ANNALS OF PR: The Ideal Client
By Alan Goldfarb
June 6, 2022
Her winery story was the best, the most real, utmost compelling I’d ever heard. Her wines were, in my estimation, the best I’d ever represented. She was the most responsive client I’d ever had. And she paid me the least of any client I’d had.
She was – to date – the most ideal client on whose behalf I’ve ever had the pleasure of working with. She made my job pleasurable, easy, and deliciously challenging. In other words: She was a flack’s dream.
They don’t come along very often, these vintners whose tales are as authentic as they come, and related in a way that is intelligent, unique, humorous, and poignant. These winemakers, whose wines are different from others, and which stand out for their minimal but no less complex, and delicious rusticity; and their purity of fruit and balance of flavors and texture.
Whenever I got a media “hit” for her and requested she send samples and then be ready for an interview, she was right there – either the same day or the next – shipping the wines, and clearing her calendar for the assignment with the media member.
And when she did speak with the media – either for a newspaper or magazine article, or on a podcast or a radio show – she was so articulate and genuine in her responses and thoughts, that her story practically wrote itself. So smart she was. So, thoughtful she always was comprehending the interviewer’s questions; and what they might need to flush out an article to which they could sink their teeth into.
She was savvy in the task; realizing that in addition to my legwork trying to secure for her media attention, she understood that she too would have to put skin in the game i.e. shipping free samples, setting aside time to meet with and talk to media types. She also got it that when I would tell her the good news that I had secured a possible media date for her, it was her obligation to get back to me ASAP so as not to lose that podcast opportunity from the hook that I had been taken by my throwing the line out there.
Additionally, whenever I got her a published article, a posted review, or a podcast that went out on multiple platforms -- as instructed -- she disseminated all of those links to her social media in order to capitalize on and spread the word on the original third-party endorsement. In other words: She spread the news.
Our working relationship was a beautiful thing to behold. The mutual beneficial culture that we’d come upon – some of it unspoken, but nonetheless fostered by some conscious knowing of the task to achieve success -- was the thing.
And even though the monthly fee I charged her was at a minimum (due to her growing grapes in an obscure region; and making very little wine from it), I worked hard for her. Perhaps even harder than I have for some other – higher paying – clients, who made higher-priced wines. That’s because everything about my experience with her made my job easier, more fun, and more rewarding on more levels than I had encountered before.
In the end, it’s. quality, attentiveness, and wine that stands out from the rest – no matter how big the case production -- because of its sheer simplicity; and that is the ticket to garnering real attention from the wine media.
I thank her for giving me the opportunity to work with her, and to also show my mettle as a media relations rep for a rare winery owner who deserves all she can get.