In the world of make-believe, aka seeing with telly vision, there are plenty of examples where the world of PR and Marketing is portrayed as a place of illusions and spin.
And to be fair, when Don Cheadle’s character Marty Kaan bamboozles clients to land gigs in House of Lies, it’s fun and funny.
When you’re trying to sell your original and game-changing campaign to a client, however, that kind of backdrop isn’t always helpful.
Award-winning branding consultant, social media specialist and blogger Simon Mainwaring notes: “The key to brand success are self-definition, transparency, authenticity and accountability.”
Thanks to Marty and his on-screen friends, of all these, authenticity is perhaps now the hardest to achieve.
Worry not: here are our top five ways to being true to yourself and winning deals.
- Be confident
Stressing about how others perceive us, especially new clients, actually makes us look a little nervous and shifty – and so potentially unreliable. Authentic people are confident enough that their true self shines through. How to achieve this? As Oprah, says: learn to love yourself.
- Include others
Showing confidence should rub off on your client. Authentic people are right to let go of negative people but they will also allow others to truly be themselves. How? By leaving space in the conversation for others to share ideas, participate and feel valued.
- Be frank and fair
It’s so obvious for good business partnerships that being honest is often taken for granted. But honesty isn’t a natural default; it has to be worked at. Authentic people express their candid beliefs, even when these might be unpopular. Walking away from a situation they find unethical or unworkable is more important than agreeing a deal they know they can never deliver.
- Get the big picture
More than most industries, PR and marketing can be prone to professional jealousies over plaudits, paypackets and promotions. If you’re authentic, you’re not distracted by this: you don’t have time for office gossip or industry chatter. Instead you have a tighter grasp of reality and choose to talk about the things that really matter to you and the company.
- Be accountable
Finally, authentic people understand not everything goes right all of the time. They also appreciate moaning or playing the blame game helps no-one.
They focus on a fix. If a fix isn’t possible, they learn what went wrong and move on with knowledge, experience and a renewed enthusiasm to do better.
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