PR 101

Several years ago I had an insurance company as a client. The company sold various types of business insurance through about 3,000 independent agents. Its management worked hard to get the right messages to those agents; ones that made the agents feel like part of the team.

The insurance company knew that communicating with the people who sold their products was probably the most important kind of communication they did. People who make or sell a company’s products are the most important ambassadors. If they receive little or no information, or the information is delivered in a way in which they aren’t going to pay attention, there’s a problem. The insurance hit that problem head on.

Companies spend lots of time carefully crafting messages designed to make employees feel part of the effort. And then those companies fall flat on their faces. Why? They forget the second half of the communications equation, one that is as equally important as the message.

What don’t they do? They don’t use a delivery system that ensures their employees will pay attention to the message.

Think how much information you receive on a normal day. It comes at you from everywhere – television, radio, newspapers, emails, websites, social networks and talk around the water cooler. It comes from family, friends, employers, advertisers and a lot of other places. How much of it really stands out? How much do you retain? There is so much noise today that is very hard to stand out.

This insurance company used two primary ways to communicate with its agents and employees: a printed newsletter and email. Company executives thought those were more than adequate. The feedback from agents on the two methods was good – when they heard from the agents. The assumption was that since not much was being heard, things must be okay.

That bubble burst when the company sent out an email detailing changes in the way agents were compensated. Of the 3,000 messages sent, approximately 10 percent were opened. The company was shocked that a message on such an important topic received so little attention. The email got lost in the noise.

So the insurance company’s management came to the agency. They didn’t know what to do. To be honest I didn’t either. So I called a couple of friends who are insurance agents – neither of them handled this company’s products – and asked what the problem was with the company’s methods.

They both told me what I suspected about too many emails. So, I asked what would be a format that would work – how could someone an agent’s attention? One of them had just bought an IPod. He was talking about how cool it was. He then told me how he was downloading things from ITunes called podcasts. I went to ITunes and listened to a few. The light bulb went on.

We did a series of podcasts for the company on a variety of topics. The download rare exceeded 95 percent. We did a survey to ascertain how many people were actually listening. It was around 75 percent. The insurance company said it was the highest rate of communication they ever had.

What about that 25 percent who didn’t download or listen? We reached them through the printed newsletter. That’s an equally valid method.

The takeaway from this is simple: when you want to reach your employees, really reach them, you need to find a method that works. You need to use multiple methods. No one method is perfect.

Let me cover the methods I suggest to clients:

* Face-to-face communication. This is still one of the most effective, and surprisingly, underused methods. People like to hear news and information from another human being. There is also a lot more credibility when it is coming from trusted manager. With today’s technology, the speaker and the listeners can be 10,000 miles apart. It is still face-to-face. One thing about that – if your company has multiple offices, make sure employees can “talk back” and ask questions. It is not that hard, there are many websites that provide the software for that. I think it is underused because many managers don’t want to face tough questions.
* As I just showed, a podcast or a video podcast, called a Vlog. The advantage of that is people can download and listen at their leisure. But again, have some way people can ask questions. It is pretty simple to put a Q & A forum on a website.
* A printed newsletter. Many employees still like to receive something they can hold in their hands.
* A blog written by senior management. If possible, the CEO should write it. There are CEOs that already do that, most notably Jonathan Schwartz,  president and CEO, Sun Microsystems; Craig Newmarkk, CEO, Craig’s List, and Mark Cuban, chairman, HDNet and owner Dallas Mavericks owner. Zappos.com CEO Tony Hsieh is particularly famous for his blog. They have all said is good way to talk to their people.
* A company Wiki. Employees can post information about experiences or problems they’ve had and how they dealt with them. That saves a lot of time and trouble.

There is one more method I am going to blog out next week – social media. It is starting to trump every other form of communication. But you are going to have to wait on that one.

I post this every Monday. As a new feature, if you have questions you would like me to answer, please email me. I am always looking for topics and input. My email address is in the next paragraph.

My background: I worked as a reporter for 25 years in central Illinois, upstate New York, suburban Detroit and Milwaukee. I now help clients with marketing communications through my company – JJC Communications LLC. If you want to know more about my company, and myself, click the link. It’s a cliché, but it’s true for me: no job is too big, no job is too small. I have worked with companies on the Fortune 500 list and I have worked with companies that have one employee. The service I provide is the same for all.

On March 27 Milwaukee-based Rockwell Automation, Inc. announced in an internal memo that management had come to the painful conclusion that an undetermined amount of employees were going to be laid off. The continuing recession dictated the company had to cut costs.

Within approximately five minutes of that memo going out, reporters were calling the company to inquire about the layoffs. That memo had not been made public by any of Rockwell’s official channels – it’s senior management, its public relations staff or anyone else with the authority to do so.

Therein lies the key rule of employee communications: never, ever tell your employees anything you don’t want to be made public. Employee communications should be treated exactly the same as external communications. There is no longer any difference, if there ever was.

