Ever since his downfall and the resulting political firestorm cast him as ‘arch villain’ in the world’s biggest banking failure (so far), the erstwhile ‘Sir’ and now just plain old Fred Goodwin has never given a media interview. It could initially have been for legal reasons, but I wonder if maintaining a dignified silence was ever the right approach and if he should now review that? Was it a deliberate, planned and considered action or an early mistake that he’s since compounded by failing to tell his version of events?

It really is fascinating and puzzling to watch this former business ‘superstar’ making no apparent attempt to defend his reputation. Did he make no senior media allies throughout his career? Why didn’t he take the well-trodden advocacy approach of speaking through ‘friends’ or other ‘sources close to the subject’ to get his defensive messages out there?

If his position in considered indefensible, then why not hand back the pension pot with a humble ‘mea-culpa’, and start to redeem himself? He wouldn’t miss the money. RBS’s current boss Stephen Hester found temporary reprieve from personal criticism by doing a u-turn on his controversial bonus award: change the story if you don’t like it!

Another possibility is that Fred Goodwin simply doesn’t give a damn. That seems unlikely from all that we’ve read about him and his allegedly Hindenburg-sized ego. Redemption is clearly possible although it takes a long time, much effort and genuine will: the old adage about reputations taking years to build and seconds to destroy still holds.

But the point here is that reputations can be rebuilt. There are plenty of examples of people who’ve recovered from worse than Goodwin; does anyone remember Gerald Ronson? Look at his Wikipedia page to see how far you can sink and how high you can subsequently rebound. A more recent example is ex-BP boss Tony Hayward. He seems to have done all right so far, and in a relatively short space of time. And so has the reputation of Toyota, following the crisis surrounding its global recall. It will be interesting to see if and how Fred Goodwin finally reinvents himself. Maybe he’s working on a book deal?

In my first article on customer advocacy I outlined what I hope was a strong case for talking about your successes through the clients’ voice. In this second piece, I want to explore what’s preventing more firms from doing so. Some of the common reasons I’ve encountered are:

1. The firm has a long-standing (and unchallenged) policy not to talk about clients
2. Clients would never agree to it, for various reasons
3. There is no resource to chase relationship ‘owners’
4. Marketing people are not trusted to talk directly to clients
5. It’s too risky. The outcome cannot be controlled. Clients might be misquoted or say something detrimental

Taking the first two in turn, changing the firm’s policy might be a tall order but when was the last time anyone asked if this approach was still relevant for the hyper-networked, information-rich 21st century? There will always be circumstances were your firm (or more likely your client) doesn’t want the whole world to know of your commercial relationships and what you do for them. But such a rigid policy locks out many other valuable opportunities where this doesn’t apply. You’ll automatically miss the opportunity of identifying those success stories that can go ‘on the record’. And these can be deployed to give potential new clients a very good reason to hire you.

The other common excuse offered is that ‘the client is far too busy’ and/or would be irritated by such a request. This may indeed apply in some cases. All too often, though, it’s a blocking tactic used to deny client access by someone who wants everyone else kept away from ‘their’ client. It’s understandable but unhelpful to you as a marketing professional.

Reason number three is really little more than an excuse, and a poor one at that. There can be few marketing activities more important to the firm than finding clients willing to advocate on its behalf. So what’s really needed is a reallocation of resources. Put your most capable person on the case – delegate it downwards at your peril! And if you truly have no-one internally who can take on the task, outsource it with the same care and attention to a trusted, experienced third party.

The fourth and fifth reasons are understandable and often stem from a combination of inexperience and the absence of a formalised process. The very fact that you cannot fully control the outcome is why client-told stories are so powerful. What you can do, however, is minimise the possibility of a negative outcome. One way to reign in your control freak colleagues, and get them to see and accept this, is to prepare a formal process. This should include how you identify and approach clients, plus how any subsequent outputs are managed (the media interview or the case study article, for example). Ultimately, if a client says something negative, it’s not as dire as you’d think and will be in the context of many other positive things, plus you’ll have worked out the best response to minimise the fallout in advance. That’s one key reason for having the right endorsement management process. That process is the theme of the third piece in this series, coming soon.

The counter-intuitive headline ‘Negative reviews drive sales, claims marketing expert’ on Marketing magazine’s web site caught my eye. But as I finished reading I was left none the wiser about why. Normally I would have stopped there and thought no more about it but the man behind this claim is Don Peppers, a widely-acknowledged marketing expert.

