Startups are full of creativity and innovation. After all, these companies often emerge from the need to solve a problem. Developing a new solution requires out-of-the-box thinking. But, that’s just one attribute of today’s most successful startups.
As startups disrupt traditional marketplaces, they’re forcing big businesses to realize they can’t just rest on their laurels. Instead, companies of all sizes are experiencing a renewed sense of urgency for constant innovation. In other words: “As a successful scaled company, you cannot run the ship the way you used to. You’ll get run over by a swarm of startups,” Intuit’s Scott Cook explained.
Just as businesses embrace innovation, the PR industry also needs to reinvent best practices and push the boundaries. At Geben, we work with a wide rage of startups — relationships and experiences that provide front-row seats to the mindset, culture and drive that makes these organizations flourish (or flounder). While we’re not a tech company, or what you’d think of as a “startup” in the traditional sense, we have tried to embrace some elements of the startup culture. For starters, we understand the importance of quick thinking, responsiveness and doing whatever it takes to get the job done. We pride ourselves as fundamental and forward-thinking — a positioning and approach that could benefit the whole PR industry in today’s rapidly changing landscape.
So, how can the PR industry embrace some of the best qualities of the startup world to innovate and provide even more meaningful value to the C-suite?
- Be open. As Jim Delaney, COO of Marketwired says, we’re living in an era of open business. This drives company/customer interactions as well as the employer/employee relationship. While I don’t think companies should — or can — be 100% transparent all the time, I absolutely believe that intention should always be transparent. As I’ve written before: “Believability — and credibility — start with intention. Purpose. The ‘why‘ behind what you’re doing and saying. Intention isn’t something you can fake. If your intention doesn’t align with your words and actions, people will see through you.” I’m very open with our team about company goals, my philosophy on running the business, the types of clients we want to work with, and how things are going in general. I’ve found this openness builds stronger relationships, which is good for the company and, ultimately, good for our clients.
- Commit to innovation. In PR, we know what works. And, there’s no reason to abandon everything we know to be true. But, that doesn’t mean the “same old” is enough. Instead, PR people need to morph. Or, as Deidre Breakenridge explains, we need to become “PR Hybrid Professionals” by internalizing eight new practices: policymaker, tech tester, internal collaboration generator, communication organizer, pre-crisis doctor, master of the metrics, relationship analyzer, and reputation task force manager. As Deirdre explains, “The new practices are not meant to fragment their PR focus, but rather to build new knowledge, skills and competencies. New practices allow PR to work outside of its silo, which is critical for good brand communications today.”
- Hire entrepreneurial people. I’ve heard Bo Fishback, CEO of Zaarly, say he wanted to hire a team of future entrepreneurs. While I don’t think you have to take that advice literally, I do think we should focus on expanding the skills and attributes we base hiring decisions on. In PR, if you’re going to constantly reinvent best practices, that means you want a team of people motivated by experimentation, discovering new/better solutions, risk takers, etc. Sure, you want people who understand the core tenants of effective PR, but that’s not enough in today’s landscape. For example, I can teach someone how to develop a compelling media pitch, develop a blogger outreach campaign or execute a tradeshow visibility strategy, but I probably can’t teach someone instincts, quick thinking or other intangibles that permeate the startup culture.
- Delegate and empower. Big businesses tend to come with big org charts — and these extra layers, approval processes, and “cooks in the kitchen” can slow down or stifle creativity. Meanwhile, PR agencies tend to follow a similar hierarchical structure, with account coordinators, account managers, senior account execs, and so on. A suggestion from Fast Company: “It’s not realistic for the higher-ups to attend every meeting and review every idea along the way. But if we agree on the value of creative process, then it follows that the people who are intimately involved in the process should have a stronger say in the outcome, regardless of corporate politics. So if you can’t flatten, delegate and empower.”
- Infuse technology into PR. In marketing circles, the growth hacker adds a layer of engineering, data and work-around solutions (or hacks) to achieve desired outcomes. According to Brian Solis, “Growth Hacking combines the art and science of creating awareness, traction, adoption, and advocacy using unorthodox and surprising means. It’s quite literally a hack for traditional processes to accelerate business.” Along those same lines, how can you add tech-centric layers to PR to accelerate outcomes and amplify results? Social media provided a starting point; however, as it continues to evolve and additional technologies emerge, PR pros should embrace these new opportunities to deliver measurable results and constantly show their value to the organization.
“Startups value disruption. By nature, they must. When your entire purpose as a company is to create something that never existed before, it trickles through the entire culture. There’s an embracing of the unknown, of doing things differently than what everyone else is doing, of risk. And these are prime ingredients for creativity.” This line of thinking may make traditional PR pros uneasy at first, but it’s the world we live in. It’s time to get comfortable with being uncomfortable (after all, risk can be a bit uncomfortable), commit to embracing disruption and always, always be seeking or creating new solutions.
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