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TRANSCRIPT:
DOUG: Lauren, you work with multiple organizations across many verticals. Is there any one thing that you see is consistent across all of those verticals and different types of organizations you work with?
LOREN: Yes. Particularly in media relations, which is my specialty, it is being realistic and honest with the client and yourself about the news value of every announcement that you’re going to make and then using only the appropriate channels to disseminate it. I mean, otherwise, you end up wasting a lot of time. You waste the reporters’ time and their inbox space. You set unrealistic expectations for the client. And keeping the client happy for now doesn’t equate to keeping the client long-term, and everybody ends up unhappy if you just can’t be straightforward and honest about what the news is, the news value, and where it belongs.
DOUG: Yeah. So, it’s good news for organizations like yours and mine, which specialize in earned media and getting stories out, is AI has really made earned media more important with the added long tail of discoverability. Is that affecting what you’re seeing from clients? Are they more interested in getting out there?
LOREN: They’re all asking, you know, how do they get the attention of AI and the large language models. And what I tell them is that we’ve been doing this all along. We’re just aware of it now. And that what we’ve been doing forever is actually more important than ever because it is the top tier media. It is the really well researched and well reported news that is being ingested by AI. So, just keep on keeping on, really, and being very careful about what we put out and making sure that it’s really only the best information. And we’ve been doing it all along, and it just adds enormous value to the PR program.
DOUG: You know, one of number of things that have been interesting for me and just speaking with you is when you think of teamwork, it’s not just you and the client. It’s you, the client, and the journalist. How do you create that kind of feeling that we’re all on the same team?
LOREN: I’m so glad you asked. Because teamwork for me is different than it is for a lot of people. When you think about PR teams, you’re thinking about this, you know, a broad cross section of account executives, assistants, and whatever. I have always thought about it as a three person team. It is me. It is my immediate client contact and the reporter that I’m working at with that moment, whether it be for the next ten minutes or the next, you know, week on a big story. And my job is to do the heavy lifting between the two and to keep it as, honestly, as casual and as flexible as possible. I think we get caught up a lot of the time in the structure of teamwork being like, well, here’s a, a specific report, and I’m going to send it to you, and then you’re going to edit it, and you’re going edit it, and you’re going edit it. And when really being able to pick up the phone really quick and say, hey, can you clarify that thing? Or send a quick text. I work with, you know, a lot of CEOs, and they’re really grateful just to be able to shoot back a quick answer through a text. It saves everybody a lot of time. I can then get back to the client. I can then back to the reporter or the client really, really quickly. And I think that that trust and teamwork is what has really been the success for me.
DOUG: Yeah. interesting. And you’re also a big fan of making communications more streamlined. You touched about it there. Hey, there’s a question. Get a quick answer, and then we move forward. What are some other things that you’re focusing on to keep the whole process more streamlined? People talk about AI doing that, but are there other ways that the process could be more streamlined for PR people?
LOREN: Yeah. I think what’s happened in PR, and I’ve gotten caught up in this a lot. I’ve done it in other agencies. I’ve done it in my own, which is you start, like, building all these processes in place and paperwork, and then you realize none of that is necessary or most of it isn’t necessary. It is the quick conversations, the clear and realistic expectation setting, and the honest results conversation that you have with clients. I typically don’t do reports for clients. I haven’t done them in probably about fifteen except when years they need to report something to somebody else. I mean, there’s only so many ways to say you’ve got, you know, two pieces of coverage this month. They know that. I don’t need to make it fancy. It takes up a lot of my time. They’re not going to read it anyway. So, you know, I talk with my clients about what we realistically do in the beginning of an engagement, how we do reporting, how we share information, and what is the quickest, easiest way. I was telling them, like, what you send me doesn’t have to be pretty. It doesn’t have to be perfect. Just send it to me, and I will make it work from there to the reporter. At the end of the line, that reporter is the one that makes it perfect, but we make sure we have all the right information, but it doesn’t have to be pristine. Doesn’t have to look pretty.
DOUG: In the earned media space, the media continues to be our most important client, just that we have to be respectful and serve them well. And they need our help with all the changes going on in media, more stuff that they have to report, post, and share with the smaller staff. One thing that comes up and you mentioned, oh, you’ll talk to your client, be direct about whether a story is newsworthy or not. What are some of the things that you’re looking for that make the story more newsworthy? Is it just sort of like a cue rating, you know it, you feel it, but is there anything that maybe others watching this could take to think about? Like an example in the healthcare space where like, okay, how many people does this affect and how serious is the impact that can have? It’s annoying but like everyone deals with it like lack of sleep and obviously that can be more than annoying on that or something super serious but it only affects a smaller group. What are some of the things that you do that might be helpful to others to determine is this story newsworthy? Should I push back with the client? Should I not?
LOREN: Yeah. I mean, it’s exactly what you said. There’s a certain amount of, you know, gut instinct that goes into it after doing this for thirty years, but for the most part, the questions you have to ask yourself, is anybody outside of the employees of the company going to care about this news? I mean, a lot of the wins are hard fought. They are to be lauded, but is it really going to be newsworthy and of importance to anybody outside the company and the founder’s mother, you know, to tell this to? And the questions to ask are, does this move the needle? Does this news somehow change standards within an industry? Is it important information that, like, a wide population of people need to know about? And even if it is just mundane, you know, deal news, where does that go? It isn’t not going to end up in The New York Times, but what it does, it’s important for your industry. So, you take that smaller piece of news, and that’s a trade thing. It’s knowing where to place the news that you’ve got, understanding the importance of it, and being really realistic again with the clients and with the media because a lot of it could be, listen, here here’s a piece of news that is sort of interesting. I know you’re probably not going to cover it, but as an FYI, there’s a little bit of research in here that I thought you might be interested in. And so, what is newsworthy really just means does it make an impact on the industry in some way? Does it change standards? Is there a nugget in there that somebody could use, not necessarily for a standalone story on this piece of news, but is but is it applicable to something else that’s happening in the industry and the world? And then it is our job after the clients approve it all and you have this big giant document typically, to point out the things that one reporter is going to care about. Don’t make them wade through it all.
DOUG: That is great, and I appreciate you not making our audience wade through it all. And congratulations to you on 25 years at Combined Forces Public Relations. That’s certainly impressive. And any final thoughts you want leave our audience with?
LOREN: Find what works for you and not necessarily what you’re told to do. There’s a lot of PR books about how things happen. There’s a lot of learnings that we get from agencies and other people. Take what serves you, leave behind what doesn’t, and make the best choices for yourself and how you want run your business.
DOUG: Sounds good. Thanks so much. Have a great rest of your day.
LOREN: Thank you.
