Michael Pucci has guts. You have to give him that. His strategy to unleash 8,000 sales people as a speakers bureau to every county, in every state, of the nation is bold. There is potential for failure, even disaster, but – it is a bold PR move.

Who is Michael Pucci?

For “22 years with GlaxoSmithKline, he has served as Vice President of Sales for the Cerenex Division, which launched Imitrex and Zofran in the USA. Mike then led Glaxo’s Sales Training Department for 10 years where he earned a CEO award and set the pharmaceutical industry standard for new rep training and distance learning.”

He now serves as Vice President of External Advocacy at GlaxoSmithKline.

Think of it. An evangelical army of 8,000 employees spanning the entire country with the mission of spreading your “talking points” about your company and industry. What could this accomplish? What is the value of a speakers bureau? What is a speakers bureau?

Well, it is an educational program. Isn’t that a function of PR? The bureau shares knowledgable people with groups to provide information via public speaking. The goals may be stated many ways, but let us go with these:

• To increase understanding and meaningful participation.
• To provide critical information to employers, interested stakeholders, community influencers.
• To put a human face and voice out there with your organization and initiate a more personal face-to-face relationship.
• It fulfills a community need. The number of civic groups, alone, that are always seeking thought-provoking programs would stun a herd of buffalo.
• It can be a crisis management tactic, too. This is the case for GlaxoSmithKline and the pharma industry.

Can it be a powerful tactic? Yes.

What would I, for instance, give to have an 8,000 person strong speakers bureau for Camp ASCCA Easter Seals? Um, which limb do you want? Pick one. Maybe two.

It would change the future of any nonprofit in an unbelievable manner. And, a positive change, under the right conditions. But, a non-profit and an enormous global pharma conglomerate don’t have anything in common, do they? For the sake of this discussion, let us compare them.

ASCCA’s speakers bureau would have to be volunteers. They would be counselors and staff. They could also be parents, past campers or donors. What is their stake in all of this? Well, they are believers. They drank the koolaid a long time ago.

GlaxoSmithKline’s speakers bureau is made up of the sales force. They are not likely going to be volunteers. Some will volunteer – maybe even many will. The smart ones, that is. The ones that realize their future hangs in the balance, will buy in. How many? I don’t know. 50%? More?

In fact, some – many? – may want release time or compensation for their efforts. Do you think Michael Pucci can convice all 8,000 to “give” their time? Um, if you do – you’ve been drinking something, too. Or, it may have come from the pharmacy stache. No, he cannot. He can ‘tell’ them to do it, but that isn’t the same thing. ASCCA’s participants ‘ask’ to participate. That is a big difference.

Personally, I love speakers bureaus, *if* I can be sure the speakers have a rational, and ethical, stakeholder relationship in the organization. They will be transparent and honest. They will say, “I don’t know” when asked a question they can’t answer. They will not exaggerate. They will do follow up, or share with appropriate personnel, any questions they receive. They will *never* be confrontational. And, their motivation must be shared openly with their audience.

People that say “command and control” of your PR message is old school have a point. But, in this case, you must have a significant monitoring process in place to assure that the 8,000 don’t do you in with a mistake. And, of course, prior to any monitoring – the key will be preparation and training of the bureau’s participants.

Pucci has created a 50 minute presentation for all of the participants. He is training them. How much he trains them, and how well, is going to be a major indicator of the success. People are already hearing that the speakers are being armed with “talking points” and the general public considers those to be the equivilant of spin and propaganda.

He states, ““What we’re leveraging here is asking our employees to talk to people, even if they just start with their family members.”

and

“He said the majority of questions the reps receive revolve around pricing, and he has given them what he calls a “learning system” that takes 50 minutes to master and will enable the rep to satisfy queries about the company and the industry. GSK reps made 15,000 presentations last year, Mr. Pucci said, reaching 1.8 million people.”

Source: AdAge

One of the most troubling aspects of this is Pucci’s assertion that he will have “masters” of PR in 50 minutes. That may be the AdAge author’s term and not reflect Pucci’s overall feeling. But, if it is a correct interpretation of Pucci’s opinion – the foolishness and hubris of such a statement is mind-numbing. Certainly the sales reps are already quite knowledgable about products. They are also likely quite persuasive. But, any goober that thinks he/she will train PR advocates in 50 minutes may be dipping into the free samples from the hallucinogenic section.

