MissingWordSolutions.com specializes in the areas of public relations, journalism, corporate thought leadership, marketing content development, website development and content management, social media strategies and podcast development. We are not an advertising agency or a marketing group. MissingWordSolutions.com is a creative services brokerage with the capability to provide a broad range of scalable options designed to meet the marketing and communications needs for businesses and organizations of any size.

gregthompson

Principal Points

By: Greg Thompson

In the more than 30 years I’ve worked in the field of communications, I have literally written thousands of biographies on everyone from high school all-star team honorees to CEOs of publicly-held companies. Yet, in all that time, I cannot recall taking the time to write what I would consider to be my own “corporate biography.” And I don’t plan to break that long streak in this space.

From my perspective, a person’s corporate biography is not simply defined by the various positions within a career path. The more telling aspect of a person’s career story is examining the impact you made while doing the job. How did you make the most of the opportunity? How did you make a difference for those you served?  

Over the years, I’ve had countless opportunities to collaborate and connect with many wise and talented people while working in a variety of disciplines within the field of communications. Whether it was journalistic-based work, corporate thought leadership development, public relations, marketing, website management, social media strategies or audio-visual production work, I’ve always valued the chance to work with people and focus on taking various pieces of the puzzle to assemble a strategic approach that is designed to deliver results.

Through MissingWordSolutions.com, I plan to play to my strengths and experience as a communicator while utilizing the talents and abilities of those professionals associated with our network. By focusing on my strengths in various disciplines and by serving as an agent for creative service providers collaborating on client projects, MissingWordSolutions.com is seeking to take a different approach to marketing communications.

As we begin to test the waters and roll out our services, our philosophy is simple and familiar: Understand the value of staying in our lane. Do what we do best. Play to our skills and experience. Dedicate ourselves to bringing value to our clients. Make a positive impact through our work by delivering a difference to our clients. When called upon to seek out and develop new solutions, we will work to be innovative in finding the right answers. In addition to producing great work, we want to have fun along the creative journey.

At the end of the day or at the end of an assignment, I hope that our work through MissingWordSolutions.com leaves a lasting impression of excellence. I believe that every day is audition. And one of the thoughts that keeps me humble is that you are only as good as the next thing that you do.

I have spent many years working within the transportation industry with a particular focus on trucking. Transportation companies are measured on their ability to deliver. Once when I congratulated a CEO on an award his company had won for on-time delivery in a highly time-definite sector of the trucking industry, the CEO said that, while he was glad to company had been recognized for its ability to deliver at 99.6 on-time success rate, he still looking at how the company could close the gap on that remaining .4 percent.

In the world of marketing communications and public relations as well as journalism and production work, one of the most significant measurements of effectiveness is how effectively you connect with you audience. Did you take them somewhere new? Did you take them somewhere familiar in a new way? What impression did you leave? If given the opportunity, did you take an approach that had never before been tried in that particular way? In other words, did you leave your audience with a “Wow” moment?

Many years ago, a friend of mine let me borrow a book on the life of Little Richard, one of the pioneers of rock-and-roll. In the 1950s as Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis began to hit it big, a promoter decided to put these three future Rock Hall of Famers on the same tour. Each performer played about 30 minutes or so and they took turns in the order of appearance on the tour. The coveted spot among the three positions, of course, was to be the show closer.

As the book related, the trio’s tour was preparing to go to St. Louis, which was the hometown of Chuck Berry. Unfortunately for Chuck, Jerry Lee was scheduled to be the final act in St. Louis, as it was Lewis’ turn on the tour. Chuck decided to ask Jerry Lee if he would consider trading with him – in order to allow Barry to close the show. According to the book, Jerry Lee hemmed and hawed a bit before agreeing to a trade.

One of the provisions of the trade would allow Jerry Lee to play in the second slot that night. Jerry Lee had a surprise for Chuck and his hometown audience. During Jerry Lee’s show finale of “Great Balls of Fire,” the Louisiana Lightning Rod pulled out a can of lighter fluid and proceeded to spray it across his piano. At the perfect moment in the song, Jerry Lee then struck a match and his piano was truly a Great Ball of Fire.

The crowd reportedly went absolutely wild and the auditorium had to be cleared for safety concerns as Jerry Lee’s piano had to be extinguished. Talk about a “Wow Moment.” No one had ever seen anything like that on stage to that point.

The best part of the “Great Balls of Fire” tale occurred when Jerry Lee walked off the stage and saw Chuck in the wings. Strapped up with his guitar and ready to perform, Chuck could only helplessly watch as the auditorium being cleared. Jerry Lee reportedly walked directly up to Chuck and said something along the lines of, “OK, let’s see you top that!”

From my perspective, the challenge is not can you do good work. There are countless excellent practitioners in the marketing communications field and within the disciplines MissingWordSolutions.com has chosen to service.

The real challenge for those of us in the field of marketing communications, public relations, journalism and production services is the ability to answer these questions: If given the opportunity, did you leave a lasting mark? Did you do work or provide a level of service that no one had ever seen before? Did you top yourself from the last job you did in that discipline?

To bring it back to our 1950s rock tale, did you provide the kind of performance that had the figurative ability to set the piano on fire and “Wow” your clients?

All of those involved in MissingWordSolutions.com seek to be that kind of memorable performer for our clients.

Well, my record for not drafting a corporate bio of myself is still unblemished. If you are interested my career stops prior to founding MissingWordSolutions.com, I invite you to take a look at the depth of my experience by clicking here.