The PR Playbook: Less Talk, More Touchdowns
“We hit a home run.”
In America, you don’t have to know how to swing a bat or throw a baseball to know what a home run is. It’s part of our culture in the same way that rugby and soccer are for other nations, or that the Olympics are for the more than 200 nations that participate.
That’s because sports are a universal part of the human experience. And in our most recent LinkedIn Live conversation, Proven Media Solutions’ Robert Kuykendall and Hawke Media’s Doyle Albee gave host Dustin Siggins a blizzard of sports analogies that can help PR professionals show what we do, how we do it, and the value it brings.
Earning trust with decisionmakers
Before the first op-ed is written and a journalist is pitched, prospects and management must trust that we are a valuable part of their overall success. It requires speaking their language — ditching the jargon and speaking sales and C-Suite.
One example Robert often uses is a story about Nick Saban’s first day at the University of Alabama. He told his staff, “Everything we do is about recruiting.” It made him a great coach because he narrowed down a multi-million-dollar athletic program to the one thing that makes it successful. Every player, trainer, recruiter, and janitor knew that recruiting was key.
Who’s running the campaign?
The best leaders want to hand off control of communications campaigns. But earning that initial authority and budget often requires showing who is part of the team and how they will move the ball down the field. (That was a sports analogy, by the way.)
And that’s where Dustin brought Boston Celtics small forward Larry Bird into the conversation. A 1980s NBA star still considered one of the best players in the history of basketball, even his biggest fans don’t think that every member of the Celtics should have been Bird. The team wouldn’t have made the playoffs, never mind won multiple championships during his tenure, without the other skills brought by teammates like Kevin McHale, Robert Parish, and Danny Ainge.
How PR works
Now that you’ve gotten the client or management on board with the strategy, it’s time to show some of the public relations sausage. That’s when Doyle said he uses a soccer analogy to compare the media to little kids.
Nobody plays positions, they just all run to the ball. Once there’s a feeding frenzy, once there’s a news cycle, everybody’s on top of it. And then the ball goes over here, and they just completely forgot about that side of the field.
And so that’s a great way to explain to somebody without having to talk for 30 minutes about the importance of news cycles, the importance of joining them, understanding that if it’s bad for you that it’s going to go beyond.
Dustin pointed out that the best clients also understand that most public relations success is not a grand slam. It consists of singles and doubles that get everyone on base for when the rare home run is hit.
So whether you’re helping a client throw a Hail Mary or methodically make the final putt, using the language of sports builds trust and connection. It keeps everyone on the same page — and might make things a bit more fun.
