How gossip helped my PR career

 1st September 2015    PR Guru 
 Paarul Chand

How gossip helped my PR career
How many times have I tried to give up gossip? Too many. And don’t tell me to shout it down a well, I have my dignity! Not to mention wells are a bit tough to find in cities.

Although I have managed to cut right down, it would be career suicide to give up completely, as I would miss all the gossip. Let’s face it, to get on in PR you have to have an unhealthy nosy attitude. It’s called tracking the market buzz!

Here’s why:

Gossipers are willing to dish the dirt

The other day I was in a client meeting presenting some work which seemed to go down well. No changes were put forward.

In the boardroom that is.

Standing outside the building later, having a cigarette and a less formal chat, I found out what the client really thought and so I was able to make some valuable changes. That one chat saved us a whole load of wasted time pursuing a creative route that would have been rejected later.

Journalists are only honest during a good gossip

Don’t ask me why it is, but I only get the juicy stuff out of my journalist contacts when we are having a good gossip over beer. That’s when they really tell me what they really think about my client’s latest marquee campaign and why it’s dead in the water!

Drinking helps you to bond

There may be some PROs out there who manage to get on without gossipping but without drinking? I don’t think so! Living in this alcoholic culture, if you don’t spend time knocking back the booze, then you are considered rather strange. Plus, clients don’t like to drink on their own.

Business doesn’t get done in gyms

If only clients wanted to meet up with me and talk as we pounded the treadmill, followed by a nice, healthy juice. But no. The expected way to do deals is over artery-clogging food accompanied by expensive plonk. And then there’s the inevitable gossip smoothed by litres of cheap red wine.  (or a better wine even, if things are going really well.)