Better PR Now with Mark Phillips Mark Russell Phillips

Fred Wellman is the founder of ScoutComms, a niche agency in Fredericksburg, Virginia. He specializes in public relations and marketing efforts in support of corporations and nonprofits focused on veteran and military family support, as well as veteran-owned and focused businesses.  In this episode, he explains why he started his own PR agency that focuses n service and why running a B Corp (a mission-driven benefit corporation) can create a competitive edge in attracting top quality clients and employees. He also explains the importance of serving pro bono clients and why we should hire against our weaknesses. As the hardest working man in public relations, Fred Wellman is the James Brown of PR.
As the hardest working man in public relations, Fred Wellman is the James Brown of PR. A graduate of West Point and the Harvard Kennedy School of Government, he ran for mayor in Georgia, served as an Army Scout and Blackhawk helicopter pilot in Iraq, worked for Generals David Petraeus and Martin Dempsey (later Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff). General Petraeus selected him to become an Army public affairs officer.

Fred started his own agency at the bottom of the last recession.  He found a niche that focuses on veterans’ issues.  His business, ScoutComms, is based on one simple idea: There are very few veterans in the agency world, so ScoutComms would serve as the expert in that niche for larger PR agencies initially and, eventually, for corporate clients directly.

There is a bias against hiring senior practitioners who have not previously worked in agencies.  This seems to be based on the assumption that it’s difficult or impossible to learn how to manage client relationships and develop new business.  This bias precludes hiring talented communication professionals with deep experience, rich insight, and a robust network in a particular sector.

It is important to integrate all communications (PR, marketing, internal, executive, digital, etc.) across an organization.

Know your clients.  Bring on experts who know the client’s business, culture, sensitivities, language, and how they communicate.

It’s important to know how your organization is different. What is your competitive advantage or secret sauce?  

Forming a B Corp can cost more money, but also can be a good fit if your business is founded on more than making money.  Much of ScoutComms’ business is in corporate social responsibility, so having an organizational framework that reinforces that social good creates a strategic, competitive advantage.  The B Corp certification process can serve as a coaching tool. 

Fred refers to his former employees as “graduates” and he is very proud of what they have gone on to do. One runs a USO center in North Carolina, one is running an environmental organization in northern Virginia, and one works for Dr. Jill Biden.
 

Curtis Sparrer, principal at Bospar PR in San Francisco, shares terrific insights on why celebrity interviews are like a high-performance sport. He also explains how to set up really successful media engagements, tips on working with celebrities (he's done award-winning work with George Takei of Star Trek fame), and how to grow trust-based relationships with clients.
Working with a celebrity or CEO on successful media engagements:


Consider what they can and can’t talk about; do a deep dive with them and their management team about those issues before any media interviews. Before an interview, clarify with the journalist what questions will be asked; ask for a written Q&A beforehand; be clear about ground rules; let them know what you want to focus on. Be clear about anything you’d like the journalist to include in the story. Send a follow-up note with thanks and a reminder of the key point(s) you’d like to have included in the story. If your key message isn’t included in the final version of the story, contact the journalist to politely ask that the message be included in that or a future story. Crafting the message:  First, ask celebrities what they are planning to say. Repeat the message: Working it into every interview in several ways helps ensure that key messages are included in the final article.  Use pep talks with spokespeople to help keep them on message and excited to keep delivering the messages. Why celebrity interviews are like a high-performance sport: For media tours, consider how many engagements is enough versus what is too many.  For a celebrity, after about five interviews, you often have diminishing returns as they get tired. Manage the message and the energy in interviews: For longer interviews or media tours, include refreshments to get their sugar levels/energy up so they can perform. Avoid including dairy products to keep the voice clear. Include long energy foods that won’t lead to a sugar crash; fruits like bananas are great. Check with the talent’s management or agent to information on what they prefer. Media training: Use recorded media simulations to prepare senior leaders or other spokespeople for their on-camera interviews. Give criticism in private to help them learn and develop their skills without needing to save face in front of their staff. Arrive early to media interviews to give them a chance to get a feel for how the show is flowing. Ask production assistants if they have a copy of the script, because it might have a copy of the questions. Make sure your clients read the news on the day of their interview and give them a run-down on that day’s news in their sector, because they could be asked their opinion on breaking news.  This keeps them from being caught off guard. Newsjacking: Pay attention to the news for opportunities to give your perspective on breaking stories.  Local news producers are always looking to localize (find the local angle) national or international stories to make them relevant to their local audience. When a story breaks, journalists are trying to figure out what will happen in the future, what people can expect in the next X days. To get coverage that matters to your client’s business, have the CEO give a three-sentence statement, including what this news event means, what people can expect in the future, and why we are an expert to talk about this. The importance of speed when responding to media: Don’t perfect a statement to death; perfect is the enemy of the good. A good-enough statement on time is far more valuable than a perfect statement that is too late. Personal branding and networking for PR professionals: Share with your boss what your professional priorities are; helps build your reputation with your coworkers and leadership. On LinkedIn, talk about your core values and why they are important to you; make sure you also live those core values. Don’t depend on building your brand on only one social platf

