Welcome to \u2018No Brainer presents\u2026..\u2019 where we invite people we work alongside or just think are worth hearing from\u00a0to take the reigns of our blog and give us their insight into the world of PR and the media.\u00a0This time we\u2019ve turned to former BBC editor and now communications and presentation coach Scott Solder to give us his thoughts on the changing face of the good old pitch. Enjoy!<\/p>\n
Go onto LinkedIn \u2013 or any social media platform for that matter \u2013 and try this: write an outline of the services you provide, tell everyone in forceful and enthusiastic terms why they need to buy them from you and why none of your competitors are quite as good as you are, and see what happens. I\u2019ll save you the bother right now. The odds are that unless you strike unusually lucky, you\u2019ll get very little back. Maybe even nothing.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s because it\u2019s no longer okay to be pushy. Social media has created a whole new grammar and etiquette. A whole new set of accepted behaviours. Nobody likes you if you\u2019re in their face. People want dialogue and engagement \u2013 where all humans have an equal voice. And for the PR industry \u2013 that\u2019s a big thing.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ve worked on both sides of the fence. I spent years running BBC news programmes. I was also Director of Programmes at the talk station, LBC. Shouty PRs ringing you up or sending endless, boldly typed press releases were part of our daily bread and butter. I guess the assumption was that among all the \u2018noise\u2019 out there, he or she who shouted loudest got the coverage. But now, everything has got a whole lot more subtle. There are more than fifty shades of grey in this game.<\/p>\n
Sure \u2013 it\u2019s all about relationships. It always has been, if we\u2019re honest. Humans work on trust, intuition and gut feeling when they decide \u2013 at an unconscious level \u2013 whether they \u2018buy into\u2019 someone or not.<\/p>\n
But nowadays it\u2019s about even more than that. When I do coaching and training workshops for people in sales, I tell them that it\u2019s no longer about sales. Forget selling, I say, and think about buying. The same goes for PR.<\/p>\n
You see, it\u2019s not about you. It\u2019s about them. Buyers, potential clients, prospects and contacts have a greater luxury of choice than ever before. And a pushy pitch is all about telling people what you can do for them \u2013 instead of considering what they might actually want.<\/p>\n
I\u2019m also an NLP Master Practitioner. NLP uses a number of \u2018killer questions\u2019 which are designed to access people\u2019s innermost thoughts, motivators and drivers. They\u2019re often used in therapy, coaching and interviewing. And they work just as well in PR. The list is too long for here, but one such question is \u2018what do you want ideally?\u2019<\/p>\n
This is essential, because it forces people out of what they may think is possible \u2013 or impossible \u2013 and moves them into a realm of fantasy: what is it that they might actually want, if absolutely anything were possible?<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s why this is important: one of the greatest areas of conflict and confusion that I come across in my work is when people make assumptions about others. It happens all the time. And it\u2019s rife with problems \u2013 because those assumptions are often wrong.<\/p>\n
What happens if I assume that you can\u2019t deliver something, based on a false or unfounded belief of what resources you have available? The answer is simple \u2013 I just don\u2019t ask for it. Instead, I ask for what I think you can provide. And that\u2019s limiting. Then the situation escalates.<\/p>\n
In response, you start thinking along the lines of what I\u2019ve just asked for, based on what you can do within the parameters that I\u2019ve unknowingly set. And yet all along \u2013 you might have been able to offer me so much more.<\/p>\n
Only the publishers \u2013 and by that I mean TV, radio, online and print \u2013 have a full and clear idea of what they\u2019re able to do. They know how flexible their formats are, what kind of special coverage they are able to offer, which \u2018normal\u2019 formats they might be able to suspend for the right, one-off proposition.<\/p>\n
I\u2019ll give you an example of how this was done brilliantly when I was running current affairs on The One Show. The legendary Esther Rantzen \u2013 she who launched the charity Childline back in 1986 \u2013 gave me a call to pitch something she thought I \u2018might find interesting\u2019. She was launching a new charity. It was called The Silver Line \u2013 and it was aimed at improving the lives of lonely senior citizens. She wanted us to cover the launch and she knew it was a good story.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t know what she had in mind. Maybe she thought we could make a short film about it to coincide with the launch. Maybe she thought she might appear live on the sofa to talk about it. But instead of pushing her ideas onto me \u2013 she simply gave me as many details as she had at the time, asked me what I would like to do about the story, and how it might work well for our programme. That set me off thinking \u2013 and I scuttled off to brainstorm a whole batch of ideas with my team.<\/p>\n