Smaller IFAs can reap the benefits of public relations. Linda Winder tells Paul Robertson how.
“Also, you need to think about all of the different communications avenues there are and make sure you have contacts, so that when you get your news out there you need to know which one of those avenues will work best.”
Winder is a fan of the long-term strategy in terms of what firms want to be known for and to consistently get the message out. If you are serious about it, you need to have thought it through properly. This should be about what you want the perception of you to be and what is going to be most useful for your business.
Winder said: “If being a specialist in IP is your main thing, or if that is the part of the business that you are trying to drive at that point, then get out there, talk about IP and consistently say the same messages so that is what starts to sink in.”
So far so good, but as with every venture, there have to be risks and downsides to consider. There is cynicism, even among those who would consider doing PR, perhaps a lack of trust in the media. So how would you address that issue?
“I think people are definitely cynical towards many aspects of PR. But for something really simple, such as developing key messages, if you want to do PR and make it a proper part of your business, then developing key messages is absolutely essential. Because you work out what is distinctive about your company, why it is different, what people are going to find interesting, have more information to back that up and then facts to prove it.
“No matter what you are doing, whether it is an internal presentation, external presentation, marketing, PR, you have always got these facts to home in on, to go back to, to tell a consistent story about the business that you are working for, or what it is that you want people to know about you. And that is hugely useful.”
This is a great issue to raise and, apart from the fact that looking at your firm from a PR perspective helps focus all aspects of the business, from an interaction with the media perspective, it is proof that counts.
As Winder noted: “Just because something sounds good, it doesn’t mean you can say it. So if you said something like: ‘I have the best customer service in the industry’, or ‘I have the happiest clients’, can you prove it? But once you have that list of provable points, that is valuable.”
Few people actually consider PR to be a risk to their company, at least not when it is their own PR that they control. However, this is not the case, and a sense of perspective is as important as the sense of judgement already discussed.
Essentially, this boils down to an understanding that the world does not revolve around your company and what it finds fascinating.
Making your voice heard
“One thing I think is really important for a business when they are thinking about doing PR, what I have seen a lot of businesses through the years really struggle with, is that ability to step back and not be inside the story. If you are spending every day making something successful, it is hard to know what someone else might find interesting.
“You might think this should be on the front page of The Telegraph, when actually nobody else finds this interesting. And that is really quite hard to do. But it is absolutely essential if you are going to be good at communicating. If you go out there and you get it wrong, it is hard to build that back up again. It takes time.”
This all boils down to a signal to noise ratio: your firm needs to make sure that it can stand out and that it can be heard above others. If you know the people that you are trying to target, if they know you are credible, if you always send them interesting stuff, they are going to listen to you.
“If you just push out whatever it is you feel like saying, output that is not targeted, if you do not know the publications that you are targeting, you do not sit and read them before you send them an email or pick up the phone so you know what they actually write about; you will fail. Quite simple stuff, but you would be surprised at the number of people who do not do that.”
