What’s the Perception of Your Industry?

By Scott Hepburn | Comments (3) | Trackbacks (0)

A few months ago, I wrote about the plumber’s reputation problem. Most professions — plumbers included — call to mind one characteristic or another in most minds: lazy, trustworthy, sleazy, hardworking. You get the drift.

David Mullen’s post about the PR profession got me thinking about this again. The topic came up a few weeks ago, too, in a conversation with Nathan Richie about public perceptions of DJs (Nathan’s a marketer, by the way).

Forget your brand for a minute — what trait do people attribute to your profession?

Here’s what I think comes to mind when some people think of these common professions:

Of course, these are just stereotypes. But in the PR business, perception truly is your unfortunate reality. Overcoming the stigma created by a few bad apples in your field can be tough.

What’s the perception of your profession?

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  • I am originally a creative writer = so a loner and misunderstood, darkened sole
    I am also a designer - so a quirky, hippy, lover of all hipster tagalongs
    And most recently I am a consultant = so I don't do anything

    In summary that amounts to a misunderstood hippy that does nothing
  • I've been in association management for the past ten years and nobody knows what we really do, but that's a different story. However, I was a restaurant manager for ten years and that profession doesn't always have a great reputation. I was serious about my job -- I was managing a business and responsible for many paychecks, that's serious. But the lack of professionalism that I saw in managers in other restaurants really bothered me. I encountered more mediocre and bad managers than good ones, and that's sad.

    I felt the stigma when meeting people who didn't know me -- what a fun job, they implied, must be like one big party all the time, anyone can do that. That's a tough perception to fight without going into all the details and challenges of running a business. Don't get me wrong, it's immensely satisfying too -- nothing quite like it. But I believe that stigma is still out there to an extent -- that it's not quite a serious job, or as we used to say, a "real" job. How wrong that is.
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