This is the full blog post by me, William Bateman, for day two of my work experience with Octopus Public Relations, where I attended a “How to win” seminar at The Nottingham Belfry Hotel.

I suppose my expectations for the “How to win” event we were attending, were pretty obvious, I was hoping to learn about the role public relations played in a winning business strategy. What I hadn’t realised though, was quite how the broad the field of public relations is. The first talk, which was conducted by Paul from Octopus PR, discussed the personal side of public relations and how it can be enhanced so as to present a beneficial image to clients and other possible business partners. Highlighting the seemingly obvious point of dressing smartly when attending networking events or other public situations so as to create both a professional and personal image, Paul went on to cover the more specific aspects of personal PR and how important it is in attracting attention from businesses. A point of particular worth I thought was the planning of conversational topics before trying to engage possible contacts, it seems obvious yet I for one relied on the speed of my spontaneity when engaging in conversation with the attending delegates and while this didn’t matter in my case, if I had been representing a company I would probably not have created quite the network of contacts expected from a meeting of that size.

The next speaker Paul Harris from Real Success, spoke about in his words “flashes of the blindingly obvious”, and the points made were

just that, blindingly obvious. Yet his observations were accurate as several of the people attending, myself included, were struggling to keep to Paul’s personal “S’s”. The first “S”, “See” actually refers to keeping eye contact with whoever you may be trying to start a conversation with. It’s a tricky one as there’s a fine line between keeping serious eye contact and creepily staring into someone’s face yet Paul’s slightly comedic approach to the demonstrations put across exactly what he was suggesting. The second “S”, “Smile” is another case of the blindingly obvious, because who really wants to talk to someone scowling at them. Following this talk I became all too self-conscious of my slightly awkward grin that makes an appearance in situations where I’m meeting new people. Finally the third and final “S” , “Shake” provided Paul with more comedic material, first showing the correct handshake then following it up with the replacement handshake, a technique to prevent situations where an awkward grin may be the most appropriate means of escape. For the rest of his talk he described, very clearly and in particularly precise detail, conversational technique that avoids the social death sentence that is the three card brag and instead points to creating a more authentic and secure relationship through the course of the conversation. Off topic, on first sight Paul reminded me greatly of Tim Vine off the BBC comedy “Not Going Out”, which is a compliment.

Peter Motley of the East Midlands Business Network followed this with an original presentation about the importance of careful selection of location for networking and meeting contacts. Comparing this to hunting a red stag seemed rather over dramatic, yet it put his point across. The seemingly simple question of locating prime targets was shown to in fact to be purely a generalisation as bit by bit Peter broke the question down until it was clear that in fact there was more than the simple factor of location which should be used to decide where to find prospective contacts. For instance, if you were the head of pencil distribution at a stationary company then you should ask the question who is the head of stationary management at the company we wish to supply, then and only then should anyone be approached at a networking event as only then will the correct target have been picked out. As well as this Peter also discussed the importance of deciding whether to create relationships in terms of quantity or quality. At this point the metaphor of hunting broke down as prospective contacts would probably not wish to be seen either as the dead stag being hauled into the boot of a jeep or as one of the multiple heads nailed to the wall of a hunting lodge. However this small flaw in the metaphor was of little consequence as Peter had by then clearly put across his message to the attending delegate on locating suitable contacts.

Following a short break, Claire Curzon of the marketing and social media company Brighter Directions began to talk about the importance of marketing to improve, for example, corporate image. She suggested using a lot of the points previous speakers had made to create a rounded and thereby more productive marketing pitch. This was, as Paul Harris would have said, another “flash of the blindingly obvious”, where previously it would have been possible to believe that pursuing one aspect of marketing would be enough to grow your company and its image, Claire showed how combining all aspects of PR, including personal image could make your own name relate directly to your company. Her example of this was Richard Branson and Virgin, yet there are so many examples of success coming from this technique. My brief summary of her message would probably take the form of a nice metaphor much like Peter’s. Imagine the players in a football team all represent different aspects of a company’s marketing and the manager represents you, the company’s management. Now if you were to allow one important aspect of your marketing, such as creating authentic relationships to make a lone run down the wing and informed the rest of the team they weren’t needed because that one aspect would win the game on their own, then you would lose. The other team, in this case representing the media and society as a whole, would easily score against you multiple times. However if you got your team to work together, then they would be unstoppable, and would win the game easily. That is why all aspects of marketing are important to a business.

The last speaker to present was Julian Smith, who runs The Alternative Board. In his speech he highlighted the importance of collaborative relationships in business. He made it very clear to everyone attending that collaboration was not a synonym of referral or a quick win. Instead he described in a very interesting manner how collaboration really was how to win in business. Much like the saying two minds are better than one Julian discussed how companies like his own could aid collaborative work between companies, his main reasoning behind doing this was that as this famous quote says “If you always do what you have always done, then you will always have what you have always had”. This was particularly interesting as a business approach, Julian himself describes collaboration as allowing thinking space for companies to aid each other and develop themselves so as not to be competitors but more collaborators.

Following this meeting Paul and I had an interesting conversation with the head of Star Coaching Deborah Labbate, whose enthusiasm on the subject of marketing was admirable and inspiring.

Overall, it was a particularly informative day that taught me lots more about the multiple skills and processes at the core of public relations in the business world. The enthusiasm I have seen for the subject from people so far has shown no signs of abating at all.