Shakira Sacks

Working in PR, you will often find both clients and colleagues sharing their ideas with you all the time, which is great — PR is exciting and it's a good thing that people feel enthusiastic about it.

But not all opportunities are created equal. Not every trend deserves to be a full blown campaign. Not every news story requires a comment from your client. Not every idea would work for your client's strategy.

Senior strategic thinking is about identifying the ideas that are most likely to achieve your commercial objectives and having the confidence to say no to everything else, no matter who raised it.

Trends alone don't always create conversations. Strong campaigns are usually rooted in some tension, contradiction or debate that people already have strong opinions about.

Think of it this way: if you went to the pub with your non-industry friends and brought up this topic, would anyone care? Would they start debating the topic? Or would they be bored? That should tell you everything.

The goal is to identify conversations that matter most to your audience and where your brand has something genuinely valuable to contribute. This is really where prioritisation gives you a strategic advantage.

As you progress through your career, the decisions you'll have to make become more about judgement than execution.

Which campaigns deserve your budget? What opportunities are worth pursuing? What activity is most likely to create a meaningful business impact? What just makes your team busy for the sake of it?

The strongest PR leaders don't need to be the most creative people in the room, but they do need to have focus and clarity of mind. In PR there are more opportunities than ever and focus is the most valuable and underrated skill of all.