A Four Step Process For Success
Phase One: Assessment
Investigate, assess and report on media risks and opportunities.
Phase Two: Story Development
Identify the “good” stories. Build compelling narratives that resonate with the public.
Phase Three: Training
Prepare the relevant spokespersons to face reporters.
Phase Four: Placement
Place the stories in a variety of media.
Phase One: Assessment
Working with you and your staff, and under the protection of a non-disclosure agreement at your option, we visit your organization and begin an in-house fact-finding mission.
- We do more than Google your company’s name and read the materials you provide us. We believe there is no substitute for boots-on-the-ground. We survey your operations, speak with your decision-makers and engage lower-level personnel, from the front desk to the shop floor to the back office. This is where we start to gather the raw data with which to construct the positive stories.
- We follow up this initial stage with a thorough investigation. We do independent research, using legal, time-tested means to probe these emerging narratives for potential problem areas and weaknesses. We specialize in the lost art of the phone call, asking questions of our own sources and following the information trail where it leads.
- We will NOT go through your company’s internal records or emails, unless you ask us to. Nor will we speak to anyone in or connected with your organization without your knowledge and consent.
- What we WILL do is look for documents and filings on the public record. We typically talk to people in your industry. We may compile survey rankings to determine how your organization compares with its peers. We “connect the dots” in the way a good journalistic team would so that the positive stories, once fully constructed in Phase Three, have also been fire tested.
- We typically visit you a second time and deliver a report on the results of this Assessment phase. At your option, we can e-mail you the report for your private review.
- Often, your organization is not actually surprised by our investigation. Perhaps you thought that no one else knew, could learn or that the findings could be damaging to your company’s reputation.
- Perhaps you had concluded the information was “old news” and a new set of eyes would see nothing worthwhile in it.
At other times, we uncover a piece of bad news that could cause harm to a reputation, information that is waiting for a blogger or journalist to uncover. Leadership is frequently surprised by how quickly we discovered it. If this is the case, we’ll advise you on the corrective steps we believe you should take to minimize the potential media-related harm.
Phase Two: Story Development
Building on the lessons of Phase One, we pinpoint and flesh out the good stories that are often not obvious to an organization’s communicators.
- Following the Assessment phase, you will undoubtedly offer feedback and guidance. We welcome your input! It helps us make better sense of the material we’ve accumulated to enable us, working together with you, to determine what is truly newsworthy and consider how to begin positioning the placement of the story.
- Together with our extensive resources in the branding community, we can help you create an identity campaign that reflects the positive attributes we’ve helped uncover. Sometimes, these are attributes you already knew about, but lacked the compelling narratives to communicate them.
- We deliver another formal report to you, in person or electronically, that summarizes the stories we have identified and briefly describe how we see them being told.
With your feedback, guidance and assistance, we begin the nuts and bolts development of those stories so that they are ready for media, whether traditional or online, paid or unpaid. This may involve the creation and execution of a campaign that dovetails with your existing advertising and public relations initiatives but it can also be designed as a stand-alone. It places an equal emphasis on traditional and online media.
Phase Three: Training
We develop and execute a plan to prepare the relevant spokespersons to deliver these stories to a variety of news outlets, show them how to create dynamic presentations and media agendas within a compressed time-frame and teach them to handle a variety of questions from reporters, bloggers and other interested parties.
- Media training: Good reporters aren’t just looking for someone to answer yes or no, fill in the blanks in a story or simply reconfirm their preexisting mindset. They are looking for a narrative. They look for the unexpected. They hunger for information that surprises them, intrigues them, moves them. They are also looking for information to be delivered in a quotable way, for print, the Internet or broadcast, in a clear concise manner, eliminating complexity for an audience that may not be totally focused. We teach your spokespersons how to master these basic skills which allow your story to resonate with the audience.
- Presentation training: The ideal presentation style can be compared to the workings of a handmade watch, all gears should work together with precision. The gears should mesh in the background so the audience can focus on content and not be distracted by the presenter. Our approach is not trendy: it draws on both classic narrative structure and the tried and true storytelling techniques of network television.
We help the presenter become comfortable with the material so it can be delivered in a memorable way that is quotable and has impact. We insure key messages are woven through the presentation and that when the audience has heard the presentation the messages are remembered.
Phase Four: Placement
Our team has a proven record of helping to ensure that your stories appear where they can benefit you the most. We’ve placed stories on CNN, CNBC, FOX and major market stations including WABC-TV in New York. We understand how to place the stories before a variety of your external and internal key audiences so the buzz resonates. We are not publicists; we are career journalists. This is how we uniquely augment the important work of your public relations team, marketing organization or branding firm.
Our high-level contacts in the news industry are broad and deep. Not only do we speak the language of influential editors, reporters and bloggers, we know how to help shape the stories for them because we’ve been there fielding those calls ourselves.
Media placement with a difference: We are so confident of our placement abilities that the majority of our fee structure is based on the actual successful placement of your story. This minimizes your downside risk and gives us an incentive to work even harder for you.