Communications Cover Letter Jul 08

Date Monday, July 14, 2008

Re Application for Florida Public Relations and Communications Manager (Sarasota)

I hope you are as pleased to find my application as I am to find your listing for a Public Relations and Communications Manager. Coldwell Banker’s investment in media relations is smart business any day, and particularly in our current economic environment.

Please allow me, via this letter, to share with you why I believe I am uniquely qualified to excel in this position. Beyond my resume (attached), I ask that you review the following alignment of my capabilities and your business needs, as described in the position description.

First, My Most Recent PR Success

Last week is a good demonstration of how my public relations expertise creates results and business value. I organized a Smart and Safe Living Conference, sponsored by my employer (Palms-Robarts/Dignity Memorial) and held at Sarasota’s own Senior Friendship Center. In addition to creating a first-time collaborative relationship with the Florida Department of Elder Affairs, I generated a week of media coverage that included a Sarasota Herald Tribune feature on Tuesday followed by Best Bets on Thursday. On the morning the event, an SNN news crew taped interviews and B-roll for a story that enjoyed a two-day rotation.

Next, I’ll elaborate a bit on my areas of relevant expertise:

Media Relations

• Areas of my strategic communication planning and delivery expertise include Media Relations, Integrated Marketing Communications, Executive Communications, Market and Thought Leadership Campaign Development and Management, Community Outreach and Business-to-Business Relations.
• My communications career began in Public Relations, first in the area of sports and entertainment then financial/investor relations. As career specializations in technology and marketing evolved, my ability to create and execute strategic communications plans for internal and external audiences is consistently called upon to synch with, and support, overall organization objectives.

Crisis Communications

• I served on crises management teams in two organizations, with team responsibility for developing, testing and maintaining crisis communications and operations plans that create effective response to crises driven by environmental, operational and marketplace events. At Arthur Andersen, our team was focused on long-term and acute response to global Y2K threats, and to locally focused hurricane disaster response. At Spherion, our team developed crisis management plans for technological threats to business operations.

Organizational Communication

• Areas of my strategic communication planning and delivery expertise include: Exceptionally crafted and targeted executive communications; Well-timed and consistent messaging between internal and external audiences including investors, business alliance partners and vendors.

Common Denominators to Exceptional Communication Results

• Beyond my exceptional writing and organizational skills, I am passionate about tracking and measuring results to demonstrate the direct and indirect business value of any communications program.
• Continual improvement of my own results, those of my team, and the organization overall is paramount. I have the team, project, risk, and issue management skills to ensure continuous improvement.
• My extensive technology skills and knowledge feeds my ongoing pursuit of effective communications technologies, with effectiveness measured on cost, operational and message results..
• I am well aware of, and experienced with, the unique demands and opportunities of a large corporation. Strategic alignment and consistency with messaging, policy, process and procedure are priorities that cannot be compromised or negotiated.

Finally, a bit about me as a professional.

My business experience yields reliance on a consistent, core approach to all opportunities:

1. Define the right path and actions that yield the right strategic results for the right reasons
2. Optimize relationships between leaders, customers, employees and technology to enable results that exceed expectations
3. Lead, manage, coach and mentor to individual and team success
4. Communicate achievement of quantitative and qualitative results that meet strategic intents

As a professional, I am known as a:

• Frank and decisive leader of decisions, actions and projects toward measured and sustainable results
• Sharp analyst of strengths and weaknesses in profitability, policies, procedures, and people
• Results-driven implementer of comprehensive solutions to acute and systemic organizational problems
• Experienced strategist capable of tethering strategic goals to SMART objectives and real results
• Positive and effective communicator of proposals, progress and ideas
• Enthusiastic teacher of knowledge, process and change

I trust this letter serves well as an introduction. I look forward to our first conversation and to creating business value for Coldwell Banker through effective public communications.

[Name redacted for blog publication]