What is your catalyst?
After spending eight years in the medical technology start-up world, six years in Corporate America’s pharma and consumer products sectors, and two years consulting, I founded the Ballast Group, an integrated communication strategies firm. I believed finally I had enough experience in many areas of industry and business that potential clients could gain insights from them. But I didn’t always have the guts to take such an entrepreneurial risk. My sailing partner and coach, a commercial real estate entrepreneur, was my catalyst. On a slow-to-no-wind race day on Lake Erie for the...
Read MoreFire a prospect before hiring a client
Fire a prospect before hiring a client Recently I had an experience where I chose to pass on a prospect to avoid a nightmare client. This experience made me stop and think hard before going with my gut. Some would say that I passed up potential business. When a relationship is right, you sense it from the get go. The perspectives and education of both parties in their respective fields is clearly understood on both ends. The same goals are understood and shared; there is mutual respect, curiosity and the perspective education by both parties in their respective fields is clearly understood...
Read MoreVisiting Vietnam
“Traveling the country, delicacies always near” – eating our way from Ho Chi Minh City to Hanoi – a New Year’s adventure http://www.chicagotribune.com/travel/ct-trav-0325-food-vietnam-20120324,0,6406379.story
Read MoreRaving PR Fan on Groupon CEO’s 60 Minutes Interview
When I worked for a Fortune 500 company’s corporate communications department one of the few calls we wanted to take was from a CBS producer of 60 Minutes, the expose television news magazine. A call like that would make most CEOs cringe. It kept corporate communicators up at night for weeks preparing for the best interview possible. I’m not sure if Andrew Mason, the 30-something CEO of three-year old Groupon, cringed when he got the call, but his interview underscores the importance of media training. He may be cringing now. The company went public last fall with an $18 billion...
Read MoreLessons learned in PR
My first quarter teaching is coming to a close this week at DePaul. I decided to ask on the final exam what was the most important thing the 38 students learned from our “Principles of PR” class. I imagined an incentive was needed to get the answers. So I offered an extra credit point. Twice a week for 12 weeks I’d seen them for 90 minutes. If I did not ask now, and they walked out of this room for the final time, I wouldn’t know the answers. Had I conveyed the most important concepts? Did those concepts ‘stick’? This course was now a part of their...
Read MoreEight ways PR is like sailing (3 of 3)
Eight ways PR is like sailing Part three of a three-part blog series published as seen in PRBreakfast Club PR Pro’s: would you add anything? Sailors: what do you think? Other professions: how can you relate to these metaphors? 7) To tell a great story, as with sailing, you must always connect the dots. On the water, the sails are connected to the mast which is connected to the hull that is connected to the tiller and to the hand that steers the boat. That hand is connected to the eyes that are always watching the compass that is connected to the “Windex” at the top of the mast...
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