We have a client, let’s call him David to spare his blushes.
David is an expert in his field, he’s a professor and someone who’s invited to speak on his area of specialism around the world but he’s a modest chap, and despite these regular invitations, he still questioned why he’s feted in this way and wasn’t sure that he was interesting or knowledgeable enough to be featured in trade titles.
Before we started work with him a few years ago, he’d never really done any PR. He’d published some papers and was known within his field to a certain extent but he’d never really pushed himself forward and was nervous about the prospect of undertaking PR activity.
Since we’ve been working together, we’ve generated commissioned articles for him in the trade media relating to his industry and he now has regular columns in several titles and is well known in the industry.
The results have been impressive. Just recently he attended a conference as a speaker, along with some top level executives from some of the leading companies in the UK and around the world. Being so unassuming, he was wondering why he’d been invited up to share a platform with these people who front such well-known companies.
He assumed he was there to just make up the numbers and that the questions would all be aimed at his fellow panellists. It soon became clear however, that he was the one that all the delegates aimed questions at and wanted to speak to after the conference.
The reason?
Because he had proved that he really knew his stuff. Through commissioned articles and by posting the articles on social media he generated comment and interest and consolidated his position as the leading expert in his field.
He was already highly regarded but by working with him to understand his company, his key messages, his target audience and pitching good story ideas, we were able to generate the press coverage to position him as a thought leader.
His workload has increased and he’s in more demand than ever before. Everyone in his industry knows who he is, his clients know that they’re in safe hands and his competition are wondering why he’s now in this position.
If you’re considering embarking on PR but are worried that you don’t know enough and aren’t experienced enough, remember, you know more than you think you do. If you’re not promoting yourself, your competition will be promoting themselves and once they become the go-to experts in their field, it’ll be difficult for you to catch up.