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Clients — They excite, frustrate and then sometimes, without warning, inspire!

Mar

One of our clients, The Anita Borg Institute (ABI), recently announced its founding member status of the newly-launched, Lean In.org, a group founded by Sheryl Sandberg to encourage women to lean in to their careers and ambitions.

As I learn more about The Anita Borg Institute and what they do for women and companies looking to support women in tech, I can’t help but think of my own career path and the benefits I would have had had I worked for employers who had offered training for my career. I don’t think I’ve ever worked with a client – and I’ve worked with hundreds, where I could put myself at the center of the debate, cause or issue. Now, I can. It’s eye opening to hear the real stories of women who have reached the pinnacle of their careers in technology – women at the highest ranks at IBM, Microsoft and Sheryl Sandberg of Facebook, and to learn about their fears and self doubts. Yes, fears. How come I didn’t think they had any? Well, as it turns out, they did. They just made a conscious choice to lean into those fears vs. lean away from them. I guess it paid off.

I’ve always felt that I have “leaned in” to my opportunities in various activities, in college, graduate school and throughout my rewarding communications career. It still had me scratching my head though wondering — have I leaned in enough? If I were to be honest with myself, however, I’d have to say that there were times when I’ve leaned in, then leaned out and then leaned in again. That’s a lot of leaning, and it makes me dizzy just thinking about it!

Regardless, I was always “driving” during these leaning in/leaning out phases just lightening up on the pedal from time to time. I like to think this approach was less about being a woman professional and more about being a human being. Certain life events — both work and non-work related — just call for a certain amount of action, intensity and focus.

This whole Lean In initiative is very interesting. Based on Sandberg’s book about this issue, her mantra is simply that women themselves limit their own opportunities vs. embracing them due to fear and concern over the future when juggling work and family becomes a reality. To avoid too much angst even before that time comes, women simply check out/lean out. To a certain extent, women are mad about this, saying that in many industries, including tech, the work environment is simply not conducive to the demands of work and family. Sandberg is saying that the answer is not to lean away from opportunities because of this, but to fight for what women need in the workplace to better balance the demands and, go for it vs. stopping. While not an easy task, it’s a task worth fighting for and everyone benefits. It was refreshing to see Cisco’s John Chambers come out in support of finding a better work environment for women helping them embrace tech careers.

What I find most inspiring in this entire debate and through many examples is the notion that successful women win because they found a way to succeed on their own terms vs. on others’ terms. The Anita Borg Institute is a proponent of this as well. Sheryl Sandberg even talked about how she had to assert herself in the boardroom to be heard. While she had to do this, I suspect she did it in her own way vs. the way her male colleagues would have approached this. And whether fearful or fearless, she had to find a way to just do it.

This is where I get inspiration. If we feel there is one way or a “best way” at going after something, then we might tend to lean away. If it’s already been done in a successful way, how can we compete? And who wants to copy that anyway?

Thus, leaning in for me means finding my own way and then not looking back. And while still not perfect in this pursuit, whether tested in life or work, this path would seem the shortest path to true success.

Loving Stamped Aluminum in Fremont, CA

Mar

Hard core car guys are a different breed. They’re like hard core sports fans. They know the details, the numbers, the performance figures. They know which years certain things happened or were done. They remember the big things, like whether the 1969 MGB had chrome or rubber bumpers and what year Mickey Mantle broke into Major League Baseball. And, they can tell you when someone like Buster Posey (a catcher) last won the MVP in the National League.

They also remember the little things. Like in the 2002 World Series, Game 5 in Anaheim, Calif., the Giants vs. the wild-card Angels, what Giants player pulled 3-year-old batboy Darren Baker out of the batter’s box to save his hide from an oncoming Giants base runner?

Okay, I do know – all too well – that it was JT Snow who yanked toddler Darren out of harm’s way! And, though I’m not hard core into cars or sports, I do love cars. Okay, I do also love the San Francisco Giants, the NY Yankees, the Ohio State Buckeyes, and increasingly the Golden State Warriors. The Niners are creeping up on me, too. The Sharks, not so much. But, I’m losing the thread here!

