If I can be of any help to those of you wondering what to do today, here is a great post I saw about what PR Pros can expect following Bin Laden’s death.

Fantastic advice. If you have more ideas or thoughts to share with the readers of Valley PR Blog, please comment. What are you doing in PR today?

That’s not what this post is about. It’s about Human Nature.

As you may know, leaving the Biltmore after a big event is a nightmare. You can count on sitting in your car in gridlock for easily 20 mins+. Am I the only one who can’t figure out why in these situations, you sit motionless and then suddenly drive with little interruption?

Anyway, we reach the bottom of the sixth floor where we could exit to the left or right. Two cars were backed up around the curve, to the right. To the left there were no cars and one of the attendants was aggressively waiving for us to follow his lead. Want to guess what two of the next people did?  The safe and familiar thing, turning right, because that’s where you’re “supposed” to turn. Sure enough, the next car and I dashed to the left and we scooped past four floors of traffic.

Seth Godin has been writing a lot lately about the fact that with “the new normal” comes some painful realities. The model we were taught in school and early in our career was to keep our heads down and do what the others do.  That model has been smashed beyond repair by the technology age.  Great lives and careers are now based on having the courage to think independently, make your own decisions and not be a sheep.

If you don’t want to start your own company then go work for one that just started. Isn’t that more risk?  Not really.  There’s infinitely more opportunity and reward . Deluding yourself into thinking you have security at one of the bigger agencies is just that, delusional. The way those bigger companies got to be big was by putting money before people, and not batting an eyelash at triggering layoffs when an account walks out the door. This doesn’t only apply to our industry. The concept of the 25 year employee getting the gold watch is like a scene out of Happy Days. Be cool, don’t always follow and you won’t jump the shark.

I think my reluctance to use LinkedIn can be traced all the way back to its earliest days when the interface and user experience were just dreadful. We’re talking heroically bad. I also used to think it was weird to peer into someone’s address book. But of course that was before Facebook existed and “creeping” only applied to undergarments gone wild.

I went about 6 years without using LinkedIn. Long enough that when I decided it was time  to raise the bar on my own social media best practices, I couldn’t even remember the email address that my account was registered under. It actually took someone on the phone to get it straightened out. It’s worth pointing out that the customer service was in fact excellent.

Well, today I received a lovely email from Reid Hoffman, LinkedIn’s co-founder and Chairman.  Apparently they just signed up their 100 millionth member and he “personally” wanted to thank me for being an “innovator” who “led the way.” Yes, Mom, your son is officially LinedkIn dude # 33,688. To be honest, I feel like I owe Reid an “I’m sorry” as much as a “you’re welcome.” SO, I am making a resolution to wrap my cyber arms around his whole 6 Degrees of Kevin Bacon business networking thing.

Even though I know there are at least 33,687 other people out there who received the same email, I still felt valued.  It’s incredible how easy and effective it is to show a customer that you care. It’s just as important as doing good work.

When’s the last time you told your clients that you appreciated them?

Tonight I caught the beginning of the show, “How I Met Your Mother” and it reminded me of a time I made a huge mistake. One of the characters was talking about “gaps in knowledge.” She stated that everyone has a gap in knowledge. That common word, phrase, fact or thing that somehow missed you in life, something that everyone else on the planet seemed to know but you, something that usually bites you in the butt at the worst time.

Yep- it happened to me. Something very common (and made famous by the Simpsons)  just passed me by in life, caused a gap in my knowledge and came back to bite me and my co-workers on live television. It was probably one of the biggest, if not the biggest and dumbest mistake I will ever make in my career and you can see it here. If you work in media, you may have heard this story and will know which blooper is mine. If not, you will have to guess but it should be pretty obvious. I’m kind of outing myself here- so please be kind. Also, please note that since the time I am referring, I have done a large survey that proves I am not the only one who has “missed” this particular bit of information in life

Since this whopping blooper (that I am surprised hasn’t been on Talk Soup) I have learned a few things, the main one being the importance of using my co-workers for help. I actually almost made another big mistake at work today but saved myself by remembering what I’ve learned. These are some pretty rudimentary/no-duh tips that I think we forget to use somewhere along the way:

- Never be too proud or embarrassed to ask for help.

- If something seems off, it probably is. Trust your instinct.

- Always double and triple check your work, even if you are in a rush.

- If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.

- Put family and yourself first.

- Don’t get too cozy with your co-workers- put professionalism first.

- Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.

Ok, with that said I wanted to put some other funny “gaps in knowledge” out there. These are some other examples of things that “missed” some folks:

- When reading off of an Apples to Apples playing card, a grown woman pronounced the word “chameleon“: sham-el-on.

-  The character on “How I Met Your Mother” didn’t know that the North Pole was a real place.

- A reporter I once knew did not know what an ottoman was and found out while working on an important story.

- Someone I know thought the Arizona state bird was a Phoenix and announced that at a business dinner.

