trendSpotting Report
Matthew Rafalow

I used to think that public relations was a scam. I’m just being honest, here. I’m willing to bet that many of my friends still think that PR is basically smoke and mirrors.

Who can blame us? There are a lot of stereotypes regarding PR professionals, and most of them aren’t flattering. When people think about our industry they think: confident, ruthless, attention-getter, relentless, name-dropper, more like that. The general public likely imagines the Samantha type, a totally connected high-power vixen in Sex & the City or the Ari, a ruthless, fast talking mega-agent from Entourage who will go to any length to promote a client. While they are caricatures of PR, no doubt, their characteristics seem to resonate with the public.

In reality, parts of this stereotype—confidence, knowledge of themselves—make for great public relations professionals. Being new to the biz, I’m learning that regardless of what type of PR person you are, in order to succeed you got to strive to be genuine.

I remember my first hang-up as I started my career. The phone was pressed to my face and I was talking…but it felt like my own words weren’t making sense. I was nervously reading from a pitch I had written after being overwhelmed by coaching from my knowledgeable colleagues. The reporter on the other end stopped me mid-sentence with a thundering SLAM. It was dreadful. But you know what? In retrospect, I would have done the same thing.

As clichéd as it is to recommend that you be yourself, be yourself. You and your clients benefit. Being authentic involves doing research and practicing the delivery—making sure you got it down. In order to do that you have to know who you are, then your clients or company being represented, followed by a keen knowledge of the reporters you talk to and the kinds of stories they’ve been reporting. When you’ve done whatever you can to prepare for legitimate communication, you’ve morphed from a purely average PR man to one who is capable of stellar and sincere communications. You are then capable of establishing a real connection.

The problem with an average salesperson is that they sound like a broken record that repeats the same words a zillion times; to be monotonous in this quickly-paced world leads to failure. Energy is everything. The successful professionals I know are constantly reading the news (every type of media), catching up on blogs, watching TV news, listening to the radio, paying attention on the street, and keeping an eye out for new trends any way they can. When they talk with clients or have conversations with reporters, you can tell that they are all speaking to the same passions. Clients and reporters know it too.

Bottom line: When you meet a “Samantha” or an “Ari” at a party, you will recognize in them a super successful public relations worker who is not as shark-y as you think. They do their research, they do the hard work, and they are real.

That’s the truth.

“Let’s Hug It Out Bitch” Rafalow is an RLM Account Executive who says Veritas et Eruditio.