What makes a good PR person?

I was out to lunch last week with a writer from the Seattle Times' and the topic of "What makes a good PR person?" came up. I shared my philosophy, and she respectfully shared her invaluable input. I thought it was a great conversation and I wanted to share.

PR takes a unique (and dare I say, rare?) set of characteristics and skills. In no particular order, a good PR person:

• Asks to see or be apprised of your entire marketing plan – wants to know your goals as an organization
• Can easily and quickly synthesize a lot of information
• Stays on top of trends, and knows when and where their clients fit into the scene
• Has the creativity and technical writing skills to write a press release that could potentially be reprinted as is (AP style)
• Can get excited--and can transfer that enthusiasm--about their clients
• Is flexible, responsive and proactive
• Doesn't take "no" personally
• Has the ability to anticipate problems--that is, can predict the worst--while not letting keen judgment compromise optimism
• Is comfortable with not taking credit for a large majority of their work
• Understands the value of a personalized pitch
• Knows when not to pitch a story

Some of these are personality traits that you’re either born with or not – but many are developed over time; by making mistakes and learning from them. That’s why if you’re hiring an agency, it’s important to know who will be primarily servicing your account. Do your research before hiring a PR agency (even a “boutique”), because it’s commonplace have junior staff primarily service accounts – after all, their time costs less to the agency.

At Kenner Lodis Creative, we work hard to make sure we only take on clients that we truly feel we’ll be successful with, and that’s not everybody. But if you're in the market for PR, we'd love to start a conversation with you. We love new projects, and we love sending our respected colleagues (when better suited) new work, too.