Transcript -
JOHNA BURKE: Hello, this is Johna Burke with BurrellesLuce, and we’re here at Counselors Academy. We’re joined by Alan.
Alan, will you please introduce yourself?
ALAN COHEN: Absolutely. My name’s Alan Cohen, and I’m president of Acts of Balance Executive Coaching and Training based out of New York City. And I work with public relations executives and PR firms to help develop more effective leaders, and I work a lot with communications skills and team-building.
BURKE: Great. Alan, you did a session on tough conversations for PR practitioners and agency owners here. Can you give us a couple of your insights as far as how people can set up and then have those tough conversations?
COHEN: Absolutely. One of the most common things that I see in my practice is people really avoiding having those tough talks. And in avoiding them, they actually make the situation even bigger and more volatile. We largely like to be people pleasers, and so we avoid having the conversations that may be unpleasant, may provoke some strong emotions. But what I do is really help develop people to think, to plan in advance, to go through a multistep process to really think about how they’re interpreting the situation, to really align their values with having the conversation and to really, really plan it out so that the conversation will develop into a real win-win-win; a win for the individual having the talk, the–a win for the person who’s being spoken to, and really a win for the relationship overall. It’s really about a collaboration. So as leaders, we need to have the courage to have the difficult conversations. And leadership is not always easy, but it’s important that we stay in integrity by really addressing the situations that are causing us discomfort.
BURKE: Alan, thank you so much. Where can people connect with you online and in social media?
COHEN: I’m at actsofbalance.com, and my Twitter handle is actsofbalance.
Or you can join my Facebook fan page, also Acts of Balance.
BURKE: Thank you so much, Alan.
COHEN: Thank you.
On Wednesday, May 4th, I had the opportunity to attend the PR Week Measurement Roundtable, along with some of my BurrellesLuce colleagues.
You finally confirmed a meeting with the client you have been trying to schedule with for weeks. Your boss is watching closely and you know this opportunity is too important to fly by the seat of your pants. Sometimes being face-to-face with a client is cause for momentary lapses in judgment. Sitting across the table from someone you lose the comfort of writing carefully worded emails or the ability to hide your hair twirling habit a client never sees on a conference call. Everyone has quirks; however, it’s important to know how to keep yourself in check during client meetings. 
There has been much discussion of late regarding influencers. How do you identify an influencer? How do you measure their value? And how do you talk to people who don’t necessarily understand that influencers aren’t one-size-fits-all? (In fact, Justin Goldsborough, Fleishman-Hillard Kansas City, asked a similar question in 
