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Personal PR For Winners

18 December 2016

Santa has great PR. He’s always jolly, clean and well groomed. He brings cheer each year and is always on message. If we want a role model for how to behave in order to maximise our public relations, then the big man from the North Pole is it.

It’s interesting that one of the biggest celebrities in the world has never been filmed getting out of a limo with a ‘wardrobe malfunction’ and has consistently failed to show up in any revealing kiss-and-tell autobiographies.

I know of none of his work colleagues who have a bad word to say about him; in fact they seem to love the long hours, lack of light and iron hard permafrost. 

Sadly, we don’t have access to his PR team, who I bet have a smart glass office somewhere discrete in Canary Wharf. The rooms full of hushed activity, as they politely decline offers to appear in lager adverts, or flog sofas at amazing low low prices. Santa knows that his public relations skills are vital to maintain brand-Santa and that swapping his cheery Ho Ho Ho for a pithy ‘Get lost kids, I’m on a fag break’ would be a fatal error of judgement and could pave the way for him to be replaced by a gormless 20-something YouTube sensation with big teeth and limited actual talent.

We can all pay attention to our personal public relations. Are we friendly at work or do we tend to scowl? Would our colleagues say that we were always a joy to work with, or that each morning is like a game of Russian Roulette as they try to divine our mood before getting both barrels at once?

Do we stand up for ourselves and take credit for a job well done? Or do we modestly sit back and hope we will be noticed at last? We won’t by the way. Nobody cares. 

Whoever we are in business our personal PR helps to determine our level of success. Winners use Santa as an inspiration, an unimpeachable example of excellent PR skills. A red suit, cheery grin, lack of obvious health and safety equipment and a constant breaking of the speed limit is a hard act to pull off, but he does it with quiet, effective style.

Be kind to people, promote success and above all be consistent.

Next time we hear the jingle of bells, we can take a moment to reflect on one thing we could do more of to improve our personal PR!

Thank you for reading the Better Business Blog this year!

Have a wonderful festive season!

Good wishes, Richard 😊