Must.....meet.....deadline!!! So much research, so little time!

If there’s one thing I have learnt about working in a consultancy it’s that there is so much research to do and so little time to do it in! If you’re working in a non-for-profit organisation or a particular corporate industry then most often than not you will know your organisation inside and out.

Working in a public relations consultancy on the other hand means you have many clients and many organisations. The negative thing about this is that there is so much research to do especially if you are working with a completely new client!

On Tuesday at my prac placement at Shine Communications, I had the task of creating all the information to go on a website for one our clients. This client was a high end fashion and hair stylist who has a salon in Subiaco called Jas International. Our client wanted to create a website to create more publicity for his clients and give people more information about what he does.

Now I thought this was all very interesting but the only problem was I knew nothing about this client and knew nothing about high-end hairdressers! And I had to send everything to my supervisor to read by that afternoon!

I was given a list of things the client wanted included in his website such as information about the salon, where it’s located, style trends, products they offer and how to buy online.  I only had about 4 hours to do it all so got cracking right away because I didn’t want to let my supervisor down.

I started at 9:30 in the morning and straight away researched high-end salons in Australia, New York, London and Paris to find out how exactly they worded their information and the kind of style of writing they were using. I then had to research lots of different hair products, hair extensions, fashion trends, popular hair colours and styles, you name it - I researched it! I then had to try and take this knowledge and put it into sentences with a posh or luxurious flow to it due to the nature of the high-end salon – very difficult!

I had to use a lot of descriptive and creative language to position the readers of the website into feeling they would be in a high-end fashion and beauty palace if they were to visit the salon. I had to set the scene to give clients the idea that the treatment you’ll receive at this hair salon is like the treatment celebrities would receive if they were in Paris or Milan or New York.  Using descriptive language in everyday sentences is very hard but thankfully having done feature writing in one of my journalism units at university the task was a little bit easier.

Safe to say after those 4-5 long and stressful hours I pretty much knew everything there was to know about the latest fashion and trends in hair and beauty. I sent everything off to my supervisor about 2pm and she was happy with it, which I was stoked about. There were a few things that needed touching up and so I spent the rest of the afternoon chopping and changing bits of information until my supervisor and I were happy with it. I finished everything about 5:30pm and realised how exhausted I was.

My supervisor is a one-man show. She runs her consultancy all by herself with the help of only one other employee who is leaving next week. It just made me think “I don’t know how she does it!”

People that work in a consultancy must be bombarded with copious amounts of research they have to do before they are assigned any work for the clients. I have always wanted to work in a consultancy simply because I think I would get bored working for just one organisation. I like a bit of variation in what I do. However today showed me just how stressful working in a consultancy can be, especially when you are working with brand new clients!

At the same time though, consultancies normally only take on as many clients as they can handle. Receiving a brand new client is stressful at the start trying to find out everything you can about them, but I guess once this is done, and if you do a good job, they can potentially be one of your clients for many more years to come. Overall I guess working in a consultancy is pretty good, but today definitely made me think more about my future career choices!

Dreaming big

Due to my placement opportunity at Shine Communications I have had an incredible introduction into the basis of public relations and even after only completing 13 days of my placement I, now have a better understanding of where I see myself in the world of PR. Shine Communications is a consultancy based public relations practice, so there’s no one subject to focus on. You don’t know each client inside and out because the work load may only be seasonal or you may only have little projects to work on for them throughout the year. I have found that many of the clients use us as a plug-in resource. Basically when they are understaffed or have projects well beyond their means, in the little time they have to complete it, they turn to Shine to assist.

As interesting as consultancy is, it simply is just not for me – I want to know a company inside and out. The constant juggling of clients and necessity to learn at least a small portion of what the company is about when taking on someone new (which is a lot more often than you may think) is just not where I see myself in the not so far away future. This incredible experience has really confirmed for me my desire to be a part of in-house public relations practice. Which leads me to my next topic of debate - the field of business I see myself in.

Shines main clients consist of aged care organisations, health organisations, mining companies and not-for-profit organisations, all of which carry out admirable roles within society and are great business sectors to practice public relations - it's a great feeling knowing the work you are doing is for a good cause. 

I have a part time job at Silver Chain Nursing Association, so I am very much accustom to the kind of work Shine are involved with and I do love the feeling I get knowing I'm indirectly helping those in need; whether that be at Shine or at Silver Chain. Due to the love I encompass for my job at Silver Chain and the comfort in knowing I can easily move around the organisation, or any health or not-for-profit organisation for that matter due to my experience, I always thought I would take out a professional career in this area. However, after being given the opportunity to practice my chosen career in this area of work, I think I am after a business sector with a bit more flare and up-and-go when it comes to public relations. Something that is forever changing and will keep me on my toes. 

Ever since I can remember I have had a massive and what some would say (mainly my mum) a 'ridiculous' obsession with fashion - clothes, accessories, shoes, you name it... I love it! Which, along side my internship at Shine, has helped me discover where I would ultimately like to end up in the world of PR - Fashion!

