Public Relations and Communication Consultation

As most of you have noticed I haven’t posted for a while since I came back from vacations. This is due to me trying to get out of the chaos called “Everything I was thinking all summer, I ll tell you to do it now” from some of my clients. Anyway all are great people so they worth it.

Another thing I am occupied with is my Thesis for my university with title: Public Relations and Communication Consultants as carriers and formers of the hotel’ s communication Marketing. (I had to translate it from the Greek title unfortunately). It takes most of my time lately but I am good at multitasking so it goes nicely so far. Only problem is that since I know most of the things I write, I often need to make references to books and sites so people that read it, can locate the information I provide.

As for the over qualification thing… Greece is a strange place to live. I try to make my practice for my University, meaning I need to work at a steady job so I can get my degree. So far so good. Problem is that no one wants to hire me in a Public Relations work because as they say “I am overqualified”. Funny thing is that I didn’t ask from them to pay me more for my experience, neither I asked to be in a special position. Just a normal job in the Public Relations department of the Hotel I apply to. As a side note, the Greek government pays half my salary when I do practice in a Hotel for my university.

Now excuse me dear sirs and ladies of the Hotel business administration in Greece but why so I have to go where all my fellow students go in your hotels? Meaning why do I have to work as a waiter or a receptionist in your hotels and I can’ t work in positions like Marketing and Public Relations when I have the experience?

In Greece the first thing they teach you to do is to not ask and compromise. I believe I am an asset to a company as many of my references and previous clients have to say and I have many things to offer. I didn’t ask them to hire me without me proving what I can do and I am willing to do this in the first month even without payment. Money isn’ t everything for a person that believes in himself and has a lot of things to offer. Public Relations is an art for me not just another job. Let’ s see how the next days go and I ‘ll let you know the results of my search…

Ever noticed how everyone is getting some rest in summer except the people that work in Public Relations? Just before I go to Rhodes Island in Greece for business (and pleasure of course), I wanted to motivate people to go see the new Will Smith movie that is out on the theatres. Hancock is a movie about a “Super-hero” that is a bum and although he does fight for the good he does it in a way that enrages the public.

And who is better for an image make-over other than us the people that work in Public Relations? Exactly, a PR consultant tries to restore his hero status on the public. And since you’ll hate me if I give out spoilers I’ll let you enjoy it by yourself and see the results. (Maybe we should also start calling ourselves “Super-heros” hmm…)

The link to the imdb is this http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0448157 and I liked the movie a lot since it’s funny and shows the power of our profession. I don’t know if I‘ll have time for another entry before the summer is over so everyone have a great summer.

You can find the story here: http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20080714/pl_politico/11719

Although I am not an American (yet) still I can appreciate the fact that New Yorker had the guts to put up a caricature like that in the front page. What could have been a great way for Obama to get attention it worked the other way around for him and his campaign. Although it was right for his publicists to acknowledge it (don’t look surprised many news like that don’t see the light of the day), their reaction was a bit too serious for a caricature like this.
Of course you ‘ll probably say it’s offensive and it doesn’t show the truth, but seriously the ones that react are always perceived as lower value than the ones that cause the source of reaction. If my little sister came over and told me I am stupid would I be upset? Would I make a big deal out of it? I ‘d probably laugh and pat her in the head (risking a hit in the leg from her but oh well…)
I think being over-sensitive will take a toll on campaigns, or in any aspect of publicity. Losing your cool over a cartoon is something you don’ t want to happen when people have their focus on you. The best answer would be in my limited experience to acknowledge it, its not a big deal and just say: “from people that even think of drawing our ancestor’s flag in fire, I wouldn’t expect anything less. Obama and his wife are patriots and they did laugh with the caricature but the flag burning was an insult to our fair country, you can’t make jokes with something so sacred as this.” Just move your head with sadness and end the press release (if there was one in the first place).
I think causing the people’s reactions to move over to patriotism and away from reactions of insult over such a puny thing as a cartoon would have been better. It’s like being insulted for a stand up comedian doing his act in expense of some politician. People are the ones to judge what is too much and what an innocent joke is. But what do I know…?

So say you are in a foreign country, you don’t know anyone and you are lost in the city. There is a person with a suit and a tie carrying a briefcase. There is another person next to you who wears leather clothes with chains and spikes on a bike. And lastly there is another person with a jacket and shorts and a hat looking at the sky. Who would you ask for directions? Based on stereotypes alone, we would most likely and purely unconsciously ask directions from the first person. And this is because either deductively from the others looks the safest person and based on his outfit looks like someone we identify with (or even relate to).

