the elevator pitch

talking to the top

Kicking Ass in Politics..err, PR

Published August 24th, 2008 in Reviews | No Comments »

Political strategist, consultant and author Warren Kinsella, described as Canada’s “James Carville” or its “Prince of Darkness” (depending on which side of the political spectrum one leans), holds no punches when it comes to suggesting how to deal with rogue political journalists.

In his book, “Kicking Ass in Canadian Politics”, Kinsella lists dozens of tips for surviving encounters with “unethical, unscrupulous, unprincipled political journalists.”

Here are a few tips that may come in handy, not only for political consultants but for all communications practitioners:

Leave no charge unanswered. Kinsella writes that this rule applies to the words of both political journalists and political opponents – especially given the power of the Internet, which affords your opponent the ability to disseminate his or her verbal attack across the web within minutes. Kinsella’s point? Attack back with everything you’ve got. “In politics it’s fatal to simply shrug off a criticism that may initially seem minuscule or ridiculous, or wait too long to reply.”

Nothing is off the record. Here’s something most anybody in media relations should understand. It’s worth a refresher, as Kinsella points out. “If a political staffer says something to a journalist that is ‘off the record,’ they are generally right to assume that the journalist will not print or broadcast their identity somewhere,” Kinsella notes. “The staffer is wrong to assume the journalist will not tell a few dozen friends the identity of his or her source later that night at Hooters.” Need we say more?

(more…)

[Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post 

The Olympic Torch Needs to Fire Up an Image Makeover

Published April 20th, 2008 in PR Stunts | 2 Comments »

the-olympic-torch-needs-to-ignite-an-image-makeover

You’d think that the Olympic flame would be the one thing on our planet that could withstand the heat. These days, though, the venerable torch is sweating it.

The fire it’s facing comes from the belly of protestors who would rather witness anarchy than the Beijing Games. With the demonstrators gaining attention wherever they decide to congregate, the flame has had little chance.

“I wanted to extinguish the Olympic flame with a child’s water shooter because the idea of the flame as a symbol of harmony is not valid,” protestor Isabel Losada wrote the London Telegraph on Sunday in the latest swipe at the sacred fire. She and her associates are accusing the international community of supporting China’s controversial treatment of Tibetan monks and they are champions of a multilateral boycott of the 2008 Olympiad. (We’ll talk about the Tibet situation in the coming days.)

In recent weeks, the flame has been grasped, spat at, insulted and been pissed on figuratively if not literally during the torch relay that leads up to the opening of the Summer Olympics in August.

Elevation PR says enough already. The Olympic flame needs a campaign to help its public image and we’re here to provide it. These are five reasons why no one should ever desecrate the torch:

1. Extinguishing the flame would be like bulldozing an Egyptian pyramid or turning the Galapagos Islands into a Club Med. The Olympic flame has been part of human history for 2,785 years. Respect it!

2. Forget cavemen with sticks, the true source of fire on our earth occurred when Prometheus stole the flame from Zeus. (At least that’s what the Hellenic tradition tells us.) Are you really going to want to be known as the one who put out that light?

3. The flame is an innocent bystander in the politics of man. Really, what’s it ever done? Let it glimmer and glow in peace as it gets passed around like the rumor of some track star’s steroid habit.

4. If you really want to cause a stir, forget the flame and protest flights to China. Get on the tarmac and make like a Tiananmen Square hero in front of the next Boeing you see. Then we’ll pay attention.

5. The Olympic flame’s hot. It represents glory, strength, persistence, hard work: all positive human characteristics. Snuffing it would epitomize some of our worst.

Got something to say about how the Olympic flame’s public image should be made over? Let the Elevation team know!

[Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post 

Demand Metric’s Secret: Risk Taking Seperates the Best from the Rest

Published March 30th, 2008 in Profiles | 1 Comment »

Demand Metric LogoJesse Hopps of Demand Metric was recently profiled by an Elevation PR partner site, SalesAllstars.com. Have a read and enjoy…

Jesse Hopps believes that “having the ’self-confidence’ to take calculated risks” is what separates CEOs from middle managers. Within seconds of sitting down with Hopps, it becomes apparent that this belief resonates deeply with the charismatic 25-year-old president of Demand Metric, a rapidly-growing online sales & marketing advisory firm with offices located in Toronto and Vancouver .

After only one year in operation, Demand Metric employs and contracts over two dozen research analysts, consultants, and salespeople, and has closed deals with more than 150 clients and 550 paid-subscribers, most of whom generate annual sales in the range of $25 million to $500 million. These clients span a number of industries, from popcorn machine-makers to aerospace companies making chips for the B2 Stealth Bomber.

Hopps and his team demonstrate how clients use their inexpensive, subscription-based service to save time and impress their superiors by leveraging concise best practices and 150 practical tools in the areas of marketing, sales, strategic planning, product management, leadership, and most importantly, performance measurement (which most companies struggle with)…

(more…)

[Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post 

Growth, Growth, Growth: Elevation PR’s Partner Seeks Sales Stars

Published March 19th, 2008 in Housekeeping | No Comments »

SkilledWorkers.com LogoThe Skinny:  SkilledWorkers.com, one of North America’s leading online job board for skilled trades workers in the construction, mining, oil and gas industries, is hiring account managers to help it meet its growth demands. This is an amazing opportunity for an energetic, hungry CONSULTATIVE sales person to get in at an early stage with a blossoming niche job board.

Market Position: SkilledWorkers.com launched in 2005 as the destination for skilled workers to go to find the best job opportunities globally. After a lot of long hours and hard work from the current team, skilledworkers.com now boasts some of the world’s biggest companies as clients, including Chevron, Bowing and even NASA!

They also have developed a strong Online Search Engine Optimization (SEO) strategy that ensures a high Google listing when skilled workers search for roles online (this helps them generate job seekers to their clients’ roles). With the current global shortage of skilled workers, top companies are investing heavily in finding and attracting quality candidates to their projects.

The Culture: Fast, fast, fast. There is a real sense of growing something important at Skilledworkers.com. The team is both collaborative and competitive: everything a good sales organization should be. Skilledworkers.com expects a quality effort and happily rewards results. This is an amazing opportunity to develop a solid sales career.

For more information about this particular role >>

[Post to Twitter] Tweet This Post