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"Smart PR"
By Ken Lizotte CMC
At a PowerPoint presentation on the topic of professional consulting fees one recent evening, an analyst from New Hampshire-based Kennedy Information took great pride in displaying his findings on the groupings he had uncovered in his study of management consulting cash flow. He explained, for example, how consulting revenues for individual consultants neatly separated into $100,000 segments, the bulk of consultants residing in the 100K-200K and 200K-300K categories. Above 300K per year, numbers fell off, with only about 10% attaining the second highest level, 400K-500K. He added that business development techniques reported by those in all categories typically centered on networking, cold calls, website development, newsletters and direct mail.
At the very top of the chart, however, so tiny it was almost impossible to see, was a teardrop-sized peak of one-half of one per cent. This segment, the analyst explained, represented those few individual management consultants who typically earned $500K or higher. The minuteness of this segment, however, seemed to cause the Kennedy analyst to pretty much ignore it altogether, spending his time instead recounting the many pertinent details and implications of the lower segments.
During the Q&A, however, one attendee raised her hand to ask, “What about that top category? What separates those highest revenue-earners from all the rest?” To which another attendee added, “Yes, why is that segment so darned small?”
The analyst glanced quickly at the point-five per cent summit, then turned back without skipping a beat. “Oh, those highest revenue-producers?” he said matter-of-factly. “Those are consultants who regularly publish books and articles. Those are the thoughtleaders.”
For consultants, attaining that coveted highest peak requires stepping outside the self-constructed trap of day-to-day operations and extending themselves. Like all too many self-employed entrepreneurs, management consultants typically pay only lip service to good and steady business development practices, setting up the same old standard marketing tools as business card-with-logo, website, perhaps a printed brochure, and the sending of an occasional newsletter or direct mail piece. Their visibility never reaches any higher or farther status. Thoughtleaders, however, those point-fivers at the top, plow ahead, using publishing, public relations (PR) and media and other visibility-extenders to insure they stand out from the pack.
In our IMC circles, for example, can you name a CMC who stands out as a “thoughtleader” and best exemplifies this approach? Sure you can, why Alan Weiss of course! Alan has achieved consultant thoughtleader status among our ranks to such an extent that one would be hard-pressed to even identify whoever might be in second place.
And how did Alan do this? He explained to me at lunch one day some years ago exactly how it all happened. “During my initial consulting days,” he recalled, “I focused much of my marketing efforts on writing articles. As these began to be published, one editor found so much value in them that he asked me if I would like to pen a column for his readers. That was in many ways the kick-off to my newly-growing practice. The visibility that these columns generated soon led to a call here and a call there from prospective clients who viewed me not simply as another vendor but as a bona fide expert. The aura of credibility that my published columns brought me leapfrogged me over other potential competitors for these new jobs.” Alan had become THE expert—the thoughtleader: Why even look at anyone else?
Evidence of the use of media in general, and thoughtleadership in particular, as an effective business development strategy, especially for professional service firms, is not merely anecdotal, however. In the legal profession for example a study in 2003 measured “legal media ROI.” Conducted by Levick Strategic Communications and PR Newswire, the survey counted media appearances by 200 law firms, matching the results with a list of top 25 firms ranked according to highest revenues. This survey found that these Top 25 revenue leaders had also generated increases in their overall media presence in 2002 over 2001 by an average of 18%. Firms lower on the list, however, were found to have only increased their media presence by a minuscule one percent! Richard Levick, President of Levick Strategic Communications, interpreted the data as indicative of how a sustained media effort seems to translate directly into a fairly significant return-on-investment.
So what should CMCs be learning from all these findings and anecdotal evidence? How can we integrate “Smart PR” into our daily practices? Below are some ways to proceed but the key to beginning is knowing that Smart PR doesn’t have to be painful, nor especially time-consuming or bewildering. Using PR to get positioned as a “thoughtleader” simply must be elevated to a level of essentiality, on a par with more typical (and widespread) rainmaking efforts.
