PR War Stories (an editorial work in progress)

No-Bull PR

The No-Schmooze, No-Spin Guide to What – in Public Relations – Really Works

By Ned Barnett

© 2003

An insider’s guide to getting the job done through

pragmatic, results-oriented public relations

Dedication

To Karal Ayn, who calls forth the sun and the moon in the sky of my life, who fills that life with joy and meaning, and who inspires me to strive for whatever success this life offers to me.

Disclaimers

No animals were injured or killed in the creation of this book.

The FDA has found that self-promotion may be hazardous to your health - use only under adult supervision, and never do this at home, kids.

This is not a work of fiction; nonetheless, nothing here is really true.  Perception is the only reality (repeat this until you believe it unquestioningly – it is replacing “om” as the mantra of the new Millennium), and you will then understand the truth behind effective public relations.

Acknowledgements

This book wouldn’t have been possible without the loving support and constant encouragement of my wife and inspiration, Karal Ayn Barnett.  Lots of authors say things like that – this author means every word, and so much more.  From beginning to end, Karal Ayn has inspired me, encouraged me, lifted me when I was down and constantly challenged me to be the most I could be – then challenged me further to grow beyond myself and reach for something even better.  Without her, I could neither have written this book nor cared to try.

Beyond that, I wish to acknowledge the encouragement, the insights, the occasional well-intentioned insults, of my professional colleagues and friends.  Located on three continents and connected through the modern miracle of the Internet, they have encouraged me to continue to explore public relations in all its dimensions, and they have challenged me to reach out for best practices in PR, and in myself.  In particular, the folks on two active Internet PR-oriented listservs – SmallShopPRAgency-One and PRForum2 – are as a great bunch of men and women as there are in the field of public relations. 

They are real pros who know how to deliver what clients and employers really need and want: real, measurable value.  Said another way: results.  Measurable, meaningful results. Not the kinds of “results” they talk about in college, or in too many otherwise useful books on PR.  Not the kinds of “results” they talk about endlessly in PR professional society meetings.  Where-the-rubber-meets-the-road results.  The kind that bring in business … whether your business is moving bills through Congress or raising funds to save the Hoary Bullfinch or generating a bottom line that will keep stockholders happy and employees earning paychecks. 

PR is about getting it done.  To my colleagues who work to help each other (including me) focused on this remarkably elusive concept – and you know who you are – a sincere “thanks!”

I would like to extend this appreciation – to acknowledge all of my clients and employers (and students) – who, through positive experiences and negative ones – have helped me understand the importance of effective, No-Bull PR.

Introduction

Public relations is about image – and ironically, PR has a real image problem.  Flaks.  Hacks.  Spokesmen.  Press secretaries.  Spinmeisters.  Publicists.  Press agents.  There are lots of names for PR professionals, none of them particularly flattering.  Do you want to be seen in their light?  Probably not.  However, the practice (as opposed to some of the less ethical practitioners) is nothing more than effective communications.  Too often, though, those of us who set out to practice PR forget what it’s all about.  Results that mean something to whomever is paying the bill.  In short, No-Bull PR.

How has this happened?  I think it starts in college, in those glorified trade schools where they “teach” PR.  While I have no desire to insult the many hard-working, long-suffering and generally underpaid professors of PR who try to do a good job, there is one glaring fact that is hard to ignore.  Many – I haven’t done a study so I can’t say most (though I’d gladly bet money on it) – PR professors haven’t actually “done” PR – or if they have, it hasn’t been for a long, long time.  Instead of getting the job done through professional, productive communications, they try to teach others – younger and less experienced than themselves – how to “do” PR. 

In the absence of a solid foundation of practical experience, they have to fall back on theory.  Theoretically, there’s nothing wrong with “theory” – but in reality, there’s damned little that’s “right” with theory, either.

I have never had an employer, or a client, who wanted to pay for “theory.”  They wanted to pay for results.  In the short term, most of them were willing to pay for effort – effort they believed was headed in the direction of results … if not now, soon.  But PR professors don’t teach practical techniques, because those techniques keep changing – and you have to be in the business to detect, to identify, to test out and to validate (or refine) those new techniques.  Unless they’re also working in the field, there’s no way they can directly know what works.

Aside #1: 

When I was an undergraduate, I was not only a student, I was a practitioner.  I undertook to provide admittedly rudimentary public relations services to a small group of paying and non-paying clients. In the process, I learned more than a bit about what worked – and I learned one hell of a lot more about what worked than I was being taught. 