To get to the reasons for Peppers’ claim I had to spend an hour watching his presentation at a recent conference about social media and marketing. I heartily recommend you make the same time commitment. He’s a great presenter and you’ll probably come away feeling like you’ve learned something for free about what motivates buyers. But if you don’t have time, I’ll summarise what he says about negative reviews.

First, don’t be afraid of allowing people to post website reviews of your products or services. Sites with a few negative reviews but mostly positive ones will sell more than those with 100% positive ones. Why? Because people will view the former as more trustworthy, more authentic. Peppers calls this ‘trustability’. He tells the audience that trustability is about companies acting in the customers’ interests and not exclusively for their own benefit. These firms, he says, will be the ones that succeed in future.

To illustrate his point he talked about an insurance firm he uses. He once called them to buy a policy he thought he needed. The agent could have sold him the policy and that would have been the end of the matter. But instead, the agent queried his request and, on hearing about his needs, explained that a cheaper policy would provide the right level of cover. The company made less money on this single transaction, but at a stroke became ‘trustable’, gaining the loyalty of a well-known marketing expert who tells audiences around the world about them. That, clearly, is priceless in terms of endorsement and advocacy.

As Peppers reminds us ‘how you treat your products (or services) today will have no effect on their price tomorrow, but how you treat customers today has everything to do with their value tomorrow’. Wise words we would all do well to remember.

Some people find this Youtube video of a mock-plaintive junior at PR agency Ten Yetis amusing. Maybe it did the trick but it left me feeling a little embarrassed for her. If I was her client, I’d be wondering if that’s all there is to pitching journalists – and wondering if I didn’t need a little more marketing savvy injecting into my PR efforts.

Why, for example, was there not one single good reason offered up to the journalist to write about the product in that video? Why do readers need to know about it, why is it better than similar apps? It’s not like there wasn’t enough time – she had plenty to plug the product name (three times I counted). Maybe it’s a pile of crap and maybe that’s why, as a pitch attempt, this PR flack’s effort was pretty lame. Just my view of course, based on the information available at the time of writing. Am I right or am I being too harsh?

Note: a couple of days after writing this post, I was directed via a Twitter follower to this blog entry about other ‘quality’ output from Ten Yetis PR. And today, a very experienced trade magazine editor read my post and told me “they do the kind of PR that makes you want to kill out their emails before you even read them.”

Most people old enough to be in senior management roles today know the slogan ‘Let your fingers do the walking’. It did wonders for promoting Yellow Pages and joined the advertising hall of fame back in 2002. But how about ‘Let your clients do the talking’? Nope, that doesn’t resonate quite so loudly does it? But it should, because credible endorsements from others are one of the most potent sales tools in business-to-business, especially if you’re selling professional services. PR professionals call this ‘third party endorsement’ (TPE) and, well managed, it can win you business, forge alliances, improve recruitment and retention, and help in a multitude of other reputation-enhancing ways too.

TPE is so powerful because it responds to a basic psychological need. In business – indeed in life in general – when presented with an important choice, dilemma or problem, we tend to look around us to see what others in the same circumstances have done. Even if we already have a good idea about the appropriate course of action, we still tend to look for external validation of that choice. Both scenarios present management with an opportunity for their firm to be seen as the best choice of solution provider.
Here’s another very good reason why TPE is valuable in marketing terms. Journalists will be much more interested in your story ideas if they are ‘client-told’ as opposed to stories told purely by the firm. Good journalists will instinctively seek out independent validation and evidence when presented with a claim. It’s part of their training to be cynical.

They also know that good stories need tangible examples readers can relate to in a meaningful way. They want drama, personality and, even in dry business publications these days, a little entertainment. Because journalists are more time-pressed than ever before, if you feed them your choicest case study morsels, chances are they’ll bite your hand off.

So, by exploiting TPE, you’ll be benefiting from powerfully-told endorsements of your services and expertise, and pushing against an open door when your PR team contact the media. Why then, are more firms not making the most of such a great opportunity? That’s something I’ll cover in a forthcoming post.

Elle Macpherson and a ceo. I know which one I'd prefer to have in my boardroom

Earlier this month Elle Macpherson, one of the original ‘supermodels’, was interviewed by Lucy Kellaway in The Financial Times. You can read the article here (although you may need to register). It’s a great read, though it left this formerly neutral reader, and I suspect many others, with a rather dim view of ‘The Body’, as she used to be known. It made me wonder what the original objective for doing the interview was, what preparation went into it and whether the outcome might have been better for McPherson, who clearly went into damage limitation mode judging from the writer’s account of post-interview phone calls.

