Curiosity is a very useful, if not essential, character trait in great PR consultants. If you’re not naturally curious about a wide range of subjects, you’ll struggle to get up to speed on your clients’ businesses and industries. You’ll also be less likely to muster a contagious enthusiasm for the subject you’re communicating.
Curiosity is helpful if you’re an in-house practitioner, of course. But for agency consultants, natural curiosity has some other major career benefits. Let’s break them down:
1. Curious consultants dive into topics and, thus, acquire an impressive knowledge of their clients’ subjects. This makes them an invaluable media resource as well as a credible spokesperson, advisor and strategist.
2. The curious are driven to follow through. Once they sink their teeth into a story, they have to know how it ends. So, they follow up with clients, media, partners, vendors, colleagues and other stakeholders to see through the story or project.
3. When you’re naturally curious, your mind likes to turn over a topic and you’ll think about it in the car, shower or post office line up. And that process is often when the best ideas magically materialize.
4. Curiosity fuels an inquisitive nature too. Curious people ask questions. And asking good questions is critical to developing a good strategy. Good question often lead to tough questions, and a good practitioner must get the tough questions on the table with the client before the media or other stakeholders do.
5. Curiosity can also help build relationships with clients. What does it say to a client when a consultant thinks to ask “how is the Australia expansion going?” or “has your son picked a college yet?” It shows them that you care about their business or about them as people, and that’s invaluable to the relationship. It has an added benefit in that you might learn something about the client’s business that gives you a broader perspective. It helps position you as a collaborator and helps take you out of the box that clients can sometimes put their subject matter experts in. Lastly, it’s helpful to understand what’s happening in your client’s personal life so you can take that into consideration.
The benefits above are tough to achieve if you have to fake or force curiosity, but if you foster it and encourage it in yourself, you’ll be rewarded.
What do you think?
What are the benefits of curiosity that I missed here? Share below or on our Facebook page.
Is curiosity always good?
Curiosity can have its pitfalls such as miring client discussions in trivial questions or nice-to-know tangents. You don’t want to be that kid on the grade school field trip who won’t stop asking questions. So, keep the questions on point.
It’s also important not to assume that your clients’ audiences have the same level of curiosity (a.k.a. interest) in the subject. As a rule, never underestimate their total apathy to your clients’ subjects, and work hard to find ways to drive and encourage curiosity and interest. Without either, there’s no basis for engagement.
So, ask why, how much, when, where and how. Ask them early, and ask them often. But remember that the question good practitioners really need to be curious about is this one: so what?
Be curious and pursue the answer to that question relentlessly on behalf of your clients’ audiences, and you’ll be at the top of your game.
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