Please say hello to Dorothy Crenshaw – the first one brave enough to take up our new PR Pro Challenge! Whoot!
Founder of Crenshaw Communications, Dorothy handles clients in CE and digital technology, retail, consumer products, and health promotion. Before opening her namesake agency, Dorothy was President of Stanton Crenshaw Communications, which she helped build into a mid-sized New York PR agency over 13 years. Earlier roles include Executive Vice President and Managing Director of Worldwide Consumer Marketing at the PR unit of Grey Advertising and Edelman Worldwide as a senior vice president. Dorothy speaks frequently on brand-building, marketing to women, and workplace topics. She serves on the board of New York Women in Communications, Inc. and Cancer Care and was named one of the industry’s 100 Most Powerful Women by PR Week.
Pretty impressive, right? Read on to see what she submitted!
What is your biggest PR Win?
Each and every win is a cause for celebration, honestly. But a client win that really made a difference in my career was when I was starting my first agency, and a former client who headed up corporate communications at American Express told me she wanted to be my first client. It was a small program, but the AmEx name really helped put us on the map, and I’ve always been grateful.
One very successful client campaign that we ran for a couple of years involved a fun job search – it was a kind of “Director of Sleep” for a mattress company that wanted to link its brand with healthy slumber. We worked with their HR department to create a real position, writing a fun job description and posting it on Facebook, Monster, and Indeed.com.
We then crafted a pun-filled press release focusing on recent college grads and announced it in May, which was good timing. We offered a media exclusive, then let Twitter run with the story for a while. No one could resist the wordplay – “dream job,” “cushy position,” etc. We had moms applying for their sons and women for their boyfriends. A syndicated columnist asked if he could apply and wrote a very funny column about the experience.
After the first round of interviews we hosted “auditions” for finalists at a store and got great coverage, including WABC-TV. The media went crazy over the “Snooze Director” search, as we called it, and the client was ecstatic. I stepped into a cab one day and there it was on TaxiTV. And the people who were hired ended up doing great at the company, so it was a win all around.
Want to participate in the PR Pro Showcase? Put on your storytelling cap and head over to my website to choose your questions!
What is the biggest mistake you’ve made in your professional career?
I’m sure I’ve made plenty of mistakes, but I don’t regret most of them, because you truly do learn from missteps. For example, years ago, I had a disagreement with the owner of a large agency where I once worked. He flew in an hour before a big new business presentation and decided we should throw out our creative and substitute a new theme. We’d shot a video, created branded props, and rehearsed all night, and the program was very solid, so I tried to talk sense to him, but he insisted on rearranging everything, and we didn’t do well in the pitch. Later he wrote me up as “insubordinate” and demanded I be fired.
That didn’t happen, although the situation dragged on for another two years, punctuated by nasty memos from the owner (who worked in another city), criticizing my work, my intellect, even my hairstyle. It was really excessive. But the sheer craziness of the situation actually helped, because people knew it was wrong, and it spurred me to action. I cultivated valuable allies and developed survival skills I never dreamed I had. My direct boss was very supportive and insisted I respond in writing to each and every criticism. He surreptitiously made intros for me at other agencies, but counseled me to accept only a top position (I was willing to take anything!) I found out later that an important client went to bat for me. Finally I accepted a senior position at another agency, and two years later I cofounded my own firm. I’d had enough of big-agency politics and egos, and I wanted to be my own boss.
What is your single biggest challenge, and how do you approach dealing with it?
My biggest challenge is hiring the best people. It’s a competitive talent marketplace out there. So, I look for a few things: people who aren’t happy in a large agency; those who have a blog or Tumblr or who create content on their own time; and those with a real entrepreneurial streak. We also have a philosophy of “continuous recruiting” – I’m always meeting with people even if we don’t have an opening.
What is your single biggest challenge, and how do you approach dealing with it?
My biggest challenge is hiring the best people. It’s a competitive talent marketplace out there. So, I look for a few things: people who aren’t happy in a large agency; those who have a blog or Tumblr or who create content on their own time; and those with a real entrepreneurial streak. We also have a philosophy of “continuous recruiting” – I’m always meeting with people even if we don’t have an opening.
Do you specialize in a specific industry, niche or aspect of PR? If so, what do you love/hate about it?
I have a consumer PR background and still harbor a love for classic brand marketing PR, but I transitioned into technology many years ago. Today most of our clients are web-based companies, and many are startups. I love working with early-stage businesses because it’s exhilarating to be around entrepreneurs, and because you can make a real impact on the business. More in my blog post here.
PR is growing and changing fast. How do you approach continued learning?
I’m a faithful WNYC/NPR listener, because it mixes top news with in-depth features, and I read a lot, starting with the daily papers (NYT, WSJ, NYO) and tech sites, like Mashable, TechCrunch, and The Verge. (I’m also a regular reader of Purch tech reviews and the Moguldom group of entertainment news sites like Bossip, etc. because they’re clients.)
But if pressed for time (and who isn’t?) I pick up a physical copy of the Journal and scan the left-hand “What’s News” because the main biz and finance stuff is there. Of course I check my feed during the day, but things can get hectic, so a morning read is key.
Guilty pleasure: I started out doing PR for Harlequin romance novels because my first job was in book publishing, and I still love magazines and subscribe to about 25 (not kidding), including New York, The New Yorker, Entertainment Weekly, Bloomberg Businessweek, Fortune, and many women’s, food, and shelter pubs. (We have a client, Magzter, in the digital app business that lets you aggregate magazines on your device, which is great.)
For more specialized content, I depend on Medium, Twitter, and Quora, which is addictive. Twitter in particular has been useful because I maintain lists of PR people, journalists, etc. for quick takes on hot topics. Lately I’ve been listening to podcasts – I got hooked on Serial and thought I should start something more educational, so I’ve moved on to Invisibilia, an NPR show about human behavior.
When it comes to our business, I find that blogging really forces you to stay reasonably up-to-date. I usually scan Alltop’s PR page for ideas, or I go to one of my four PR or content-centric Twitter lists to see what people are talking about. Blogging is truly the discipline I love to hate.
What is the single best thing you’ve learned from your past boss(es), and how do you now integrate it into your work?
I learned so much working in the large-agency world, but the bottom line is that in this business, you have to earn your fee every day. Out of sight is out of mind, so you need to be right in front of your clients and demonstrate that you really understand their business.
(At my first agency, a midsize company, my boss insisted we spend time at client companies and for one client, we accompanied sales reps and distributors on sales calls. It was a real awakening. At Edelman, I worked with and for some very bright and talented people who were ruthless about new business, so I learned to sell, which is a vital skill. At Grey (Advertising) I learned about far more about advertising than I could have picked up otherwise, including the ways in which PR and advertising are fundamentally different, even though the lines are blurring today.)
Want to connect with Dorothy? You can subscribe to her blog or visit her website at http://crenshawcomm.com/. Her twitter handle is @dorocran and find her on LinkedIn at http://www.linkedin.com/in/dorothycrenshaw.
Thanks for the fun detail and sharing a little bit of your experience, Dorothy!