Vollmer Public Relations Client and Guest Blogger
Dallas. Houston. El Paso. San Francisco. Indianapolis. New York. No, this isn’t the latest wayward itinerary of our beloved Roaming Gnome. Rather, this is a list of cities where any given member of the Travelocity/Vollmer PR team will be working on a typical business day.
“So how does that work?” you might be thinking. “Surely, they can’t get much accomplished with their team so spread out.”
As someone who has worked on both sides of this equation – three years as a VPR account exec and six as PR manager at Travelocity – I can say, confidently, that it has worked and continues to work well. In fact, the Travelocity/VPR relationship has been going strong now for 14 years, dating back to a time when our brand was little more than a half-baked idea being thrown around the marketing department of our parent company, Sabre Holdings.
So how has our relationship with VPR weathered all of the peaks and valleys of the last 14 years? Undoubtedly, executing award-winning campaigns revolving solely around a lawn ornament and having the flexibility to schedule conference calls with team members spread across all four time zones are major factors. But, from my perspective, there are four bigger reasons why we have kept our relationship intact with VPR since 1995.
Candor -- Several years ago at one of our annual “eyeball” meetings, it was late in the day and we were all getting tired of each other. The conversation was lacking direction, the ideas were falling flat and after a while Helen made her feelings known. “This is bull****, guys!” she blurted out. We were stunned and not sure what to make of her outburst, but looking back on it today, I realize that there probably aren’t too many agency heads who would have the guts to say this to their largest client.
Patience -- This one works both ways. There are times when VPR has had to explain to us that a pitch might not quite be ready for primetime or that it wasn’t that good to begin with and we need to go back to the drawing board. Conversely, we’ve required patience from VPR when a hot product launch that has been in the works for months gets delayed or an executive we had lined up for a series of interviews had to back out at the last minute.
Fun -- As our team has become more spread out, the eyeball meetings have become part business meeting/part family reunion. We recently converged upon Dallas for a day of planning, brainstorming and, well, drinking. The dress code was Hawaiian. I was timekeeper and scheduled the meeting to end promptly at 4:00 to give everyone enough time to visit and catch up over a couple of cocktails before parting ways.
Trust -- I’ll close with what, in my humble opinion, is the most important element of building a long term relationship. For us it means that every day, regardless of the circumstances, when any one of us needs an extra hand, we all know that someone will be there to back us up.
It’s hard to place a value on such peace of mind.
Visit www.joelfrey.com for more information on Joel and his book "Two Sides of a Cypress Wall: The True Story of a Reluctant College Graduate."
1 comment:
Well said, or rather typed, Joel. When working within such a diverse footprint, trust -- in particular -- is foundational to success. And there is certainly no one better than Helen at cutting through the mess and refocusing a group!
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