Contact us

Insights for Leaders Navigating
Visibility, Credibility, and Growth.

From media strategy to reputation management, we explore the trends shaping public perception and share the approaches that drive measurable results for growing brands.

5 Ways PR Pros Can Increase Their Professional Value

When it comes to the leading PR professionals in our field, the best continually look to get better.

This isn’t limited to the world of PR – it’s true of successful individuals in any trade. Entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are avid readers and noted continuous learners. Walt Disney was constantly focused on improving the experience for patrons at Disneyland. Increasing your knowledge and strengthening any vulnerable areas is how successful people remain successful.

There’s always some area of professional development in which we can improve, be it something like tracking analytics or enhancing client relations. And opportunities are available for those who seek them. Here are five ways PR pros can continue to grow and increase their value around the workplace.

1: Establish Where and How You Wish to Grow

As with any excursion, it’s important to first pinpoint where you want to go before charting your path to getting there. Identify the specific areas in which you’d like to master or grow stronger professionally – and don’t be afraid to be ambitious. Think lofty and set objectives accordingly that will guide how you’re progressing toward this goal. Maybe your focus is business development and one of your goals is to secure new business and bring a new client into your PR firm. An objective toward that goal could be to attend two or three new business events a month to track down leads for new partnerships.

2: Network, Network, Network

As Kima Greggs said on HBO’s The Wire, a policeman is only as good as their informants. Similarly, a PR pro is only as effective as their business sources. Networking is invaluable to finding new business leads to pursue and bring into the fold. It helps you stay current and up to date on any developments that occur within your industry. In addition to expanding your social tree, networking with other PR professionals can lead to informal brainstorm sessions with other individuals who are targeting similar customers. This can help you learn new solutions to common workplace challenges and new approaches to business projects.

3: Stock Your Reading List

From books to blogs to trade pubs and email newsletters, there is plenty of literature at your disposal to help with professional development. You can scan periodicals and PR blogs like PR News Blog, Spin Sucks and Ragan’s PR Daily for reports, how-to articles and infographics on the latest industry news and happenings. If you’re hard-pressed for quality reading time, you can turn to a host of podcasts to bring you up to speed on industry trends and developments. Whichever your medium, make sure to employ the resources you’re most inclined to use. You can seek these resources out or have them delivered to you via subscription or notification to your home, office or inbox.

4: Attend a Workshop or Conference

Whether you’re looking to brush up on crisis management skills or learn more about emerging industry topics and trends, single-day workshops and conferences are available for enterprising professionals looking to further augment their skill set. The Public Relations Society of America offers a list of upcoming training events and conferences, both online and at various locations across the country. Your local PR network can also be a resource in this area – find what’s taking place near you. These events can help spark learning and creative practices for you to apply in the workplace. And for bonus points, attending these events can serve as a tremendous networking opportunity.

5: Take a Course and Get Certified

There’s no better way to broaden one’s skill set than to go back to class, and in this day and age, education can be quite accessible. PR pros can enroll in online courses or research video tutorials and TED Talks on the web. To make sure you’re targeting subjects and themes that will provide the most value, identify areas in your field that are in demand. Pursue those areas and consider certification. By earning professional certification, you’re receiving tangible proof that you’ve broadened your skill set. Should there be a course cost, chances are your employer will take care of the bill. Additionally, continuous learning helps you grow your professional network and can lead to other new opportunities.

 PR pros are capable of achieving amazing results, so long as they continue to push themselves outside of their comfort zone and further develop their skills. Albert Einstein said, “I have no special talent. I am only passionately curious.” Find your inner curiosity for the things you have yet to master and let it drive you to new peaks.

Read More

Amplifying Delta-Q’s Move Into Mid-Power Charging

As industries around the world become more conscious about their carbon footprint, a growing number of industrial equipment manufacturers and players in the global supply chain are replacing internal combustion engines with electric systems.