My affinity for cars doesn’t run deep. It’s fickle and promiscuous. It swings wildly from old cars to new ones. My first serious car crush was with a turquoise Ford Gallaxie 500 LX, vintage 1967 (best I can remember; see I’m not hard core). It was a two-door automatic with bucket seats, a T-shift on the console up front, and an engine and a hood the size of my current living room. It was a car I had to share with my mom. Sharing the car with your mom was not cool. As cool as Joycie was (she introduced me to Miles Davis in 1970), and as much as all my friends loved her, sharing a car with Mom was not cool!

I loved that car. But that old Ford was at least a galaxy or two away from the Tesla Model S that I drove out of its Fremont factory a week or two ago! Yes, I drove a brand new Telsa Model S out of the factory and into the bright light of North America for the first time ever. It was glorious!

With all due respective to John Broder and The New York Times, get real! This car rocks and will go down as one of the most memorable American made automobiles of all time. An overstatement by a non-hard core car guy? Possibly. But name a car that would unseat it? It doesn’t exist.

My friend Mark Frappier bought one and asked if I’d like to accompany him and his wife, Suzanne, and a mutual friend, Steve Baldwin, on a tour of the Tesla manufacturing facility and orientation to his new Model S, and the ride home to San Mateo from the factory in Fremont. Are you kidding me? I’m totally in!

Here’s what I learned:

- The factory is so cool! Old Detroit meets 21st Century manufacturing robotics and hand-finished final assembly in 5.5 million square feet of pure dream, inspiration, and Elon Musk vision. Hallelujah!

- Its history is epic! It started nearly three decades ago with similar aspirations: remake the auto industry. An innovative and novel joint venture between GM and Toyota called New United Motor Manufacturing, Inc. – NUMMI, in short. It open in 1984 and closed in 2011. Enter Telsa.

- The car is nuts! All aluminum and steel stamped out in various pieces with numerous other components added along the way collectively by about 1,500 people (about half of Telsa’s employees work at this facility) with it all coming together into a sleak, state-of-the-art, 4,600-pound sedan.

- The manufacturing process is mind numbing! I already noted the scale of things – 5.5 million square feet! But check this out: the place houses the largest hydraulic press in the US. It stands four stories above ground and three below. Tesla disassembled it in Detroit and transported it to Silicon Valley where it was reassembled in Fremont. While it’s the biggest press there and the only hydraulic one, the place has three other monstrous mechanical presses, too!

- It’s stated production? 400 cars per week with a publically stated goal of shipping 20k cars in 2013. And, the company recently said it would turn its first profit in Q1 2013. Wow!

Now, let’s get back to driving this car. My friend Mark, due to a nutty scratched eye, unfortunately, could not drive that day and asked if I could drive him and his car home. Are you kidding me? How about we head back to San Mateo via LA!

Like I said previously, I love cars but I’m not hard core car guy. I drive a Chevy Volt. I drive it for one reason — it gets me legally into the carpool lane on highway 101 up and down Silicon Valley. It’s an awesome car, and I should wax on more about it, but it’s no Tesla Model S.

Unlike John Broder, my experience with the Model S was flawless. It was incredibly quiet, smooth, responsive, and flat out fast. I told Mark that this car is trouble! It accelerates so quickly and smoothly, you’ll go way too fast all the time. Granted, driving from Fremont, up Interstate 880 to the San Mateo Bridge and across its roughly seven-mile span to the heart of the San Francisco Bay Area Peninsula on a crystal blue sky day in February is very different than a trek up the East Coast during a severe cold snap. Guess that’s why I live here, not there!

Conclusion: Tesla rocks, and the Model S kicks serious ass. Viva la Tesla Model S….and the Chevy Volt! (More on that one later).

PR is Not [Always] the Answer

Jan

I read a great post today called Our PR Stinks from Susanna Gebauer. She is one of the founders of the social publishing and content marketing platform, exploreB2B. Susanna gives a great, succinct case study of how their B2B company looked to PR to get them customers and site traffic. What her company found was that PR was not the answer for them, but content marketing really hit it out of the ball park (not a huge surprise considering what her company does, but still a good piece). What I’ve noticed over 20 years in this industry is that companies are fickle when it comes to their marketing strategy. When they hear about a company doing their own PR and getting

Image found on Google Image search

thousands of customers, they believe they too can go it alone. When they see their competitor on the cover of a hot magazine, they believe they should be there too. When they read a post like Susanna’s about how PR failed them and content marketing won the day, they believe content marketing would work for them as well.