No matter how innocent we are, or how smart we are  people will perceive us on what we look like and what we show. A well respected professor and mentor of mine Dr. Pavlos Pavlidis once told me in class: “In our work what you show is what you are, at least until you are being asked to do the job of the person you show you are and you cant do it”. And he couldn’t be any more right. Based on experience alone most of us make judgments on the people we see in less than 3 seconds. We put them in the stereotype “folder” of our brains. “This person is a CEO, this person is a waiter, this woman is a model” and so on.

So how can you learn all these stuff? How can you learn how to read others before they even open their mouth. In our age that information is so easily accessible, internet is your friend. There are also many books about body language, sociology, psychology etc that you can take hints from. A person that has a will to learn is a person that will be successful in any job and in life in general. But you might come across to a problem in the beginning…  How can you concentrate on your social interactions and discussions when you try to get clues and queues from the people around you? This is also called social pinging. You look a person (ping) and you get a queue from his gestures, voice etc (pong).

Actually that was a problem I also came across and I believe everyone that starts with this (excuse me for the word I ‘ll use) art he or she tends to get overwhelmed with the information you get from social interactions making him look awkwardly out of it. So after a bit reading I discovered on the internet the model of the conscious competence aged and originated from the time of Socrates and Confucius. (http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newISS_96.htm).

Based on this model or matrix as they often call it there are four stages that you need to go through to learn a skill: To make this even better to understand I will copy paste it here so you know the source. I don’t take credit for the explanation of the model that follows:

Level 1 – Unconscious Incompetence
(You Don’t Know that You Don’t Know)
At this level you are blissfully ignorant: You have a complete lack of knowledge and skills in the subject in question. On top of this, you are unaware of this lack of skill, and your confidence may therefore far exceed your abilities.

Level 2 – Conscious Incompetence
(You Know that You Don’t Know)
At this level you find that there are skills you need to learn, and you may be shocked to discover that there are others who are much more competent than you. As you realize that your ability is limited, your confidence drops. You go through an uncomfortable period as you learn these new skills when others are much more competent and successful than you are.

Level 3 – Conscious Competence
(You Know that You Know)
At this level you acquire the new skills and knowledge. You put your learning into practice and you gain confidence in carrying out the tasks or jobs involved. You are aware of your new skills and work on refining them.

You are still concentrating on the performance of these activities, but as you get ever-more practice and experience, these become increasingly automatic.

Level 4 – Unconscious Competence
(You Don’t Know that You Know – It Just Seems Easy!)
At this level your new skills become habits, and you perform the task without conscious effort and with automatic ease. This is the peak of your confidence and ability.

So before you read this blog you were in level 1 of the model. After reading this now you are in level 2 you know you didn’t know about how important  the verbal and non-verbal communication is. Soon after you read some sources about this skill you will be on the third level and finally after some practice you will be on level 4 where you now don’t even need to think about it. Your brain and subconscious gets and processes the social feedback immediately and gives you the results fast.

I hope I interest you enough so you can go now and learn more about this “art” called communication. Because without it we wouldn’t be able to even survive in this world. Till next time… Communicate!

“You never get a second chance for first impressions”

What would you think if I told you that from the things that you want to communicate, the actual words are only 7% of the message you want to send to the person across you.

In this era of communication and free information, we forget that actual speech is something very new to our species. According to many anthropaleontoligists humans appeared 195.000 years ago in Africa. But he started talking in a constructive language like today’s some thousand years ago. But how was he communicating his needs all this time without words?

Dr. Albert Mehrabian in his book “Silent Messages” reports that the communication is based 7% on the actual words we use, 55% from our body language which includes, our posture, our facial expressions, the space that our body takes (territorial dominance), our grooming, our clothes and our gestures. Finally the remaining 38% has to do with our tonality, which constitutes from the depth of our voice, the pauses that we use, the speed that we talk, how calm we are when we do talk and finally the “colour” of our voice.

We all have heard that “our actions speak louder than our words”. This can’t be any closer to the truth. We all have experiences on this part of our lives. One good example is how an interviewer can understand a lot about a candidate from just his handshake. On a loud club we use our body language and gestures to communicate what we say or do. The baby that moves its face left and right communicates that doesnt want to eat anymore. (Studies show that the maternal filter is probably the reason why they are up to 10 times better than men in understanding body language queues).

Many people that learn about body language do the mistake of taking single queues and make whole stories in response to them. For example someone that doesn’ t look at you in the eyes while talking to him is perceived that he is telling a lie. But if he is just looking on the side or behind you because he saw someone that he /she knows then you just made a huge mistake in thinking that the person is lying to you. Now if he had his hand in front of his mouth, had a bad posture and his voice was low while he was looking the other way yes you have valid reasons to believe that he was lying. So don’ t forget every queue is a word. Many queues along with our tonality make up sentences and those are the ones we should learn to observe, so we can figure what his subconscious is telling us about him.

