Merge Your Personal & Professional Lives to be Successful at Both
Written by Alvino Rocha, Ana Cristina Rastrepo, and Serap Sahinoglu, students in Jon Harari’s class.
On Monday, November 2nd 2015, Baruch College students had a pleasure to have Mr. Keith Sherman talking about Digital Reputation and Brand Management during Jon Harari’s awesome class, Managing Your Reputation in the Digital Age.
Mr. Sherman is the creator and owner of Keith Sherman Associates Public Relations, a distinguishing and active PR company in New York City for 26 years. The company builds a reputation by providing diversified public relations and marketing communications services to entertainment, lifestyles, special events, corporate and not-for-profit clients.
His portfolio is incredible, with more than 300 Broadway and off Broadway shows, several movies and the Tony Awards, the last one for 18 years. The complete list can be viewed here.
With a background in theater and attending Washington University, Mr. Sherman fell into the Public Relations environment. He is a type of person who does not separate personal life from professional, and is always balancing the two together. That is possible, because he is truly passionate about it, and his work reflects his real interests.
To him, the success of his company is mainly due to consistency and quality of the services provided. He thinks that being smart, working hard and putting heart into everything he does is extremely important. In 26 years of experience, he has being consistent with perspective in the sense integrity and personality.
With a varied clientele, he must deal with many different expectations that sometimes can be not very realistic. He manages by being candid and honest with his clients, also being very creative and strategical. That’s what makes his company different from others, his management style, not to trick clients, being realistic. He also indicated that he delivers projects depending on what clients’ expectations, instead of using a particular parameter.
Two of the key things for him are to have emotional intelligence and being able to figure out solutions under pressure without exploding or imploding and not taking things personal.
When asked about today’s digital and social media age, and the differences we face now regarding sharing information, Mr. Sherman seems visionary. He faces that as progress and just changes we must adapt to, also one of the biggest challenge for him. With so much content, it is hard to follow and get updated in social media. Afterward, he added that you literally need to fight to stay current.
According to him, if you’re doing your own PR, you need to know how to get journalists to take notice of your business. That means knowing how to put together interesting and relevant press releases, building up a useful network of media contacts and realizing the great advantages of an unusual stunt.
Mr. Keith Sherman’s presentation was very inspiring and fluent. He shared great inputs and learning experiences. In addition, he finished the class by giving a very crucial advice: Be bold, be yourself and take risks.
Alvino Rocha is a Chemistry Bachelor, natural from Brazil, living now in New York City finishing his last semester in Business Management at Baruch College.
Ana Cristina Rastrepo is a graduate of Social Media Communications in EAFIT university, based in Colombia, doing a certificate in Marketing at Baruch College in New York City. She is passionate of the fashion industry and new trendy marketing ideas.
Serap Sahinoglu is a graduate of Business Administration in Istanbul University, based in Turkey, studying Marketing at Baruch College with passion, interns at WindowsWear, and realizes her dream of discovering the world in New York City.
https://jonharari.com/2015/11/27/merge-your-personal-professional-life-to-be-successful-at-both/