plan looks anything like this document, you need a new plan.

Free Resource #3

Because I had to head to the airport right after the presentation, I wanted you to be able to schedule a private phone call with me this week to ask any additional follow up questions or to discuss issues too sensitive to discuss during the presentation. My phone number is 985-624-9976 and my e-mail is gerard@braudcommunications.com Please e-mail me to schedule a call time during the week.

Free Resource #4

I’ve published numerous blog entries about Social Media and Crisis Communications. Here are a few links that you will find beneficial. More will follow in the next 2 weeks. You may wish to use the sign up box in the upper right corner to make sure you receive the next few articles.

Social Media for Crisis Communications: Effective Communications for Critical Times (Like When “It” Hits the Fan)

Social Media for Crisis Communications: Are You a Social Media Hypocrite?

Social Media for Crisis Communications: Social Media Relationships Before Your Crisis

Social Media for Crisis Communications: The Social Media Listening Post in Crisis Communication

Who Should Be Your Spokesperson in a Crisis?

March 12, 2014/0 Comments/in Media Relations /by gbraud

By Gerard Braud

In media training and crisis communications training, there are many debates about who should be your spokesperson in a crisis. Here are three common arguments and what you should consider.

Argument 1: The CEO Should Always Be the Spokesperson

A CEO who wants to be the only spokesperson is destined for failure. In a crisis, the CEO should be:

1) Managing the crisis

2) Managing the business operations

This is especially true in the first hours of a crisis when information is just becoming available.

In a severe crisis involving injuries or fatalities, the CEO becomes the face of the organization’s compassion. Even then, the CEO as a spokesperson might come several hours into the crisis. In the first hour, when a statement needs to be made, the CEO is often busy with other issues.

Also, if a CEO misspeaks early in the crisis, they destroy their credibility and undermine the reputation of the organization. Whereas, if anyone else misspeaks early in the crisis, the CEO can step in to clarify the facts and becomes the hero figure.

Remember BP’s CEO Tony Hayward, who uttered, “I want my life back.” That line caused him to be fired as CEO.

Argument 2: The PR Person Should Always Be the Spokesperson

The public relations person is an excellent choice as spokesperson in the first hour of the crisis when media might be just arriving, but doesn’t need to be the spokesperson throughout an entire crisis.

The PR person should be on the crisis management team and should serve as leader of the crisis communications team.

A “First Critical Statement” should be in every crisis communications plan. When few facts are known, it allows the PR person to:

1) Acknowledge the crisis

2) Provide basic facts

3) Say something quotable, while promising more information at a future briefing

(For a free First Critical Statement contact gerard@braudcommunications.com)

Argument 3: A Variety of People Should Serve as Spokespeople

My recommendation is that numerous people should be media trained as spokespeople. In a crisis, the PR person should speak during the first hour of the crisis. By the end of the second hour of the crisis, a subject matter expert should serve as spokesperson. If needed, the subject matter expert can remain as spokesperson if the crisis is ongoing. The final news briefing of the day may be the best time to feature the CEO as spokesperson.

Think of your spokesperson selection process the way sports teams operate. You have stars and strong people on the bench, ready to step in as needed.

Media training helps identify your star players and secondary players. Most of all, never let anyone speak without intense training. Media play hardball. Don’t send out an untrained person with little league skills.

About the author: Gerard Braud, CSP, Fellow IEC (Jared Bro) is a media training and crisis communications plan expert. He has helped organizations on 5 continents. Braud is the author of Don’t Talk to the Media Until… 29 Secrets You Need to Know Before You Open Your Mouth to a Reporter. www.braudcommunications.com

Re-Think Your Writing: Three Ways to Make Your Words Resonate With Your Audiences

February 26, 2014/0 Comments/in Media Relations /by gbraud

By Gerard Braud

Few people read to the end of an article. I have little confidence that you will read to the end of this article, even though the final thought may change your life and career. Every reader makes several judgments throughout each article as to whether they should move on or read on.

What if you began with that thought every time you write?

Would you change the way you write to make it more compelling?

Here are three things that you can do to produce words that resonate with your audiences and increase the chances that your audiences want to either read more or hear more about your topic.

Write Conversationally

Approach everything you write as though it is a script for the greatest speech in the world. Listen to great speeches and study the language and motivational techniques. Notice that the language is conversational. The words in great speeches are usually words that we hear in everyday language, yet they are organized in a way that invokes a call to action or a deep emotion.

Whether you are writing for print or the spoken word, re-think your style to be conversational. No, this isn’t the way you were taught to do it in college. Face it — most colleges taught you to write for a newspaper and that style was created long before we lived in a world with as many information outlets as we have today. This is your permission to rethink your style to match the needs of your audiences.

As you write, hear the voice. Channel the voice of Kennedy, Reagan, King or another great speaker. Consider that sometimes you may write something that looks great in print, but it doesn’t sound good when read aloud and it isn’t comfortable to the ear. Something that sounds good to the ear, and can be spoken with ease, will also look great in print and is easier for your reader to read.

Write Inclusively

After nearly two decades of political correctness and diversity training, we should all realize that these movements are centered on inclusiveness. Corporations and government agencies have spent millions on training programs centered on inclusiveness. Yet these same organizations, and the people who write for them, exclude vast audiences when the writing is filled with institutional jargon and acronyms. A person shouldn’t have to “belong to the club” in order to be able to understand what is written or said.

Junk the jargon and realize there are no prizes for being multi-syllabic. In media training classes I always try to get spokespeople to speak at a sixth, seventh or eighth grade level, because that is the level at which most people comprehend the written and spoken word. To achieve this, you must shun the idea that you are “dumbing things down” and adopt the approach that you are simplifying the information to be inclusive of everyone in your audience.