The investment in sustainable equipment is increasing the global demand for lithium-ion batteries that have long life expectancies and reduce emissions. When companies evaluate battery options, selecting the right charger is equally as important to ensure the equipment is efficiently, accurately and safely charging batteries. Without safe and efficient chargers, equipment operators and end users can incur added maintenance and operating costs, as well as reduce the life span and performance quality of their equipment.

Our longstanding client, Delta-Q Technologies (Delta-Q), a leading manufacturer of industrial battery chargers for lead acid and lithium-ion batteries, helps equipment and battery manufacturers practice safe and efficient charging. As a result, Delta-Q has become the supplier of choice to many of the world’s leading manufacturers of electric vehicles and industrial equipment.

We’ve had the opportunity to raise awareness around how Delta-Q is helping manufacturers around the world electrify their equipment to achieve global sustainability goals. Delta-Q has played a crucial role in the success of many leading equipment manufacturers’ sustainability efforts.

Delta-Q was founded 20 years ago and has built a global network with its chargers used in more than 1.6 million electric vehicles and industrial machines. This month, we helped Delta-Q announce another exciting solution, its stackable charging software. We worked with Delta-Q to position the news as a milestone announcement through the company’s move into mid-power charging solutions.  

This has been and will continue to be an exciting year for the 20-year-old company. Below is an overview of the coverage we secured to build awareness around Delta-Q’s stackable charging solution and its impactful role as an electrification partner to global manufacturers.

Stackable Charging Software

To learn more about our work with Delta-Q and in the industrial equipment industries, check out the following blog posts:

Read More

Tips for CMO Longevity: Collaborate, Secure Buy-In and Leverage Expertise

Data has shown over the years that the C-suite role with the shortest average tenure has been the chief marketing officer. A recent article in the Wall Street Journal reported the average tenure of a CMO slipped to 43 months, whereas the tenure of other C-suite executives is on average longer, with CEOs’ average tenure reported at 88.4 months and CFOs’ average tenure at 63 months.

Given the relatively short tenure of CMOs, it was not completely surprising to see data from Deloitte that found CMOs are the least confident members of the C-suite. Deloitte conducted a survey and in-depth interviews with 575 Fortune 500 C-suite executives to examine perceptions on “CMOs’ contribution to corporate decision making, why CMOs struggle to find their voice in strategic conversations and how they can achieve their place as enterprise wide strategic leaders.”

If on average turnover in the CMO role takes place every three and a half years, that can cause disruption or shifts to the organization’s overarching marketing strategy. As a result, CMOs aren’t then in a position to see the impact of their strategy over time.

The researchers offered some guidance to CMOs:

  • Collaborate with other C-level executives – this can facilitate buy-in and help ensure those other executives know, understand and hopefully support the strategic initiatives the CMO is driving forward on behalf of the enterprise. This also offers an opportunity to validate the strategy and secure additional strategic input from other executives – leading to a more informed strategy.
  • Leverage knowledge of customer journey and experience to help inform and guide peers on the executive team, who tend to lean on the CMO for their expertise. The CMO’s depth of knowledge of the customer can be instrumental in helping other C-level executives be successful in their roles. And by helping peers achieve success, CMOs can foster support across the executive team.

We, too, are strong advocates of securing buy-in and dedicated a chapter in our book, “Strategic Public Relations: 10 Principles to Harness the Power of PR,” to the topic. This section includes a side-bar interview with Bruce Patton, cofounder of the Harvard Negotiation Project and coauthor of the best-selling book “Getting to Yes.” Patton offers the following guidance:

“If you don’t have buy-in or agreement, people won’t be very enthusiastic, and their behavior won’t be consistent with your goals.”

He goes on to state:

“It’s a mark of a competent person to understand there are often multiple ways of looking at a situation and that each might have integrity. There’s a lot of ambiguity out there, and there may be more than one path that leads to success. It can also be profoundly unsettling to have doubt about whether we’ve got the right answer. Often, we want to feel certain there aren’t valid objections and that there’s no chance of making a mistake, and so we don’t want to hear different points of view. If you see the world this way, you’ll have a strong incentive to bully people into not raising objections, but you’ll also be hiding from the complexity of the real world.”

