Starting Your PR Career? Help is on hand

Here at the R consultancy, we know how hard it is being a PR graduate and not knowing where or how to enter the profession. Sometimes, as well as the formal channels of the CIPR, you really just want to talk to someone. What is the job really like? What is the best way to get into the profession?
That's why we're offering graduates the opportunity to call us and speak to us to get a taste of what it's really like. You see, we think it is a great profession so we like to do our bit to help people join it. Call Rachel on 0161 929 7850.

Corporate Reputation Management Conference

the R consultancy will be in fine company next month. We'll be speaking alongside some of the UK's leading practitioners and academics of corporate reputation management on February 18 in the first one day conference dedicated to the subject to be held in the North West. Taking place at the Bridgewater Hall, Manchester and hosted by the CIPR North West, this really is a fantastic opportunity to hear from some of the best. When we're not in the audience listening, we'll be speaking about what reputation is, its value as an asset and the impact it has on the bottom line of an organisation. Oh and the changing role of the PR practitioner to 'reputation guardian.' We are passionate about that small point.

The line up is truly one not to be missed. Just take a look.

Kevin Money, Director, John Radjedski Centre For Reputation, Henley Business School
Russ Brady, Head of Group Public Relations, The Cooperative Group
Gideon Benaim, Schillings Lawyers
Cheryl Sloan, The Fairtrade Foundation
Karl Milner, Director of Communications, NHS Yorkshire and Humber
Graham Mallinson, d2 Digital 'Changing Behaviour In The Public Sector'
and of course our very own Rachel Griffiths

More details can be found here

Rebuilding Reputation In Financial Services

Having just spoken at a conference in the city entitled 'Rebuilding Reputation in Financial Services', I was heartened by the willingness of many communications professionals in the sector to share best practices in this current climate and to listen to and discuss the lessons that could be learned from the events of the past eighteen months. Their dedication remains unquestionable.

Of far greater concern was the number of professionals who seem still to operate in a separate, almost isolated function within the larger business. Surely they too must change. As modern practitioners in a new era, they are now an ambassador for the very valuable asset of reputation and must work from within the organisation, across board level and each area of operation to maximise the reputation credentials of the business. In financial services, more than any other sector, there seems a very clear, almost urgent need for communications practitioners to embrace all the elements comprising reputation, to realise the value that the asset holds and vitally, to assist boards to build reputational equity. It seems that the real learning and the opportunity for the financial services sector to rebuild its reputation among, largely skeptical, stakeholders lies with the communications professionals who must lead the change and build reputation from within.

Q. What holds between 20% to 80% of your market value?

A. The reputation of a company. On the conservative side, reputation is "worth 20% of a company's turnover. For consumer brands or services, particularly financial services, it shoots to 80% of market value.* Accountants provide a general measure of around one third of annual revenue.