When the program has a flub-up, and it will (even if in just a minor way) – this will likely be one of the flaws pointed to in the evaluation. If Pucci can effectively manage 8,000 people speaking to 1.8 million people and not have one crash, he deserves to be ‘the’ PR action figure of all time. Could Pucci succeed? Yes. Do I think it will be a total success? No. It will depend on the level of error and the reach that failure causes, in the end.

So, what are the pros and cons of this grassroots campaign.

Start with those in the speakers bureau. Pharmaceutical sales people are generally well-educated and quite polished in their presentation skills. They have to be. One of their main target audiences is busy (and sometimes cranky, even a bit arrogant) doctors. How do I know? Some of our graduates are in the field. I do not know if any work for GlaxoSmithKline. Almost always, these students were among our best students. Seriously, they could be powerful advocates.

Now, a negative. They are the sales people. Hello! Some of these sales people are greedy lil’ buggers. You trust a lot of sales people, do you? Their stakeholder relationship to the company is quite personal and quite financial in nature. The sales people make a lot of money. They want to protect that salary. This doesn’t mean they will lie, or obfuscate, but it does offer a rational reason for skepticism among the audiences they will meet. They could present a trustworthy face – and message – to their audiences. But, I doubt all of them can.

How about the audiences they are targeting? Again, a plus is that they are targeting influentials in civic clubs and community organizations. Convince them, they – in turn – convince others by their adoption of a postive take on the industry. It does spread.

A negative? They are speaking to those groups. Another Hello! Have you been to a Rotary or Civitan club lately? Who’s in there? A lot of middle-aged – and elderly – men and women. Hmm? Aren’t those the people that take a lot of medications? Yep. Think they – or their parents – have already been hit by the rise in their insurance co-pays? You betcha. They blame the pharma industry and the insurers for that, too.

Oh, and these are not shy people. I have spoken to these groups … literally thousands of times. Seriously, these people are not shy about challenging you. They are not shy about asking probing questions. They can be quite skeptical. Also, they have a stake in this one. If they can tag you on a lie or misdirection … they will. That meme will spread faster, and wider, than any ‘truths’ you might share. You want WOMM – Word of Mouth Marketing? That will show you the power of WOMM … and the potential pitfalls.

So, what to take from Glaxo’s 8,000 evangelists? A bold move that may pay great dividends. It may also pay with a bite in the rear. The 24/7 news/infotainment cycle lives for these kinds of stories. They love to put locals on the air and interview them about how upset they were at the “propoganda” campaign of the drug companies.

I hope Pucci has the total trust and support of the C-suite. Given his 22+ years with the company, I’m thinking he’s on good ground. But, there is no such thing as a sure thing.

Overall, I like it – if it is well-planned and well-monitored. If the campaign is closely monitored and the training is excellent, it can work to a significant degree. Participant buy-in must be sincere. I hope it works, actually.

The post below this one contains a variety of links either found or provided by nice people that commented on the previous post about Glaxo. Thank you all. I’ve read them and listened to the latest ForImmediateRelease podcast. All of them had points that reflected my own thoughts on the topic. Some have a more favourable opinion of the plan, but all express concerns, too. I do not wholly disagree with the plan, but feel confident there will be – at least one – ugly incident along the way.

An Aside: Camp ASCCA, may not have a 30+ billion dollar corporation on the line. But, ASCCA does have an enormous reservoir of goodwill. Glaxo does not. ASCCA does have the lives and well-being of thousands of children and adults in their hands. So does Glaxo. Millions of them. Glaxo has a board and stockholders. ASCCA has a board and stakeholders. There is a difference. A big difference. So, both Glaxo and ASCCA have their reputations on the line and – most of all – they both need people to understand just what it is they do – and why they do it. A good speakers bureau can do this.

Some examples for ASCCA? Try explaining why a child in a wheelchair ‘needs’ to be tubing on Lake Martin? How about why a quadraplegic needs to be whitewater canoeing down the Tallapoosa River? Here’s a good one. Why should a child with hemophilia be rappeling off a 30-foot tower or a 100-foot cliff at Mount Cheaha?

Yeah, and you thought Glaxo had it tough.

Sorry, I’ve been thinking a lot about speakers bureaus and Camp ASCCA, lately. If you have read this blog, you know I love camp. You know I have volunttered there and worked there, too. We have a speakers bureau – and it is good. But, it is essentially the staff – Dana, Matt, John, Josh, Nathan, Heather and a few others. The Board does it, too, but we need a much larger group. It could change the camp’s world.