{"id":4716,"date":"2014-01-20T11:00:22","date_gmt":"2014-01-20T16:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/?p=4716"},"modified":"2018-08-09T16:41:31","modified_gmt":"2018-08-09T20:41:31","slug":"legends-of-public-relations-alvin-golin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/2014\/01\/20\/legends-of-public-relations-alvin-golin\/","title":{"rendered":"Legends of Public Relations: Alvin Golin"},"content":{"rendered":"

Note from the Editor:<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0The following blog post is one of a four-part “Legends of Public Relations” series on Progressions. All\u00a0excerpts\u00a0were originally published in “Legacies from Legends in Public Relations” by\u00a0The Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations<\/a>\u00a0in 2007, a booklet which celebrated the 40th anniversary of PRSSA with personal messages for students written by industry legends.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\"Graphic<\/a>
Graphic by Ben Butler<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Alvin Golin, Fellow PRSA
\n<\/b>Founder and Chairman, GolinHarris<\/p>\n

Career:<\/strong> Veteran of 50 years in public relations and founder of Chicago-based GolinHarris, which was named Agency of the Year by the Holmes Report and PRWeek in 2007. Named one of the 100 Most Influential Public Relations People of the 20th Century. Recipient of the PRSA Gold Anvil (2005), the Hall of Fame Award from the Arthur W. Page Society (2004) and lifetime achievement awards from PRSA, the Publicity Club of Chicago and Inside PR.<\/p>\n

“I began my business life almost 50 years ago when I joined a small public relations firm in Chicago, coming from my first job in the promotion department of MGM Pictures. About a year later, I made a phone call that proved to be a turning point in my life.<\/p>\n

In 1957, I made a cold call to a man named Ray Kroc, who had a handful of the old red and white McDonald\u2019s around the Chicago area. None of us ever dreamed they would grow to over 30,000 restaurants in over 100 countries around the world. Earlier this year they celebrated their 50th anniversary with much fanfare.<\/p>\n

Their community involvement was part of their culture from the very beginning–and still is today, even with their huge advertising budget. I coined the term \u201cTrust Bank\u201d for all the community involvement–which helped them build \u201cdeposits\u201d of goodwill in case they might need it for a \u201cwithdrawal\u201d–when a crisis or sensitive issue arose.<\/p>\n

Back then, there were no color TVs, no mobile telephones, no fax and, of course, no e-mail–let alone blogs. The quartz watch I\u2019m wearing has more computing power than existed in the entire world.<\/p>\n

There is a problem, however, with a high-tech, low-touch culture. Too many of us are becoming increasingly reliant on impersonal communication. People are much more willing to use email than to set up face-to face meetings or even talk on the phone.<\/p>\n

We live in a \u201ctransparent\u201d society now. Anyone with an Internet connection and an opinion can influence perceptions. Also, people and companies can\u2019t \u201cget away\u201d with unethical or questionable actions–with the watchdogs in government, media and consumer groups that are active today.<\/p>\n

Whenever I have the chance, I reiterate my own twist on the old adage: \u201cIf it ain\u2019t broke, don\u2019t fix it.\u201d Actually, it\u2019s my most unfavorite saying. I\u2019ve always said, \u201cFix it before it breaks.\u201d<\/p>\n

We should all have the courage to change things before we have to. Sometimes familiarity can breed contempt. I think JFK (Kennedy, that is, not Kerry) said it: \u201cThe time to fix a roof is when the sun is shining.\u201d Nothing could be truer.<\/p>\n

Whenever I meet with young people in our office, they usually ask a couple of questions that help me evaluate what I\u2019ve done over the years. There are two questions they always ask: \u201cWhat have you done that you\u2019re most proud of?\u201d And, \u201cWhat do you regret not doing?\u201d I like the last question because it\u2019s something I can still do something about and perhaps help them. So we come back to my tried and true tag line: \u201cFix it before it breaks.\u201d It really boils down to \u201cgoing with your gut feeling.\u201d The same thing can happen when I\u2019ve been talked out of a good idea when I know it makes sense. We\u2019ve had some of our greater successes when we \u201cstuck to our guns\u201d when the nay-sayers tried to play it safe.<\/p>\n

In any business or in life, you must take risks\u2026learn to love it. If you play \u201cnot to lose\u201d rather than \u201cto win,\u201d you\u2019ll never be a success<\/p>\n

Albert Einstein once said: ‘Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.'”<\/p>\n

Alvin Golin<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Note from the Editor:\u00a0The following blog post is one of a four-part “Legends of Public Relations” series on Progressions. All\u00a0excerpts\u00a0were originally published in “Legacies from Legends in Public Relations” by\u00a0The Plank Center for Leadership in Public Relations\u00a0in 2007, a booklet which celebrated the 40th anniversary of PRSSA with personal messages for students written by industry legends. Alvin Golin, Fellow PRSA […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":4673,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1555,14],"tags":[1645,1646,24,1641,1650,2217,2225,15,40,422],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4716"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4716"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4758,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4716\/revisions\/4758"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4673"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/progressions.prsa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}