Tell them What they Need to Hear …

by Kimberly Taylor

You may remember Legal Analyst Andrew Cohen’s comments on CBS “Sunday Morning” in response to Scott McClellan’s book. It’s old news by now, but it still resonates with me.

Particularly offensive is Cohen’s statement, “Show me a PR person who is “accurate” and “truthful,” and I’ll show you a PR person who is unemployed.”

I’m not a “PR person” per se, but I’ve worked on the operations side of this profession for nearly eight years.

While reading a recent proposal our firm submitted to a prospective client, I was struck by a sentence … one I’ve read in every proposal we’ve submitted for as long as I can remember:

“Tell clients what they need to hear, rather than what they want to hear.”

While sometimes honesty is not the popular or lucrative choice, we’re passionate about ethics, and as such, will continue to employ accuracy and truth in all we do.