By CeCe Marizu, Intern
“Oh PR?? I really HATE PR!”
Not exactly what a girl wants to hear after she tells someone about her new venture in life. I was a little thrown off, but I asked the man that I had just offered to help in his wheelchair why he hated PR so much. He then proceeded to go down the list of all the problems with PR people… especially the “junior ones,” aka someone in my age range.
“They don’t know how to build relationships,” he said straightforwardly. He then looked up to me in his wheelchair and looked into my eyes and said, “I’m giving you some valuable information here!”
Some valuable and brutally honest information to offer a new intern, but in a way more valuable then I realized at the moment. I pushed him to a nearby restaurant and thanked him for his thoughts on PR and told him I would continue to think about all his problems with the public relations profession.
Little did he know he planted this little buzzing sound in my ear that made me really think about public relations impact on the community and the relationships built with journalists and clients. Luckily, within a very short amount of time at Culloton Strategies I have learned that PR is a lot more than just forcing the public to read a column in the paper or getting a journalist to publish a story. PR is about helping people in ways that may not be completely obvious to everyone. In a way, PR is helping people everywhere in little subtle ways that go unnoticed.
So to the man on State Street who let me know his true feelings about PR, here is what you and the CS team made me realize:
PR is about building trust that is unbreakable with clients. Clients become invaluable and you work for their success day in and day out.
Although I’m young, building relationships with people should never be undervalued. I know people say we’re a different generation that only is invested in ourselves, but PR is teaching me the value of other people from clients to journalists to the public.
Working with a group of people that actually see themselves as a team, dedicated to their clients, and completely invested in strategic communication makes me value the profession on a different level.
Lastly, I’ve learned that the people I’ve seen working in PR at CS have chosen a career that they love. It’s easy to see why their clients are so important to them and how at the end of the day it really is about the personal relationships developed along the ride.
So to the man on State Street who so strongly hates PR, I was listening closely and am happy to be a part of a team who values strategic communication and the relationships they build at the end of the day.