To succeed in 2021, go big. That’s the advice Axia Public Relations managing partner and CEO Jason Mudd gives Doug Simon in the latest “PR’s Top Pros Talk” video interview.

"I think people have been trained to think smaller and set smaller goals and not disrupt the ship and just kind of go along,” Mudd says. “That's really holding back some big success stories and accomplishments.”

He tells Simon that communicators should leverage some of the energy from the disruptions that everyone has faced over the past year and use it to reinvent both themselves and their companies.

“Those that think creatively and that can think outside the box and be disruptive in their own industry will always be valued and always have a role,” Mudd notes.

Since a changed marketplace requires changed ideas, Mudd outlines a few of the ways that PR pros can develop higher-quality ideas and convince their clients to go along with them.

Perhaps the main ingredient for better ideas is more time, he says. “What we've got to do is help people prioritize and realize that great PR, great marketing comes from a big idea, and if you don't spend time coming up with ideas and you don't recharge and invest in your own personal mindfulness and your own wellness, you won't have opportunities to do that.”

One of the best ways to get clients on board with a new idea, he says, is to “have it seem like the idea was theirs, or they were part of the idea by including them in your ideation session.”

He says that the Zoom-centric environment in which communicators are working can actually help to increase the level of participation and collaboration for both clients and PR pros. “Now that we're all on Zoom, it really becomes more of a natural conversation and it's worked really well.”

Also, since people are no longer meeting around a table in person, Mudd makes an audacious suggestion of his own: just get rid of the table.

“Our most profitable and productive brainstorming sessions, believe it or not, happen when the table is removed, and perhaps you're sitting on the ground playing with Legos, or doodling, or whatever, and the ideas really start to flow.”

View all of the interviews in the “PR's Top Pros Talk” series. Subscribe to get notified when new episodes are available.

Interested in taking part? Contact Doug Simon at [email protected]

D S Simon Media helps clients get their stories on television through satellite media tours and by producing and distributing content to the media. The company also produces live social media events.