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Executive and operational counsel
Our principal business is providing counsel to senior executives on a wide range of corporate communications issues, including the development of communications strategy and the creation of programs outlining public relations tactics.

Audits
Services including audits of corporate communications departments, programs and plans, and assessment of staff capabilities. 

Strategy review
Some organizations appreciate having an additional set of very experienced eyes cast across their overall business plan, and co-relating it with their more specific corporate communications plans.

Interpersonal Business Communications Training
We provide, based on Schilder & Associates research, a customized program of Interpersonal Business Communications training, improving the way management teams communicate with their members, with other employees, and with the balance of an organization's stakeholders. Content ranges from Managing A Meeting to Thinking Outside The Box; from Listening Professionally to Developing Feedback. The heart of the program is to provide the kinds on communications skills, different from "Corporate Communication" referred to in employment ads saying "must have excellent oral and written communications skills"

Publicity
Many people think publicity and public relations are the same thing -- they are not, and publicity is only a subset of the public relations profession. But, for some clients, it's what's most important, and we enjoy the occasional publicity assignment. For several years, we've been the publicist for Toronto International Festival Caravan, a ten-day extravaganza with two dozen cultural communities each hosting thousands of visitors. Leon Kossar is the founder of Caravan, and we arrange many television interviews for him each year.

We can apply the same publicity skills to announcements of new products, changes in executive management, social, political and entertainment events, and other projects. My background as a newspaper reporter and photographer, magazine editor, and television cameraman and producer means I can figure out the story angles that make editors and reports bite when we dangle a pitch before them. 

Writing
We write, or assist in the writing of, speeches and presentations, in addition to helping executives draft written materials in support of a broad range of business or organizational goals.

We provide copywriting services for advertising and sales promotion, ranging from television commercials to post cards and other direct mail. 

Web counsel and services
We provide advice to senior management on internet / WWW strategy, including assessment of proposals. We provide site architecture advice to businesses wanting to develop a new site or revamp an older site, and we assist web design firms with young, non-business-oriented management, to incorporate business strategy and tactics within their "avant-garde" graphic designs.

We write site content for clients using outside web design firms.

We create straightforward yet sophisticated sites from scratch, including design and site management.

Photography
We plan, art direct, and shoot a broad range of photographs for our clients. As both a former corporate public relations executive and a former newspaper and magazine photographer, I am often able to travel to locations unaccompanied by a client, (saving time and travel expenses for the client) organizing the photographs to meet both the strategic and tactical needs of the client and the news and general interest needs of the media to which we give the pictures. The Business Photography section of this site gives more details and shows some pictures.

Media training
Alignment of interests: 
We believe the best way to be prepare your organization for an advanced media relations program and to be trained for media appearances is to understand how journalists think and operate. We present a customized half day seminar that covers the basics of newspaper, radio, television, trade magazine, and, recently added, internet journalism. It can be combined with media audits, to determine how well represented your organization has been covered in the past, and how well prepared it is for the future.

Proactive and reactive programs: 
A well run public relations program generally includes extensive relationships with trade publications, national and international business publications, and local "consumer" media in communities where an organization has operations. We train senior management and local operational and sales management on how to conduct themselves while proactively approaching reporters and editors with story ideas.

The reactive element can be based on both positive and negative opportunities. The proactive program mentioned above leads to trust and interest being built with the media, which results in reporters contacting our clients and asking their opinions, and making sure they are included in industry stories. For the most part, these opportunities are "positive."  

However, sometimes when there is a crisis, organization leaders are approached by the media and asked to defend themselves; generally this is a "negative" opportunity, fraught with danger. The wrong answer can kill a business deal, cause stock to plunge, sow dissent within the workforce, cause customers to go elsewhere, deter prospective employees, and prompt regulators to look into your operations.

Our "re-active" media training program is designed not to frighten and intimidate, but to educate and calm our clients, preparing them for the hotseat so that they can maintain control and represent themselves in the best possible way.

Crisis communications and avoidance
Most often, it is best to avoid a crisis, rather than communicate about one. My three decades in communications, including senior roles in major corporations, allows us to conduct crisis audits, to determine where an organization is vulnerable, and advise on the communications aspects of programs to minimize the risk of a crisis developing. (See  BAK's Prediction -- Crisis communications to be needed by volt guys in the highlights from BAK's Report.) We understand what makes a good story, and we can predict what, good and bad,  will attract the interest of editors.

When a crisis does develop, we can assist management develop and implement, very rapidly, communications plans to reach all stakeholders, from the media (the normal target of conventional crisis communications programs) to the more important audiences of employees, customers, suppliers, investors, regulators, industry allies, and others.

Appearing in front of audiences
There are major and minor differences between appearing in front of audiences making speeches, and standing in front of groups making  presentations. We provide counsel, training and assistance for both. It's not good enough to "build understanding."
Speeches and presentations must prompt actions to the benefit of the speaker.

Presentation training
We think of presentations as two-way communications, usually dominated by the outgoing thought from the presenter, but balanced in part by the opportunity for audience participation. Usually, but not always, the most important audiences are in the room.

Based on our Thinker, Feeler, Censor, Intuitor, Analyzer theory, (read about it here) we prepare you and your colleagues to make presentations that result in actions to your benefit. Course content includes the philosophical (how the physical presence of speaker and audience provide interpersonal linkages impossible using brochures or web sites to make a pitch) the sociological (the establishment of communications hierarchies), the artistic (the presenter as thespian, slides as art that informs and educates), the economic (the heart of "why buy" in a business presentation) and the cognitive (how to use language, props, slides, and other visual support to be convincing and prompt a positive reaction.).

Speeches
Speeches are more of a one-way communication, from a speaker invited to entertain, inform, stimulate, inspire, acknowledge, or thank an audience. We approach them from the perspective that some of the audience, at least, should, when the speech is completed, take actions to the benefit of the speaker. More often than not, the most important audience is outside the room, which means that the speech must be the locus of an external communications program to reach significant stakeholders.

We work with speakers in various ways. With some, we hold a basic five-minute briefing, and then prepare an approach outline in which we report our research into who the audience is, what its members can do to the benefit of the speaker, what expectations the audience has, our opinion on how well these expectations can and should be met, and an outline of topics and content for the speaker to consider. From here, we may create the first draft of the words, or this may be taken over by the speaker.

Speakers often create the first draft. Because speech falls upon the ear so differently than does written prose impress itself upon the eye,, we frequently begin rewriting, and, depending on the time constraints and dedication of the speakers, work away from them preparing various drafts, or sit with them, often for many hours, honing words, phrases and paragraphs.

Prior to presentation, we listen to the speech from the presenter, use audio and video recordings to help shape phrasing and delivery, and guide the speaker through various tricks of the trade in making high impact speeches, from breathing techniques through voice modulation to such apparently simple things as ways to maintain eye contact while still reading.

We can also provide the full range of "outreach" communications services, taking the speech outside of the room via media relations and other communications techniques, reaching all important stakeholders unable to attend in person.