The Hodges Partnership marks the 20th year since our founding this year. I need a moment to let that sink in. The time has gone by almost as fast as a Tom Seaver fastball, and the world has changed so much over that time. We share a launch year with LinkedIn, and I recall back then thinking it would be a handy birthday reminder service. Google was just four years old in 2002, before long making Ask Jeeves a distant memory. It’d be another two…
Warning: this is not a blog post that will tell you about five ways to return to the workplace successfully. And that’s because no one has the answer to that just yet. We’re all a WIP (work in progress) when it comes to figuring that out. Even if you’ve already returned, you should still be working on it. What you will find in this blog post is a genuine attempt to idea share and bare our souls about the process we’re undergoing to figure out…
Back in 2002, when Jon Newman and Josh Dare struck out to start their own communications firm, they were guided by the notion of doing good work for good people. They also wanted to lose some of the pretenses that can come with the client/agency partnership. From the beginning, Hodges focused on the human side of its clients, each with their own challenges, expectations, ambitions and personal lives. The approach evolved into what we now call the “Hodges Way,” a deep-rooted philosophy that allows us…
For years, our agency has prided itself on a valuable, hands-on, dynamic internship experience. But like every other business trying to continue its operations, things have looked a little bit different for the last two intern cohorts. Welcome to the world of being a remote intern. We asked our spring interns to document their time at The Hodges Partnership, which started with glee, was met with a bombshell and ended happily (and safely) from home. For our future interns out there, here is the first-person…
There’s been a lot of chatter over the past few months speculating about what the “new normal” will look like in our post-pandemic work life. One idea that has been percolating with extra big bubbles is the prospect of making working from home more permanent. Twitter was one of the first big companies to float the possibility. The tech giant’s CEO sent an email to staff letting them know that, if they wanted to keep working from home after all was said and done, that…
One of the sometimes painful manifestations of the digital age is that it has forced we public relations types to do math. For decades we bemoaned the fact that there was no real empirical way to measure the impact of our work (except for circulation numbers which always seemed contrived and now quaintly anachronistic). Mostly, we operated under the assumption that the more people who were reading or seeing your story, the better it was…at least generally speaking. In short, we made do. But now,…
It is the end of May and I’ve changed my Zoom virtual background at least ten times. Every day is one meeting right after another because frankly it’s easy to stack meetings when you don’t have to drive to them. I’ve also achieved “video bingo” having done meetings on Zoom, Teams, Google, Skype, WebEx and RingCentral. I’m not sure if any of those “new normal” accomplishments are good or bad, but they are what life is for most of us in public relations and marketing…
Without question, the COVID-19 pandemic has turned virtually every aspect of our professional and personal lives upside down. Many PR and marketing professionals have been tirelessly working for weeks now helping guide their organizations and clients through challenges usually reserved for the most severe section of a crisis communications manual. Like many of you, we at The Hodges Partnership have been wondering more and more, “How will COVID-19 impact PR and marketing in the months and years ahead?” To help get some broad sense of…
One of the best things I’ve done in the last few years is join the Virginia Council of CEOs. VACEOS is a group that connects leaders of companies throughout the state and places them in small peer groups, called Roundtables, which meet regularly. One of the backbone rules of the Roundtable is that we agree not to give people advice but to “share experiences.” I’ve found that experience sharing approach invaluable in helping me grow both professionally and personally. So, I’m writing this post in that spirit,…
Some of our readers may not know this, but for over a year, I’ve been mostly teleworking from my apartment in Charlottesville, thanks to flexibility of Hodges when my husband took a new job. I pop into the office once or twice a week, but for the most part, I’m putting my communication skills to test by dialing into meetings, utilizing our Slack channels and continuing to forge relationships with my coworkers in Richmond and media contacts around the world – all while working remotely….
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…
There 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…
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