Jay Sachetti joined Jeff O’Brien, partner at Husch Blackwell and Dyanne Ross-Hanson, president of Exit Planning Strategies talked about the market for mergers and acquisitions, exit planning opportunities for companies that don’t end up for sale and how companies can maximize their eventual sale price during an early October panel at the first Upsize on Tap event at Summit Brewing Co. in St. Paul.
When the state Legislature passed a law requiring employers to provide paid leave and safe time for employees, Justin Bieganek started hearing differing details from friends, colleagues and peers.
American businesses have an historic opportunity to tell their story.
The reasons are as follows:
Let’s address each of them individually to provide a clear task list for companies of any size and in just about any industry to breathe new life into their PR efforts.
Opinion surveys across industries show a greater trust among “people like me.” This means that putting a human face on a communication is important. It is why senior executives of major corporations have blogs, such as Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems, and Barry Judge, CMO of Best Buy. They share ideas and ask questions. In return they get insights from customers, investors and other key audience members.
It’s not the kind of conversation you’d find in a marketing brochure, and that’s what makes it special. When a company speaks through a person with candor, the level of trust for that company increases.
In a recent report on corporate blogs, Josh Bernoff, an analyst with Forrester Research, wrote: “Honest and transparent blogs will get noticed. Those who write in a corporate voice will be ignored and ineffective. What types of blogs will consumers trust? Those that reveal tidbits about what’s going on inside the company, those that comment intelligently on customer problems and competitor products, and those that speak like people.”
I’m not advocating blogs as a silver bullet to your marketing concerns, but I do strongly support Bernoff’s concept. It speaks to how our society has changed. It is the societal, rather than political, sentiment that Barack Obama tapped into, a theme of transparency.
Here are tasks I recommend to tap into these themes:
As a provider of communication services and the father of five children, I shouldn’t be saying this, but in the spirit of transparency, I will: Companies can produce quality text materials, audio programs and video presentations for record-low prices. Why? Hardware, software and distribution costs are exceptionally low, almost free if you consider online platforms such as Utterli for audio and YouTube or Blip.tv for video.
The point is this: All of the information in and surrounding your company has the potential to be a news item for some audience of interest. It takes news sense to identify the information and package it effectively.
I spoke about mash-ups earlier. A mash-up uses multiple technologies to deliver useful information. For example, Caribou Coffee might create an application that maps its stores in proximity to bike trails in the state. It would tap into a couple of databases, maybe even have a distance calculator, and put it in a mobile phone application. As far as I know Caribou doesn’t have such an application, but if they like the idea, they just got it for free. That’s transparency.
Back to the newsroom concept. It requires resources, namely people (employees or contracted) and a commitment on the part of the company to be a part of something larger than itself. It requires you to be a part of the issues and communities that affect your company. It requires a discussion of information from a broader perspective.
In some ways this is similar to when, in the 1500s, Nicolaus Copernicus attempted to convince his contemporaries that the earth revolved around the sun, a violation of the conventional wisdom of the time.
The market does not revolve around your company, and once you accept that perspective, you have new, profound opportunities to speak and to be heard. Here are your tasks:
I believe social networks such as Facebook and LinkedIn have grown exponentially because they are based on a human need to connect. LinkedIn is no different than your local rotary club chapter or chamber of commerce. It is virtually no different, or I should say, “virtually” is the only difference.
Technology collapses time and space. Therefore, a social group of environmental advocates can exist in Hennepin County or around the world on an online social network like the one T. Boone Pickens created for his “Pickens Plan” campaign with hundreds of thousands of members.
Let’s say your company was also an advocate of environmental causes. You then might find it advantageous to join the Pickens Plan community. The company, through an employee or a group of employees, would participate in conversations taking place among others in this group. Share ideas and resources, and through this unselfish commitment to the group, gain often unpredictable but certainly valuable benefits not the least of which is tremendous credibility.
Twitter has been much talked about lately. Many people don’t understand this microblogging tool, which limits you to communicating in 140-character messages. They don’t understand it because they come at it from a “Why should I?” perspective. Approach it from a “What’s out there?” perspective. When you do that, on a mission of both discovery and giving, good things happen.
BusinessWeek reporter Stephen Baker asked a question to his thousands of Twitter followers. I answered it. Two days later, I was singled out by name on Baker’s BusinessWeek blog. That wouldn’t have happened in the old era of “we pitch reporters, they write stories” public relations.
All of these technologies exist and are used because of the human need to connect – for business, friendship, professional development, networking, support and many other reasons. As a business, you’ll determine whether relationships online are worth your time.
