Happy World Cat Day!

Hi everyone!

My internship at Momentum Forum Events has continued to provide me with opportunities to work hard and venture into new territories. In particular, the upcoming Perth Pet Expo has been our main project and every week I'm in the office there's more and more to do for it. The majority of my time has been sourcing exhibitors and contacting potential companies to get them on board to participate.

Like most people have experienced during their internships, rejection and cold calls have become the norm. What I've learned whilst contacting people is that calls are always much more rewarding than emails! Emails give people the opportunity to ignore an invitation or message and it puts a halt to productivity fairly quickly. Calling someone can not only help to engage them with the topic but it also gives you an on the spot answer as to whether or not they're interested. Making calls can be intimidating initially but if all else fails, ooze positivity and confidence and your tone alone will receive a much better response from the person on the other end of the call.

For all the cat lovers - Happy World Cat Day! Little did I know, the 8th of August is a day to celebrate cats internationally and today we did just that. After a huge morning working on the upcoming Perth Pet Expo, including emailing and calling potential exhibitors and researching industries to source new contacts, we decided to head to Perth's very own Cat Café in Subiaco. Luckily, the cafe is only around the corner from the office so we were able to quickly pop in to check out the space.

The Cat Café was teeming with customers for a Monday afternoon and it's not hard to see why. The sweets they had on display were beautifully decorated and all looked positively delicious and the coffee cup sizes were labelled after kitten, cat and lion after our feline friends. Through the glass divider you could see people getting up close and personal with the cats, with many people taking photos that are no doubt going to show up across their social medias. Although we didn't get to go in to sit down with the cats - bookings are essential and we had work to do - the smiles on the faces of people in the room were enough to know that it was amazing!

Celebrating at the Cat Café 

After a delicious coffee and a quick time out, we had to return to the office for more business! I spent the afternoon transferring contacts gained from previous events into the bulk list for our newsletters. It was an incredibly time consuming task and definitely something I'll have to do again in the future but it needed to be done. Once again, the tedious tasks that you never think about are often fairly crucial to make sure contacts are maintained and messages can be shared to the right people. 

I'm still loving my internship and I feel like I'm gaining a useful skill each time I leave the office. I'm now closer to the end than I am to the beginning of my internship which is a scary thought!

As always, I hope everyone is enjoying their internships and gaining some really useful experience!

Jess

The finish line: I am ready.

My final day has arrived and at the beginning of this internship, I never thought I would make it here. I can still remember my first day during the middle of December. I was so nervous and wasn’t sure how I would go, or if I’d be good at anything. I want to say I was sweating because it was hot, but I was so damn nervous it was ridiculous. I was really quiet, completely out of my comfort zone, and trying to the best I could do, with my limited amount of practical experience.

I sit here now though, having finished my twentieth day and it feels amazing. The best thing I could have done was an internship. You actually don’t understand what people mean when they describe the feeling of being ready to enter their field after a work placement. But I am here now, having finished a work placement, and I feel ready to become a nine-to-fiver, so to speak. Let me tell you, it feels pretty awesome.

On my final day, I figured I’d be doing the same sorts of things that I had been over my time at Magnetize. But when I walked in, my boss greeted me with a smirk and said “you’re going to be calling people today”. My heart stopped. My throat sank into my stomach and I immediately thought OMG! I am not ready for this. I was handed my list of people to call, tried to remember what I had to say and picked up the phone.  I was lucky enough to go through to a few message banks at first. When my heart started to beat at a normal pace, and my voice shook a little less noticeably, I ended up chatting to a potential client for around twenty-five minutes. He was interested in what I was telling him about, and it felt pretty good to have had a successful phone call.

Before I had ever cold-called people, I thought it would suck. I’m just going to be honest here. And when I was handed my cold-calling assignment, I was worried because I didn’t know what I was “selling” (I use that term lightly) very well. But the power of bluff is a wonderful thing, and when you can’t immediately find facts, you either give a close estimate or blame the computer for running slowly – everyone seems to relate to that one. I will still probably be shaking in my boots the next time I have to cold-call someone for work, but at least I know it’s not a death sentence. If you continue to be a person, and not a salesman, the person on the other side of the line will be more inclined to listen to what you’ve got to say.

One more little victory moment was when my boss looked at me and told me how much I had changed over this time. I was a little perplexed, and she explained that my writing had become much better since my first piece and she was pretty happy with my work. In the real world, you don’t really receive positive feedback, so I just reveled in that a little. I obviously don’t think I am the best ever, or anything, but I have walked out of that internship feeling like “I can do this”.
 

Attitude as a key aspect of PR

   

 According to Keith Harrell; “A positive attitude is still undeniably the most valuable asset you can ever choose to treasure. It is the most basic ingredient to every success story in this planet”[i].

