There’s many different styles of management, and many different styles of pitching and creating new business.  Owing a PR agency, I am a CEO who likes old-fashioned hard work – I admit I am more likely to be behind my desk than at a cocktail reception.

Similarly, I respond to emails, phone calls and inquiries very quickly – I believe in acting and responding.  Therefore, I wasn’t surprised to hear of the following study on the power of speed, and how it influences sales (and I am sure similarly it would influence relationships and other business aspects).

Leads responded to within one minute improve sales conversions by 391%? Leads called within one to two minutes of their being born convert 160% more often than the average – 88% of leads that close are those called within 24 hours. Be prepared to grow – Sometimes the fight is simply showing up and bringing your A-game.

Speed counts as I have said over and over…. And one of my favorite business books is recommended to remind you of the essentials:

It’s Not the Big That Eat the Small…It’s the Fast That Eat the Slow: How to Use Speed as a Competitive Tool

Ronn Torossian

5WPR

In what are probably the latest developments in huge declining reputation trends, we read of the up-for-sale of “Blackwater Xe”, the private security firm.  Combine that with the increasing calls on the CEO of BP Energy to step down as a price for the oily mess. These result in a price tag for bad publicity, damaged reputation, and lack of control over brand positioning.

Even the most perfect cross-industry brands and fans of Corporate Social Responsibility companies are not immune.  Patriotic, job generating and substantially-contributing companies may find themselves facing a public fiasco without proper prior warning. It can even apply to “country-brands” like Israel who stand up for many things, but cannot sufficiently channel the limelight towards those advantages when crisis knocks on their doors.

Sometimes you feel you are operating in an environment where you cannot afford to disclose operational secrets, structures, financials or policies. But it’s vital to find focused messages on what you COULD reveal, clarify on, and interact with the public asking for input too.

Ed Murrow, CBS journalist and one of the early directors of the United States Information Agency during the Kennedy years and facing the Bay of Pigs fiasco in 1961 said: “if they want me in the crash landings, I better damn be in on the take-offs”.

Here are 7 reasons and ideas to shift your PR from crisis clean-ups to a management function TODAY:

Having a PR rep in a meeting on policy initiatives can be leveraged for brand building and positioning, both pre-emptatively and for positive impact.

Good reputation management begins early on. Not when damaged reputation requires fixing. Reputation is identified and managed well during decision making processes

Control. Early PR gets the messages YOU want to disseminate to your publics in advance so you won’t have to deal with rumors and blog-standard sources which take all your Google-results space during a crisis.

The key to every PR story a.k.a “the angle” should be pulled from management functions which PR professionals are ear-sensitive to find and pick up

Attending management decision making processes can help create plan B’s and C’s and placed in a drawer for stormy days.

Interaction with key figures on a board can generate new ideas and key messages from various company divisions’ execs used as extra PR “bonus points” in building clarity, integrity and reputation for target audiences. Who knows where your next positive news item placement will come from ?

Most important: realizing Public Relations is a two-street which can be utilized to also receive information from your key publics via PR research on their preferences, tendencies and views of your brand. This can imply on decision making in the boardroom and can prevent the next bad turn by the person on the wheel

Avoid the next bad decision snow ball. You don’t want to find yourself in blackwater mud.

Crisis PR Firm

5WPR

One of my favorite aspects of owning a Public Relations agency is that it allows entrée’ to CEO’s, and C-suite management of so many different types of companies.  We receive a birds-eye view of business ideas, strategies and focuses.

In a meeting this week, I asked a fellow CEO why he was developing a new, fairly basic, strategy for his company. Essentially, his response was “why not.”  He artfully explained the easiest ideas are often times the most successful, and in his 20+ year career of making millions, it was about working hard and not stopping to ask why his competitors often aren’t doing the same. 

This struck a chord with me because in many ways it embodies the same philosophy I used (and still do) when founding my successful PR firm, 5WPR in January 2003. I saw a void in the marketplace, as media relations wasn’t valued among other agencies as a core competency. We adopted it as a necessity. Few agencies require senior staff to work and pitch media and get results, but we absolutely do. Also, PR firm owners were process oriented, and archaic in their way of thinking (not to mention age). I didn’t and still don’t fit that mold.

So, when I founded my agency at the age of 27, I had the goal of working hard and getting results for our clients.  Today, when people ask me how we have grown into 1 of the 15 largest agencies in the U.S. in such a short period of time, I say truthfully this business isn’t too complicated. Our secret to success is hard work, focus and doing right by our clients.

Business doesn’t always have to be that complicated.

Ronn Torossian

5WPR

In service industries like PR (and law, accounting, etc.), we must always be cognizant of our time.  Time is our livelihood as there’s only so many hours in a day we can speak to clients, media, etc.  Why is it people who don’t work in the service industry never seem to understand this? Every minute for us during the work day is precious and has to be considered as such.  The old adage “Time is money” is very accurate for us, and this public relations agency realizes it and keeps it in mind constantly.

Ronn Torossian

5WPR

This past week was a 7-day work week. Saturday night and all of Sunday, I was glued to my desk dealing with end of month activity reports, client crisis matters and general catching up. All of this hard work has me tired to the bone.

This weekend for some reason I was reminded of my days and years sweating away at a Bronx pizzeria, where I worked straight through from 1986 at the age of 12 making $2 an hour, until my post college rate of $6 an hour (although with tips often came out to more than $20 an hour). I worked a few months full-time to my mother’s chagrin as a college graduate delivering pizza.

When I reflect upon that experience, I realize the many life and business lessons I learned while working in this immigrant-owned, local Italian Bronx pizzeria, including:

• If you were on the schedule, you showed up to work no matter what because the team depended on you.
• I learned the value of hard work by sweating next to an oven for hours and hours – There was no task too big or small. If it needed to get done, I made sure to take care of it.
• During the Pre- Giuliani NYC Era, I always needed to be alert and move quickly amidst the hysteria of the Bronx.
• My boss taught me at a young age that the customer isn’t always right. He used to tell me “if they can’t pay, tell them to get out.”

I could go on about the many things I learned from the thousands of working hours I logged at a young age, but what it really boils down to is …there is nothing like hard work, and that translates to the success of our PR agency as well.

Ronn Torossian

5WPR