I AM THE PRO.... NOW WHAT?

So my friend was recently appointed the public relations manager of company X, lets call it Jack, Jilll & sons Ltd when it hit him that he didn't really know what he was going to do.

Which seemed strange since he had aced their interview, in an extensive and highly competitive process.

We sat down with my hyperventilating friend to chart a plan of attack for his new job and it looked something like this.

1. What's the company strategy?

The company he is set to work for has a set of strategic objectives my friend, called him Jalango, needs to acquaint himself with and commit to help achieve through his office as the brand custodian of the company.

The PR/Communications department is where the soul of the company's brand is nurtured and built before it is sent off to the marketing department to spruce up and defend with advertising.

Once he knows the strategic objectives of the company he would then be able to draw up his own communications strategy in which he would prescribe actions to achieve the the aforementioned strategies.

     2. Know your people

He was going in to head a team of three with the option to hire another person within his first year. He needed to get the measure of his people very quickly and decide how they fit in his strategy and what gap the new person would be coming in to fill.

We worked out that he needed at least one person to understand his strategy and even help in its development and if the other two were good implementors he would be off to the races. He also needed someone who would help him liaise with the media, hopefully a former media person, he was already respected in the media. It would be an added bonus if he had someone "who knows guys, who know guys" to get quickly around the organisation and the media.

    3. Touch base with your allies, enemies and everything in between

They had a PR agency under contract. He would have o go in there, share his  strategy and have a clear demarcation of responsibility. It was his responsibility to make sure they got value for money from the agency.

And then he would have to do a round of the media houses and understand house understand their workings, what they would require from him, what was feasible to expect from them and who will be his go to people -- find out their birthdays, their favourite restaurants, beers and if they were an Avenger who would they be --- that last one more important than you can imagine.

The media can make you or break the best PR man. If you think they are your enemies you would best be advised to keep them closer than your friends.

    4. Quickly who has the power?

Once we have the above sorted we would need to cover his back. Look within the company. Find out the power dynamics -- who has the power? who may have the power? who may not have the power but think they have the power? who may have the power but don't know they have the power? etc etc

This important because many companies think that the communication function is the dumping ground of those who have failed elsewhere, those who cant be sacked but have to be put somewhere eg the chairman's son or those who are in purgatory. 

Companies don't take communications seriously. It doesn't show until they are in a crisis and they have no clue how to get their message out.

To get anything done the PR man has to know the levers of power and how to work them, because communication is to important to be left to chance.

THE MAGIC KEY .... YOUR PERSONAL BRAND

My friend, lets call him John, has had a long and illustrious career.

He went to some of the best schools in our town and at university studied business administration. He did his time at the till at a big bank, put his career on hold to get a masters in corporate finance.

John returned to Uganda. Thankfully his old employer had a place for him and he has been with him ever since. He is respected in his industry he is fast approaching retirement. 

John has been prudent with his money. With what he has stoked away in shares, government paper his provident fund and his savings with NSSF, it is not likely that he will retreat to a life of destitution.

His worry is that he will have time weighing heavily on his hands, with nothing to do. The thought has crossed his mind of setting up a consultancy, but the rough and tumble of setting up a new business does not appeal to him.

He knows he has what it takes. On free evenings he has helped friends and relatives set up their own businesses, acquaintances restructure their businesses and even advised on "mergers and acquisitions" of the odd SME here and there. For most of the work he allowed his "Clients" to pay him whats fair with several assignments being done pro bono so he had no doubt in his mind about the value he could still provide.

The challenge is not that he is not competent, that he does not have value to offer as a consultant or there is no market for his services once he has left the bank.

John's dilemma is a common one.

The personal brand matrix above locates all of us in one of those four quadrants which differentiates us by a combination of the level of our competence and our visibility as competent or not in the field of our choosing.

In the lower right hand quadrant are the fakes, those with high visibility but low competence. They walk among us and are the reason the saying "Empty tins make most noise" was created.

In the lower left hand corner are those who have low visibility and low competence. Not  bad place to be. These are often young, starting out in their career with no experience and some education. Untested and unbattered by life's ups and downs.

We call them raw material, they can be molded into very useful members of our society. This they will do by putting in the time to educate themselves, gain experience and be in a state of continuous learning about themselves and their environment in order to become experts.

Experts abound. Anyone coming to the close of their careers -- like John, who has been consistent and dedicated in his chosen field of work qualifies as an expert. By the close of one's career ideally one should be at the highest point on the competence scale.

The fourth and final quadrant are the Thought leaders. These are the ones who are not only competent but by design or accident, their value is recognised within their own industry and beyond.

These are those among us who make the most money -- they do not seat interviews, they are head hunted; their skills as consultants are in demand; they work with whom they want, where they want and when they want.

That's where we should all aspire to be, whether we are in corporate Uganda or not.

"To make the transition from the Expert to the Thought leader quadrant is dependent on what communications you put out or go about you. We can consciously manage this if we are systematic, deliberate and consistent in employing the media -- traditional and new....