I could not think of anything better than being able to work for an in-house fashion company. Co-ordinating the big fashion events, writing stories on the latest trends and brands and maybe even getting to meet some of the big fashion icons! My ultimate dream would be to work for Vogue fashion magazine in London where I think partaking in all of what I just mentioned (plus some) would become a very exciting reality.

I know what you're thinking - how could she go from wanting to undertake PR in something so worthwhile to then going the total opposite direction and entering the 'materialistic' world of fashion? And believe me, my change of mind baffles me too and I'm not saying that I have lost total interest in working for a not-for-profit organisation but through this incredible work experience at Shine, I've realised that I don't have to just 'settle' in a job because I think it's all I can get or it's an 'easy' choice. I have realised that it is possible to work in whatever field I desire. I am a firm believer in dreaming big and doing whatever you can to achieve that dream. After-all if you don't dream, you don't aim higher and if you don't aim higher you never give yourself the chance to do and be better.

I know I'm not going to end up at Vogue right away, I'm going to have to really work to get there and it will take me YEARS! But, I'm going to do whatever I can NOW, while I still have the zest for life and the desire to make my goals a reality. I'm going to work my way up the PR in fashion ladder and prove that I can meet the expectations I have put on myself, because I know if I don't push myself and I don't at least endeavour to reach my goals, I'll be 40 and kicking myself for not giving it a go. 

Who knows where I'll end up but right now...in my head, the future's looking pretty good.

Taking responsibility

I’m nearly at the end of my internship with Shine Communications, which I have been working under the lovely Ruth Simpson. When I first started my internship I was very excited to get involved but was also quite nervous when it came to contacting people for an interview, I suppose I didn’t have the confidence yet. When I was given the task to phone someone up, my heart would skip a beat and without prompting, my subconscious brain would come up with a thousand different excuses that my conscious brain would will away and tell me to grow up – it wasn’t a good feeling.

I suppose I was just overthinking things too much, and was too focused on what I had to say and what I had to get out of the interview rather than just being myself and having a normal chat. But luckily for me, this feeling slowly faded away when I realised one crucial thing: the term ‘intern’ is known by most people as someone who is still learning. So, I found that although I was given a lot of responsibility as an intern, the average person knows how much responsibility an ‘intern’ should have, so if I made mistakes, I was forgiven more easily – to say so lightly. If I mumbled my sentence and had to start again, the person on the other line didn’t seam to mind, if I spelt their name wrong or got a date confused, they understood, or if I forgot to attach a document to an email or called them back for a clarification, I didn’t seem too unprofessional because in their eyes I was just an intern who was still learning. Once I had this knowledge in my head, my confidence grew, and the more mumbling and wrong spelling I was picked up on, the more I learned and the more mistakes I began avoiding.

There was this one mistake, however, that was my full responsibility and therefore something I couldn’t blame on my title ‘intern’. I had written a story for the Dogs’ Refuge Home in Shenton Park, which involved a Kallaroo resident adopting a dog. I had been in contact with the resident since day one of writing the story and during the whole process, he was nothing but kind to me over the phone. When it came to asking for a photo to accompany the story, he made it clear that he was very camera shy and repeatedly asked for someone to accompany him when the photographer came to his house. And in response to his pleads, I would reply (numerously) that I would attend the photo shoot and make sure everything runs smoothly for him, of which he was extremely grateful for.

As the date of the photo came closer, I was given more and more tasks to do for the refuge and so, as the day of the Kallaroo photo shoot approached, it became the last thing on my mind and it took until the next morning to realise I had completely missed it. What a feeling that was, I felt TERRIBLE. I immediately contacted my supervisor which she advised for me to call him and appologise – now that was one phone call I was nervous for! Once I had explained to him what had happened, to my surprise, he was very good about it and understood that mistakes do happen. In this case, I couldn’t rely on my title ‘intern’, I think I was just lucky this guy was such a nice and understanding person.

So, things that I have learnt:

- People aren’t so scary to call and talk to on the phone

- People are generally understanding and I shouldn’t be scared of them

- Never break a promise with someone who is relying on you

- Always take responsibility for your own mistakes

Women in the workplace

It is safe to say my internship at Shine Communications is going swimmingly, with nothing in-particularly interesting to report. This is great news, but it’s also not-so-great when you have a blog to write so you can discuss issues or significant events during your internship. So I decided to write about an issue I came across in my internship that involves PR, but also goes above and beyond. This issue is the underestimation of attractive women in a position of power.  

I recently had the pleasure of accompanying my supervisor to a meeting with the client Archae-aus. After the meeting, Archae-aus wanted our advice on a new business adventure they might be stepping into - buying advertising space on the Business News website. So, we met with the lovely Jessica Taylor, corporate account manager at WA Business News and I sat back to absorb what she was about to pitch. Ten minutes into her spiel, there wasn’t much absorbing going on. Her sparkling yet fierce green eyes, her perfectly flawless skin (but seriously how did she get her skin so spotless!) and her two deeply even dimples were all too distracting. The innovative, factual, and professional pitch she was trying to get across just went up and over my head because I was too busy in awe over how stunning she was. And lets not get started on her fashion-forward attire and cute-as shoes!

