The employees in your company know that you expect them to produce high quality work products, meet deadlines, and exercise a high degree of professionalism when dealing with each other and your clients. They know what your expectations are because you have told them. But do your employees have a clear idea about how they should handle an inquiry from the media? Will they know what questions to ask? Do they know that they cannot make statements to the media unless they have been specifically designated to do so by a duly authorized officer of your company? If the answer to any one or all of these questions is “No,” you may be setting yourself up for “missed” and/or “mishandled” media opportunities which can take the form of inquiries from the media “falling through the cracks” and not getting to the right person immediately or someone saying more than they should to the media. “Missed” and “mishandled” media opportunities in the form of employees giving out too little or too much information to the media or not expeditiously getting a media inquiry to the right person in your company could not only rob your company of its chance to enhance its visual identity, expand its client base and grab the attention of an untapped target market but could, in the long run, negatively affect profitability. The development of a “public relations boot camp” is your company’s “ounce of prevention” against “missed” and “mishandled” media opportunities.Okay, so your firm has a Marketing Department composed of “media savvy” individuals who know what to do and what to say or a group of marketing consultants who are “off site.” That’s great! But what happens if the media discovers the direct telephone number of one of your company’s high-ranking officers or that of an employee and bypasses your Marketing Department or the group of off-site marketing consultants you have hired to “run interference” and contacts one of your employees or a high-ranking officer directly? How will they respond? The creation of a “public relations boot camp” will ensure that “what ifs” don’t’ become your company’s worst nightmare.Does this sound a little far-fetched? Well, picture the following hypothetical scenario.You are a partner in an international law firm that you created and have just returned to the office after spending ten grueling hours successfully negotiating a multi-billion dollar, “headline-grabbing” merger deal between an American multinational corporation and a multinational corporation domiciled in Brussels, Belgium. Due to the transaction’s precedent-setting complexities, the eyes of the international business community and the media are on your client and your law firm. Your client, your law firm’s Management Committee, Client Development Committee and your firm’s off-site marketing consultants have given you the “green light” to respond to media inquiries about the deal that you have helped to finalize – a deal which, when publicized, will put you, your law firm and your client in the spotlight. You glance at your watch. It’s eight o’clock in the evening as you sift through a pile of messages lying on your desk. You discover that you were contacted earlier in the day directly by the the Managing Editor at The American Lawyer; a senior producer at CNN’s Moneyline; a Senior Editor at The Financial Times of London; and a reporter from The Wall Street Journal. None of these folks are in their offices at this hour and you can only hope that when you return their calls during the early morning hours of the next business day that they will not regard what you have to say as “old news.” Although your Assistant dutifully recorded the messages and left them for you, she did not – through no fault of her own -- perceive the implicit urgency of these messages. Thus, she did not try to reach you by telephone, e-mail or fax to immediately inform you of the media inquiries.So, could a “public relations boot camp” have prevented a scenario such as the one described above from happening?Yes!How?Had a “public relations marketing boot camp” been conducted at the hypothetical attorney’s law firm, the hypothetical lawyer would have been immediately informed by his Assistant that the media needed to speak with him. As a result, the hypothetical attorney could and would have responded immediately to the media inquiries.So, what are some of the guidelines that a “public relations boot camp” should impart to a company’s employees?Here are a few:- Employees, other than specifically designated members of a company’s senior management group or a specifically designated member of a company’s Marketing Department, should be prohibited from expressing opinions or making statements of any kind to the media.- Media inquiries should be forwarded on an “as-soon-as-possible” basis to the individual to whom the media wishes to speak with – whether the individual in question is “on site” or out of the office. If the individual in question is out of the office, since most individuals travel with cell phones, palm pilots and/or lap top computers, he or she should be notified of the media inquiries through cell phones and e-mails. The message concerning the media inquiry should also be placed in the individual’s office telephone voice mailbox and should be manually recorded on a message slip. Additionally, the company’s Marketing Department or off-site marketing consultants should also be made aware of the media inquiry and advised as to (a) the steps that have been taken to reach the individual in question; and (b) whether the individual in question has, in fact, received the message. This will prevent media inquiries from “falling through the cracks”. It will also create a situation where everyone is “on the same page”.- Inquiries from the media should be treated with the same level of urgency, courtesy and professionalism that a company’s clients enjoy.- When speaking with news producers, reporters and editors, every attempt should be made to ascertain the news producers’/ reporters’/editors’ deadline (i.e.: the date and time at which will they need to receive the information that they requested). One can simply ask, “What is your deadline?” Normally, news producers, editors, and reporters will advise you of their deadlines. But when this does not happen, the question needs to be asked. In most cases, news producers/reporters/editors after stating why they want to speak to an individual and after identifying the subject matter about which they wish to speak to the individual, will also ask to have the individual’s bio and/or photo sent to them. Here again, if this does not happen, the question needs to be asked, along with asking for a street/mailing address, fax number and an e-mail address for the purpose of distributing the individual’s bio and/or photo to the editor/reporter/news producer. This information should also be included in the message that is forwarded to the individual and to the company’s Marketing Department or off-site marketing consultants.- As soon as a company becomes aware of the fact that a current or future event or situation may draw media attention, the company should alert its employees in writing as to how media inquiries should be handled and what the employees can and cannot say to the media.* * *
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