Earlier this week, one of our account teams did a webconference with a client sales organization, and this reminded me how important it is that a PR agency remain focused on the business development priorities of the companies it supports. When we created Topaz, one of our core principles was “PR with a business development mindset,” and this is a focus we maintain to this day (although now I’d describe it as “PR and social media relations with a business development mindset”). We’re not just working to arrange briefings, place articles and generate other types of coverage and visibility — but rather we’re focused on helping our clients with business objectives like generating leads, attracting investors and retaining customers. It’s essential that we understand what is important to our clients’ success and align our work with those priorities. That was the impetus for this week’s webconference — we wanted to understand their business goals and challenges and discuss ways we could better support them. In this case, the sales team also provided valuable insights into topics that are top-of-mind with customers and prospects — which in turn helps us develop more relevant, compelling content (fortunately for us, this client, Brazil-based outsourcer Stefanini IT Solutions, is in a market rich with topical issues…and their IT services story matches up nicely with these trends). We intend to build on this and participate on regular sales teleconferences — with this client and others. And I’m confident we’ll soon be able to point to more PR results that go beyond clips and impressions and speak to real business impact.

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