As a student of pop culture, symbols and quotes (and a sappy sentimental at times), I believe that entertainment is often a parallel for life, and business. As such, over the years I have gone through stages of routines immediately before I enter my office of things I do to prepare for work…

Growing up in the Bronx, one of my favorite movies ever is “A Bronx Tale” (I have yet to meet someone of my age group who grew up in the Bronx and hasn’t seen this movie 10 times). As such, I used to watch a certain scene in the movie every day before I went to work.

It’s the biker scene… For those of you who arent familiar, a group of bikers show up in a Mafia owned bar. About 10 bikers walk into the bar very loud and rude and dressed poorly. The big boss (Chazz Palminteri) walks in and tells them: “Guys you aren’t dressed right, please leave.” The head biker tells Chazz – “Sir, please we’ll only have a few drinks and we’ll be on our way.” Chazz says “OK, no problem – I’ll buy the 1st round enjoy.” The bikers then take the 1st round of drinks and spray the bartender with beer and act like animals. Chazz comes back and tells them to leave the bar as they didn’t obey the rules – “Now you have to leave.” They tell him to screw off… and they will tell him when they are leaving. He responds by going, locking the door and saying “No problem. Now you can’t leave..”… and his buddies come from the back of the bar and go on to beat the hell out of the bikers. In the Mafia movie it taught the bikers a lesson about respect.

Lessons learned: Words have value… Actions have consequences, and if you say something, do it. I respected it greatly because it taught the value of giving, and of taking… all of which are necessary in business. I used to watch it before going to work because it motivated me to work harder and to never back down – All values I believe are important as an entrepreneur and running one’s own business… and if you give a finger to a competitor, they will take the hand (and its similar to my political views)… Anyway, that was 5 years ago or so I used to watch that every day.

These days for at least the last month or so I have been listening to the same 3 Jay-Z songs prior to entering the office in my 15 minute or so commutte to work “Can I Live ?”, followed by “Lucky ?”, followed by “My 1st Song”. Jay Z for me is a self-made great entrepreneur who understands the importance of struggle and hard work and extreme self sacrifice to succeed and make money – His lyrics motivate me prior to working.

“Can I Live” talks about Jay Z “Not sleeping”, and him growing up and developing into a leader and successful person… “Lucky” talks about how one can never understand something completely from the outside and to never assume something to be the case… and about how its not just being lucky… but luck is a part of it…

… and the last song I listen to before entering the doors of my office (or wherever I am traveling throughout the world) is: “My 1st Song” which essentially talks about the value of starting each working day anew and how every single day needs to start anew… and to never take your success for granted(As a recent great quote I read said self-made entrepreneurs can’t stop striving, driven by anxiety that they could lose everything they so quickly gained.)… Some of the quotes from “My 1st Song”: Work “It’s my joy and my tears and my laughter and my everything”… ‘When you thought back you never thought you would make it this far”….

“Treat my First like my last like my everything”…. (Which for me means don’t rest on your laurels – Even though I have nearly 70 employees after starting the business single handedly and the fastest growing PR firm 2 years in a row, I still feel far from successful and want to keep growing)…

Entertainment is certainly a parallel for business… and that’s whats motivating me before I enter work these days… just wanted to share the stage I am at these days…

Ronn Torossian

5W PR

I had dinner tonite with the CMO and VP of Marketing of a Fortune 10 company – Literally, one of the largest companies in the world. They, naturally are in business with large PR firms and the nearly 3 hour dinner was the same as I have heard from no less than 10 Fortune 1000 companies in the last 6 months – How come no one in the PR Agency World understands the consumer lifestyle space and how to reach young people ? Why are there no creative ideas ?

We had a long discussion about the space, the changing media landscape, heightening of awareness vis a vis product placement and a ton of other things… and the lack of PR creativity.

A few thoughts I shared over dinner – We are one of the few agencies who do what we do in the lifestyle PR space which is necessary to understand to reach the tremendous convergence of sports, lifestyle & entertainment which brands need to understand to reach a younger consumer for a lot of reasons…

Traditional marketing techniques simply aren’t effective when appealing to 18-34 year old Americans. Simply put, they’ve been bombarded all their lives with fast paced content and are especially selective in where their attention is paid. We uniquely understand that in order to reach this audience, the medium is invariably the message. They are influenced by MySpace, blogs, their peers and celebrities as much or more than they are by traditional media—The kid on MySpace with 10,000 friends has the same captive audience as many top journalists— it’s a reality that many in our industry don’t understand.

They need to see and touch the brand:
In the same way that many of our advertising & marketing clients are taking away business from large agencies who are set in their ways of traditional print & broadcast advertising, we’ve brought the same approach to public relations. I’m so proud of the work we’ve done with Evian over the last two year. Whether it’s putting Serena Williams and James Blake in an Evian bath or putting up a month long pop-up spa on 5th avenue we’ve taken water and brought it right to the consumer and made it parts of their lifestyle. Brands can’t exist in a vacuum—consumers need to understand where they fit into their lives and that’s one of this agency’s greatest strengths.

Time is more important than speed.
Our experience has taught us the value of formulating one’s message early and getting it out before the competition. Indeed, by planning this far ahead, 5W Public Relations can assemble a comprehensive plan with timeline and execute it on-schedule and on-target. Being quick to market with compelling story angles that are consistent and ongoing is part of the fight…

… and here I am going to stop because as much as I like writing… I know my competitors try to steal our ideas consistently… and I don’t want to give too much away… but

A few more thoughts on the subject:

· As we have been saying for years to win with youth consumers one needs to reach the “urban” audiences which includes African American, Hispanic and South Asian. We have represented leading brands in this space for years and today work with more corporations and celebrities than anyone else in the world. Our competitors are afraid of this space and couldn’t dare to understand it. Through these relationships and our network of celebrities, 5W is capable of delivering star power to events, product launches and cross marketing programs.