In Public Relations, as in any other communication fields, you’ll be requested to adopt the right attitude according to the situation. 

 

Photo credits: Live Life Happy via Flickr

During my internship, I have had to do several phone calls. What’s the right attitude to adopt in such case? 

Let me share with you my experience and what I’ve learned. 

Some may say that this is a simple exercise whereas others might admit that it can be a perilous one too. 

You probably must have heard the saying that “Making a great first impression is imperative to becoming an influential leader”[ii]. 

“The fact is that when you first meet a person, he makes a judgment about you in approximately four seconds, and his judgment is finalized largely within 30 seconds of the initial contact”[iii]. So you do not have much time to impress this person. 

This gets even more challenging through phone calls, since your interlocutor cannot see you. He will only be able to forge his first impression through the tone you adopt. 

                                             photo credits: Sean MacEntee via Flickr

A telephone call can disturb. It can cause an interruption in an already "overscheduled” or “congested” agenda. Therefore be polite and excuse yourself for disturbing. Take the time to introduce yourself and aim at starting to build a trusting relationship with the other person on the phone though you cannot see him.

Once those courtesy steps are undergone, do not jump directly to the object of your call. Start by putting your interlocutor at ease and create a conducive environment for better communication. Remember that the way you speak over the telephone will convey the largest part of your message.

The way you answer the phone also sets the stage for the other person’s experience with you. So the way you talk will either enable you to communicate positive energy resulting in positive responses or negative energy yielding negative responses.

During my placement I tried implementing those tactics and the result was excellent. 

Before making a call, just remember that overcoming your fears and leaving your comfort zone is really important to be able to achieve your goals.

Photo credits: BK via Flickr

A telephone conversation is conversing with somebody else. As such try to be as natural as you would be in a visual conversation. Though it might seem absurd, do not hesitate to smile when the conversation invites to smiling.

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[i] http://onlineaccesscenter.com/bmm/library1/Attitude%20is%20Everything.pdf

[ii] http://www.briantracy.com/blog/leadership-success/the-importance-of-a-first-impression-everything-counts-personal-statement/

[iii] http://www.briantracy.com/blog/leadership-success/the-importance-of-a-first-impression-everything-counts-personal-statement/

How You Learn to Overcome Your Hatred of Making Phone Calls

There are few things I am certain of in my life, and my hatred for making phone calls and picking up the phone are among two of them. My parents and my brother will be the first to agree with that statement, and so will anybody having lived in the same place as me with a connected landline telephone nearby. I won't go as far as saying that I would not pick up my mobile phone when it's ringing (because hey, who knows maybe someone is calling to tell me that I have won Rs 1,000, 000? Or well maybe not) but I don't know why, fixed-line has never been my thing.  

So, when my mentor gave me a list of people to call, I was suddenly on the defensive mode and definitely not ready for that kind of commitment. In more sincere words, my inner self was practically crying her eyes out (see image below for an accurate visual representation of how I felt).  

But then, what could I do? Saying, "Sorry ma'am, I just don't like making phone calls, could you do it yourself?" would not have been a smart move. Especially if you consider the fact that she was the boss and I was the trainee. With the little willingness left in me and a strong sense of duty, I picked up the phone and looked at the flow of numbers on the paper she gave me, praying they would magically disappear. I fumbled through my first phone call, the second wasn't brilliant either. My usual high-pitched voice would turn into an inaudible flow of words once the phone was anywhere near my face. By the time I made a fool of myself after the fourth phone call, I knew I had to take the matter under control ASAP.  

I realised that after each phone calls' disaster, I would replay the conversation in my head but in a version where I would have introduced myself correctly, spoken clearly and audibly, and given all the necessary information to the receiver. So, I decided to write down what I needed to say to the receiver along with some answers to the potential questions which might come up. I have to say that it turned out to be one of the greatest ideas I had. As by the time I struck through the last name on the list, I have gained much more confidence and conversation would flow without me giving a glance to the 'talking points' I have scribbled down earlier. I could now handle the phone calls with much more ease than before and though I'm still not a big fan of making phone calls or picking up the phone, I have learnt how to deal with them and make better phone calls.  

This to say that this little experience has made me realised that I would not always be given the tasks I am most fond of. At times, I would have to deal with the most unpleasant tasks, things which I may totally dislike. But then I can't just turn my back on the things I don't like, instead I would have to take a step back, look at the big picture and try to come up with the best way to deal with it. As with every problem comes a solution!  

At the office, with the laptop PwC lent me for my internship and with my PwC notebook.

The cubicles at PwC, and at the far left is one of the meeting room

And you fellow interns, were you given tasks you weren't a big fan of? Share your story with me!

Elizabeth. 

P.S: I'm going to hire a secretary once I become a PR professional. Maybe two? In case one got sick and can't come to office.