Lesson #2 Accept a challenge

Upon beginning my internship journey, I've had to asked myself this -

How willing am I to accept a challenge?

Challenges are a major part of learning and extremely helpful in bettering yourself as a PR professional.

If there is one thing this internship has definitely shown me, it's the benefits of challenging yourself.

Interning at Spoke PR  has opened my eyes to a range of different industries that I have never studied or worked in before.

A lot of the clients I have dealt with over the past couple of months have been in the mining, oil & gas , technology, health and medicine and education sectors.

Just last week, I endured one of the biggest challenges I have faced over the course of my internship.

My supervisor, Luke had a meeting scheduled for the next day with a potential client who dealt with alternative teaching methods for children.

He asked me to prepare a client analysis and proposal ready for him by the end of the day so he could go through and edit it with me before it was presented to the client.

I found this to be considerably challenging due to the lack of knowledge I had in the industry - not to mention I had never written a proposal before.

The researching part wasn't too bad, it's a skill I'd been exercising since I began interning at Spoke.

The proposal - now that was a form of writing I had been unfamiliar with.

But the funny thing about being challenged - you always come about better on the other side.

Working through my nerves and learning from a tonne of examples I managed to throw together I'd say a half decent proposal

Thanks to that challenge I would say I've gained a bit more confidence on the subject.

You may not agree with all but here's a few things I took away from the experience:

1. Simple is always better -  prospected clients don't want to read pages and pages worth material. It's important to keep it short and sweet and straight to the point. You have to earn their time.

2. It's not about you - a proposal is all about the client. It's a chance to demonstrate your knowledge of their situation and how PR can benefit them to achieve their organisational goals.

3. Be creative - in your words, in your design and in your pitch. Essentially you need to sell your service to the client and help them identify their need for PR. You need to stand out.

The most important lesson of all would be to accept a challenge when it comes your way.

You never know how it might help you.

Cassey :)