Go Pro With Your Marketing/PR
Would you play on a professional sports team without a coach? Not likely.
Every professional team in the world has a coaching staff because coaches help bring success to the business of professional sports.
Looking for every tool they can find to coax maximum performance from the talent, owners and managers don’t leave the pursuit of winning to chance.
There is too much money at stake.
There’s a lot of money at stake in your business, too, even if you don’t run a sports franchise. Promoting your business is the way you win in the marketplace. So why approach it like an amateur and play without a coach?
Even if you have a home office business and a staff of one, you can benefit from a marketing and public relations coach.
What to Expect
A marketing/PR coach acts as teacher and mentor as you promote your business. At a minimum, your coach will help you define your marketing/PR goals, work with you to develop a marketing/PR plan, and give you some promotional tips. That alone is well worth the price because it saves you time and helps you avoid expensive mistakes.
The best Marketing/PR coaches do all of these things and more. They become a virtual staff member and a constant source of ideas, encouragement and feedback.
If the relationship is ongoing, your coach can be a sounding board as well as a source for step-by-step directions on how to implement the plans you develop together.
Imagine the relationship between a big-time advertising or public relations firm and one of its Fortune 1,000 clients.
A lot of what is really going on between the marketing/PR counselor assigned to a client and the top account executive in the company, usually a vice president of corporate communications, is marketing/PR coaching. The VP, in turn, often acts as a marketing/PR coach to top corporate management using the information and ideas supplied by the PR firm.
The only real difference besides the fees involved between a marketing/PR coach for small businesses and a large PR firm is that the latter usually includes PR implementation as well as advice.
Why let the big companies have all the promotional advantages? You might not be able to match them in the people and dollars you can bring to the market, but you can be just as professional if you hire the right coach.
Looking for the Right Moves
Here’s the process I recommend to find a marketing/PR coach who suits your business:
First, ask around. See if anyone you know can make a recommendation. Keep in mind that few PR coaches call themselves such and that few make a full-time job of it.
Look for a coach who knows the ropes. If not a marketing or PR executive now, or in the recent past, the coach should have extensive experience in doing PR for a company or nonprofit similar to yours.
Second, your coach should have the right credentials and temperament so you’ll have a win-win relationship. The best have taken formal training or have coached a sufficient number of profiles to have developed a method that works and that doesn’t waste time.
Once you find a good coach, conduct an interview as you would with any prospective supplier. Ask about expectations, requirements, fees, a minimum for how many times you will talk monthly, and so forth. Answers will vary widely.
Rates, too, are all over the ballpark. Some coaches charge as little as $50 per hour and some as much as $450 per hour. As with anything else, you often get what you pay for, but not always. My advice is to investigate thoroughly and commit for a short term until you are confident the relationship is paying dividends.
Also, ask for a short sample coaching session for free or at a reduced price so you can find out how it works and whether you and the coach are compatible.
Give marketing/PR coaching a try. It might be the smartest promotional move you ever make for your business.
