Do not close off communications when the downturn bites
Tom Bloxham and the Urban Splash team have had a rough time recently. Even though the enterprise is something of a beacon in the Manchester property sector it has had to make painful layoffs.
So many business do not. By talking he was able to come over as honest and put over his direction to see Urban Splash come back from this set-back and current market conditions.
There will be businesses that react in the opposite way and lose out. It reminds me of the effects of the dotcom crash:
I was working for an Internet agency that claimed the quite powerful local newspaper did not like them.
I suggested we speak to the business team. The answer from management was that it was a bad idea: they didn’t like them.
The problem was that the agency had got lots of good editorial when things were going well in the late 90s. As soon as the dotcom downturn happened they battened down the hatches and refused to speak to the media.
The first piece of coverage I achieved, a good quarter page, had a sting in the tail. After talking about a big project it noted, with glee, that the agency had failed by a long shot to meet the ambitious aims it had announced in the late 90s.
I arranged to meet the deputy business editor to sort out any issues, got on very well and achieved a lot of coverage over the following 18 months. (I actually keep in contact with him).
Working with the media is a two way process. It is not a tap to switch on and off, whatever is happening with a business or the economy. It is better if a business wants to suspend communications to explain why (off the record) and resume a PR campaign when it feels this is appropriate. Having the courtesy and thoughtfulness to do this will win any business a lot of credit.