Posted by Gabe Lee
As I’ve gotten deeper in my PR experience, I’ve realized and started to greatly appreciate my sales background. What I’ve discovered is that good PR skills have a strong element of sales – the ability to “sell” a story to reporters.
Sales, or to sell something, is being able to get your point across in a persuasive manner using the proper communication skills, recognizing shared goals and the occasional conflicting opinions. Sales consists of persuading someone to better recognize your perspective and often times it leads to an agreement on the problem or issue. The point is that having a sales background is, and always will be, an invaluable tool in someone’s communication arsenal.
Photo Courtesy of PCWorld Blog
When it comes to public relations, having good sales skills comes in handy a lot, especially when you pick up the phone to pitch. Pitching news pubs is the PR equivalent of cold calling and if you don’t feel comfortable picking up the phone, calling a complete stranger and trying to convince them that your story is worth writing about, or at least looking into, you are dead in the water. The basic rule to live by when pitching a PR story is there are only three possible things that can happen once you are actually talking to the right person:
• The reporter says he or she is interested, does an interview and runs a story.
• The reporter isn’t interested
• They hang up on you (which although it usually doesn’t happen often, every PR professional has experienced it at some point in time).
That’s it! How bad is that? Now the last one may seem a little harsh, but it happens (not to me, of course!). The point is that you need to sell yourself first and then sell the story. You have to sell yourself as someone who is able to carry a conversation with the reporter or editor, and you need to do it quickly. Reporters and editors are on schedules and deadlines, so make it personable and to the point. Because you recognize that their time is important, get to your pitch quickly and make sure you include all of your pertinent information. The most important part of the call is closing the deal with as Doyle Albee says, “no fuzzy agreements” hanging in the balance. Get a solid agreement on how to proceed, whether it is a follow-up call or email, sending a press release, scheduling the interview, etc.
What is my point in all this? Having a sales background has prepared me to make my case quickly and keep it simple. Having been hung up quite a few times in my days of cold calling, I know how important it is to be clear and concise when making a sale and when pitching a story. It’s important to be cognizant of the other person’s time so get to the point and get to the point fast.
PR professionals have to learn to combine a bit of basic salesmanship and the art of storytelling into one, and the successful ones have mastered this.
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