In our job (but also in politics, journalism, sales etc.) to be able to decipher the messages that someone sends subconsciously is one of the greatest skills you can have. But this doesn’t stop there: this is a great skill to have even in your personal life. To be able to read someone before he/she even opens his/her mouth. Women do this in a large part even if they dont realise it when they are choosing men as potential suitors. (This is based on studies from evolutionary psychology and sociology).

All this years there was a language that was being spoken by everyone and you didn’t knew it existed all around you. This is why we tend to make decisions about people based on their clothing or their gestures without even realizing it. And this is because there are stereotypes all around us that are hard wired into our subconscious. to respond to them based on experience.

To be continued…

I get this a lot here in Greece and I don’t know if this is a universal thing. When you tell someone you work in Public Relations either they have no idea what you talking about or they confuse you with the beautiful girls in the clubs that they keep the reservations list. Well I sure ain’t a girl so people often ask me so what do you do?

It’ s actually funny that people do know our work but they don’t know who does this work and how he/she does it. I often ask what’s your opinion about this company. Why would you prefer this company over others? I get random answers ofcourse and i respond by telling them that this company has made you have this opinion about it based on the work of their PR department. Ofcourse they ask me what you mean.

This is getting confusing after a bit but the general answer is that a Person that works in Public Relations is more than a person that posts blogs or press releases. It’ s the person that acts like the flag bearer of the company. If this person is capable his company/celebrity/VIP/firm etc will have a very positive and appealing image to the public. If not even if you offer the best services or you sing better than anybody else you’ ll be hated by everyone or even worse you ‘ll leave the public with a neutral image which sometimes it’s even worse than a negative one.

I see many PR people that are not in touch with the people of the company. When someone starts complaining be sure that even people with neutral opinion of you will start following them. I often go in sites of big companies and there is no living person in that site to help someone. Does the client have to call every time when he is already in your site? Where is the human element in the site? It can’ t be that difficult to have a live support link in a site. People like the anonymity of the net because they can tell you things that you ‘d never hear face to face. And those things if taken seriously is all the feedback you need to be close to the people that buy from your company. You can do a million researches but a person will only give you feedback before and after his purchase. If you never thinking of buying a car how can you leave a good feedback about a certain model?

My point here is that people are confused of what the PR people do ,because when they need ‘em, most of us don’t hear what our (future) clients have to say. And we all know what happens when we dont hear them. Public Relations is (for me at least) an art. You take in your hands a client or a company and you paint it with the colours that people like. You also take those colours inside the company too. You make the people see a label and connect it to you. So lets hear from now on what the people have to say about ourcolours. Don’ t just remember them when you planning a research.

“In our work what you wear is who you are.” This is what my respectable professor and mentor Pavlos Pavlidis told me in one of our classes. Men have it really easy to be honest if they follow some simple rules. Even if you are not good looking, your posture, body language, grooming and fashion style make up for the loss of points in your biological appearance. In women its more complicated.
Lets not forget that grooming and fashion project an identity. First rule is this: What looks good on a model or some businessman isn’ t always the best for you also. That leads us to the idea of everyone has a unique style and traits that he needs to project. Especially in a place where you close deals and you come close to people you need to make people feel comfortable with you.
So some ideas:
-Make sure your cloths fit you. Why buy a suit for 300$ and not pay 10-20$ to have it altered for you?
-As sad as this may sound if you are not into fashion ask a woman to help you. She won’t always be right but you get to see some stuff and some details that otherwise you wouldn’ t notice.
-Always wear cloths appropriate for the event/work that you go to. It’s better to be overdressed than poorly dressed. It’s better for people to ask you where you going next rather than saying behind your back “why is he dressed so poorly?” Of course I don’t suggest going with a suit on a beach event but you get the drill.
-A man’s armour in life is a suit. Either you want it for work or to attract women as long as you find one that suits your style it’ s going to give you instant points on your identity. Of course you are supposed to wear it and not for it to wear you. Since we are young on not so formal events a button less up in the neck is ok. If you are going on a formal event a thin tie works wonders. Also don’ t go overboard with the colours. Dont wear any pink or extreme colours like that.
-Shoes. It’ s better to wear an expensive pair of shoes with less expensive cloths rather than spend 500$ on a suit and wear it with cheap shoes. Guess what many women see first in a man… Yes their shoes. Go on a shop (again with a woman) and find shoes that go with that amazing suit/jeans or whatever that you just bought.
-If you are overweight black clothes make you look thinner. If you are short pinstripes make you look taller (and horizontal ones make you look shorter).
-Don’ t wear lots of colours unless you go on a job to Hawaii. Can’t stress that enough.
-Collared shirts with no t shirt underneath. (unless u sweat a lot).
-White and black shirts. Buy at least 2 of each.
-Belts and shoes must match. Don’t wear black shoes with a brown belt.
Etc etc.
As for Grooming…
-White teeth, nice haircut and trimmed beard or moustache or goatee if you have either. Always be shaven in work.