Josh Elledge built and runs two very successful businesses:  Savings Angel and Up My Influence. He generated more than $6 million dollars in publicity, essentially for free. Josh shares with us how he did it and he lays out the steps we can take right now to build our authority and promote our own businesses in the same way.

Authority Marketing is Michael Greenberg's secret sauce for positioning people and brands. It is the act of positioning someone as an expert in order to bring in more business. As founder and chief strategist at Call for Content, Michael shares his uniquely powerful method of building authority through content and leveraging that for B2B marketing. He also provides a free link to download his Authority Marketing Playbook. Michael's word of wisdom: "Start creating content; just do it."

Amy Sutton, founder of Enjoy PR, takes us on her journey from law to PR. She shares why diversity is key to powerful Public Relations. We also explore the importance of relationships in PR and communications, and how to set expectations in client-agency relationships.
 
Amy recently published an article on LinkedIn titled “Kill the PR Girl,” in which she challenges the stereotype of “the PR Girl” and why that stereotype hurts both public relations professionals and their agencies, in part because of the reinforcement of glass ceilings. We explore the importance of diversity in public relations planning, specifically how diverse perspectives drive creativity and effective problem-solving.

I'm joined by Jake Eisenberg, president of Reach Digital Group. Jake shares his approach to local marketing and explains how he uses social media to boost lead generation and acquire solid leads. His company specializes in helping local businesses, but his approach works for national brands as well.  
Q: Jake, you're president of the Reach Digital Group. How did you get into this business and why did you choose to start your own agency? 
Originally, I got started with a mixed martial arts blog that I had in 2009, before MMA really took off. This website was gaining a lot of traffic, and I was generating money through ad revenue, and I saw how to bring new traffic in. I started getting familiar with search engine optimization and started thinking to myself, "What are other ways that I can bring this up?" 
As I was going through school, and working, and all these other things, I started working on other projects and I stumbled across doing some e-commerce websites, and I got familiar with doing Google AdWords. That lead to search engine optimization, Google AdWords, Facebook Ads, and running social media calendars. 
I was having great success with these strategies that I was working on and building through time. Some friends or family members started to approach me and say, "Can you give me a website for my business? We liked what you were doing; let's kind of see what you can do for us." 
These strategies were working at a local level and at the national level. Actually, it’s easier at a local level, because there's not as much competition. 
So, I started having success with that and it quickly turned into family members who had businesses, became my testimonials, or my case studies. I was able to then get new business through referral. That's how I got started with it: I tapped my own network, did the work well, and was able to use that to leverage new business. 
Q: What are some of the biggest changes that you've seen since you started that MMA blog in 2009? Technology changes at warp-speed, so in the online marketing space, what have you experienced in terms of changes? 
A lot of the changes I've seen are from the platforms growing. Search engine optimization used to be something where you could just do what they call "keyword stuffing." If you wanted to rank for a certain keyword, you could just put a bunch of that same keyword on a page and you would rank. That's changed, because now there are so many more websites out there. So everyone's doing that, and now you've got to find new techniques, and new ways to do it. 
The same thing with Google AdWords. The pay-per-clicks have gone up a lot, because more people are using those channels. Facebook advertising is still relatively new and it's just gotten even more acknowledgment in the media world, because of everything that's just happened. So, we can still kind of consider the Internet to be new. 
There are a lot of unknown territories and directions that we can go. We're all learning and it's constantly changing and evolving. There's just so much more competition that you've got to come up with new strategies, and the platforms have become a lot more advanced. 
Q: I'd like to explore that a little bit more. For your peers, what should they be focusing on, in terms of skills they need to be honing or new platforms that they need to be becoming more adept at using? 
With how the marketing world is changing, it's a content-first world. You've got to build this customer loyalty. If you're selling a service or a product, you want to provide the information to the potential customer, what it is that you have that leads to it. You can put content out there in the form of video or blog posting, and be able to share that. 
The two top converting platforms right now are still Facebook and Instagram. If you're able to meet your customers at least on those two channels, as well as having a blog to explain what your business is, because that will help bri