The Ethical Optimist

I recently received a call from a former client letting me know she has a new post and that there might be a PR opportunity there for Utopia. I was delighted. More because she landed such a great job; the potential for work was gravy.

I’ve always tried to like the folks I’ve worked with…genuinely like them. If I don’t, I avoid working with them. For this reason, I tend to stick with them and make an effort to ride the highs and lows with them. Many of my good friends and vendors have done the same for me.

In fact, one vendor helped me with a website and business cards when I first started Utopia…from a card table in my bedroom! He didn’t charge a thing…just wanted to help a friend. Guess what? He’s the first person I recommend when folks ask me for a good promotional agency. We continue to work together and applaud our mutual success.

Not everyone thinks this way. I was overwhelmingly disappointed in one long-time vendor who couldn’t return a single one of my calls when I left my post in NYC and started over. During the span of our 20-year relationship, I was responsible for several million dollars in business for her company – either directly or by recommendation. (Remember your schooling? Lifetime value of a customer.) Once the well dried up, albeit temporarily, I was non-existent in her eyes. Once I started gaining ground with Utopia, however, she broke the silence, but I’d since found other sources.

I learned an important lesson from these experiences. In the end, we don’t work with companies; we work with people. Loyalty, genuine concern and friendship go a long way in this business. Success and fortune will waver, but these core values remain constant. And, in the end, they become the true measure of our success.

I received an email today that made me reflect upon my career and how I got here. It was a notification that one of the preeminent women in our field had passed away. If you didn’t know Sheila Kelley and you are in PR, you should take a moment to bow your head and thank her…and those like her.

I met Sheila at Doremus (then part of BBDO). She was the only woman in management, and I was hired as a secretary despite the fact that I had a degree in PR from a leading university. Several of the boys I graduated with were hired as AE’s, but women were hired as assistants.

In those days, coming from my neighborhood, women had limited career choices. Choice number one was wife and mother. If you wanted to earn a living you could be a nurse, a teacher or a secretary. That was about it. In fact, I remember my father arguing with my mother over the fact that I wanted to go to college…all that money would go to waste once I married and had babies!

So, there I was at Doremus working for the executive VP and longing for my shot. Sheila was the office dragon…and went through a fair share of weak willed AEs. After much pushing on my part, my boss finally called me into his office and said, well, if you want to work as an AE, there is a spot open working for Sheila…take it or leave it.

Not the most auspicious beginning. Frankly, the woman terrified me, but I wasn’t about to pass up my one and only shot. Heck, she was willing to give me a chance…she’d seen me trying to get a spot…and I like to think she admired my tenacity.

I spent over 2 years working for Sheila, and she was the toughest boss I’ve ever had. I admired her, learned more from her than anyone else, and at times, couldn’t stand her. Yet in hindsight, she was one of the most influential forces in my career. The last time I saw her, at a WEPR event, she told me she’d been following my career and she was proud of what I’d done. It meant more to me than she could have imagined.

Looking back, I cannot imagine how tough it was for her to succeed as a woman in what was then a male-dominated field. She had to be tough as nails, and she was. She taught me to be tougher as well, but I didn’t have to pay the same price she did…times they were a’changin.

She introduced me to a number of women who would continue to influence me including Phyllis Berlowe, Joyce Newman and Willa Armstrong. All were larger than life, all were opinionated, and each one showed me that women can succeed if they have the determination and smarts to do so.

PR is now dominated by women, so perhaps it’s easy to forget or dismiss that just 25 years ago, we struggled to be seen and heard in this field. Women like Sheila, who took a sledgehammer to the glass ceiling, deserve our respect and our thanks.

I’ll miss you Sheila; rest in peace.