Public Relations From an Entrepreneurs Point of View

When discussing PR, the first question a lot of people ask is, ‘what exactly is PR? And how does it differ from advertising?’ To this I answer, “Imagine that you are about to start a relationship between two people. Think of advertising as the initial introduction and PR as the series of interactions where the two people get to know each other.

To continue with the analogy it is advertising that usually gets you the first date but it is PR that determines the continuation of the relationship. It is also PR that helps determine how the relationship prevails through the good and bad times.

The second question is, ‘How can I use PR?’ To keep this article short while attempting to cover some important PR functions, I discuss three different functions of how an entrepreneur can use PR when developing and growing their business.

1) Use PR as your company’s sub conscience. Contrary to popular belief PR is not about spin. Rather PR is about exposing the good points of a company and therefore the more good points there are to expose the better off the company will be. This means the entrepreneur should grow their business based on decisions which build a good business ‘character’. This is easier said than done as quite often the best route to take when following your PR sub conscience is not the easiest (choose between the much cheaper synthetic or the more expensive organic alternative? Operate right on the edge of the law in terms of environmentally friendliness or spend a bundle to be very environmentally friendly and well within the law? Prepare solid information for a journalist or just pay to get the story into print? The list goes on and on).

So why take the pains to follow your PR sub conscience? Well, unless you are very lucky it is inevitable that your business will one day face serious issues. Not on purpose, and not even because the company has done anything wrong; but facing issues are just part of running a business. Add to the last note the fact that we live in a world of easy and instant access to information – and not just the latest information but information which has been stored for years and years. (This means that for companies with skeletons in the closet, the closet is closed with a glass door.) Going back to the relationship analogy let’s say one of the persons has just been accused of a severe misdeed. The other person will immediately weigh the pros and cons of the accused person’s character and make the decision if the relationship is worth pursuing or not. It is obvious to say that the stronger the good character of the accused, the more likely it is the other person is willing to here what the accused has to say and be willing to wait for more information before making a final decision on the relationship.

The point here is that building a good company character in today’s world is not just about doing one or two good deeds but it’s about building a company with a consistently good character, a company with a long term consistent track record of making the right pro PR sub conscience decisions. Using PR as your company’s sub conscience will set the foundation for your company to attract, maintain, and grow your client base over the long term.

2) The second way you can take advantage of PR is to use the many available (low cost) PR mediums to grow the business. I am going to write an article specifically on this subject in the near future but assuming that you are an entrepreneur with a limited budget there are several ways I can share with you on how you can use low cost PR to grow your business.

First of all write down as many reasons as you can of why you started your business in the first place. What needs are you meeting? How are you meeting these needs differently? Why are you so sure your business is going to succeed? How does your end user benefit from your product/service?

Now write down your target audience. Categorize your list in specific demographics (age, sex, income levels, etc). Now take a lot of time out to think about how you think each of these individual demographic groups (on average) get their information. Do they get it from the internet? And which sites do they browse? Do they read newspapers, magazines? Do they watch TV or listen to the radio?

Then jot down the names of some of these mediums (TV, radio, newspapers, internet sites).

Once you have the names jotted down go to the phone book and find out their phone/fax numbers. Write up a short blurb on your company with an invite to meet at their offices at their convenience. During your meeting focus on convincing these media that a story on you would be of interest to their audiences.

The truth is that media companies are always looking for good content. I really believe that one of the reasons that so many news stories are repeated ad infinitum on so many of the same media is because the staff of these organizations don’t have the time to go out and find the stories on their own. It is easier to find a slightly different angle on a story already circulating than it is to find a whole new story. If someone takes the time to convince these media employees that you have a good story that their readers will enjoy there is a very good chance you will get interviewed and voila... you have just produced some low cost PR. (with most of the cost coming from you having to do all the ground work yourself).

3) Third, without shame use PR as your company’s shield. This last point is where I believe the spin talk about PR originates. It is true that the cases we hear most about are when a company finds themselves in trouble and scrambles to hire a PR consultant (like myself) to quickly mine through the company’s history and find whatever tid bits they can to build a case to support the company’s good character. Critics will say that the PR consultant is trying to ‘spin’ the perception from negative to positive. In such cases I would agree with the critics but I have to say that in the yearly business of PR, those cases are the minority. I have a list of clients who I have worked with for years who suddenly find themselves facing issues and being able to use the “credibility capital” they have built up over the years to buy themselves the time needed to explain their side of the story – in other words PR without any spin. From an entrepreneurial perspective many companies (including your competitors) base many of their business decisions using a PR sub conscience, will develop yearly communications strategies which have a direct impact on business plans and by doing so will develop credibility capital, or in other terms a good reputation, with their target audiences. You don’t want to be left behind. This credibility capital acts as a shield for the company during times when there are issues because the target audience will very likely give the company the benefit of the doubt and allow the company to explain themselves before making final decisions. On the contrary a company that has not used a PR strategy and that believes in being low profile during times of crisis and trusting their target audiences to find out the truth on their own is taking (what I believe) to be a huge and unwise business risk. There is nothing wrong of using your track record and your history of good character building decisions to protect yourself when you are facing issues. That is not spin – that is using common sense.

This is my first article for www.EvanCarmichael.com and not wanting to make it 300 pages I agree, I have only scratched the surface. In addition to developing further articles on PR and PR issues that I feel are important to discuss in this Entrepreneurial forum, I welcome any questions from readers and may make some future articles Questions and Answers based. Please email me directly at edwin (then) @ (then) pieroelie (then) dot (then) com. Sorry for the code but the internet robots are ruthless All the best following your PR sub conscience, edwinp *this article is copyright 2006 pieroelie & associates.

Public Relations From an Entrepreneurs Point of View - To learn more about this author, visit Edwin Pieroelie's Website.

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