As the CEO of a thriving public relations/content marketing agency, I wear a lot of hats — and one of them is business development. Over the years, I’ve seen many trends in our quest to acquire “new business,” the latest being the lengthening of the new business cycle, or the amount of time from the first meeting with a potential client to the “close.” The amount of time is getting longer. In the past when we’ve experienced that, it’s mainly been because the potential client just wasn’t sure what they were looking for. As a result, we revamped the questions …
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Read MoreThere have been a few recent client meetings where I’ve had a client stop and ask, “What can we be doing to make our relationship more productive?” That kind of question is music to any PR person’s ears. After all, it takes two to tango, as they say, and any relationship is better when all parties are working to make sure that it’s as effective as possible. If you work with a PR firm or you’re considering working with a partner on PR efforts in the future, here are five ways you can help your collective PR efforts thrive: Help …
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Read MoreIf you’re trying to reach one of us on the last Wednesday of the month, especially at lunch time, you may be out of luck. When it comes to attending the monthly PRSA Richmond luncheon, we’re all in. After all, three Hodgers are on the board of directors and another three are active (and former board) members themselves. What can we say, we love a good professional development opportunity. Kicking off this year’s programming calendar, which is organized by Lindsay O’Bar, first vice president of professional development, was a popular topic: employee engagement, featuring Natalie Smith, APR and Julie McCracken …
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Read MoreIf you’re like many marketing and communications departments, there comes a time when you get tasked with a new project or hit a saturation point in your current workload where you can struggle to efficiently manage your workload. Then comes the inevitable conversation, part financial, part philosophical, mostly to answer this question: is it time to bring on more staff or outsource to a freelancer or agency. Here are a few considerations to keep in mind as you mull this over: Budget + Timing – According to a study conducted by SHRM (the Society of Human Resources Management), the average …
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Read MoreWhen is the last time you took an assessment of your team’s engagement? Are you the type of manager that constantly thinks about this? Or have you not revisited this topic since the last employee engagement survey? There’s no wrong answer but there may be an opportunity for you to transform how you approach employee engagement. For starters, employee engagement is not about employees’ happiness levels as it’s possible to have a highly satisfied team that produces mediocre results. Think about it: what employee wouldn’t report high levels of satisfaction if they’ve got a “good gig” with a nice manager …
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Read MoreYour employees come into work every day, and they work hard for your organization and clients. Getting into that routine can be productive, but those comfortable rhythms also can suppress that all-important curiosity. In other words, it can lose your yearning for learning. Encouraging and supporting your employees’ professional development efforts shouldn’t just be an employee benefit – it should be engrained in your company culture. According to Gallup, 87 percent of Millennials say professional development or career growth opportunities are very important to them. Pit that against data from EdAssist which found that only 26 percent of Millennials felt …
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Read MoreThe most important thing to know about working with a PR firm is that the world of PR and marketing, for the most part, is changing every day. And what you used to come to PR firms for, which is primarily media relations, internal communications and crisis communications, well you can still come to us for that, but you can come to us for a whole lot more. So content marketing, SEO/SEM, even the web — you can come to us for that. The most important thing is, when you first come to us, don’t pigeonhole us. Tell us what …
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Read MoreAs we recently marked the 15-year milestone in our agency’s life, we’ve been thinking a lot about the next 15 – about who we are and where we are going. In taking stock of our expertise and values, what’s clear is that our commitment to customer service stands out, becoming a defining part of our identity and culture. In 2002, we made a conscious decision about our last name: Partnership. It was not so much a reflection of the alliance between our two founding partners as it was a marker for how we regard our relationships with our clients – …
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Read MoreDominic Toretto may live his life a quarter-mile at a time, but for PR people, we live ours one quarter-hour at a time. One of the most asked questions by prospective interns and students is, “What is a typical day like in an agency?” The short answer: there isn’t a typical day. One day you could be entirely dedicated to one project or client, and the next day you could be working on three or four clients (or five or six clients). Tack on administrative time, internal committees and other commitments that pop up and every day is a surprise. …
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Read MoreI am a blue. I’m a coordinating observer who likes to take in my surroundings then retreat to process them…alone. A data-driven algorithm told me this, and I have faith in that, because I am a blue. Hodges participated in an Insights Discovery workshop, hosted and facilitated by Floricane, a management consultancy firm, which helped us tap into the various workplace personalities that make up the agency. THP invested resources in this day-long activity to give us the opportunity to increase our self-awareness and to identify some ways we can apply our findings to our lives in the office. Rooted …
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