The Four Pillars
Contrary to popular misconception, injecting publishing, PR and media attention into your life should NOT consist primarily of sending out press releases and occasionally getting quoted in an article or maybe on the radio or cable TV. If you hire most PR firms or publicity specialists, you may however get the opposite advice. Most PR firms actually specialize in “media hits,” which works out fine for many of our management consulting clients, i.e., manufacturing firms, software firms, engineering firms, etc., since the PR function there is intended to be just that—a function. It’s enough for large companies to send out announcements of new hires, new customers won, new products brought to market, etc…. anything to get media attention of any kind to complement all the many other things they do: advertising campaigns, telemarketing, sales forces banging out daily cold calls, direct mailings, and so forth.
But we professional service providers require a more intellectualized approach. Our stock-in-trade, after all, is what’s in our heads… and I mean that in a good way! We carry around our developed concepts, our lessons learned, our breakthrough insights... our thoughts! This individualized intellectual capital is what makes each of us special. And what more effective way to communicate such heady stuff than thru an article or a book? In terms of establishing our credibility, what better way than to point to a reputable journal or book publisher that has chosen to put its limited resources behind getting OUR thoughts out in front of its own carefully developed, prized target audience?
What we need to do therefore is focus on four “pillars” of smart and effective media and PR, starting with (1) published articles and/or books… then going on to (2) public speaking… then using email to (3) build and cultivate your “client community”… and finally last (and, yes, least) to develop (4) press releases and more traditional PR as a SUPPLEMENT to all the rest. These four pillars therefore are NOT equal. Instead, to effective develop ourselves as genuine thoughtleaders, the pillars must be prioritized, somewhat chronologically, in just this way:
Pillar # 1: Publishing Articles and Books
You’ve got to start here because this is the foundation of it all. Anyone can whip up a white paper or brochure, put up a website or bang out a PPT handout but all these formats are blatantly self-promotional. Only by getting an article or book PUBLISHED do you show that your ideas are great ones not merely because you say so but because an objective and knowledgeable third –party (publisher or magazine) says so.
Publishing your ideas therefore grants them higher credibility, legitimizing them beyond the self-professed ravings of your competition. So set your sights on getting published first, then move on to pillars 2, 3 and 4.
Pillar #2: Speaking to Targeted Groups
The impact of public speaking, coupled with publishing, delivers a 1-2 punch in your quest to become a thoughtleader. Your handout will now be a reputable published article relating directly to your speaking topic. If you’ve published a book, this will become a powerful calling card for generating speaking engagements on a higher level, as well as a “handout” (this time for sale!) that both confirms your credibility and permits your audience to take you and your ideas home with them.
Most consultants well understand the value of relationship-building in developing new business and in keeping current client projects flowing. Adding speaking to your publishing activities activates new channels for growing and solidifying relationships. Your talks and presentations, your books and articles permit your relationships to live beyond those limited hours or minutes that you can physically meet or communicate with them.
Pillar #3: Generating a “Client Community”
Strangely, our brainy business development “minds” often run off first toward that vast, unseen pool of prospect-strangers amid the assumption that it is “out there” where our next great consulting meal will most likely to come from. In the process, we ignore our business “friends and family,” or what could be also be called our “client community.” Yet statistics consistently bleat our way that it typically takes 10 times as much sweat, time and money to capture one brand-new client than it does to retain or re-capture a current or past client… including a dissatisfied one! So Smart PR dictates that your third pillar should revolve not around the media of trade journals, newspapers or radio/TV but around that familiar pool of current and past clients, networking contacts, prospects, CMCs, assorted colleagues, even vendors and seemingly insignificant business connections. As these are the folks who have already gotten to know you, or even been well-served by what it is you do, these will also be the business friends who will truly be interested in your newly-published article or book, or upcoming talk, or new business service or product.
As such, they will also be much more bloody likely to actually ready your article or book (!) and to pass on news of its existence to their own contacts, prospects, customers, often with a glowing review. So getting the word out to THEM, via a simple email message perhaps, should come way before you spend time and money getting the same word out to those millions of strangers who don’t know you.
Pillar #4: Traditional PR
Finally, at Pillar #4, we arrive at the spot where most people (and companies) typically begin! Here you can write out a press release to your heart’s content, reporting on your recently published article or book, or detailing the success of your latest speaking engagement. You then may send this out either to a reporter/editor list of your own making or by using a press release service such as Business Wire, Market Wire or PR Wire.