The truth is – none of this is a sure thing. PR, just like content marketing, direct marketing, social media marketing, tradeshows and advertising, is one piece of a much larger marketing strategy. You need to know where your customers are and how they make their decisions. You need to understand how they want to engage with you. You need to understand how investors, prospective employees and partners will judge you to determine is what marketing mix is right for you. If PR is part of that mix, and it usually is a piece, you also need to assess whether you really have the goods to get great, sustained coverage – not every company does.

Here are some ways to judge whether a focused media strategy is right for your B2B company:

Do you have a pipeline of interesting news over the next 12 months that will get you and keep you in front of media?
Do you have multiple customers using your products or service that are willing to talk?
Do you have execs with in depth and unique knowledge about a subject, and are they willing to put in time to speak with media or write their own articles or speak?
Can your execs speak on trends and issues in your industry or business at large versus just speaking about what makes your product great?
Will reporters see this as truly unique and understandable?
Are your target audiences likely to see and be influenced by your coverage?

For many companies the answers to these questions are yes, but for many others, only one or two of these questions can be answered in the affirmative. For those companies, media is only one outlet for getting the attention of customers and other audiences. If you work with a partner, look for one that doesn’t believe there is one main way to reach those audiences. For almost every company, you need a multi-pronged strategy to get the job done and it will shift and evolve over time.

That said, I do believe that we are shifting to a more content-centric marketing world, and media coverage, by and large does not have the same influence it once did, mainly because of more direct avenues like social and content marketing which have come into play. But, for any marketing strategy to be successful, a company must invest the time and appropriate resources. There is no marketing strategy that can be successful without a commitment from the company. So, if you think your PR sucks too, step back and consider your goals and whether PR was the right way to get there in the first place.

A Few PR Disasters of 2012

Dec

While politicians have been stealing the show this year with disaster after disaster when it comes to PR, tech companies are not immune. We had our own far share of PR crises in 2012, some that made the evening news and others which enjoyed a brief 15 minutes of fame online. As the year, draws to a close, here is a look back at some of the more memorable ones and some tips on what could have been done to avoid them.

John McAfee

The eponymous McAfee is currently on the run in Belize after being sought by police for questioning in a murder. While he is no longer associated with the company bearing his name, the brand undoubtedly suffers from his misadventures. The company’s stance is to not comment on former employees, which puts them in the position to just wait it out. Not a great position for a company, but there really isn’t any other solution. My only advice, if your company is named after a founder that has, for many years, been embroiled in problems that make the nightly news, maybe it’s time to drop the name.

Hot Mic at Yahoo! News

The Washington bureau chief of Yahoo! News David Chalian was overheard on a recording talking about the decision by Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney and the RNC to proceed with convention in Tampa under the threat of Hurricane Isaac. His quote, “They are happy to have a party with black

people drowning,” earned him a quick trip to the unemployment office. Any news person should know better to be careful of what they say when mics are around. It’s equally as obvious that anything smacking of racism generally doesn’t help your career. Leave inappropriate jokes out of your professional life.

Automating Social

Social media use continues to sting people and companies that are not careful in their use of it. It is probably inevitable that most companies will have a snafu when it comes to social. Most mistakes will come from the administration of it rather than the messages sent. While we are getting used to stories on someone sending a personal tweet from a corporate account, this year, automating messages and other communications have resulted in some very public #fails.

Progressive Insurance set up automatic replies on Twitter in response to bad news reports about a refusal to pay benefits. When seen as one long list on a Twitter feed, the company’s claims of saying “our sympathies go out to…

Expectations Met

Nov

From Lisa Kelaita – Principal, New Venture Communications

While its nice not to have expectations – so you don’t get disappointed – it’s hard to live by this rule. After all, expectations are what often get us out of bed in the mornings – expectations of getting results for clients, winning a great new client, connecting with family and friends, a fun meal, a good hair day.

Often times, reality throws a wet blanket on expectations. There are times, however, when my expectations were very high and were exceeded, like the first time I went to Hawaii and realized that the scenery was as beautiful as it is in pictures, or my first Bruce Springsteen concert where The Boss performed until past midnight, or more recently, when I bought my first Mac computer which I love.

