Dick Martin

Understanding the ways and whys of people unlike yourself is key to winning and keeping customers, managing today’s workforce, and relating to all the third-party activists who have an increasingly influential voice in where and how a company does business.

Dick Martin

The sweet spot in marketing is the break point between individual and culture, where needs, values, and aspirations coalesce. […] People buy products to accomplish particular jobs. That job may be functional (a quarter-inch hole), social (fitting in on the job site), emotional (impressing your spouse), or aspirational (feeling like Norm Abram of This Old House). In most cases, it will be a combination. And … [ Read more ]

Dick Martin

Public relations has two roles: advocacy and counsel. Counsel usually takes a backseat to advocacy, which always seems more urgent at the moment. But effective counsel can make advocacy less critical. Many CEOs look for good writing from their PR counselors because that’s the stuff of advocacy. What they should be looking for is good thinking, which is the foundation of effective counsel.

Dick Martin

As a marketer, the key is to figure out where people’s interests and your competencies overlap.

Dick Martin

When I was doing the hiring for AT&T’s PR department, I came to the conclusion that professional writing skills were a leading indicator of basic intelligence.

Dick Martin

Compliance is not the same as ethics. Compliance is concerned with the letter of the law, ethics with its spirit. Compliance is rooted in statutes; ethics flows from a company’s character. Compliance and ethics overlap somewhat, but not completely.

Your Good Name: Before You Lose It

CEOs get the PR counsel that they allow — and a lot of it is bad. Here, then, are seven simple truths about public relations learned the hard way.