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How many times have you rolled your eyes when someone cracked a joke about PR professionals choosing to be writers because they hated numbers?
Staunch “right brainers” who believe their natural leanings may be the emotional language of the customer now must embrace the new imperative to speak the financial language native to the C-suite.
With modern boardrooms often resembling a battleground of ideas and egos, chief executives are in a constant struggle to transform business performance. Look around that same boardroom in the future, and you’ll observe that those who delivered innovation and financial acumen got to keep their seats at the table.
As their organizations’ most visible ambassadors, senior leaders also occupy the most risky positions. It’s no surprise they want to surround themselves with advisers who are wise to the ways of business.
FINANCIAL RIGOR
Is your communications team ready for this challenge? For decades, the PR profession attracted talent armed with diplomas that proved their ability to write well. Now, new professionals are arriving with a wider array of media production knowledge to complement their storytelling skills.
Yet, it’s still not enough.
As communications strategists have evolved into business counselors on reputation management, the stakes have risen higher. If you think you have it tough, consider what’s been happening in the inner chambers of top corporations.
Many senior executives have been sweating out the past few years as the credit crisis and global recession brought mass upheaval among the upper corporate ranks.
The challenging economic environment forced CEOs and CFOs to undergo the rigors of constant reassessments of budgets, forecasts and head counts.
Extreme business conditions have created a demand for leaders with both marketing savvy and financial proficiency.
PREPARING YOUR TEAM
To enhance your communications counsel, you’ll have to adopt a similar view of your client’s or your own business.
While it will still be important to spend time with functional managers whose input on marketing, research and development, talent management, legal matters and other areas provide insight into operations and customers, you’ll need to understand the bigger financial picture. That includes: understanding the company’s or client’s business model; articulating the product or service value proposition and how you can help bring it to life; and developing relationships that extend beyond media and marketing contacts to include prospective clients to contribute to sales growth and partners with accretive business opportunities.
At Gibbs & Soell, this business discipline has been woven into our client service culture.
Recently a team pairing one of our seasoned managers with a younger employee brainstormed ways to help a client achieve its communication goals during economic uncertainty. Spurred by the manager who pressed for details about the client’s longer-term objectives and strategies for sustained growth, the junior staffer considered possible outcomes—from organic growth, a merger or acquisition and geographical expansion, and how the client might communicate these key business activities.
As the result, our team’s nascent thinking in the strategic planning process is more precisely tuned to what the client needs to stay competitive.
While rewiring brains might sound like a bizarre science fiction experiment, there are some immediate steps to take that aren’t so painful:
• Reset your timetables. In the U.S., we tend to mark change in terms of years; in China, they observe time across dynasties. Stretching the possibilities and timetables will also stretch our plans of action.
• Partner with the experts. Enlist the assistance of your peers who are already engaged in this world. Look to colleagues who specialize in investor relations or financial PR, and even your own CFO and accounting team.
• Connect strategy and ROI to business outcomes. Too frequently we see results metrics tied to “impressions,” or “household reach.” Ask yourself what business challenge is your communications effort meant to address. Sales growth? Market share? Better access to capital? This choice will guide your strategy and metrics.
In achieving business fluency, we can drive home one clear message to the C-suite: An investment in PR is an investment in protecting an organization’s most precious asset—its reputation. PRN
[Editor’s Note: Don’t miss PR News’ Dec. 1 How-To Conference in D.C.]
CONTACT:
Luke Lambert is president of Gibbs & Soell Public Relations He can be reached at [email protected].