No matter what type of storyteller you are, there is always room to improve and refine one’s craft in the world of public relations.
Whenever I meet someone new and they ask me what I do for a living, I usually sum it up by saying I’m a storyteller. I work with media and reporters to highlight brands, companies, and individuals by telling their stories to a wider audience. Reflecting on the first half of 2024, I wanted to share some thoughts to help inspire planning, reflection, improvement, and a drive to refine one’s craft, no matter what type of storyteller you may be.
When it comes to working with media, my advice can be simplified into two actions: be clear and develop genuine relationships.
Clarity and relationship building are crucial to succeeding in the profession. These two actions have led to my wins as I worked everywhere from a communications and marketing agency to professional and collegiate sports and local government.
Coordinating Interviews and Preparing Spokespeople
My first piece of advice is to be clear when communicating with members of the media. As you play intermediary by setting up an interview, it’s important to connect with them via phone, email or text before the interview so that you’re prepared, your client is prepared, and you all agree on expectations. Have a clear idea of what interview questions will be asked so your spokesperson has the proper supporting information, notes, and stats. Accurately communicate how much time the reporter has for this interview. The work of public relations is fast and furious. Correspondence between media members can happen at an unexpected time and play out at an extremely fast pace. Opportunities can go awry fast if everything isn’t clearly laid out.
(One of) My First Flub(s)
I can recall a time I failed at this. Miserably. In 2019 I was in my first season as the Director of Communications for the Dallas Wings. Late in the season, we had a situation come up near the end of a game against the Phoenix Mercury. Six players were ejected from the game, and three players received suspensions for their involvement. We flew home the following day, and our next practice garnered the most media attention we had received that season. Foolishly, I told the assembly of reporters five minutes before media availability, “Hey, we’re not going to talk about the fight.” One of the TV reporters just laughed at me and said, “Ha! Yeah… right!”
Thinking reporters wouldn’t want to talk about a scuffle that got multiple players ejected and suspended, and telling them there wouldn’t be any discussion about it with such short notice, was not realistic. I didn’t want to put our players in an awkward spot, but I wasn’t properly prepared to make sure that wasn’t going to happen. Fortunately for me, the players told me as they were walking toward the media that they were ready to talk about the scuffle. If they hadn’t or didn’t, the media interaction would have gone in a much different direction.
Developing Genuine Relationships
A large part of getting stories to land depends on personal relationships with writers and reporters. The way I look at it, it’s my job as a PR person to make their job easier. An honest, genuine relationship is like a well of water. It can be visited time and time again with consistent results. A fake relationship is like a plastic water bottle. It’s going to help you out once, but it’s disposable after that use.
Two years ago, I started working in an industry I was previously unfamiliar with. I immediately started to make friends with the people I would be consistently working with. Previously in my career, these friendships were easier to make since I would spend a lot of time with reporters during practice, media availability, and other team activities. We’d go get food together or be each other’s only familiar face when on the road.
Investing Time and Care
Since shifting industries and working entirely from home, I make introductions virtually via email or Twitter after reading/watching something a reporter has worked on. I’ll share a short note about how I enjoyed their work and how I’d love to be a resource in the future, and I’ll ask to connect via video call or phone call. In the last two years, I have been able to meet so many new reporters and make countless friends. If I get a response, I go about learning as much as I can about them before we talk. With one writer, I discovered that we both enjoyed the work of a specific fantasy/sci-fi author, with another I found out that he loves visiting state capitals like I do, and with another, we connected over our love of the NBA. One of my new friends introduced me to another writer with this email message: “[Sterling has] given me about a million stories and he has shown no signs of stopping!” There’s no way this reporter would have introduced me that way if our relationship wasn’t built on honesty.
Seeing Both Sides
Honesty is the pillar of a cordial, respectful, and mutually beneficial relationship. An instance may arise when a reporter has to write something negative about your client, but you should not take it personally when that happens. If your relationship with them is honest, and you’re not just using them, you’ll understand and not be offended by what they write.
Another key is to make sure connections are made genuinely. My favorite authors, my love for the NBA (let’s go Jazz, baby!), and my interest in state capitals are things I genuinely LOVE sharing with other people. It’s a bonus if they share the same interest. Trust comes naturally when there is an honest, genuine relationship.
When there’s trust, you don’t have to have all the right answers all the time. You can confidently say, “Actually, that’s a good question that I don’t have the answer to, but let me talk to my client and get back to you.” When you fake an answer or tell a “mostly” truth, you dig yourself into a hole and the reporter starts formulating and writing their story with incorrect information. If you just pull an answer out of nowhere, you set them up with a shaky foundation for their story and you’ve put them in a bad position. Telling the truth and saying, “I don’t know…” allows you to circle back instead of digging yourself out of a hole and backpedaling on what you said (and hearing the dreaded, “Well, that’s not what I told my editor.”) previously. What’s more, saying “I don’t know—let me get back to you,” allows you to come back even stronger because you’ll have the opportunity to review anything before it’s sent. You also have the chance to “clean up” any mistakes you might have made and come back with exact stats and figures. When following up on the conversation, you can say, “Here’s what I said I would send you, including a summary of everything we went over and that one point you wanted more info about.”
I’m still learning every day, and I have learned that turning these simple actions into habits has made a world of difference as I have grown and developed in my career. When I have the chance to interview someone about a particular topic, I always like to ask the question, “If you could go back in time and tell your old self what you know now about this topic, what would you tell them?” For me, the answer to that question is to be clear and develop genuine relationships.
