Account Executive Scores Big With Wall Street Journal Appointment

Lynette Simmons secures interview after client's PR director doesn't succeed

Lynette Simmons, an account executive with Johnson & Company (jo&co), The Virtual Agency™, scored a big hit when she secured an interview with an editor at the Wall Street Journal. But what is most impressive about this hit is that she secured an interview after the director of Public Relations for the client had already been refused.

Vignette Corp., of Austin, Texas, announced that it would turn profitable by the end of 2000. In other words, it reported losses for the fourth quarter of 1999. Simmons took this information and spun it into a story that not only interested the Wall Street Journal reporter covering earnings for the newspaper, but also managed to secure interest with every other targeted media outlet.

"I knew I had to explore the options that were available, and it was going to take effort to get these appointments," Simmons says. "They had several slots to fill, and I was able to get all of them on the same day."

It is hard to actually pinpoint why Simmons got the appointment and the director of PR did not. Of course Simmons doesn't want to toot her own horn. "But I did my `homework' in researching Vignette's recent impressive financials and then kept dialing until I could convey these directly to the reporter instead of a machine."

While the actual income showed a net loss, Simmons highlighted the fact that earnings had grown 500 percent from the same quarter last year. She expressed her excitement to the various press contacts about Vignette and its future. She also happened to mention that Vignette's had experienced the sixth most successful IPO of 1999.

The editor at the Wall Street Journal was a tough sell for Simmons. "He was focused on his immediate assignments and had a scheduling conflict," she said. "But when he voiced his concern, I proposed a solution. A significant part of public relations is just old fashioned, low-tech listening, learning and problem solving."

Simmons secured Vignette's target appointments in a short timeframe as well. It seems with most PR announcements, timing is crucial, and she had just a day to get these appointments filled with the top executives at Vignette. Working through Niehaus Ryan Wong (NRW), the agency heading up the Vignette account, Simmons helped put a strategy together that eventually got coverage with Reuters, Bloomberg and may have contribued to a Journal story.

While the pitch didn't stand out in Simmons mind, she credits her success to her tenacity by not giving up after the initial rejection. "It wasn't just a well-prepared pitch, but also my conviction that Vignette was worth talking to that day. Editors want PR people to talk to them like people-not like audio brochures."

Simmons has the determination it takes to get the big hits. And, in this case, to even secure important interviews when those she is working for don't come through.