My youth took place in the last century. The result = several boxes full of love letters. That’s how it was done back then. My admirers liked to write and were writing a lot. And not just letters.

At that time my “market value” dramatically increased after a PR activity: One morning I came to school and at the entrance in the school yard it was written in large, white letters: “Michaela, I love you”. The letters were huge, the paint of very good quality and I was the only Michaela at that high school. As of this day everybody knew me. I was very annoyed (I did not know anything about PR back then), because I did not like the author at all. His letters were clearly visible until the summer holidays. In the following autumn, I was elected student representative and learnt a goof few things about PR and right timing.

A second PR activity at my favour was done at university. In order to reach the building with the lecture halls, one had to walk through an underpass. One day, “Michaela’s bridge” was written on it. I liked the author very much. However the PR effect was too little. There were many Michaelas and the university was too big in order to know each other. Wrong PR without effect.

Self-promotion is a very delicate issue. It may sound arrogant if you say about yourself: “I’m the best consultant, specialist, etc.”. It sounds much better if a third party says: “I’ve heard that he/she is the best consultant, specialist, etc.”. However, it is really convincing if someone says: “I’ve tested a good number of services already, but he/she is the best consultant, specialist, etc.!”.

The best promotion for me was done several years ago by the Swiss Federal Tax Administration. I had a client who refused to take the back then recently introduced VAT in Switzerland seriously. Nothing was to be done; he did not want to implement my advice. Until one day he had a VAT review. The inspector of the Federal Tax Administration audited the company and because there was a big mess in the accounting, he had to form an estimate. The consequence was a hefty charging. I had the pleasure of taking the charging apart and together with the client tidy up everything, as far as possible. This was a painstaking detail work. After countless hours we were able to present a proper calculation. The additional payment was still very high but considerably lower than the rough estimate of the inspector. In the last meeting the inspector looked at the calculation and said: “If this was done by Mrs Merz, I am sure it will be correct.” He accepted our calculation after a short review.

Long live good PR with the right timing!!