An interesting thing happened today in the early part of a session on upleveling the message that we conducted with a company that has a very complex story that is far away from the consumer, but who owns its market segment globally and is delivering great results in spite of the current economic concerns. The CEO challenged me and my training partner with the question: "Who is the audience for these messages? Because I really don't care if the U.S. business press covers this story. Not sure I even care about the analysts, as so few of them get this. I don't really see the connection between talking with the business press and driving actual revenue. The tech press I get."
A successful public company CEO with a growth story who isn't seeing value in talking with the business press. Interesting.
Since our messaging session was for multiple stakeholders, including potential investors, we were able to convince the CEO that nailing the core messaging and making it both accessible and relevant will help all of these stakeholders pay more attention to hear the broader and deeper story of this successful company. The actual workshop went very well and the CEO found value in helping his team learn to be consistent and concise about telling the company story. He particularly valued the ability to drill them on pulling the great information they were providing in mock interviews on trends back to the value the company provided, as well as making it crystal clear the global revenue mix.
His concerns about the business press were intriguing and we probed on these later. He had had some very bad experiences with business media. One involved a local business reporter who took a lot of his time and then included the company only in a short mention. The lack of knowledge of the segment or willingness to do enough homework to be a competent interviewer really bothered him in this experience. Another time at a former company, he felt burned by a national magazine's story that, in his view, minimized his technology offering with a clever headline. The fact that his picture was prominently displayed did not impress this CEO, as he's firmly in the no-cult-of-personality camp. He also chafed at the long amount of time it took to do the photo shoot that resulted in the picture. In summary, he didn't see the value of even bothering to talk with people who don't seem interested or knowledgeable enough to warrant his time and he would rather spend his time closing deals than educating the uninformed.
We were able to get past this skepticism today to accomplish our mission. However, it's a warning shot for the technology business press that a CEO from a company that is doing well against the trends has written them off. And I really don't think Dan Lyons' blog listing this week that tracks anyone who makes any statements that the downturn is good for their business is going to help matters. Humor is great and I was one of the biggest fans of Dan's FakeSteveJobs blog. And I understand his zeal about exposing ridiculous or bogus claims. I don't like gimmicks either. Good PR people don't and we counsel our clients not to use them. But I just wish that the business press would focus on the news -- and if someone honestly is bucking the trend, that may actually be news -- rather than deciding up front that it is all a crock. It may help me spend less time apologizing for the media next time I meet with this CEO.