Collaborating, building consensus and leveraging expertise for the good of the executive team will help elevate the importance of the CMO and visibility within the organization, and ensures everyone is working toward the same strategic business objectives.

Read More

Minimizing Cell Phone Distraction in the Workplace

A recently published New York Times’ article featuring economics reporter Conor Doughtery, “How to Turn an iPhone Into a Work-Only Tool,” explores how this NYT reporter recognized the side-effects of constant technology use and made the necessary change of removing his cell phone’s social media apps to offset a problematic work-life balance.

In a 2018 Udemy report, 58 percent of survey respondents indicated they do not need social media to do their jobs yet feel they need social media to make it through the day. The report also points out that 86 percent of people recognize Facebook as a workplace distraction and out of the various social media sites, 65 percent ranked Facebook as the platform that distracts them the most, followed by Instagram at 9 percent, and Twitter and Snapchat at 7 percent.

To mitigate phone distraction, 43 percent of workers turn their cell phone’s off during work hours. While this tactic works for some, others, including myself, worry about the missed emergency phone calls while their cell phone is turned off. This is where Conor’s strategy comes in handy.

As a journalist, Conor keeps news apps such as The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, along with Audible, maps, airline, and service-oriented apps, on his phone. Everything else is disabled, including his Internet browser. He describes his largest struggle with hosting social media apps on his phone as losing track of the time spent on his apps for pleasure versus work. Now he spends his extra time on things he enjoys including skateboarding and video games.

Conor also explains that he still uses his phone a lot but not as much as he used to, given there is no more “endless stream of [social media] feeds.” While many reporters spend time on social media, he spends his time unearthing great story ideas by reading hyperlocal news, his niche approach compared to other reporters.

Reading is not the only part of Conor’s job. Interviewing is equally important, and he admits to a recent, pricey addiction to an app that transcribes his recorded interviews for $1 per minute.

It may not come as a surprise that social media is a major distractor at work. While Conor’s strategy of removing all social media apps from his phone has worked for him, there are less drastic changes one can make to diminish the urge to check your phone during the workday.

  • Create an “off-limits” folder in your phone. This will help you categorize the apps you should stay away from during the day. It’s not necessarily always social media apps. For example, if you have a hard time staying away from Amazon, news or sports apps, file them in that folder. After work, give yourself a set amount of time to browse through these apps.
  • Turn off your phone’s notifications. I have personally done this and can attest that it dramatically decreases the time I’ve spent on my phone during the day. When there are no notifications popping up on your phone, there is nothing that needs to be checked.
  • Set up “do not disturb” times. If your phone is up to date, you more than likely have the choice to set up “do not disturb” times. Take advantage of this and stop the distraction.

 As the urge to continually check our phones increases in today’s social media frenzy, adopt personal guidelines to keep yourself on track during the workday.


Read More

Assessing Risk in Business

In business, we often make decisions without as much as the information as we’d like or need.

When Colleen and I outgrew our office space on the top of Queen Anne, we had to find a new location. In a rapidly growing city, this was not easy, and there is no crystal ball for projecting our firm’s growth or the stability of the economy. Finding a building and assessing the risk of signing a five-year lease was our responsibility.

That’s why I was intrigued by Carl Richards’ article about feedback loops, confidence and humans’ tendency to form self-serving bias. In case you’re unfamiliar with the term, a self-serving bias is formed when a person takes credit when they achieve desired outcomes and assign blame to another place when things go poorly.

Richards’ article was focused particularly on how overconfidence impacts investing, but I think this story also contains some important reminders for business leaders and managers. Here are some of my take-aways:

  • When you assess risk, don’t just rely on your own experience or feedback loop. You should consider external factors that may play a significant role in the outcome. In the lease example, the health of the economy may play a factor on our ability to grow or the pace of our growth, which may have a direct correlation on how much office space we need.
  • Albeit an imperfect science, assessing risk is important. Managers may want to institute formal processes in their organizations around this when making significant decisions. This might be a process as simple as listing all the possible consequences and assigning a probability to them. 
  • It’s also vital to consider the worst consequence and consider whether you can live with it. Richards uses an example of assessing avalanche risk when backcountry skiing. One consequence of an avalanche on a slope you’re skiing is death or serious injury. Being mindful of this may completely change your decision – or maybe influence taking up backcountry skiing at all. Similarly in business there are likely many risks that wouldn’t be taken if people thought about the absolute worst-case scenario before moving forward. 

