When it comes to dealing with media, I always give this advice: “Don’t worry about what you can’t control.” Don’t get all wrapped up in worry about what a reporter may or may not end up writing about you because you can’t control it. Instead, worry about what you can control — having a good strategy for the interview; delivering effective messaging; being accurate, concise, and clear; controlling verbal and non-verbal communication; responding in a timely manner; getting a reporter what he or she needs to, hopefully, be accurate.

My lessons apply to me today. Our firm has just been named No. 241 on the Inc. 500 list. The online write-up of our firm is terrific. In the magazine though, the short description says our firm “specializes in parenting and abstinence campaigns.” Only kind of, sort of accurate. Our biggest project is actually a campaign urging parents to talk to their pre-teens and young teens about waiting to have sex. (It’s a rarity — a social marketing campaign proven by independent research to work!) And what we really specialize in is bringing sophisticated public relations to issues such as early childhood education, workforce development, health, family and child wellbeing, and the many other issues that led me to get a master’s degree in social work.

My reaction to not being thrilled with how Inc. magazine characterized my shop? Who cares? It’s nothing I can control. Plus, I’m in the Inc. 500.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 20th, 2008 at 4:30 pm and is filed under Communications, Business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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