Building and Maintaining Relationships

‘Building and maintaining the relationship,’ it might seem to simply to some, yet the mechanics of it are quite diverse and complex, or so I have realised this week.

Strong business relationships with the client and their stakeholders are the key to success in PR, without them you have no clientele and no work. But like any relationship you must be willing to share, give and support not just take.

I have come to realise that the best way to build a relationship and maintain it is to develop more than a business relationship. I don’t mean this in a sense that you hang out on the weekend. I mean that you as the practitioner understand the client’s life and get to know them. Remember their passions, milestones- babies, illness, promotion- it may seem simple but it’s the little things that count.  

This will help you to understand what makes your client ‘tick’. I recently attended a meeting with one of Perth’s leading high-rise developers. It became evident to me that the client was very laid back and liked to listen and enjoyed us providing him with a list of suggestions for certain campaigns. He was not the sort of man to express what he wanted. This was refreshing and allowed for us to get creative with our ideas.

When building and maintaining a relationship with a client is it important to understand what medium to use, when its right to email, phone or attend a face to face meeting. I don’t think there is anything worse than building a relationship via email. I don’t think it sustainable and I think you become a face behind the screen and nothing else. Hence why I choose to phone over email in most circumstance. The minute you pick up the phone, you become a person, you have a personality, tone and emotion. During the week, my understanding that phoning was more beneficial then email really became evident when I had journalists getting back to me straight away and remembering my name and who I was when I called at a later date. I found that building this relationship gave me a ‘one up’ over other. So much that at the end of the week, one of my colleagues asked me to get some contact details for a journalists, who she was unable to get contact details for. I rather surprised myself when within 5 minutes I was able to fulfil her request. Saying this I think sometimes its beneficial to use email. For example when fact checking or asking a simple question. There is no need to bother your client with a phone call. Of course when the need is there, you get out of the office and go see your client face to face. One of my mentors visits his clients on a weekly basis, just to touch base.

Being seen is so important in building and maintaining this relationship and developing yourself as a respectable and trustworthy PR. This week alone I have attended multiple outings. I helped in the activation of the McWrap Patch, attended a opening and assisted in the filming for a cook off between Kymba from 94.5 and The Standard head chef Chase Weber. You never know what advantages showing your face might bring. In this case we got to eat this delicious dish that will be on the menu for Breast Cancer Care WA long table lunch.

It is important that we build and maintain these relationships with Grunig’s and Hunt’s PR Theories in mind. I believe that two-way communication is important in PR. Not only does it allow for a balanced and mutual understanding but it also allows for your message to be expressed.           

As an end thought I would like to leave you with a quote from Tony Robbins “To effectively communicate, we must realize that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others."

 

Thanks

Georgia