Vigorously Fight Edits from Non-writers

Many corporations, government agencies and non-profit agencies are lead by left-brain, analytical individuals and seldom by right-brain, creative individuals. Analytical people, such as accountants, engineers, scientists or doctors are each great at their skills, but their proper writing skills are as poor as the creative person’s math skills.

When I’m invited into organizations to help them achieve more effective communications, I always promise the accountants that I won’t try to balance their books if they don’t try to re-write what the public relations team has written. You should instruct the left-brain analytical types that they have permission to correct errors, but that they should respect the professional training of the writer and respect the content and style of what is written. If you really want to get their attention, tell them that every time they change a letter you’ve written, you get to change a number that they have on a spreadsheet. This should cure the problem.

We each have natural skills and gifts. I know my gifts are definitely not in math but are rooted in written and spoken word. Try the above lines where you work. Stand up for yourself. Push back. If someone wants you to re-write something that you’ve written — and you know it is good and they want to clutter it with jargon, acronyms, and excessive facts and figures — you have an obligation to your craft and your career to push back.

Will there be a big payoff if you implement these three ideas and re-think your writing? Try it and see for yourself. You’ll never know until you give yourself permission to try.

3 Symptoms of Emergency News Release Syndrome and 3 Ways to Deal With Them

January 20, 2014/0 Comments/in Media Relations /by gbraud

By Gerard Braud

Our last article focused on the need for public relations experts to be more strategic as they accomplish tactical tasks. You were reminded that the articles you write must result in behavior change. Your Tweets, Facebook posts and videos must also result in change such as better employee productivity, more sales, or a changed behavior in your customers.

Once you have set up your strategic goals for the year, you must fight what we will call, “Emergency News Release Syndrome.”

Symptoms of Emergency News Release Syndrome include:

1) Emails from an executive telling you in the middle of the day that they need an unplanned and unscheduled news release by the end of the day.

2) An executive walking into your office asking you for a news release immediately for something that he or she has known about for weeks, but did not trust you enough to share with you previously.

3) Someone from a random department, that achieved an internal goal, wants you to write a news release to brag about their accomplishment. No one in the outside world, or even outside of their department, cares about it.

Several years ago I worked as a Vice President at Best Buy, which had one of the best processes I have ever seen for dealing with Emergency News Release Syndrome. It was in place before my arrival, so the credit goes to my predecessors.

Best Buy’s communications department had a policy that no news release would be written if the information did not correspond with the strategic objectives of the overall corporation. For example, if a corporate goal was to increase sales, the news release had to contribute to an initiative to increase sales. Also, if someone in IT came rushing to the communications department asking for a news release about a gadget that did nothing to improve sales or productivity, their request was rejected and no release was written. They were told to write a memo and place it on the bulletin board within their department.

Another policy was that there would never be a request for a news release for something that the communications department was kept in the dark about. When the executive leadership held confidential meetings about big, future initiatives, or potentially negative issues, a vice president from communications was brought into these confidential discussions from the beginning.

Both of these approaches worked because the communications team instituted a “Gatekeeper” policy. All requests for news releases had to go to the Gatekeeper. The Gatekeeper and her team would evaluate whether the information contributed to the company’s strategic objectives.

There are two somewhat sarcastic lines I use when presented with an Emergency News Release request:

• Do you want fries and a large coke with that news release?

This references the concept that you are not in PR just to take orders like someone at a fast food restaurant.

• Poor planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on my part.

This references the concept that in PR, your day, week, month and year should be planned out. Yes, you must be flexible on days when things are truly beyond anyone’s control, but man-made emergencies that result from poor planning or corporate secrecy are unacceptable.

You should do these things:

1) Set PR objectives annually that are in line with corporate objectives.

2) Appoint a gatekeeper and communicate to all what the PR department’s policies are regarding the gatekeeper system.

3) Push back and stick to your guns when people violate the gatekeeper system.

In short, be a welcome mat for strategically communicating and not a doormat for everyone to wipe their feet on.

How Public Relations People Judge Success: One Monumental Secret to Achieving More Success in the Coming Year

January 8, 2014/0 Comments/in Social Media /by gbraud

By Gerard Braud

Public relations and communication professionals on a global basis are experts at creativity. One cute, creative holiday letter I received spoke volumes about how public relations people judge success and the urgent need for public relations people to rethink their approach.

The card was a creative spoof of the dreaded “holiday letter” that so many families send out. You’ve probably received one. It brags about the achievement of their daughter in dance class, the son’s success in soccer, the mom’s new workout routine, dad’s job promotion and of course, photos of the family vacations to exotic lands.

The accomplishments in this spoof letter included how many tweets the communications team made, how many Facebook posts, how many “Likes,” the number of videos posted and viewed, the number of publications created, and the number of news releases written.

This is typical of how many public relations people judge success; they judge it based on tasks completed.

What is wrong with this approach?

Ask: What Do I Want These Tasks to Accomplish?

Success should be measured not in the quantity of tasks completed, but by the impact those tasks have on or for your institution and your audience. If you Tweet 1,000 times, post 1,000 times on Facebook and blog 360 times in a year, but you have no followers and no readers then you also have no impact. If you are blessed with followers and readers, you must ask, “Have my communications caused my audiences to behave the way I want them to?” For example, did your customers buy more products? Did you guide your employees to be more productive? At a hospital, did you change the health habits of your community? At an electric company, did you help your customers be more energy efficient?

A new year is always a time to set goals. You should consider setting goals as strategic objectives that are accomplished by the tactical actions you take. Public relations actions without meaningful results equals busy work.

Hence, I would have loved to see that cute, holiday card spoof again next year. Next year I hope it tells me about the successes achieved in terms of end results rather than tasks completed.

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