Employees are your ambassadors. It is important that they trust the company, its management and the direction the company is going. An employee who feels he or she is being kept in the loop will usually feel the company cares about them. That in turn will ensure they will say good things about your company. That is a very effective third party endorsement.

Put another way, employee communications serve management best when it shows empathy for, and understanding of, employees.

Rockwell understands that. The memo announcing the layoffs was written as if it was going to be made public – because senior management knew it would be. The memo was composed in a way that relayed Rockwell’s key messages. Writing the memo with the key messages ensured the company had no need to issue an additional press release. It also ensured every employee received and disseminated the same message.

Rockwell showed its moxie in another way. It was honest with its employees about the state of the company. That’s smart internal communications. The days that a company could only tell its employees happy news are long gone. There are just too many outlets from which employees will hear about the state of their company. Employees expect candor and honesty from their bosses. Not giving them that risks creating a disgruntled workforce. A disgruntled workforce can severely wound a company. It can make the difference between recovery and failure.

When I worked as a reporter in Detroit, I was always struck by the difference between General Motors and Ford workers. While both companies had their labor issues, I never heard a Ford employee knock the company to an outsider. It seemed to be a family atmosphere. Inside the family, they might be trying to punch other’s lights out. But, they always presented a united front to the outside world. General Motors employees, on the other hand, seemed to have contests to see who could say worse things about their employer.

I think that came down to the attitude each company’s management had toward its employees. Ford was, and is still very much, a creature of the Ford family. They treat their employees like part of the family. GM does not.

As the American auto industry struggles for survival, it seems that Ford has turned the corner and will again prosper. As an outside observer, I fell that is because Ford employees trust their managers. They know what they are hearing is the truth.

Which brings up the next point, making sure the right people receive and believe the messages. Just because it comes from management doesn’t mean employees are going to believe it. It has to be endorsed in the cubicles and on the shop floor.

I speak from personal experience.

Before I became a reporter, I had a number of jobs. I worked for a utility, first in what was called underground (think manholes) and then as a lineman climbing towers. I have also worked in a toy factory, a soda bottling plant, a grocery store and as a bike mechanic.

In every case, I had a foreman. But, on every crew, there was also a worker who had a least as much influence as the foreman. This worker was usually a veteran employee. He or she had worked the job for years, knew the ins and outs, know what one could get away with and what had to be done. This was the person I and everyone else went to with questions. Usually, this person has outlasted several supervisors.

The smart supervisors always made sure they enlisted this person as an ally. If they didn’t, jobs did not go as well as they could have. Just because a supervisor wants something done in a certain way doesn’t mean it is going to happen. The people who are going to carry out the task have to buy into the mission. Put another way, in the Army, officers give orders, sergeants make decisions.

So, it behooves anyone seeking to communicate with a company’s employees to identify those people and bring them into the circle. This is a great way to kill rumors. If the shop floor leaders know what’s going on, they can quash all of the untruths that spread when change is afoot. This used to be called the grapevine. If they trust you, they can also give you an accurate picture of what’s going happening on the shop floor. You will avoid many problems if you know how your employees feel about company issues.

In fact, I recommend drawing a communications chart that includes those people. You leave them out at the company’s peril. Because they can be the roadblock you never see.

Which brings me to my next point, just as you should have a business plan, marketing plan, a communications plan and a crisis communications plan, you should also have an employee communications plan. The format is essentially the same as the other plans: it should have a mission statement; how employee communications will help the company achieve its overall goals; its own goals; strategy and tactics;  a budget; and an evaluation function.

The evaluation should include input from employees – in fact, that’s the most important part. It can be done informally by talking to employees, committees of employees and management can be created or surveys can be done. I usually recommend a combination of the three.

Think of your employees as internal customers. Keep them happy and your company has a much better chance of prospering. Cut them out of the loop, don’t communicate honestly with them and you are laying the foundation of a disaster.

Next week I will talk about the best channels and ways to communicate with employees.

I post this every Monday. As a new feature, if you have questions you would like me to answer, please email me. I am always looking for topics and input. My email address is in the next paragraph.

My background: I worked as a reporter for 25 years in central Illinois, upstate New York, suburban Detroit and Milwaukee. I now help clients with marketing communications through my company – JJC Communications LLC. If you want to know more about my company, and myself, click the link. It’s a cliché, but it’s true for me: no job is too big, no job is too small. I have worked with companies on the Fortune 500 list and I have worked with companies that have one employee. The service I provide is the same for all.

I was once pitched by a Milwaukee public relations guy about a client that had made some minor changes in the way it did business. I told him it wasn’t a story in which our readers would be interested. Even in those still halcyon days of newspapering, there was a finite amount of space in the paper.

When I told him no, that account executive made the biggest mistake any public relations person can make – he threatened me and yelled at me. He told me he was going to call The Milwaukee Sentinel’s editor – who he claimed was a close friend – and tell him what a bad journalist I was. Secondly, he screamed at me, telling me I didn’t know what a great story he was giving me.

