This is what I fear the most...

I have come across companies. Just like humans, they come in many shapes, many sizes and at various stages of their lives. But surprisingly, I find one thing common amongst them. When it comes to investing in PR they all have a shoestring budget. And honestly, I don’t get surprised anymore; I always fail to understand. All of them want to reach the moon with investing in just one litre of petrol! {It is possible, but for that you have to go to any Indian auto (tuk-tuk for my friends from overseas) driver and he’ll make sure that you see stars and moons during the day time!}

It’s dangerous. My request to such companies is to change the habit or get out of the business and do something else. How can you run a company or market your product if you do not have money to communicate with your customers! Wake up!

PR is the most amazing marketing tool and it is extremely important for the Indian companies to realize the importance of doing ‘right’ PR. By paying peanuts you’ll get only monkeys to jump around your office in the name of PR. I know lot of them. Original PR doesn’t begin and end with getting couple of news stories published about your company. It is much more than that. It is about communicating with your consumers and assist them to establish a dialogue between you and them. It requires more than few newspaper reports and TV interviews.

But, they don’t have money to invest in good brains or they don’t have good brains to invest the money in the right people. They are happy with monkeys and I wish them all the best! I am sure not many of them would be around in next 10 years. Sorry monkeys!

Reliable Miscommunication

Finally, someone called me to help me solve my problem regarding broadband Internet connection. Well, when I spoke with the gentleman on the other side it turned out that the problem created for me was nothing but a communication failure at every stage in the company! I discovered many new things as I spoke with him and thought how a simple training or communication between the departments or people would have saved me from all the troubles.

I see many companies investing millions of dollars in communicating to their customers or outside world about their services or products and ignore the internal communication. They fail to communicate to their very own people who are responsible for the image of the company at every stage. I strongly feel that if you want to know the professionalism of the company, analyse the person on the reception. How she behaves with visitors, who can be anybody from a courier boy to a visiting client CEO should give you a complete understanding of the company's behavior with their customers/people. If she is been communicated management's vision and what is expected from her to represent her company, she would behave in a manner which is expected and if it is not - you will see the results in few minutes.

This is not just about receptionists but true to any other person in the organization. Learn to share and communicate. Communicate with your people first, then talk to outside world. After all charity should begin at home...