Of course, bear in mind that whatever you do here and however you do it, it will likely generate LESS attention than any of the other pillars. Though a few reporters or editors may end up contacting you for an article they are writing, or for a business radio program that would like you to be on, more commonly than not much happens at all. As with advertising, to make this pillar work, you need to keep hammering away, getting the good word about you out again and again and again.
But do know this: When something DOES happen, it can happen in a very big way. With the right topic at the right time and eyed by the right journalists, your decks can get flooded with requests for media interviews. Because of the size of the audience out there in media-land, you can once in a while become a big hit, if only for the moment.
But the real reason to do it is that, doled out in smaller bites, over time the “nudge factor” sets in. Your contacts, clients, prospects begin to become aware that they have heard of you somewhere, somehow, in some context. Your Pillar #4 media work, as a supplement to Pillars 1, 2 and 3, can sweeten the pot.
The How-to-Do-It
Now that I’ve convinced you that thoughtleading is the way to go, you’re undoubtedly itching to get started. Using mini-examples of currently-active CMCs, let’s walk thru the practical steps for transforming you and your firm into thoughtleaders:
How to Get Publishing
To publish articles, Brad Hosmer CMC, The Beta Consulting Group, and former President of IMC New England, began by identifying his core client industries. As a marketing specialist, Brad had primarily focused his practice on assisting “old-line industries” (such as manufacturing, automotive, and textiles) gear themselves up for more turbulent (read: unpredictable) present times. “These companies were used to going on year after year without much change or challenges from their markets. All of a sudden as the new century loomed, it wasn’t that way anymore.”
It made sense therefore to submit articles to publications like US Industry Today and The Handbook of Business Strategy, many of whose readers manned the helm at stodgier firms. From a strategic vantage point, Brad’s article topics had to be drawn from his core expertise, chiefly displaying what he had advocated that old-line clients must begin to do. So such article topics as “Can a Corporate Old Dog Learn New Tricks?” and “Going Global: Should You or Shouldn’t You?” were pitched via email to editors of his target publications. Before long, assignments were flowing steadily as article credits began to pile up.
In terms of books, John McQuaig CMC, McQuaig & Welk PLLC, came up with an idea for his first book while pushing himself one day up the side of Mt. Kilimanjaro . An avid weekend climber of high mountains ( Mount Rainier and Kala Pattar in Nepal , as two more examples), John recognized that his part-time mountaineering endeavors held many similarities to successful business practices. The need for directing your sights toward a summit (vision), preparing meticulously and working in a team all drew close parallels to the tenets he professed every day as he gave counsel on good business practices to his many clients.
After designing a book proposal, consisting of a synopsis, table of contents, sample chapters, bio, and book marketing analysis, John put the word out to 25 book publishers, signing a contract with one fo them a few months later. John’s reach for the summit of thoughtleadership was now within his grasp.
How to Be a Public Speaker
No better example of using public speaking as a thoughtleading tool can be found than by returning to our friend Alan Weiss. One of a very few CMCs who also has earned a CSP—Certified Speaking Professional—designation, Alan has keynoted countless professional associations (including numerous IMC national and chapter events) as well as company gatherings and even charitable, arts and other non-business groups. His fees range from five figures to pro bono, usually on topics that gel with his consulting expertise and article/book topics. The widespread visibility resulting from all these face-time exposure enhances Alan’s brand and keeps good word of mouth spinning his way, deepening already-established relationships while introducing him to both new corporate clients and influential referral sources. It doesn’t hurt of course that he can hold up or refer to his many published books (22 at last count!).
How to Generate Your “Client Community”
This one’s often the toughest. It’s just so easy to get caught up in our busy, busy days as we focus on our clients and projects. Justifying our letting this one slip between the cracks is almost pain-free! Who would blame us?
Well, me for one, and all those thoughtleaders up there in point-five teardrop for another. When I began to consistently email my “thoughtnotes e-blast” a few years back, once a month, to my full list of connections, within a scant few months prospects soon began appearing out of the woodwork. Before not much longer, I was always able to count a half-dozen or so qualified prospects in my pipeline at any one time. Once that dynamic fell into place, I never looked back. It is still that way today.