Not only did this person strike out on that pitch, he took himself out of the game completely. I went to my editor and told him what had occurred. He immediately took this public relations person off the list of people to whom we listened. Yes, there was list. It was informal, but it existed. Second, the overall editor said he had never heard of the guy.

It is pretty obvious what this public relations guy did wrong – everything. I am starting off with this example because a lot of people make some of the same mistakes in dealing with outlets.. I am constantly surprised by how many people have no clue how to pitch a story.

There are several steps you should take before you make the pitch, when you make the pitch, and after you make the pitch. Doing this will not guarantee your story will be published or aired. Nothing can. But it can increase the odds.

Some things to remember before we get into the details. The news media in general is more overworked than ever. They don’t have the time for you to waste their time. And they have less air time and space than ever. They are going to be very selective about what gets published or broadcast.

OK, let’s go over the dos and don’ts of pitching. First, the dos:

* Determine if really it is really a story. The old cliché is true: “dog bites man is not news, man bites dog is.” In other word, a story has to be something new, out of the ordinary, or unusual.

* If you think you have a story, do your research on who you should pitch. Reporters hate it when you don’t know what they cover. I had three primary beats in my career – police, business, and courts. I specialized in a number of things on my business beat. I used to get calls about food, sports and a number of other areas I didn’t cover. Sometimes I would pass the tip on the right reporter, but not always.

* For two reasons, I usually counsel against calling an editor to pitch a story: often times the editor will just refer you to the reporter; and it can make the reporter angry. Reporters often hate it when their editor overrides something they are doing to assign them something else. You want a happy reporter talking to you, not one who feels like they have been forced to do the story.

* Pitching broadcast is different than bloggers or print journalists. Call the news director or assignment editor with your story. Remember, for television you have to have to visuals – something that can be broadcast.

Now comes the most important part: making the actual pitch. If you take nothing else from this blog, remember this – when you call anyone in the media, the first four words you say after you say hello and identify yourself are: Are you on deadline? If the person says yes, thank them, ask when is a good time to call back and hang up. Never keep talking. Deadline is very stressful time when the person is trying to complete an assignment. They don’t have time to talk. Of course, if your building is on fire or you just won the Nobel Prize, that’s different. Use common sense.

In addition:

* This is an “elevator speech” situation. You have a limited amount of time to make your case. Use it wisely.When you do talk, get to the point. Before you pitch, repeat the mantra I use: “be brilliant, be brief, be out of there.”

* A note on email pitching. Find out the outlet’s policy on email before sending one. Because of a fear of viruses or hacking some organizations have a blanket policy of deleting any email that comes from an unknown source. I recommend calling the person first and telling them the email is on the way.

* Once the interview is scheduled, do your homework. Make sure you have the answer to every question you think might be asked. Have background materials ready to give the journalist or blogger. The goal is to make it as easy for the interviewer as possible.

What not to do:

* It is OK to pitch a story to different outlets at the same time. However, once an outlet says yes, stop pitching. Every editor or blogger wants the exclusive story. Unless this is a major media event, only give it one outlet initially. What’s a major event – something that involves a subject that affects thousands of people.

* It is not OK to pitch a story to different reporters at the same outlet. If you’ve pitched to the correct reporter, and that person says no, that’s it. You don’t think writers talk to each other?

* You will not be able to see the story, read the blog or view the broadcast before it is made public. So, don’t ask. Most people in the media feel you will try to influence a piece to take out anything you don’t like if you see it before it runs.

* Don’t do elaborate media kits. I have a friend who covers the brewing industry. He likes beer, so he is always happy when he receives free beer as part of a pitch. But, giving him beer doesn’t mean he will do a story. What writers and broadcasters want is information in a form they can use. They also are usually barred by ethics codes from accepting anything of major value – say over $10.

After the initial interview is completed, don’t assume it’s over. The interviewer will usually have more questions once they review their notes. Make sure you are available to answer those questions. Don’t be surprised if only about one-quarter to one-third of what you said ends up in the story. Only what the reporter determines is important will be used. As I said before, space is limited.

Those are the basics of pitching. Remember, every situation and writer is different. So be careful, and think before you pitch.

I post this blog every Monday. As a new feature, if you have questions you would like me to answer, please email me. I am always looking for topics and input. My email address is in the next paragraph.

My background: I worked as a reporter for 25 years in central Illinois, upstate New York, suburban Detroit and Milwaukee. I now help clients with marketing communications through my company – JJC Communications LLC. If you want to know more about my company, and myself, click the link. It’ a cliche, but it’s true for me: no job is too big, no job is too small. I have worked with companies on the Fortune 500 list and I have worked with companies that have one employee. The service I provide is the same for all.

I am also available for speaking on media relations and marketing. I can be reached at 414-763-8310 or
jjccomm@wi.twcbc.com.