Ahhh, the concept of leadership. Yeah, yeah…we’ve all ‘heard’ the talks about whether you’re a leader or a follower (likely on the heels of “if your friends were jumping off a cliff…”), but I invite you to take a moment to really consider how you’re a leader.

I’m not asking whether you’re an entrepreneur, a solopreneur, a small business owner, or even a parent or the organizer amongst your friends. No matter the label we’re all some form of ‘leader.’ The basis of what I’m really asking is how you live this role, and even deeper, how this connects to your public relations effort.

In any leadership role, we set examples, right? So, do your emails consistently have typos? Do you look your server in the eye when he approaches the table? Do you keep your promises? How often do you respond to people who may not serve a need at the current moment? Are you nasty to your vendors?

Whatever you do emanates outward like ripples in a pond. As leaders, seemingly minor infractions can send subliminal – or even clear – signals to those around you that can slowly tarnish your reputation. Even worse, they can tarnish the reputation of your organization.

Are you known for yelling at employees? If so, have you thought about how they talk about you and their jobs when they’re ‘off duty’? Are you a ‘sustainable’ business, but work extensive hours to the detriment (and sustainability) of your friends and family…and if so, how ‘sustainable’ are you, really? Do your employees seem uninspired? Well, perhaps you haven’t been inspired yourself.

It’s your actions, not necessarily your words, that communicate your true motives to your employees, customers, family and friends. Eye contact with a server shows your dining partner that you respect others. Taking a call from your partner in a meeting (assuming it isn’t excessive) displays to your clients that your family is appropriately prioritized.

Each positive action contributes to positive reinforcement of your brand and your bottom line. Because this, my friends, is the very core of what it means to relate to your publics, and ultimately, is the foundation of a healthy word-of-mouth marketing effort.

The biggest challenge to this career pursuit is that too many people believe that public relations is simply ‘media coverage.’ Sadly, this sells the profession dramatically short. Media coverage is an aspect – a vehicle, if you will — of public relations. Media relations is used to communicate what you do, why you do it and why people should pay you attention. This alone, however, is not public relations.

Sitting down with a public relations professional and simply asking her to garner media coverage is like sitting down at the table of a professional chef and saying, “…oh, I know you make amazing food, but can I just get a plain cheeseburger?”

…except, this is about your reputation. I help my clients define how to attract their audiences, ‘publics’ and friends from the inside out. Accomplishing this has sometimes been a result of media coverage and sometimes it hasn’t. Actions that push clients toward professional ‘fame’ would surprise you.

So, I encourage you to think bigger. Consider the gourmet lamb burger with mint mayonnaise — because you’ll find it’s incredibly tasty and it might even change the way you approach everything else in your business…and possibly, even your life.

This is an exciting development for Japantown and it’s been inspirational working with Lisa Rogovin of Edible Excursions. We recently hosted a media and influencer preview of her new Japantown Culinary tour and everyone noted how impactful it was, and Schuyler Bailey from DailyCandy joined. I highly recommend the tour to anyone who has an interest…contact me if this lifts an eyebrow. Tours are held every Friday and the second Saturday of each month.

In reality, my original site was nothing more than a landing page. While I knew this was less than ideal, it was all I could take on at the time. However over the last three years, my family, work, weekends and small catastrophes have provided nice excuses to avoid creating a ‘real’ website. Meanwhile, I’ve watched my peers bolster their own sites, create professional Facebook pages and truthfully, innovate the industry.

Watching this transition pass me by, I was left at a crossroads and I found myself with the decision of whether to grow, change careers or turn out the lights  on my professional world (how green). After much reflection, I decided to dive in. I committed to a new site, a new marketing effort even a bit of innovation around a ‘new’ kind of balance between work and life. It hasn’t been a simple process, but it’s certainly been invigorating. And with this change in place, I truly believe I’ll be able to accomplish more in less time. After all, isn’t this the biggest benefit of technology? I’ll report back on my planned execution and outcome in a future post…

..but for now, I’m grateful for the deeper knowledge I’ve gained with this transition. Now, when I recommend this to my clients, if I hear hesitations relating to their own family, work, weekends and small catastrophes, I can steadfastly encourage them to proceed…reminding them that in the end, getting busier will most likely enable them to streamline their work/life balance.

Here is the hard truth: It doesn’t mean you’ve made it.

A business has ‘made it’ when it, well let’s be honest…when it stays in business. Believe it or not, there are plenty of well-intentioned companies that have failed even when they can boast binders full of national stories and glossy articles.

Don’t get caught up in the glamorous lure of media coverage. That will come if you stay focused on the following priorities:

1. Work from a place of passion. What you’re creating will be most authentic when it comes from here, where your business was first conceived.
2. Create the good product you’ve always envisioned. Don’t falter for budget or time. If you don’t have either, it’s better to wait and do it right.
3. Tell people about it. Who is going to buy this amazing product? When you’ve figured that out, determine how to reach them. If you brainstorm this simple thought for even ten minutes, I guarantee you’ll come up with 10-20 different ways to connect with your buyer…and the answer won’t always be media.

Make these elements the baseline for your public relations campaign. Without them, people will be repelled because everyone has an innate sense of things that are inauthentic and compromised.

With this, your business’s reputation will spread, your story will remain strong and it’s likely you will make it into the weekend section…just for being you.

Guess what? No longer is it difficult to get into the minds of our customers and you don’t need to put a psychic on staff in order to do it. The magic of social media is that one can actually read what people are saying every day, but sadly, most businesses aren’t even paying attention.

It used to be that people would call up their friends and chat about you, a bad service experience, stale fortune cookies and more. Now, these conversations are happening in broad daylight about positive and negative experiences. At the very least, you should be utilizing…and listening…to these channels:

• Yelp
• Facebook
• Twitter
• SurveyMonkey

It’s no longer about who had Cheerios for breakfast. If you don’t have the time, find someone to help you. And one more tip…remember that the person chosen to monitor this for you will be your voice and expected to represent what you think. To cut corners, some choose to hire interns or friends-of-friends to manage their social media initiatives. This can work, but beware that your reputation may be compromised.

What’s a business owner to do? I suggest starting within.

Any message, piece of information and special offering starts within you, the business owner…and goes out from there. It’s a ripple effect. From the business owner, it may go to a partner or close friend, then to employees and a step further, to the employee’s friends.

What are they saying about you? And what are you saying about you? The best form of marketing is word of mouth…and the most loyal and obvious choices to be spreading your good word are you, your friends and your employees.

1. Make sure you’re taking care of these individuals and sharing the very best parts of your business with them.
2. Are you talking negatively about your financial woes, or are you sharing a “not-so-secret” secret that your cohorts can share with their community, generating interest in what’s coming down the pipeline?
3. Can your employees, or even close friends be part of a big organizational decision? Take a select group of friends or employees to dinner and get their opinions; they’ll be eager to talk about how they ‘helped’ you.
4. Consider the fact that your public relations campaign starts with you, and your enthusiasm will spread. Or, quite the opposite can happen as well.

This may seem like a simple concept, but one that’s often overlooked by organizations of all sizes. After all, you never know who is listening. It could be that your new administrative assistant is the cousin to a struggling artist who happens to be the new apprentice HeadCut artist doing dot drawings for the Wall Street Journal.