Pizza, Sweating and PR - A perfect combination

This sounds like the beginning of a really sick joke. What do pizza, excessive sweating and public relations have to do with each other? While you may think this is going to be a ding on Dominoes - think again. This is actually a good news story and an opportunity to think about how positive PR can affect you or your client's business.

Let's start with some background. Gulfcoast Cardiothoracic and Vascular Surgeons offers a surgical intervention called sympathectomy that helps eliminate or reduce excessive sweating from the armpits, hands and feet. This does not apply to overall body sweating or the normal sweating most of us humans do. This is for a group of people who have suffered through their entire life having terribly sweaty palms - to the point where they could not shake hands, couldn't try on shoes in a shoe store, or changed shirts several times a day, even when they weren't exerting themselves. We ran a marketing campaign on the radio and apparently, this is really big news. Over 300 phone calls in one month.

Sounded like a news story to me, so I spoke with a reporter who also found it interesting. She did a big feature story on the subject.

Good news right? Yes... but there is a major caveat. If you score a great story like this, it is IMPERATIVE that you clearly communicate with the people answering the phones. Prepare them for an onslaught of calls and tell them exactly what to do. In this case, callers were scheduled for free screenings. The staff was well aware of the date the story was scheduled to run and they were ready.

Now where in the world does the pizza come in? Well, it has been my experience that when a major story hits, the phones don't stop ringing. Getting away for lunch is a pretty tough prospect. Show the staff how much you appreciate their courteous and professional telephone answering skills. A big coup for a PR person can really be a big pain for the staff - even if it DOES mean more business. The cost of a few pizzas can buy a boatload of goodwill and will encourage the staff when they get weary.