The next time you’re faced with an important, yet risky, decision, I hope some of these ideas are helpful. If you have interesting examples of risk assessment done well, or even examples when things have gone awry, we’d love to learn about them.

Read More

A Recap of Business Wire’s Meet the Media

On Sept. 5, 2019, I attended Business Wire’s Meet the Media luncheon to connect with journalists based in Seattle to learn more about how to effectively engage with them. The event had an impressive lineup of journalists from various media outlets, including broadcast journalists, managing editors, reporters and business editors.

The luncheon was structured similar to speed dating. Each journalist sat at an assigned table and attendees had three 15-minute sessions to ask questions. As there were more journalists than sessions, I met with journalists I hadn’t worked with as closely and whose outlets had varying target audiences.

Below is an overview of each of the sessions and my key takeaways.

Rami Grunbaum, The Seattle Times

My first session was with Rami Grunbaum, the business editor at the Seattle Times. Rami shared that the digital publication of the Seattle Times has become a focus for the publication and that the unique visitors per month (UVPM) continues to see impressive growth. Also, the Seattle Times has become the second largest publication on the West Coast, behind the Los Angeles Times. Rami did indicate that, while there is a digital focus, it doesn’t influence or change the stories they’ll cover in the business section.

Key Takeaway:

For the Seattle Times’ business section, large enterprise business stories are effective, especially those that focus on trends impacting the region. When I asked what trends were most interesting to him, Rami informed me that he believes real estate will be an important one to monitor.

Patranya Bhoolsuwan, KIRO News

Next, I spoke with Patranya Bhoolsuwan, an anchor and reporter with KIRO News. Recently, we’ve supported multiple clients with broadcast stories, and I was eager to speak directly with a broadcast journalist to determine if there were any new approaches or ideas that we had not previously leveraged. Patranya shared that when she evaluates a story, she wants to see diversity, personal perspectives/angles, and hard-hitting news. And, of course, an interesting visual element always helps. Additionally, because broadcast news moves so quickly, she encouraged us to be more aggressive in our pitching efforts.

Key Takeaway:

Patranya mentioned that following her career in journalism, she may consider offering media training services. When asked what she thought the most valuable piece of advice for on-camera interviews would be, she said, “Don’t look at the camera and stick to your message.”

Karen Weise, The New York Times

Finally, my last session was with Karen Weise, a technology reporter for the New York Times based in Seattle. Karen joined the New York Times about a year ago and largely (almost exclusively) focuses on Amazon. While no one in this session was tied to Amazon, she still offered interesting information about the outlet at large and the tech trends she finds interesting. She said as she continues to settle into her role with the publication, she would like to expand her beat to cover business-to-business and startup technology. While this is not currently a part of her beat, she is still open to receiving the news.

Key Takeaway:

While Karen’s beat is Amazon, she said that she is open to covering stories about bigger themes that relate to Amazon, such as workforce, e-commerce, etc. Another important takeaway not exclusive to Karen, but worth sharing, is that the New York Times almost never covers funding, unless it’s an exorbitant amount.

There was one common theme across all my sessions with the journalists: If you pitch them and the story isn’t quite the right fit for them, but they believe it will be for a colleague, they’ll likely pass it on. So, while finding the right reporter is key, it really comes down to having a strong story that meets the needs of the publication. If you target the wrong person, but have the elements for a compelling story, they’ll work with you to get in contact with the right journalist.

Thank you to Business Wire for hosting a valuable event, and thank you to the journalists who took time out of their day to share these insights!

Read More