Super models, like others at the top of their game in fashion, media and sport, are used to journalists fawning over them. Because they are hugely in demand, they can pick and choose who they grant interviews to, with the result that most journalists have to accept the sometimes ridiculous conditions they (and their publicists) demand: so-and-so will not talk about this; you are not allowed to mention (insert sensitive issue). You can see evidence of it in Kellaway’s piece but all such attempts at media interview control were never going to work with The FT, which as most people know is much more interested in business than celebrity stories.

Kellaway doesn’t make her living interviewing the likes of Elle Macpherson so had nothing to lose from writing an honest and frank account of the meeting. Though she is fair, she has a low tolerance for flaky business ‘guff’ and isn’t afraid to get the highlighter pen out when she encounters it. So why did Macpherson’s PR firm, a high-end fashion PR agency based in Savile Row, think it was a good idea to do this interview? My bet is that they approached Kellaway rather than the other way round. Why, at the bare minimum, wasn’t Macpherson briefed and ready to talk about business instead of underwear? Did they think their client was safer talking to a female reporter?

Tellingly, Macpherson misinterprets Kellaway’s reference to the basic accounting term ‘wasting asset’ and responds frostily (savour the mental image, as the ‘Ab-Fab’ PR agency minder sitting in on the interview didn’t get it either). We are left wondering if she really is as deeply immersed in the business world as she claims to be.

What’s the most important lesson? I’m torn between “never use a fashion PR agency to handle business media relations” and “if your client is the brand and writes a ‘brand poem’, make sure they never mention it during a media interview.”

What on earth is going on at University College London (UCL)? On the evidence of a recent  major story in the London Evening Standard, its president Professor Malcolm Grant seems to be going through a Marie Antoinette moment.

For some time now UCL seems to have quietly ignored growing resentment over its policy of paying cleaners minimum wages, instead of the couple of pounds more per hour that campaigners have set as the lowest ‘living wage’ anyone can survive on in London. So when the Standard decided to look into things, no doubt helped along by the aforementioned campaigners, what did he do? First, Grant repeatedly declined an interview and instead hid behind a flaccid sounding statement. Then, when the Standard’s David Cohen finally cornered him at a UCL event, he put up what can only be described as a ‘let them eat cake’ response.

UCL has a very good reputation around the world but with this kind of publicity, you’ve got to wonder for how much longer? The Standard is already doing its bit to keep the issue alive, publishing a follow up story about a senior staff ‘backlash’.

The reputation lessons here are pretty clear:

1. Ignoring your critics won’t make them go away

2. Never decline an interview without very good cause. An inconvenient truth does not constitute ‘good cause’

3. When preparing to defend yourself, gather all of the facts that might be used against you and ask a trusted, sensible outsider to play the ‘devil’s advocate’ role

4. Review your position against what this person tells you – does it now pass the ‘common sense’ test?

5. If it doesn’t change your position quickly, apologise and put things right fast

What’s also interesting here is that, as you might expect, UCL has a team of communications people who will no doubt be coming under some pressure right now. Were they caught out unprepared for this story breaking or has their advice been flatly ignored by their boss? UCL’s head of media relations is Dominique Fourniol. That sounds like it might be a French name which, when you think about it, seems strangely appropriate given the opening comments in this post.

In the UK, high street (retail) banking is dominated by a handful of five, big brands so similar you’d be hard pushed to fit a cigarette paper between them. So news of Metro bank’s launch, which The Telegraph newspaper points out is the first new entrant to this market in 100 years, ought to be welcomed, didn’t it? Especially when you hear its billionaire founder Vernon Hill likes to have fun and plans to “to eliminate every stupid bank rule we can find.”

How refreshing. Well, on the surface, yes. Any new-comer promising to shake things up and put customers (and their dogs) first has to be welcomed, if only to keep the stuffy old established banks on their toes. But then I came across this CNN story about Vernon Hill.

The photo is enough to have you running from the room screaming, Edvard Munch-style, but the line that did it for me was “Duffy dines on caviar and filet mignon!” I showed this to a couple of people and one of them said “he’s not getting his hands on my money.” Quite.