We believe in the value of representing corporations and talent – From entertainment and lifestyle brands to cutting edge start up ventures; as well as leading youth marketing agencies. Additionally, we represent top tier talent. Further, 5W is involved in just about every leading lifestyle event in the US year round including the Oscars, Grammy’s, Emmy’s, New York and Los Angeles Fashion Week, US Open, NBA All Star, MTV Music Awards, Sundance Film Festival — among many others. Its necessary.

We are about passion and results – The choice for leading brands who simply need a team to work harder, smarter, and better – all of the time. We deliver concepts that inspire and motivate change; and we work knowing that every minute and every dollar count.

We believe the PR Industry has never had more challenges and never had less creativity – the players are all the same… .Clients want to pay for performance and results.As one of my senior staffers is fond of saying: “Celebrities hire us because we are cool enough and for them we are corporate, and corporations hire us because they think we are smart enough and entertainment enough, but still corporate for them.” We speak the language of both of these audiences…. Which very few mainstream PR firms are able to do.

(and as a caveat lifestyle remains as 25% of our business…. We do a lot more than consumer lifestyle work…)

Ronn Torossian

5W PR

So, summer’s officially over and wow are people coming out of the woodwork even today the 1st day back. Heard back from people I haven’t heard from since July … Of course we were working (I was here all day Monday to get prepared for the onslaught of work that I knew would come today)…

Had a very important meeting today with someone who handed me a great book of quotes, so wanted to share some today in my brief respite from a day that started here at 7 AM and won’t end before 11 PM with what is a crazy week…

A few post summer thoughts:

1: I love that so many people take off so much time in the summer. It allows work-aholics like me to get ahead. Have heard people comment that success is about luck – I think that’s a crock of bull. I am stealing the quote someone famous (although I can’t remember who said): “I am very lucky in business, and the more hours I work, the luckier I become.”

2: Had a meeting today with a leading recruitment/headhunter firm today in the PR industry. I had just reviewed the INC 500 List and commented to her how few of those companies compared to what I am constantly reading in the media allow “flex-time”. Note to potential employees – Flex-time doesn’t work for me… There is work time and non-work time (and often in the PR industry those worlds are one). If you love your job, you don’t want flex-time… and if you work at your job 2 years and haven’t been promoted/given a raise/had a change in responsibilities it’s time to move on… You aren’t growing and they don’t appreciate you… so if you want “flex-time”, your employer will often think whether you are necessary for the company… at least for a small business like us.

3 – Attitude counts – Play to win. This summer we pitched a lot of big brands… and while I expect to win some I think many CMO’s don’t have the courage to win -To take the chances necessary to succeed, think out of the box, be receptive to change. They can’t play not to lose, they need to play to win. (which means no 4 corners for those of you who are basketball fans)…

… and along these lines, recently read a profile on Roger Ailes in U.S. News & World Report and loved this quote from him: “If you run into people who are negative, and always telling you that the cat got ran over, and you couldn’t get the car started and you’ve got a cold, the suits are idiots and life isn’t fair, you know, you need to get away from those people because they will suck you under and hold you down and drown you.”

Play to win… Now I am going back to work.

Ronn Torossian

Name: Ronn Torossian
Location: NY, NY

Ronn Torossian is the Founder, President and CEO of New York-based 5W Public Relations. He has overseen the company’s rapid growth and expansion to the Inc. 500 list, as well as provided counsel to hundreds of companies, including members of the Fortune 500, Inc. 500 and Forbes 400. His work spans global interests, high-profile individuals, regional businesses, government agencies and academic institutions - both on routine public relations matters and extremely sensitive issues.

One of the foremost public relations experts in the U.S., Torossian is known for his aggressive, results-focused orientation, as well as his close working relationships with members of the media, influencers, decision makers, politicians and celebrities. At 5W Public Relations, Torossian’s client experience has included programs for Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Anheuser-Busch, Barnes & Noble, IHOP, McDonald’s, Evian, EDS, VeriSign, XM Radio, Seagram’s, The Loews Regency, Bad Boy Worldwide Entertainment, Marriott Hotels, Vail Resorts, Pamela Anderson, Snoop Dogg, the Government of Israel, and others.

Referred to by The New York Post as a “publicity guru,” by Fox News as a “high-powered PR CEO,” by Tyra Banks as a “crisis management guru,” and by CNN as “a leading PR expert,” Torossian is regularly featured in and quoted by the media, including by CNN, Fox News Channel, MSNBC, NBC, The New York Times, and others. CBS National News said “Ronn Torossian knows spin,” and a New York Times feature story on Torossian referred to him as “The consummate hard-driving, scrappy NY publicist.”

Earlier in his career, Torossian was a Vice President/Group Director for one of The InterPublic Group’s (IPG) largest PR agencies, where he was responsible for significant client growth and successful client programs, including work for Clinique, Fox News Channel, DHL, Hard Rock Café and others.

Torossian was named to the Advertising Age “40 Under 40″ list, PR Week’s “40 Under 40″ List, is a regular lecturer at universities and conferences, a member of Young Presidents Organization (YPO) and a board member of numerous non-profit organizations.