Ok, here I go. I hate RFPs (Requests for Proposals).  There are even templates for them like the one here.

Old school medicine photo by me.  Shot on location with Julien Smith in Montreal.  Thank you Julien for taking me here. Please share this photo.

I know they are sometimes needed, but often times the client to be does not know how to ask the right questions or what to look for in a PR firm.

When you have a group of agencies all competing for a piece of business, we're all going to tell you the same thing: we have experienced professionals on staff, we did this wonderful thing for this client, ten minutes ago we just got off the phone with one of the leading analysts in your space, and here are some great references you can call.

The realities are this: each client is different and has its own quirks, budgets, challenges and personalities. As much as we get interviewed by the client, we need to interview the client as well.

The greatest responsibility we have to the client is not just doing great work, but managing their expectations and explaining how the process of what we do works.

While I consider the team that I work with to be well connected, it's impossible to know everyone at every publication and research firm.

We have good relationships in place and when we don’t know someone, and we have a great client with a good management team, solid technology, proper funding, a good product roadmap, and some initial customers, we know how to cultivate the relationship so we can support the journalist / analyst.

Last night I was working on a RFP.

After I submitted it, I sent back a list of 25 questions to the prospective client that they did not address in the RFP.

Hopefully, the prospective client will see and understand how we think.

Having been self-employed for twenty eight years, I have learned quite a bit about Technology PR, the Social Internet and how to run a business through really good, really great, and not so good times.

I started off being a sole practitioner, scaled a business with staff, scaled back from staff during two downturns, scaled back up with staff and then three years ago, I made the decision to go solo again.  It was a gradual transition and my team found other paths in their lives.   I have worked at home, shared an office with friends, had a fancy office, with fancy and really nice furniture, and now I am back to working from home (when I am home) in a really cool house that is in back of my house - and with some of the fancy furniture :)

Today, I can scale as needed, bring in appropriate expertise the client may need and the budget allows for. 

I have been through various technology cycles, from the 8088, to the 286 to the 386, the 486 and even the mighty Pentium, networking, WiFi, the beginnings of VoIp, the Internet Cafe, the tablet PC and many other technology and cultural shifts which you may read about here.  

I've had the opportunity to help Jeff Pulver on his vision of the #140Conf events which have connected us to thousands of people in person and scale to have our speakers being followed by ten million (not a misprint) followers.

At Heart, I'm A Story Teller. 

Along the way, I have evolved from doing traditional technology media relations to staying true to PR and bringing the social web into the mix.  I am still a believer in message, communications strategy, goals, and aligning business objectives with communications objectives.  

I'm still a traditional PR person with a focus on story telling.  I developed my skill sets in story telling because many of the innovations that I have had a chance to work on were in markets that did not exist.  

We had to have a story to tell - and sell.  

So either here in the U.S. or in many cases, in Israel, we'd dream a future and hope that my client's technology vision would win the hearts and minds of the Asian OEM / OEMs who in turn would sell to the U.S. and European brands.  Getting a design win was, and still remains monumental achievement and personally gratifying.

Now as 2011 approaches, I am going to shift to helping clients with Branded Content.  

I am still a great believer in story telling, and selling my client's stories to the media, industry analysts, fellow thought leaders and bloggers.  

In their own right, my clients are becoming story tellers on their own platforms- be it their blogs, photo sites, YouTube videos or where they check in as they travel the world.  There is some art, some discipline and figuring out as you go through this process, but it also involves a set of beliefs, or what I call belief sets that if you write and populate great content, you'll be found by and be a great resource to the media.

No, I Am NOT an Expert.  I Just Have Certain Belief Sets.

Even though I have been at this craft for over a quarter of a century and have many successes to show for it, I really don't consider myself to be an "expert."  

I just have certain belief sets in doing things a certain way.  

And if you'll kindly give allow some time to figure out the landscape, identify and build an ecosystem of media, analysts and bloggers who should know about your story, and allow the time to do the proper evangelism, then I can help you be a better and more effective story teller in 2011.

Leave a comment or reach out to me - alan at weinkrantz dot com.

Yes, you are what you Wordle - or rather what you write.   This free site that lets you create beautiful “word clouds” from text that you provide.  Or in the case of using Posterous like I do, it will automatically scan the contents of your site, and generate a word cloud like the one below.  

Give Wordle a whirl.  

And see what comes up - and what Wordle helps you illustrate the editorial fabric of your blog.