Five PR Leadership Skills I Learned From My Cat

I’ve been living with cats for most of my adult life and let me tell you, they are the consummate leaders of the house and sometimes of my life. The first year that Jonny, my current 12-year-old cat, lived with me I hardly knew he existed. He hid from me, played hard-to-get, and really, quite […]

How to Read a PR Client’s Mind

How many times have you wished that you could indeed read your client’s mind? Or even better, read the mind of the prospective client? I remember pitching a cruise ship line several years ago. They had called me because I had the relevant experience just recently having launched a new ship. After the preliminary niceties, […]

5 PR Tips to Managing Your Online Reputation

Here’s a great “geek joke:” Where do you hide a dead body? Answer: On the third page of Google results. I always tell young employees to be careful of what they post on social networks cause it may come back to bite them in the ass. Whether it’s partying at a frat house with beer […]

All I Really Need to Know About PR I Learned in Kindergarten

First published in 1988, medical Robert Fulgham’s book, All I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, rose to the ranks of a bestseller. But his rules from 27 years ago can easily be applied to today’s public relations industry with just a little jiggering. Here’s how just five of his rules can be applied […]

5 PR Secrets I Learned From my Dog

Two years ago I rescued an eight year old black lab named Leo—and as the adage says, he rescued me right back. He was a 65 pound anxious wrecking ball who, when briefly left alone, ate my desk chair and raided my walk-in closet bringing out and destroying all my stored paper products and laying […]

5 Qualities of the Best PR Interns

I always said that I could tell a good PR person within minutes of meeting him/her. And the more that I have worked in the business, the more I see that it is not necessarily age and experience that are the best qualities,but often it is their native ability. Recently I had attended a […]

Why Cats Need Better PR

Cats are the most popular pet worldwide, outnumbering dogs three to one, ambulance yet dogs are given the label of man’s best friend. How did this happen? I know from my own experience of being owned by several cats over the years, that they do have some characteristics that well, could use a good public relations […]

5 Qualities of a Good PR Client

A bad public relations agency client is like a really bad meal—miserable but not life-threatening. Still, it’s good to avoid them a much as possible. And the best way to do that is to know what qualities to look for in a good client/agency relationship. So I present, shop 5 Qualities of a Good PR Client. […]

How to Handle PR Nightmarish Clients

Every agency’s got one—the nightmare client. And if you don’t have him now, trust me, you will experience this at some time in your agency life. If you work in the public relations business long enough you will certainly have horror stories of clients with bad habits and unrealistic campaign requests. Yes, I have fired clients […]

The Use of the Telephone in Public Relations

Remember when Sex and the City Carrie Bradshaw’s boyfriend broke up with her via a Post-it note? And then my friend Naomi broke up with her boyfriend via email. Sometimes I like to imagine what would happen if the telephone was just invented. I imagine writing the press release announcing the new product introduction–it would […]