Building the Ultimate Pro. DJ picks his all time top ten
By David Josephs
The idea behind my regular column for Laika was to see what lessons could be learnt from my 35 years (and counting) of experience in the Public Relations industry.
A couple of weeks ago (and bear with me for this analogy) I was playing golf with a couple of pals. At one point, after we’d all taken our approach shots to the green with various degrees of incompetency, one of my mates said:
“If we could just combine DJ’s distance with Tom’s line and Daran’s consistency, we’d be pretty good.”
And that gave me the idea for this column. I’ve worked with hundreds of people over the years. Many have been very good. A handful have been truly outstanding. So I’ve chosen ten, and want to describe the key attribute which made them outstanding.
It might help you choose your next agency. If you work within PR, or plan to do so, I might just give you a benchmark upon which to measure yourself.
So here goes. I’ve taken the initial of each person.
I start with N. I’ve always rated N, because they were kind enough to suggest I’d taught them a most fundamental lesson. Try to present solutions to problems, rather than mere problems. Be a problem-solver. N was and still is the consummate problem-solver.
W was arguably the most dedicated to understanding their clients’ product or service. It often felt to me that W knew their clients’ business better than they did. W was hungry to learn, and it was so impressive.
S had an extraordinary ability to listen to a client’s challenge, and present a credible way forward. S was blessed with incredible speed of thought, and their ability to present a compelling strategy was outstanding.
A was arguably the best team builder I’ve worked with. They just had an extraordinary ability to nurture and support others, making any team they were part of greater than the constituents.
M had the most extraordinary ability to persuade journalists they should be interested in a story. Sometimes I simply could not believe what they were able to achieve with a relatively modest story.
P is the best presenter I’ve ever met. As simple as that. Presenting that well is a rare skill. P was an absolute expert.
A was just so keen to learn from their first days working in an agency. Absorbed everything, remained humble and was leading teams brilliantly from an early age. An exceptional talent.
D has always been an effective planner. Confronted with a complex challenge, they would break it down, plot a way forward, and execute on that plan with incredible persistence. Not the most glamorous part of the job, but essential.
J was the best story-teller I’ve worked with. They used to be a journalist before I hired them, so their super power is not altogether surprising. But J did it so well.
I promised you ten, and I’ve given you nine. I wrote the first draft of this article, left it for a couple of days in the hope that a tenth individual would come to mind. Plenty did, but no new skills emerged.
So, I will leave it at nine.
Now, ideally, those nine letters, the first letter of each person’s name, would produce some memorable word for my article.
A P D J M A S W N ?
Good luck with that!
So the qualities I’ve described, in no particular order of importance, are as follows:
Strategic insight
Extraordinary presentations skills
Impeccable story-telling abilities
Military planning skills
Deep understanding of client business
A problem-solver
Innate team nurturing skills
Never-ending desire to learn
Outstanding persuasive skills
What did I miss?
I’ll answer my own question there. K made me laugh, loads. K was brilliant at their job, and now holds a very senior position in a mega PR firm, but made me laugh loads. You can be brilliant at this job, and funny, kind and humane. That matters an awful lot, too.
But I don’t think a K helps with the whole naming thing.