So when she left, it was time to discuss what she had just proposed. Digging deep, I puffed up my chest and began to come up with something constructive - that was until my supervisor blurted out, “I couldn’t get over how nice her skin was!” And before I knew it I was responding with, “Oh my god her eyes were so beautiful and green!” We both had a giggle and confessed that we were both too much in awe over her beauty to really take in what she was saying, or even take her seriously. After our guilty discussion about her beauty and how it was a shame because what she was saying sounded quite professional and succinct, it got me thinking – this must happen to her all the time.

Smart, good-looking women in a place of power, who have to attend meetings and make face-to-face decisions, must deal with this problem all the time. It doesn’t matter how many hours they put into a client brief, or how many big, exuberant words they use to pitch it, people (sadly) must take one look at them and either not take them seriously, or not focus on what they are saying at all – oops! Probably the second meeting would have gone a little better, we could have prepared ourselves to listen with our ears not our eyes, but this shouldn’t be the case.

It is a shame, but what can anybody do about this problem? We’re not being sexist and we’re not undermining her because we all know her capabilities. Is it just human nature to admire someone who is aesthetically pleasing?

Think about it, what are your first thoughts when you start talking to an attractive woman or male? Straight away, did you take them seriously? 

One of the hardest things I have ever had to do...

So I don’t know if anyone read my blog from Friday about my time at the Shenton Park Dogs’ Refuge supervising a photo shoot for the corporate volunteering day… If you didn’t you might want to read it before I go on…because it’s amazing how much can change in 24 hours.

So on Friday I was relishing the fact that the story I wrote a media release for and supervised a photo shoot for, made page 3 of the The Post newspaper. When my supervisor told me this news I was absolutely thrilled and she sent me a copy of it, though because I was at university I just gave it a quick glance and moved on.

Because I was the one who wrote the media release for the story, I was also the person who contacted and did interviews with all those involved in the volunteering day, including the husband and wife who donated the $10,000 worth of turf for the refuge. This was all so that I could write up a media release to be sent to journalists who may want to write the story in their newspaper.

To my dismay however, on Saturday I received a text message from the wife who donated the turf saying she was disappointed because some of the facts of the story were wrong. I then told her to give me five minutes so that I could read over the story and then give her a call. I read it and realised that she was correct, a lot of the facts did actually get mixed up. It wasn’t anything too bad just a few simple errors but still it seemed to mean a lot to her so I gave her a call and said I would try and see what I could do.

I started to panic a little because I felt terrible and went over the media release I sent out to the journalists and realised that no, all of my facts were correct and the error was actually on behalf of the journalist who wrote the story- who was actually my second year journalism tutor.

The first thing I wanted to do was ring up my previous tutor David Cohen and say: “Remember all those times you told us to always check the facts and be accurate with whatever we are reporting? Well ha! You made errors in your story so there!”  Obviously my brain got the better of me and I didn’t, and decided to contact my supervisor to ask her what to do.

So I did this and she explained to me that the errors were only really minor and the story still put the husband and wife who donated the turf in a really positive light, and it was really great media coverage for the dogs’ home. She then went on to explain to me how the journalists and newspaper are actually doing us a favour by putting our story into the paper, and especially on page 3 because it really is free advertisement for both the refuge and also the turf company. She also said how asking for an apology might jeopardise the already really stable relationship our consultancy has with The Post newspaper and said if we were to criticize them they may not put our stories in at all in the future.

Because The Post comes out on Friday, all journalists must file their stories by 12:30pm on Thursday. As we did the photo shoot on Thursday at 11:30 the journalist only had little time to go back and file it and so this is where the errors must have occurred.

I thought about all of this and knew she was right. Although I felt terrible for the wife, at the end of the day it was a really great story and gave our client some really good media coverage. I now just had to ring the wife and try and explain this to her in the nicest possible way.

My supervisor Ruth helped me come up with some phrases because frankly I was a little bit scared of ‘getting my head bitten off’ in case the wife was still unhappy. I really wanted to say to my supervisor “No can’t you do it? She’ll listen to you more” but then I thought to myself “No, if I want to show to Ruth I can handle crisis situations and act calm then this is something I have to do myself”. And so I did.

I planned out everything I was going to say on a piece of paper and gave the wife a call. I told her I understood her and said it was really unfortunate but explained to her how well the story did by getting in a paper and on page three as well and how positive the article talked of her and her husband and that this was the most important thing to focus on here. At the end of the day, regardless of the few mistakes the article made, it publicised the refuge in a really positive way and also showed of the kind hearts of these generous people who I said are an inspiration to everyone.

This whole situation taught me that journalists are very time constrained, and although these situations aren’t our fault, there is nothing we can really do about them because yes, they are doing us public relations professionals a favour by helping us put our clients’ articles in their newspapers.

It also taught me of the important relationships public relations practitioners have with journalists. Without journalists there is essentially no media coverage for our clients and hence no publicity for their respective companies. Although journalists may at times get information and facts wrong it is always best to keep them on your good side because you never know when you will need them next. This was definitely a lesson learnt for me and even though it was unfortunate I am really glad it happened because I will know for next time what to do and how to calmly handle situations such as this.