My high expectations were once again met last week when I attended the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) Stratcomm meeting in New York. The NVCA is an association representing venture capital firms throughout the country. The meeting I attended is made up of communications professionals within VC firms. I represented Grotech Ventures, one of our clients. The meeting and discussions did not disappoint.

The meeting was held at Bloomberg’s headquarters on Lexington Avenue high above the streets of NY. The agenda was packed full with great panel discussions and speakers ranging from staff members at Google talking about what Google+ is and is not, and a thoughtful branding seminar featuring the groups’ opinions on how VC is perceived today and how, ideally, we’d like the industry to be perceived.

Twice a year, the NVCA Stratcomm group hosts these Stratcomm meetings. They always, without fail, put together a great agenda and venue. The information is fresh and current, and tackles tough issues facing venture capital. While VC may seem glamorous and at times un-effected by the broader social, political, and economic issues facing our country and the world, it’s not. The industry has changed, morphed and while there is always a bright light in VC, it dims regularly with economic, political, and regulatory changes. The NVCA addresses these changes and issues very well. While I didn’t expect anything less from this New York event, my expectations were not only met, but were exceeded. I’ll share more insights on Bloomberg in a separate blog.

Bravo NVCA and Bloomberg for hosting a great meeting.

Biggest Waste of a Marketing Budget – Pt 3

Oct

We often give clients advice on how to stretch their marketing dollars because frankly a number of common activities can be big budget wasters. In this series of blogs, I have explored a few of them. These wont apply to every company, but the main point is, question everything you spend money on. Ask yourself what you are getting for the spend and find ways to maximize every dollar.

WIRE SERVICES

With apologies to the wire services, I see this as an area for a lot of potential waste. We used to use a wire service because you really had no other way to reach most media. That is clearly no longer the case. Some companies, like Google, simply do blog posts for their releases. Now, we all aren’t Google, and we sometimes need help getting attention.

However, in the B2B tech space, especially for small to mid-size companies, the cost of the wire service IMHO can often exceed its value. Consider this – we have a very limited group of media to hit and they aren’t watching wire services for news. They expect it to be personally delivered, ideally a few days early, to their inbox, and if you can make it an exclusive, all the better.

A release of about 800 words (about 2 pages) can cost around $1000 for national distribution. If you send out 8-10 of those a year this becomes a fairly major line item on your budget. There are some flat fee release services (~$300) that have come into play and at least the release gets out there for SEO that way.

Fundamentally, if you have a PR person, they are sending that release personally to media which results in original stories being written and strengthened relationships with media. With a wire service, you get some pickups of the release, but that has little value beyond SEO. SEO might be the goal for some companies especially younger ones who need to get hits to their site, but for many programs that is not the ultimate goal of a press release and could be a waste of those precious marketing dollars.

I suggest only using a wire service for major business-oriented releases (i.e. funding, M&A, new CEO, etc.) and consider the more personal approach of sending directly to media for product announcements and personnel releases.

For companies that want to continue using wire services for every announcement, consider seeing if the service has a volume discount, which several do. Also, shop around. The prices and extras vary widely. For one client, I found a good deal to distribute a release in Spanish which included translation. This supplemented our ability to reach those media and complimented work being done by a Spanish-speaking partner on our behalf.

A note on public companies who feel obligated to do wire releases. There are rulings on the books that say that putting a release on your website can constitute public disclosure in many cases.

Consider this, in the 20 years I’ve been doing PR, budgets in the B2B tech space have not increased substantially if at all. We have essentially the same budgets we did two decades ago, but we are now responsible for both web and social which didn’t exist then. Wire services then were still expensive but they have steadily risen in recent years even as they are getting competition from flat rate and free services and do it yourself options on social. We have no choice but to do more with less, and wire services frankly are a big cost that can be decreased substantially without harming your goals.

Biggest Waste of a Marketing Budget – Part 2

Oct

We often give clients advice on how to stretch their marketing dollars because frankly a number of common activities can be big budget wasters. These wont apply to every company, but the main point is, question everything you spend money on. Ask yourself what you are getting for what you spend and find ways to maximize every dollar. If you feel obligated to execute an activity, its probably a good one to question.

