Public relations professionals are in the business of not only getting exposure for their clients, but of making clients and journalists happy.

You can be the best public relations (PR) expert in the world, but if you lack people skills, youll never be truly successful. In PR, you have to understand human behavior and emotions, both in terms of your clients and the people you pitch to.

PR pros need to be jacks-of-all-trades. You have to be a master at writing, researching, communicating and organizing. But career success goes beyond the skills you learned in college. In fact, the key to good PR is something you learned in kindergarten: people skills.

Why Do PR Pros Need People Skills?

Degrees, certifications and a track record of successful campaigns will get you far in PR, but nothing works as well as people skills. People skills, like listening and compassion, are soft skills that are hard to measure, to be sure, but that doesnt mean they arent important.

In fact, in Ed Zitrons book This Is How You Pitch, he argues that PR success doesnt come from high-profile features. It comes from fostering long-term relationships with reporters. When youre good at making friends, you build a professional network of genuine, helpful relationships. Once its time to pitch your story, you have a swath of people to send that pitch to.

Think about it: If you got a pitch from a total stranger and a another from a good buddy who you grabbed a coffee with last week, which pitch would you choose? Chances are, youre going to go with the person you know.

If you arent getting responses to your pitches, theres a good chance its because you dont have an in with that journalist. But when you develop your people skills and grow professional relationships, you can score more media placements for your clients. On top of that, youll also be better at managing client relationships, ensuring repeat business and a loyal customer base. Its a win-win!

Three Methods To Improve Your People Skills

As humans, we learn people skills when were children. But just because were all grown up doesnt mean weve stopped learning. Follow these three tricks to improve your people skills and become a better PR professional.

1. Improve your emotional intelligence.

Believe it or not, humans make most decisions based on emotion, not logic. By improving your emotional intelligence, youll be able to connect to journalists, your clients and even the public on a more effective level.

Emotional intelligence is the awareness of emotions and how those emotions affect behavior. For example, with a healthy sense of emotional intelligence, you can sense when an editor is stressed out. You might wait to pitch them until you have their undivided attention.

In any situation, try to identify the other partys emotions. Ask why theyre feeling that way, how it affects their behavior and how your behavior will influence their emotions. At the end of the day, this comes down to having compassion for other people and using that sense of compassion to pitch smarter.

2. Listen!

You arent listening to me! has to be one of the most common sentences in the English language. Instead of being quick to speak, be quick to listen. Its not enough to hear what someone is telling you. Listening is an essential people skill thats about committing what someone says to memory, processing it and drawing conclusions. Its the single best way to show someone you care.

For example, if you dont follow a journalists instructions for a pitch, theyre going to be frustrated with you. Its going to look like you didnt listen. You may come off as tone deaf, and it will potentially ruin your chances of ever getting a media feature.

The next time youre chatting with someone, stop thinking about what youre going to say next. Theyre telling you what they need; all you have to do is listen.

3. Maintain relationships.

Relationships are like your bank account. You have to put money into that account regularly, and only occasionally make withdrawals. If you want to ask a journalist for a favor, you have to put more into the relationship than youre taking out of it. That means maintaining relationships and hanging out with a contact when you dont need anything.

This is easier said than done, especially if you know a lot of people in the media. To do regular outreach without losing your mind, set a calendar appointment twice a week to grab coffee with one of your contacts. Youll have a chance to catch up with people without asking for something in return. Chances are, once you send in a pitch, theyll be more than happy to help out because youve invested in the relationship.

The Bottom Line

If youre pitching stories to humans, you need to understand them. Thats why people skills are so important to the art of PR. By nurturing relationships within your network, youll have a trusted list of journalists you can pitch to score more stories. Your clients will benefit from your improved people skills, too.

See the original post:
Why People Skills Are Essential In PR And How To Improve Them - Forbes