- Someone who had never seen the word “colonel” spelled out before thought it was a new word pronounced co-lon-el.

- Someone didn’t know how to pronounce “rendez-vous.”

- A grown adult didn’t know what “apartheid” was.

Bottom line: Everyone does have a gap in knowledge. Mistakes are inevitable and the only way to prevent them is to gain experience. If you think you will look back on something and laugh, you may as well laugh about it now.

What’s your “gap in knowledge” or a bad mistake you’ve made at work? Please share!

Can someone please explain why people feel ok asking for free work? Whether they are multi-millionaires (maybe that’s why they are) or start ups, they expect some of their PR and marketing to be comped. I don’t ask my gardener to trim the palm trees just because he’s a nice guy. Nobody expects free food, which might be the secret to Costco’s success. Who doesn’t smile when the nice old lady in the hair net offers you a taste of whatever it is she just plucked out of the toaster oven?

I’ve never owned a client services company before so I’m eager to hear about another example where often the expected price tag is zero.  Lawyers sometimes write off time to appease a good client, but that is usually because of a negative reaction to an invoice. The client didn’t say, “hey can you draft this contract for me but not charge more?” I can’t imagine asking someone – lawyer – dentist – doctor – architect – who does something I can’t do for myself, to do it for free. Ahh, therein lies the golden nugget of the day. Everyone thinks they can design, write and pitch. Or at least they think their wife or nephew in college can.  I once knew a very smart, successful professional who shlepped in the fabric and paint swatches from his home renovation as examples for his company’s re-branding, therefore negating the need for our fee. Seriously?

Maybe this can be traced back to when banks started offering free checking accounts? Pandora’s Box swung open and now consumers demand such free service.  Maybe banks wouldn’t have chased profits by betting on horse races with our money, if they had just collected $40 a year from each of us. Some free things end up being really expensive.

First, a bit of background: PopChips offered $50k for one “VP of Pop Culture” to attend a few geek/music events throughout the year and write about them. The winner would also hang out with media-proclaimed Twitter king Ashton Kutcher, as well as a bunch of other celebrities. Cool gig for anyone with some writing skills and an appreciation of pop culture. At the suggestion of local PopChips rep Monica Picard, and because it seemed like fun, I entered my video and asked people to vote for me.

After almost two weeks of annoying my friends trolling for votes campaigning, voting ended yesterday. My total was nearly 250 votes, which is about 245 more than I thought I’d get. Voters DID receive $1 off a bag of PopChips, so voting did help them a bit.

Then I saw the winners.

-Jesse Csincask – Winner of Bachelorette #4, professional snowboarder.
-Simon Rex – ex-MTV VJ, kinda rapper
-Dave Peck – PARC strategist with 48k Twitter followers

In all, nearly 250 people entered, but let’s face it, most of us didn’t stand a chance. In fact, I bet 225 people had absolutely zero chance to win. The winners had nearly 10k votes each. While the odds were better than buying a lottery ticket, they weren’t better by much.

So what was in it for me? I DO get a case of PopChips (which are very good) and the satisfaction that I can say I tried. But to be honest, I don’t see myself entering in this type of contest ever again. They’re good for the company, bad for anyone not already semi famous.

But they sure are good PR.

The thrust of the article was that after the recession hit, many legal Top Gunners dropped their price to $990. Thankfully many of those top shelf lawyers are now charging as much as $1,250 a bottle. Wow, talk about a hangover.

My studio has had the (sincere) pleasure of working with some of the top attorneys in Phoenix. So this post bears no reflection on them. It actually has nothing to do with lawyers at all. Hell, who among us wouldn’t charge $20 a minute if we could get away with it? More on that in a few weeks.

I’m actually poking fun at the clients. Let me get this straight. During the stormiest economic climate anyone on this planet has ever faced, top tier executives at Fortune 500 companies like GE and DuPont were ok with retaining counsel for $990, but heaven forbid, not $1,000? Hmmm, if you move that decimal doesn’t $990 look suspiciously like 99 cents, as in the STORE?

We all know that people allow themselves to be seduced by arbitrary numbers and shiny price tags. Hence the timeless .99 phenomenon that stretches from candy bars and oil changes to big screen TV’s and cars. I don’t know about you, but I have heard many times over the years that “just because you know B-C marketing doesn’t mean you can do B-B.” There is an undeniable hint of condescension attached to that theory as if selling professional services is any harder than clothes, coffee or fitness club memberships. It’s not.

Whoever makes major purchases while wearing a tie or pantyhose has a reputation, salary, bonus, mortgage, family (and ego) to protect. You think only facts drive those career decisions? What salesperson will deny that the personal relationship is central to the sale. That whining and dining still works.  How many deals are cut out on golf courses and in strip clubs? That’s why stadium luxury boxes were invented.

People have always bought with their hearts and brains and they always will. Great marketing is about appealing to both organs. A $990 lawyer proves that.

