Pass the Tanning Oil, Please
Pierno The Barber Finds His 'Hidden Media Relations Assets'
By Dean Rotbart
I recently had a stressful dream about my Newsroom Confidential workshops. It was the kind of dream in which everything seems so lifelike that I don't realize I am dreaming until I awake.
I have been conducting Newsroom Confidential seminars for a decade, so there are few real-life scenarios I haven't faced. The aim of the one and two-day classes is to help companies, both giant and microscopic, elevate and hone their media relations skills.
The attendees of my moonlight workshop were in need of a lot of such help.
Each participant came seeking national or global press attention. Yet each was deeply convinced that he or she had nothing much of real interest to offer to the media.
The stressful part of my dream was trying to locate the "hidden media relations assets" of each registrant. Uncovering these HMRAs are an important part of my course.
In my dream, Elizabeth Ann flew in from Grand Rapids. There, she runs her own dance company working with handicapped children. "Quite a noble pursuit," I said. "Not exactly stop-the-presses material," she replied.
Nancy Cook and Marion Dickerman sent their reluctant partner, Eleanor, to Austin to take my course. The three women own a small furniture manufacturing business, Val-Kill Industries, in New York's Hudson Valley. Eleanor is super-bright and well-spoken. "But who cares about three women entrepreneurs?" she asked. "Besides, our business isn't doing so well."
Pierino is an Italian immigrant barber from Canonsburg, PA. His is a rags-to-better-rags type story. Growing up in a family of 13 children, he helped his parents make ends meet by polishing mirrors and mixing the lather in a local barbershop. He eventually learned to shave and cut hair and by the time he was in his mid-teens, he owned his own barbershop.
Barbershops are sometimes fun for journalists to write about, especially if they attract a colorful, opinionated clientele. But no, Pierno said there was nothing remarkable about his customers. As the others introduced themselves, Pierno sat off to a side humming to himself.
At about this point in the dream, I began to squirm in my bed and my covers beat an intelligent retreat from my icy toes. The prospect of transforming any of these attendees into media darlings left me pining for the zzzzzzzgh, zzzzzzgh of my alarm clock.
Alan, a jazz musician, plays a mean sax. Indeed, his band is one of the best-known bebop bands in the country. But Alan is not satisfied with musical fame. Like Bill Clinton, another sax player, he seeks the kind of star status typically reserved for statesmen and elected officials. Alan is a devoted follower of Ayn Rand, the writer-philosopher who preached self-actualization.
And finally, sitting front and center, there is Rosa Lee McCauley, a tailor's assistant. Rosa Lee is hardworking and highly motivated. She dreams of improving the world. "What can I do to grab the media's attention?" she wonders aloud. "Darn their socks?"
Let's sum up. I've got a dance company owner, a furniture maker, a barber, a jazz musician and a seamstress all vying for the national limelight.
Although my dream was only that, it reminded me of some daylight workshops I have actually conducted. The great preponderance of those who attend the real courses, held frequently in Austin and Denver, are Fortune 500 communications executives seeking to better understand the business and financial press.
Yet, increasingly, my course is also appealing to the owners and heads of smaller companies who recognize the need to use the media to leverage their businesses and become more competitive.
Among real world executives I have advised are a bank owner in Sussex, New Jersey; a candy-store owner in Cincinnati; an Hispanic advertising agency executive in San Antonio; a wine-maker from Sonoma Valley and my favorite, the son of a pig farmer from Rochester, MN.
What I told these corporal students of mine is that the media can't see more in them than they see in themselves. If when they awake each morning and wash the sleep from their eyes, they see nothing more in the mirror than a candidate for the cover of Pig Today magazine, that is exactly what the media will see as well.
But most people and companies are overflowing with underutilized HMRAs, hidden media relations assets.
Take my pig farmer friend, Jim. Okay, so his main job is to peddle pig semen. That alone ought to be worth a few chuckles and some passing interest in the newsroom.
But Jim, smart and bold like his father who founded the company, has a lot of more mainstream expertise that he can provide as an asset to the media. Jim is an expert, too, if he'll only realize it, on cloning, breeding, biogenetic agriculture, the farm economy and consumer eating habits. Those are some of his HMRAs.
It's unlikely I can get Jim on the cover of Fortune or Forbes anytime soon. But chances are really good that I can guide him to be an oft-cited expert in those magazines. Not bad for a pig farmer from Minnesota.
Like Jim, you and your company are more, much more, than the products you make or the services you provide. If you think of yourselves too narrowly, you may be underselling to the media not only the many other things you know today, but what you are likely to become in the future. For a moment, my dream shifts to a white sand beach off the coast of Hawaii. Supermodel Claudia Schiffer is asking me if I would like her to rub sun tan oil on my back. Almost as if by telepathy, my wife kicks me under the few remaining fibers of blanket that still cover me and I am back in the Newsroom Confidential classroom.
Things have changed. The same students are here, only now, they are fully exploiting their HMRAs.
Elizabeth Ann Bloomer is now asking everyone to address her by her nickname, Betty. She has married hubby Gerald R. Ford and gained a better platform for her cause. When she moves into the White House and for years after, she continues to champion the needs of handicapped children. She is just a housewife and dance instructor, but she serves millions of children and women through her direct efforts and as a role model.
Despite my best efforts, Eleanor's furniture manufacturing business fails after a decade. She began the business to help find jobs for area farmers who were out of work. Helping the unemployed will be a reoccurring theme in Eleanor's life.
Eleanor's talents are now needed elsewhere. Her husband's career seems on the verge of collapse, as he has contracted a paralyzing illness. But Eleanor will help Franklin D. Roosevelt persevere and likewise, she will be a source of strength and optimism for a nation paralyzed by the strains of the Great Depression and World War II.
Pierno will always see himself as a barber. But drawing upon his HMRAs, he has come to realize he is a pretty talented singer as well. Dubbing himself "The Barber of Civility," Pierno takes the stage name Perry. Perry Cumo will sell more than 100 million records and host his own very popular television show. The program's signature tune? "Dream Along with Me."
Alan has given up jazz and traded in his sax for a profession of much greater interest. In fact, as the eventual chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, powerful Alan Greenspan pretty much defines the word "interest" in this country and much of the world. Alan realized that based upon his dreams, he would have to change career direction if he were to succeed.
And what of Rosa Lee McCauley? Well, after marrying her husband Raymond, Mrs. Parks continued to work in traditional "women's" jobs. Yet Rosa Parks proved that anyone with vision and courage can grab the media attention with the right actions. Her refusal to go to the back of the bus in Montgomery, Alabama in 1955 not only became continuing front-page news, it became the stuff of legends.
Sometimes, you see, if you dream big enough, and cultivate your HMRAs, your dreams just might come true.
February 18, 2002
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