by Carey Madsen.
Last night, Colorado’s PRSA chapter held one of the better Gold Pick Award ceremonies that I’ve been to over the years. Kudos to the PRSA leadership for a very well-run, classy event. Bruce Goldberg and Andrew Hudson impressed us with their musical flair, but I especially appreciated Swede Johnson Lifetime Achievement Award winner Don Kirchoffner’s comments about the role of public relations in business.
While I can’t recount his words exactly, he mentioned two concepts that I think are worth noting:
• Public relations practitioners have a responsibility to deliver and measure relevant business value in the context of overall business objectives. In other words, no PR for the sake of PR. This philosophy is more important today than ever. Public relations must be integrated, measurable and more relevant than ever to command its share of budget dollars. Good practitioners get this, and they’ll continue to find good work –even in these hard times – because of it.
• If you don’t fix something or help someone or make something right every day, you’re not doing your job. Clients rely on us as professionals and counselors. They hire us for our thinking. They look to us to deliver solutions, new ideas and answers. They ask us to believe in their cause, their goals and their products, even when no one else does. And we believe. We take responsibility to ask the hard questions, but we believe in the underdog, the never-been-done-before and the ability to communicate the right message at the right time, when it makes a difference.
While the SSA team didn’t ‘win’ an intern from the live auction, we’re proud to be PRSA members and to be honored with a Gold Pick for our entry in the Financial Services category, establishing Life Certain Wealth Strategies as a financial planning expert with Denver Media. Thanks to LCWS president Herb White for joining us for the event and congratulations to all this year’s winners.
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