I think I went a bit overboard with it and no i ain’ t gay lol.

This is based on the story about Kanye West where you can read here: http://music.yahoo.com/read/news/61460900 . Based on this story the publicist of Kanye West didn’t reply to a request from The AP for West’s take on the criticism about his late performance. Making things even worse Kanye West criticized the festival organizers with harsh words about the delay of his set change, on his blog.

How would you handle this (lets face it, its a fiasko) situation if you were West’s publicist? Do you think a blog can be better than a publicist since West talked to his fans directly and not indirectly through his blog and not through his publicist? How can  publicists like West’s and the publicist of the festival organizers have such high paying jobs and when a crisis appears they ignore the matter?

I am interested to see what are the opinions of more expirienced PR people than me in the matter. Personally from expirience i know that you should always address matters especially negative ones and not ignore em. When the people fill in the blanks (like in this story) they tend to make more damage to the image of the person you work for than if you address the problem personally. And why noone informed the people on the festival that his appearance would be delayed? It’s better to prevent than to go into crisis management.

(I don’ t take credit for this I just found it and reposting it.)

1. You are at a party and you see a beautiful woman.

You approach her and you say:

“I am amazing in bed”

That’ s what you call Direct Marketing

2. You are at a party with some friends and you see a beautiful woman.

A friend of yours approaches her and showing you he tells her:

“He is amazing in bed”

That’ s what u call Advertising

3. You are at a party and you see a beautiful woman.

You approach her and you take her phone number.

Next day you call her and you tell her:

“Hi, I am amazing in bed”

This is called Telemarketing.

4. You are at a party and you see a beautiful woman.

You stand up you fix your tie. You approach her and you buy her a drink.

You say: “May I?” and you fix her necklace, and while u touch her softly in the shoulder you lean in her ear and whisper her “I am amazing in bed”

That’ s what you call Public Relations.

5. You are at a party and you see a beautiful woman.

She approaches you and she tells you:

“I heard you are amazing in bed”

That’ s what u call product recognition.

6. You are at a party and you see a beautiful woman.

You approach her and you convince her to take your friend home with her.

That’ s product sale.

7. But she isn’ t happy with the performance of your friend and

calls you.

That’ s product support line.

8. You are on your way to a party and you realise that all these houses might have beautiful women inside. You go to the centre of the place u are and you climb on the tallest building and start screaming:

“I am amazing in bed!”

That’ s called spam.

(I took the time to write this article after some tragic mistakes i saw from some women that work on PR. Obviously I dont take credit for these. Credit goes to: Chris Zampoynis, Kostetsos, Yves Saint Laurent and people from the world of fashion. Thanks for your time and advices.)

The French say that women are dressed up for other women and they get naked for men. But in order for a woman to get naked, she must have gotten dressed before…

Being well dressed comes from 5 factors: Your age, your body type, your social/economical status, the time and the kind of place that u go to. Always take into account those factors.

The best books were written from writers that were waiting their wives to get ready. Since most men arent patient writters though, its considered normal to not take 4 hours to get ready.

No matter how much you love your man, if he is dressed poorly while you are next to him dressed nicely, your social value drops to the abyss. Ofcourse the opposite applies also.

Being overdressed is better than being dressed poorly.

Although we were taught that the cloths dont do the man or woman, in many cases they do. If u go out with a short skirt and a turtle neck that makes ur breasts pop out you cant complain that men are pigs.

The all time favorite cloth is a black dress. It can be worn from women aged 16-80, it goes with any kind of jewelry, with all accessories and u can wear it even are 9 in the morning. (ofcourse formal dresses are exception to the rule)

Its better to have 3 quality dresses rather than 20 cheap ones. Black, grey, red and white are always a good choice to have.

The bag must always be of the same quality with your shoes. Also get bags that are for your body type. A huge bag being carried from a small woman is a no no. Bags that are suitable for night are the ones that are often small, and are of the same colour as your shoes.

Underwear are being worn as the name says. Under your cloths. No man will take you seriously if ur panties reach ur bra.

High heels are only for the night. During the day the heel shouldnt be more than 3-4 fingers tall.

Your gloves in winter must always match your shoes.

There are many ways to sit while you wear a short skirt and hide your underwear. You know who you are.

A rule of the make up is: less is more. Especially in the morning.

Putting make up in public is not a good thing.

When you are in a relationship you must take care of yourself like you are not. As unfair as it might seem to you men give a lot of importance on how their women takes care of herself. If they met you slim, they expect you to stay slim.

There is no such thing as a slutty cloth. Its how u wear it.

I might forgot something feel free to add to it.