Smart Talk (eBook)

Introduction

Have you ever been a part of a conversation that was going nowhere? Or had words coming at you, but they weren’t lining up in a way that made sense? For some people, listening to an academic lecture or presentation filled with industry jargon can feel like that type of blathering. Or, you may know the feeling from having spoken with a passive-aggressive person who just can’t (or won’t) say the uncomfortable or hard thing they need to say.

As a public relations (PR) professional, I hate wasting time trying to decode communication like that. Life is much too noisy, and work is much too fast-paced not to get to the point. Personally, I skim over unnecessarily detailed paragraphs in books, fast forward through commercials, and may tune out people who don’t communicate in a clear, impactful way. Professionally, I want to have deep conversations that uncover helpful truths, clarify confusing concepts, and allow me to connect with others. I call this smart talk—real, honest, helpful conversations with an intelligent exchange of information and stories. Smart talk isn’t always comfortable, but neither is personal growth. Our growth as professionals is more probable when we don’t beat around the bush. Working in PR can be full of enough unpredictable moments as it is.

About two years into my PR career, I worked at a nonprofit. On behalf of the organization, I would coordinate media interviews, advertising, and partnerships with a radio station marketing executive named Scott. He was an influential and unconventional person. He decided which radio station public service announcements, community affair show interviews, and partnerships happened. During our initial meeting, he showed me around his office. He pointed out cool celebrity photos, offered me a snack, and then we sat down for our chat. Suddenly, he grabbed a nearby neon-yellow hand towel and threw it onto his desk. He looked at me with a smirk.

“What’s that?” I asked.

He picked it up and let me read it.

“Bullshit . . .” I read aloud. “Why do you have a bullshit towel?”

“It’s a bullshit flag,” he corrected me. “I throw it on the table during meetings whenever someone is bullshitting me.”

You’d better believe I wasn’t prepared for that as a new PR pro.

Luckily, I wasn’t BS-ing him then, and I won’t BS you now. This book is full of smart talk about PR. I’m sharing honest, insightful, and sometimes cringeworthy stories from my two decades in the trenches. The information and career lessons are for people like you—aspiring PR professionals who want to know the essentials of the practice so you can avoid the pitfalls. I’m offering you authentic, helpful, and encouraging insights into the most important parts of PR today. You won’t need to throw a flag on anything you read here!

I have grown immensely since my wobbly first years as an excited but ill-equipped PR coordinator. Nearly 20 years later, I am an internationally recognized and award-winning PR business owner who has worked in or with just about every sector of PR possible. I’ve worked as an employee at a boutique Hispanic-focused PR agency, for a nonprofit, for a large corporation, and at a large, full-service PR agency. I’ve targeted the general market audience as well as niche multicultural audiences in a variety of PR, marketing, advertising, community relations, and social media campaigns. I also have the rare experience of working in employee communications and in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). That combination gives me confidence in working through a variety of communication challenges and with a variety of people.

Since 2015, I have served clients as the founder of my own national, award-winning boutique firm, MVW Communications. In my business, I can work directly as a consultant with a client or as an account director with an assembled team of communication experts. We tailor our approach and team size depending on each client’s communication challenge and budget. My own breadth and depth of communication experience inspires our 360-degree communication perspective, but my expertise, accreditation, and heart are in PR.

During my career, I have worked with over 90 brands, such as Kampgrounds of America, H-E-B, Alamo Colleges District, Meals on Wheels San Antonio, Big Brothers Big Sisters, and Girl Scouts of Southwest Texas. I never imagined I’d be sought after for advice, but I feel called to give it. I am proud to share best practices from my experiences as a thought leader in the field. I write for PR pros across the nation as a Public Relations Society of America columnist—the first to ever focus on the Hispanic and Latino market. I educate organizations and aspiring PR pros as a trainer and a professional speaker. I enjoy sharing my ideas with trade journalists at PRNEWS, and I have even represented the United States on an international panel of the Public Relations and Communications Association (PRCA Americas)—the world’s largest professional PR body. That’s what’s so amazing about this work: you never know where you could end up! My passion for elevating the industry has inspired me to reach out to others and to serve at a higher capacity to make places for pros of color. It also emboldened me to launch my podcast, Smart Talk Series. I love PR so much that I created an online merchandise shop called PR Pro Gear where pros can buy mugs and shirts about it! I found my own way into PR, but it was a rough road. Now, I want to invite others like me who lacked connections, education, or guidance onto a smoother path forward into the field.

This book is a scalable way for me to share answers to questions I frequently receive from aspiring pros. More importantly, this is where I can encourage you to join the PR club. We need diverse pros in this industry more than ever. It’s a more multiracial and multicultural world each day, and our PR workforce should reflect that.

However, the lack of institutions offering PR as an undergraduate major, the lack of paid internship options, and the lack of current representation in the field can discourage students from diverse backgrounds from entering. Without some bridge from the classroom to the career, college graduates’ lack of awareness of PR, misunderstanding of what the profession entails, and lack of real-world experience prevents them from getting on the PR career track.

Similarly, journalists who transition into PR to get a more manageable schedule, earn higher pay, or increase their advancement opportunities soon realize there’s much more to PR than just media relations. They often struggle to learn the many other disciplines of the job without embarrassing themselves or being labeled as inadequate once in. A lack of comprehensive PR career training can increase the likelihood of mistakes and perpetuate misunderstandings about the field.

Students who are curious about PR or officially studying it as a major can benefit from the advice in these pages. It doesn’t matter how many courses you took or didn’t take—this is your guidebook. No textbook written by academics can replace the lessons from those who actually work in the industry. This book is also for journalists who are considering changing careers and moving into PR. And this is for journalists who are already working in PR and have realized they didn’t know how broad the profession was. Marketers who do PR activities and need more guidance are also welcome.

Anyone who reads this book will learn everything I didn’t know when I started in PR. I’m offering you the mentoring moments you may need and the advice I wish I’d had when starting out. There are nuances in the work that it takes decades to learn. I’ll share those with you, along with insights that will make new(er) pros more successful. As you read this book, you’ll learn ways to be more marketable, earn more media coverage, and be more prepared for crisis communication issues. More importantly, I’ll share PR principles and methods that will allow you to leapfrog ahead and avoid mistakes.

Throughout the book, you’ll learn how your own lived experiences and cultural practices can help you do well as a PR professional. You can consider if you’re a “fit” based on the work involved in PR, not by your background. People from diverse or even adverse backgrounds are uniquely suited to thrive in PR.

This book will not include PR history or theory. This writing is a holistic look at the most important aspects of the field you must know and embrace to become a strong candidate or professional. Beyond the fundamentals, I’ve added insights into where the PR field is going and why I think integration with other fields will lead to a more progressive, inclusive practice. Throughout the book, I’ll introduce bold terms you should know and define them so that we’re speaking about the same things in the same way. As you read, highlight helpful lines, fold page corners, and mark this book up. Do whatever works to help you absorb the lessons and apply them right away.

Ultimately, this book is for anyone who wants to learn the essentials of succeeding in PR. My lived experience as a second-generation Hispanic American, a first-generation university graduate and an unsuspecting pioneer in many other ways will be woven throughout the advice shared. Guest voices from diverse professionals I admire are included so that different perspectives can be considered. Learn from their advice in each chapter’s “Pass the Mic” closing thought.

Statistically, I’m not supposed to be writing this book....