Coming soon to London: the dog-friendly bank we’ve all been waiting for. Photo courtesy Photos8

Chances are, the existing banks are so dozy, Metro will succeed all the same. But Hill has some pretty stiff and equally disruptive competition arriving soon in the shape of Tesco and Virgin. Personally, I’m not so sure Metro’s ‘open all hours’ strategy is the right one for UK retail banking, but, being an early and willing convert to internet banking, perhaps I’m not the type of customer he’s after. In my book, the only sensible motive for walking into a bank has to be robbery.

Postscript: shortly after writing this I came across this superb, prescient Harvard Business Review blog The Case for Being Disruptively Good by Umair Haque, director of the Havas Media Lab.

Reading a major, left-leaning British newspaper on Saturday I was struck by two separate stories featuring what is now the world’s largest technology corporation, Apple. In the first, Apple was the story. It was a light, positive piece about the frenzied events at the company’s flagship London store on the first day that Ipads went on sale. Apple marketing folk must have been delighted by the scale and tone of the article. The second story was altogether different, and must have tainted the pleasure prompted by the first. It was about a spate of suicides by unhappy workers at a Chinese factory owned by Foxconn, a major supplier to Apple.

How much image 'polishing' went on for Jobs' Foxconn visit? Photo Credit UPI Photo/Stephen Shaver

Once the supplier realised the Western media had taken an interest, it announced that wages were to be increased by 20%, subsequently raising this to 30%. Today Steve Jobs of Apple, sensing a potential PR drama brewing, felt compelled to go on the defensive. He was reported by the BBC as saying:

“You go in this place and it’s a factory but, my gosh, they’ve got restaurants and movie theatres and hospitals and swimming pools. For a factory, it’s pretty nice.”

He may have been quoted selectively, but I couldn’t help thinking that he seemed to be saying that the suicidal workers should have been more grateful for such a working environment. You can imagine the careful orchestration of the Chinese owners to present Jobs with a ‘shiny, happy people-style’ image for his visit.

Next time, he should arrive unannounced and insist on unrestricted access without a chaperone. He might then see why Chinese migrants prefer to make the ultimate protest than continue working in Apple’s supply chain. The people in London who grappled one another to get their hands on an Ipad might do well to reconsider their preferred choice of gadget brand as well.

Some would say lawyers deserve all they get reputation-wise: they communicate in a strange, obscure language, deliberately designed to complicate the simple; they inhabit a rarefied, archaic world largely untouched by modern business norms such as offering high customer service levels and value for money. I suspect Luke Johnson’s recent damning column in The Financial Times speaks for many. The British government clearly thinks things need shaking up too because its ‘Legal Services Act’ comes into force next year, and aims to open up and deregulate the market. It has been described by The Times newspaper as the legal sector’s own version of The City’s ‘Big Bang’.

This polar bear ‘brief’ in Vancouver is probably the world’s only cool lawyer. Credit: photo courtesy Claire Dancer, Flickr

If, as expected, it creates greater competition, in-flows of capital and outside management, will these factors drive a big improvement in the way British Law firms market themselves? I think it will, and it’s long overdue according to James Baxter*:

“The legal sector remains on the whole undifferentiated: the same lawyers, offering the same services to the same clients who have little idea what distinguishes the amorphous mass of firms before them.”

Baxter ought to know. He is a former editor of Legal Business magazine. For those firms who’ve not yet taken the plunge into marketing, here’s one simple, important and overriding rule:  never entrust the task to any of the partners, unless they can demonstrate genuine, business and brand-building experience. This is what happens when you break that rule. Last month I received an alert saying my Twitter stream @andymturner was being followed by no less than ‘London’s coolest law firm’. How do I know this apparently oxymoronic claim is for real? Because that’s how the firm’s founder and senior partner trumpets his firm’s Twitter account biography. Somewhat surprised, I clicked through to the firm’s website expecting to see the epitome of cool, but of course, found just another dull-looking law firm with an equally ordinary client list. So I couldn’t resist writing to tell said senior partner that it’s unlikely anyone wants ‘cool’ from their law firm and to find a better USP fast before anyone important sees it, or at least just drop it. He replied with what seemed a little ‘froideur’ saying that he probably will, that he didn’t take Twitter seriously anyway (which is evident because he’s following 8,000+ people) and that it’s better to be talked about than not at all. I took the trouble to reply but haven’t heard from him again. Some people are so damned ungrateful on receipt of free, sensible advice.