Mary Adams CMC, Founding Principal of Trek Consulting LLC and 2006-2007 President of IMC New England , is another accomplished practitioner of this pillar. Mary and her Trek Co-Founder Michael Oleksak have been churning out their monthly e-newsletter “Trekking” for over two years now. They proudly report that they have never missed even one month! And what have they gained from all that extra effort?
“We regularly get calls from people we know casually and/or haven’t seen in a long time,” Mary reports. “They may not be on our minds but we are on theirs. And they know whom to call when they see a situation that fits our firm’s personality. They don’t have to remember an elevator pitch from months (or years) ago—they have a deep understanding of who we are and what we do by the ideas that we have put forth in our newsletter.”
“Do it regularly.” She adds. “You will get a better ‘open rate’ if your message arrives at the same time on the same day. Also, feed your list. Having a newsletter actually motivates us to be better networkers. Meeting someone at a cocktail party is now no longer just a chance encounter. Once we ask if they would like to receive the newsletter, if they agree, we have entered into a long-term relationship. It goes without saying that speaking engagements are an even better time to collect new names.”
One note of caution here: If turning out a full-fledged e-newsletter as Mary does ever bogs you down with too many hours, especially during months with heavier loads, realize that a mere brief announcement can do the trick too. Example: “I am pleased top announce that my article in Industry Digest News has just been published. Click here to my website to read the full article: X.”
The key with this pillar is not so much to publish a newsletter but to systematize a way to keep on communicating regularly with your client community, i.e., clients, prospects, referral sources, colleagues etc. Otherwise, know this: you’ll be forgotten!
How to Win Attention from the Media
Finally there’s the practice of sending out press releases and responding to media interviews, i.e., traditional PR. It’s at the rear of our process, as I stated earlier, not the forefront. A few essential points to keep in mind with this pillar: Whenever possible, build your releases around other thoughtleading actions such as announcing a published article or your new book, keeping their content in the spotlight. Don’t waste time with releases about that new assistant you just hired or your move to a new office space.
When receiving an actual inquiry from a reporter for a story, drop everything if you can and call the reporter right back. Make yourself available right then and there for the interview. Such responsiveness plays well with journalists and editors, serving to boost you to the top of their “must-call” interview list for future stories. Media folk are always on deadlines, so if you scratch their backs by going out of your way for them, they will surely scratch yours in the future.
Also, always attempt to be as informative as you can when being interviewed. Don’t worry about telling too much about what you do, or “giving away the store.” You’ve got to sound authentic and not slippery. Being genuinely and enthusiastically helpful with content is the only way. You’ll end up looking your best in the published article and you’ll possibly get more space devoted to your ideas than anyone else. Take the risk that all will turn out for the good and odds are 99% certain that it will.
Conclusion
By easing on down the Smart PR highway, you’ll find yourself within a very different business development reality. Your competition will begin to evaporate as prospects come seemingly out of nowhere looking only for you, ONLY YOU. Many of these will already have decided that you are the leading thinker and practitioner in this area, with no interest in even speaking to anyone else.
Instead your prospects will be wondering (a) if you are available (read: not too busy right now) to help them out, and (b) if they can afford you! As Alan Weiss advises in his great book Million Dollar Consulting, “Get them to call you!” Smart PR based on thoughtleading achieves this, catapulting you smoothly into that tiny .5 per cent top peak of the Kennedy consulting revenue chart. Once there, you will leave behind ineffective, same-old business development strategies forever.
Author bio:
Ken Lizotte, Chief Imaginative Officer (CIO) of emerson consulting group inc., Concord , Massachusetts and a certified management consultant (CMC), is a long-time thoughtleader, who has been interviewed by Newsweek, Business Week, Fortune Magazine, CBS-TV, Writer's Digest, and many others.
Author of four published books and hundreds of published articles, he is a popular keynote speaker on such topics as becoming a thoughtleader, getting books and articles published, balancing work and family, and unlocking creativity. He speaks frequently to executive and consultant audiences.
President of the New England chapter of the Institute of Management Consultants from 2000 to 2005, Ken is now a member of the national Board of Directors of IMC USA , a seminar leader at Harvard University , a contributing writer at the American Management Association ad a co-founder of the National Writers Union.