TRADESHOWS

Okay, I admit it – I’m not a big fan of tradeshows. They are loud, companies usually feel unsatisfied, and they make my feet hurt. Companies often think of a show in terms of the cost of the booth space, but its much more. At one job, people often came to me and said, I think we should be at this show, it only costs $500 to exhibit. I would tell them I would look into it and then I would go back with a spreadsheet that showed we spent a minimum of $10,000 for every show when all was said and done. That included signage, booth construction, travel, materials, etc.

Before signing up for a show, ask yourself what your goal is and work from there. Is it customers – then make sure your potential or existing customers will be there. Make appointments before the show. I think if a salesperson doesn’t have about 50% of their schedule prebooked at a show, they will not achieve a lot of results. B2B sales are rarely made by random people walking into your booth.

If your goal is media attention, ask yourself what you have to show them. Is it new, are 100 other companies also announcing things there? Do you have what it takes to get their attention in a noisy venue and can you commit executive resources to meeting with them?

Can you accomplish something else while you are there? Is this a chance to meet with partners or get customer testimonials on video?

And finally, is there a better way to accomplish the same goals for less budget? Good questions to ask as always.

Biggest Waste of Marketing Budget – Part 1

Sep

We often give clients advice on how to stretch their marketing dollars because frankly a number of common activities can be big budget wasters. In the next several blogs, I will explore a few of them. These wont apply to every company, but the main point is, question everything you spend money on. Ask yourself what you are getting for the spend and find ways to maximize every dollar.

SPONSORSHIPS

Sponsorships are largely about brand recognition so if that is what you need go for it. But, a low end sponsorship rarely gets you that much recognition. Picture your logo on a bag with seven other logos or on a sign with 30 other logos – what is that buying you in the end? Unless you can afford to do a highly visible sponsorship where you really own the show, a lot of sponsorships are just a waste.

Think to sponsor something related to your company (sponsor the wireless at a show if you are in the wireless biz, or sponsor a panel that your CEO speaks on). You could do better to spend the money on some guerrilla marketing that is much more creative and gets more attention.

One client I worked with sponsored a cocktail event. They made sure they had a lot of sales people covering the party and they really worked the room. That was worth it because they made sure they derived value from it. Otherwise, it would have just been their name on a sign.

Another client sponsored a 15 minute speaking spot that ran between sessions at a major industry event. They would have preferred to be on a regular panel, but the show didn’t take vendors. So, this was one of the few options open to them. They made it a creative topic that was less about them and more about invigorating the audience and made some good contacts. It wasn’t ideal but it helped meet many of their goals all the same.

Ideally a sponsorship or even a giveaway should be highly targeted. The idea is to get in front of your key audience. One client, very creatively, wrapped a truck with images from their app and drove it around the outdoor areas of a major industry event. It was less than sponsoring at the official show and hit the crowd the way they wanted.

Bottom line – don’t feel compelled to sponsor if you can’t clearly state the value. Get creative with other methods of reaching your goals.

The Lessons of Messaging

Aug

As a young PR professional, I learn something new on the job every day.
Recently I have been doing a good deal of research for one of New Venture’s clients, looking into their competitors’ messaging strategies and writing up reports based on my findings. While the research was important to our client and their strategy going forward, it was also a great tool for me to learn more about what goes into successful messaging and where others typically fall flat.

Visuals
The design and images on a website make up the viewer’s immediate first impression of a company. Images should communicate who the company is and what it does just as much as the copy on any page. Images that are large, colorful, and contain some kind of action speak volumes. When the design of the website is carried across the company’s other marketing materials (such as brochures and case studies), that is the sign of a well-rounded messaging campaign. It’s a beautiful thing.

Copy
On a corporate website, copy serves a double purpose: delivering information to the viewer and giving the company a voice. Companies should never bury the lead. Think first of who is being served, what problems they have, and how the company delivers solutions. The copy should be short and to the point, and just like the images on the website, copy should have action.

Cohesion
Most importantly, the visuals and the copy should marry together to form the whole package. They should tell the story equally and together. White space is a killer, but a great balance of design and copy completes the corporate message in a way that pure design or straight copy could not.

These are just a few of the lessons I learned while doing research for one of New Venture’s clients. While the result of a research project is informative for the client, the process of gathering that information is an educational opportunity for the researcher. To all you other young PR pros, don’t shy away from big projects like these. I look forward to applying my new knowledge as we move forward with our client’s messaging plan.

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