Have you ever had that experience where you sit down and listen to someone speak, leaving you astounded at how much they know about something leading you to the realization of just how little you know? Well, this was my experience while I listened to Kosta Petrov.
Kosta begins his speech by stating his experience as an event director in a company in Dubai and later as a politician working for the government of Macedonia before he resigned and began his journey in the line of public relations which have all been instrumental in shaping his life. While speaking, he talks about several topics that are essential for anyone to walk the lines of PR.
For instance, he said that public relations require networking. Kosta continuously highlighted the importance of creating positive and helpful connections in the line of PR. These connections have, at different intervals, pulled him up in times when he was faced with challenges and helped him access new opportunities, which would have been difficult to come by.
Also, he mentioned how it has been very easy for him to take his business into different countries based on the connections he had built with people over there, or how Collin Harris, who happens to be a former press secretary to King Charles III speaks only at his event.
Kosta didn’t just state how successful he had become in the world of PR, he also stated how much he had to struggle to get to where he was and how the connections he had built over the years supported him in his aspirations. This made me realize that one can achieve much with the right set of people around them.
Although Kosta state the importance of networking in the PR journey, he also brings to light the inherent nature of challenges in the PR journey. During his speech, one could easily tell that Kosta had seen a lot of challenges in the PR line, as he clearly states that in his 13 years of PR, he had experienced everything from terrorist attacks, volcanoes erupting, floods, assassinations, devaluation of currency, and jokingly highlights that they prepared for an alien invasion because “that’s the only thing that is left to experience.”
As funny as it may have sounded, it quickly dawned on me that the PR world is full of several unpredictable circumstances. However, Kosta implies that one would need to be passionate and have a firm resolve to survive in the PR world.
“More like having an all-or-nothing mindset when getting involved in PR, facing challenge is a normal part of our human lives, but this further emphasizes the need for us to build the right connections and try to be as authentic as possible. This is because people can see through the loopholes”. These are the words of Kosta regarding how important it is to build a brand in the PR world that people can readily trust and defend.
He states that it is much easier to succeed in the PR world when people trust you and clearly see the manifestations of the qualities you listed on social media profiles in real life.
This interview session with Kosta made me realize that success in the PR world involves a myriad of experiences, as Kosta puts it, “We are all a combination of certain things that have happened in our lives, but most of the people we surround ourselves with.” With this information, I now understand what aspect I need to work on in order to succeed in the PR world.