I had the occasional professor who really delivered – I still remember with fond respect Professor John English.  He taught magazine article writing – a valuable skill for PR folks (though the course was open to all J-School students, not just the PR majors).  But rather than teach theory, John English taught us what worked.  Each summer, he took off from Athens and headed to Manhattan – then and now the hub of magazine publishing.  He called on editors and took them (or conned them into taking him) to lunch.  He asked them what they were looking for – and got “today’s” inside skinny.  And each summer, he paid for his excursions North by writing and selling articles to good-paying magazine markets.  In short, he walked the walk – which let him honestly and authoritatively talk the talk.  I learned a lot from John English – and, in the summer of 1972, I became a paid, published magazine author. I sold a class project to Air Classics Magazine for the magnificent sum of $80 – which was equal to more than 10 percent of my quarterly budget for room, board, books, tuition and food.  Not bad for a class project.

But more were like that un-named professor (un-named on advice of counsel) who gave me a B-minus – a lousy freakin’ B-minus – for an in-house company employee newsletter that I turned in as my major project for her class.  This professor’s sole qualification to teach this class was her previous career – then roughly two decades in her past – as editor of a magazine for members of a prominent Southern religious denomination.  A newsletter that had no measurable goals, other than to arrive on time in a the homes of undiscriminating true believers.  There’s nothing wrong with that – as long as the professor can see beyond her own experience, and realize that for most PR people, newsletters are intended to generate real results for clients or employers.

Now here’s the rub – my newsletter was turned in for a class project – but it wasn’t produced for some hypothetical company “as” a class project.  It was produced for a real, flesh-and-blood manufacturing company based in South Georgia, one that had turned to me to help them address a costly employee morale problem.  Their employee turn-over was in the realm of 60 percent per year – to say that was costly was a huge understatement. The employees left for mostly non-business reasons – hunting season, for instance, caused a rash of resignations every year.  My nuts-and-bolts No-Bull PR solution focused on giving their employees an incentive – beyond a paycheck – for staying on the job.  Being featured in the company newsletter – giving them, as individuals, recognition they’d never had in their entire lives in the blue-collar Deep South – was one of only two strategies I recommended.  That newsletter – which only earned me a B-minus – was half of the plan that cut turn-over from 60 percent to about 20 percent.  In short, it worked. It helped create meaningful, measurable results.  In the world of business, those kinds of results are graded A – as in “here’s A contract for a lot more of what you’ve just given us.”  But a professor steeped in theory, rather than in No-Bull reality, can’t be expected to see that.

In the 30 years since college, I’ve had a couple of chances to teach at the college level – and many more chances to guest-lecture to students.  In all my experiences since graduation, I have yet to see any meaningful change in the differences between PR-as-taught and No-Bull PR, the way it should be done.

End Aside #1

Man and boy, I’ve been at this thing we call public relations for nearly three full decades.  Along the way, I’ve managed to work for a remarkable variety of clients and employers, and I’ve faced a startling number of different challenges.  And, to the extent that I was able to accomplish anything of substance, my success was built on a solid and growing understanding of the importance of delivering results that mean something important to my clients or employers.

In this book, I’ll use some of my own examples. However, I’ll also be drawing on the examples of many others who have succeeded, not because they have talent (many people have remarkable talents) but because they were willing to take the time – and take the risk – to deliver results, instead of process. 

Though I have been there and done that in PR for a lot of years, I don’t claim to have all the answers.  The good news is there aren’t all that many answers.  There is one simple reason for this: In spite of what the professors tell you (at least what they told me), PR is more an art than a science.  There are no rules in PR that cannot be broken.  Except in the matters of honesty and ethical behavior, here are no absolutely right ways (or wrong ways) of ‘doing’ PR.  If it works, it works.  No Bull!

And that’s what this book is all about.  Generating results by using practical tools and techniques, each one carefully adapted to a given, specific situation.  There’s nothing magical about it.  And there’s nothing “theoretical” about it, either.

If it works – and if it’s honest and ethical – that’s all you need.

Figuring out what works – when and why and how – is what the rest of this book is about.  If you want to succeed in PR – as a professional practitioner, or as someone who incorporates PR into the larger issues of business and life – this book is for you.

If that’s not you, just pass the book along.  For the right person, it makes one hell of a good gift!

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