Building on the theme of how to interview from last week, Nick Douglas takes a look at how not to flack. In the interest of equal time, his points, his bullets, my response; his full ideas are in the link above.
1. You're smarter than you think.
Sez me: His point -- let the CEO talk. Yep, generally a good idea.
2. Training a flack is like training your entire staff. If your company only employs ten people, a everyone should know enough about everyone else's job to explain it to me.
Sez me: Ooh, not sure about that. The finance guy is not going to get into the speeds and feeds, and the engineering guy ain't gonna talk sales. See point one above, and if the CEO can't talk, then maybe it might be more efficient to figure out what the story is and talk to the one person who is deep on it. A PR person might be able to help? Maybe?
3. Educated flacks are the worst. We all use clichés because we're too lazy to really talk. I majored in English, so my clichés are "deconstruction" and "thesis statement." PR pros majored in marketing and came out saying "content" and "community input."
Sez Me: Nope. Poor communication knows no educational boundaries.
4. You can pitch me and I won't feel pitched. I love meeting new people at tech parties. What I don't want to meet is someone who evangelizes a company and then marks their conversation with me as billable hours.
Sez me: fair point. If you've got nothing to say, enthusiasm won't carry the day.
5. That said, here are my favorite flacks. Okay, eventually your company will grow and you'll need a flack so you and your employees can get back to work.
Sez me: Nick likes Bite PR and Best PR. Good to know we're not all pond scum.
But seriously, these kinds of PR people are bad, or journalists are scum, or CEOs are snakes, these stereotypes have been going around for a while. Step away from the titles and job descriptions, and life gets a lot better and more interesting.