How the PR industry has evolved over 4 decades, according to Eric Yaverbaum

Ask Ericho Communications CEO Eric Yaverbaum about his career over the last four decades, and he’ll regale you with topics as disparate as Domino’s Pizza (his first national account), Henry Kissinger (his mentor), and the legislation he helped pass in the Senate (for stem-cell research). We asked PR agency pioneer how the industry has evolved, where it’s going, and how to be successful in the field. 

You’ve been in PR since 1985. What’s changed?

Nothing about PR is the same. 

I’m a big believer in mentors and one of my first mentors was Henry Kissinger. He told me that when he was part of the Nixon administration, they would go in front of the White House press corps during Watergate when they were going after a sitting US president, which at that time was unprecedented, and would say, “Does anyone have any questions for the answers I am already giving.” I never knew if it was actually true, but it was an incredible lesson in the messaging that it doesn’t really matter what our conversation is about. I can get out messages and teach people how to do that to sell widgets, products for Sony, raise more money, all from information dissemination. 

For better or for worse—I believe—that’s how all politicians work these days; they have a series of answers and the questions are irrelevant. But that’s how everyone works nowadays. The biggest change is the proliferation of information through social media. It’s not about the CBS Evening news anymore. I told that to a board of my peers 15 years ago and they said, “Nah, that’s not going to happen.” Well, obviously I was right. That’s when I decided to leave Jericho because I knew if I stayed I was going to be irrelevant. I now say that the practice I’m running [Ericho Communications] doesn’t feel like work. I recommend that to anyone listening. Find a job you love. 

What’s it like to work in PR during a pandemic?

It’s more fun. People call me an eternal optimist. Is the glass half full or the glass half empty? Who cares? Fill the thing up again! Yeah, it’s different. The pandemic made me close down offices on the east coast and the west coast, and now we are entirely remote. And I would have never done this before, but it turns out that it is working better. One riddle about it working better is that we have this whole new way of communicating without a big fancy office. My agency has thrived by embracing the times. There’s some mixed feelings about not having the watercooler chats. But I feel that we are back in the real world, we are having get-togethers again and seeing each other. We aren’t all in solitary confinement. But we don’t need the offices. We’re just as efficient without it. 

You’ve had all kinds of clients: Sony, IKEA, Progressive Insurance, Domino’s, Beachbody, H&M. How do you make a connection with your clients?

PR people are a dime a dozen, we all buy our hair gel from the same store. I can sell, but so can so many other people in the industry. I genuinely love what I do. The first chairmen who loved my youthful exuberance with the pierced ear and the long hair was Tom Monaghan, the CEO of Dominos, which was actually my first national account back in the 80s. He saw something in me. And Tom and I were so different. This is a baseline in so many relationships: you be you and I’ll be me. Let’s put away all the fillers and be ourselves and see if we can work together. If we can be ourselves, intellectual friction can be made along with money, and we can have more fun doing it. 

You wrote PR for Dummies, the literal book on PR. How has it aged?

In my opinion, poorly. If you want to know what PR is like today don’t read that book, in my opinion it’s like a phone book: out of date before it reaches your front door. Now, all of that said, I’ve had the great fortune of being interviewed and meeting new audiences I wouldn’t have known otherwise. It’s the new audiences that I am interested in. It’s quizzical to me that intro college courses still have PR for Dummies as required reading. 

How about your other books? 

I’m working on my eighth book right now, most of them are about PR and leadership. The combination of the two branded me as the guy who knows about leaders. When I was younger, if you were a PR guy you could never get into the boardroom. My agency would be hired by the director of public relations who reported to the senior director and on and on. We would propose these brilliant ideas but they came back saying no. I wanted to get into the room where they decided this.

Writing books takes an enormous amount of discipline. It’s always been hard for me. I’ve had great publishers, editors, and agents. They’re really the only reason I’ve been able to write any books at all. The book I’m writing right now, The Audacity of Silver Linings, is probably my most important book, and I’ve never said that about any of my other books. 

What makes someone successful in PR?

In my agency if we don’t love the project we won’t take it, I need to see passion in a client’s project… Most PR firms are vendors, but I’m a part of the company. I have equity in my clients’ companies. We have a stake in the game, and the game is fun! You can change the world, I had legislation passed in the Senate that resulted in increased stem-cell research. It’s not about changing to the energy in the room, it’s about having the room change to your energy. 

What makes for good PR?

[It’s] hard in a country filled with ADD. I need to capture people’s attention. A part of it is storytelling, which is not about telling a story. It’s about looking at your eyes and connecting with you so you will be interested in what I am saying. Some people call this empathy. I feel like I can get the person who I am talking to interested in my story.

Are there any hobbies that help with your professional career?

I’m a fitness enthusiast. The first hour of every single day, which I post every day on Instagram, I’m using endorphins. They’re free, so why not get them? I feel better at 60 than I was at 45. Practice those habits, especially when you are younger, they will pay off. I love my work, but I make sure to carve out a bit of solitary time every day so I’m doing something that has nothing to do with work. I have a social life on purpose. 

What does the future of PR look like? 

It’s going to be faster. Artificial intelligence will play a role. Right now, at least in this country, we have a hard time discerning fact or fiction with “fake news.” I want to make sure the information I am putting out there is accurate. We never had this dynamic in the old days. It used to be that Walter Cronkite would sign off CBS Evening News and the last line was “And that’s the way it is,” and that’s the way it was. 

That’s not the case anymore. We’re a polarized country and a polarized press, but I think bias has always been here… How do we figure stuff out? It’s surround sound, among these 12 voices that I trust, in the end, I decide. Surveillance capitalism is winning, and since the moment you wake up, your phone is deciding what you are interested in. Reject that. Technology is supposed to be a tool that we use, not get used by. 

What advice do you have for people who want to make a career change into PR? 

It might look glamorous from the other side of the curtain. But that’s the thing: I ran backstage. From the front is what the masses see. Looks great. But there is a lot behind the scenes. You can have an amazing life [in PR], but we’re just glorified salesmen, that’s all we are. I feel like the first decade of my career all I did was make phone calls and pitch press and get rejected. It was just hard work. But doing that hard work I learned. The first decade of my career I was in the million phone call club. Of the million phone calls with a million stories I would pitch, most of them were rejected. But I learned. Rejection is just like failure, it’s such an important part of the process. That’s where all the learning is.

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