But I can’t get away. No matter how many times we in the industry may scoff at the idea, personal branding is real and people are interested in learning about how to be better. I’ve been asked by ASU Lodestar Center to give a presentation on this very topic (I have lots of “what not to do” stories) and would like to share with you my thoughts on how all of this works.

Personal Branding Rule #1
Find something you can do that people will pay for.

Personal Branding Rule #2
Become extremely familiar with the topic/service/product you provide.

Personal Branding Rule #3
Do that thing really, really well.

Personal Branding Rule #4
Live, eat, sleep and breathe that thing.

Personal Branding Rule #5
Change when necessary.

And the three anti rules:

Personal Branding Anti Rule #1
What you are good at, what you love to do and what people pay you to do might be three different things. Don’t forcibly combine them.

Personal Branding Anti Rule #2
Promoting yourself is NOT personal branding. It’s self promotion.

Personal Branding Anti Rule #3
There is no spoon.

The simple premise is that if you want to be seen as a green PR expert, you should talk, act, look and walk like a green PR expert. (If you want to be known as someone who wears funny tshirts and barefoot shoes, let me know).

Confused? Me too. Most personal branding blogs I’ve forced myself to read say very little about subject matter knowledge and next to nothing about experience. They wrongly proclaim, like too many companies with not-so-great products do, that your outward appearance is all (potential) customers need to see in order for you to be held in high esteem.

This makes most of these blogs absolutely worthless. Personal branding is not empowerment, but it’s part of it; personal branding is not claiming to be an expert, but being an expert is part of it; personal branding is not latching on to every new trend in an effort to be hip, but some will tell you it’s part of it. Personal branding is about presenting the best parts of yourself in the best possible light to as many people as necessary as often as possible.

Anything else is a waste of time and money.

I find myself saying “seriously” quite often these days. Saturday Night Live’s Seth Meyers and Amy Poehler regularly lampooned the term so I don’t claim to have invented it.

But still, what word better conveys the sudden, staggering state of disbelief you feel when a client makes that last second request?  Or when a prospect thinks the creative for an ad campaign should cost $2,000? And the infamous intern who didn’t like sorting the highlighters? Not to mention the geyser of venom spraying from our elected officials.

Writing is how I process all which defies logic, reason, common sense or basic human empathy.  My goal is to evoke thought, discussion and change. To rattle the gilded cages of those who want nothing more than to keep people who think, look or love differently than them, out of their cage.

Everything in the world relates to marketing — and all the specialties, strategies, disciplines, tools and tactics we  fill our days with.  Sometimes you might think a post isn’t relevant to you. Look closer, it’s in there. The Mona Lisa is nice, but I’m more of a Jackson Pollock guy. There won’t be any guardrails like, “the reason this matters if you’re in PR is…”

• While maniacal about verbal grammar, in print I have no AP Style whatsoever. That’s one of the many reasons I surround myself with smart Cronkite alumni.

• Life is about perspective. I have been the client much longer than the client services provider.  I was another brick in the wall much longer than I’ve been the owner.

• People should always come before profit. Sam Alpert and I have walked that walk at DSPR for the last five years. I will challenge every boss in town to hop on the treadmill and sacrifice your $200 rounds of golf so you don’t have to lay someone off.

• I think the word boss is repugnant and, contrary to popular opinion, all millennials are not self-entitled slackers. I have dozens of case studies to support both views.

• 80% of my life, career and education has been spent outside Arizona. The Grand Canyon is beautiful. But if you profess that it’s the most beautiful place in the world and you’ve never been east of the Rockies or south of Rocky Point, I’m gonna call you on a major parochial violation.

• Humor is the greatest gift there is. When, not if, my words piss you off, remember that other readers at that moment are laughing — hopefully anyway.

• We all need to do a better job of sharing our oxygen, whether you think the climate is changing or not.  You can believe in whatever you want as long as you don’t believe you have the divine  right to extinguish mine.

• Life is too short to eat vanilla because you’re afraid what people might think if you like Phish Food.

• A positive attitude is nice but not when it’s delusional. As Arizona prepares to celebrate its 100th birthday isn’t it time we stop acting like we’re in our terrible two’s? Last I checked, horses stopped galloping down Central Ave decades ago.

• People in Phoenix are mostly nice — except behind the wheel. Our highways are more toxic than the roads of Istanbul, Boston and Bangkok.

• Agencies like Ogilvy and Edelman would have offices in Phoenix if they saw us as a viable investment, in other words, a world-class city. That requires a sophisticated economy with a highly educated work force and socially progressive culture.  Who’s starting that creative brief?

At the end of the day, most of us marketing communications professionals just sell stuff, services and space.  It’s the teachers, public servants and ace reporters at TMZ who make the world a better place, not us.

So laugh more. Enjoy the ride. It’s the only one you get.

That’s my perspective. Seriously.

D