The PR Adviser: Dear Lilian …

awoken one day and decided she’d be a jewelry designer, or at least that’s all I could surmise given the poor craftsmanship immediately apparent from the photographs.  

My friend insisted those were terrible pictures and she’d send others. No, I said, those pictures were perfect. They were snapshots, absent Photoshop, which showed me the truth and saved an awkward first meeting.

I’m telling you, Elizabeth, if you’d seen these pictures, you’d have encouraged my friend to turn the launch party into a scholarship fundraiser to help send her client to the Gemological Institute of America!

We’ll come back to this story.

Since you’re an acolyte of the Cindy Edelstein school of Tell It Like It Is, I’m certain Cindy insured quality is the least of your concerns.

Let’s run through a checklist of what else you need to be ready for your PR close-up.

Do you have high quality, high resolution photographs of individual pieces set on a white background?  

No, not pictures your best friend’s nephew’s neighbor took with the new $8,000 camera he bought because he awoke one day and decided he’d be a photographer. You need pictures from a professional photographer who understands how to make your 3-D gems dazzle in 2-D. Here are tips on finding one.

How is your website?

When I tell Town & Country’s jewelry editor about you, is he going to find a website that shows you’re serious about business or is he going to see what your daughter’s piano teacher’s son made for you? You know, because he woke up one day and decided he’d be a web designer. Here are tips on good jewelry web design.

Where is your jewelry sold?

Once upon a time, editors wouldn’t consider jewelry only sold on the designer’s website. They insisted on stores, and preferably national ones. They’ve since become more forgiving. However, if your jewelry can’t be bought anywhere, including your website, why should they bother giving you valuable editorial space?

Can you handle a substantial increase in orders?

When I placed a client in “Oprah’s Favorite Things” (Oprah’s annual Christmas list that gets more publicity than Donald Trump’s tweets), even before Oprah’s people would consider my client for their shortlist, my client had to sign an agreement saying that if accepted, they’ll be able to fulfill all orders. Would you be able to do this?

Editors get ticked off when they receive complaints from readers who couldn’t buy merchandise featured in their latest issue. So before you consider hiring PR, make sure you’re ready for the results.

There are more questions to consider, but for time and word count’s sake, here’s one last very important one.

Will you listen to what the PR person tells you, even if it’s not something you want to hear?

Regarding my friend and her client, I spent two hours explaining everything wrong with her client’s jewelry; why I couldn’t work with such poor quality and craftsmanship, and what her client could do to turn things around. I even offered to explain everything directly to her client, who clearly was surrounded by sycophants proclaiming her the next JAR.

My friend understood the challenges I outlined and advised her client to meet with me. The client refused.

The client had already invested over $200,000 on a collection she thought would sell at a starting retail price of $35,000. My 15 years of industry expertise, evidently, was interfering with her dream of having a private salon at Bergdorf’s. She instead found a PR person who told her exactly what she wanted to hear. I have yet to see her jewelry anywhere.

Now, I’m not saying you must take advice from the first PR person you meet. I am saying that to avoid less ethical public relations professionals, make sure the person is more concerned about how she can promote you than how much you can afford.

She should ask a million and one questions, as it will require as much to fully understand your business and devise an appropriate strategy. The best PR person will act as your business partner, fully vested in your success.

And while this is often difficult to hear, especially when your business is new, good PR costs. You’ll almost always get exactly what you pay for.   

It’s better that you wait until you can afford someone good than to hire your husband’s boss’s daughter who, of course, decided to be a PR person because she’d seen Samantha Jones do it on “Sex and the City” and she most definitely considers herself a Samantha.

There’s so much more to cover, but my time (or, rather, my allotted word count) is up.  

Until next time, loves. As always, I’m here to answer any questions! Send them to: nationaljeweler@lmrpr.com or post in the comments below.

Lilian Raji is a strategic marketing and public relations adviser who helps luxury lifestyle brands sell more products to luxury buyers. Send questions for The PR Adviser to nationaljeweler@lmrpr.com or contact her at lilian@lmrpr.com. Follow her on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.