PR Squared

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PR 2.0 Tactics

PR Squared

It took 5 years but the PR industry is finally back in a position where there is more opportunity than we can handle. The "supply and demand" process is a miracle to watch. We are literally forced to use the price point as a means to control the flow of new business. Still, it's a horrible feeling to have to turn away business, when for so long we were all desperate for any sales lead.

The last time this situation occurred, the PR industry grew too greedy for its own good. I believe that the greed of PR executives during the "dot-com" days resulted in a squandered opportunity to cement PR's emergent role in the marketing budget. Granted, we were just one of many outstretched palms in those heady days, but, by charging outsized fees we helped force the entrepreneurs we served to take more money from VCs than they needed (or deserved).

With a similar opportunity now at-hand, the PR industry must be diligent about "Opportunity Management." Here are 5 simple rules we follow...

1. Return every phone call and email in a timely fashion.
2. If you can't help someone out, offer up the name of someone else who can. Every single time, and no matter what they need (within reason, of course).
3. Don't charge more money than you genuinely deserve to earn. If you rough-out a "Scope of Work" document for one client at $10K per month, don't use that same document to charge a bigger client $40K per month.
4. Never make an "opportunity to invest" part of your reason for taking on a client. Never allow an investment in a client to cloud your advice about PR nor your judgment around how you run your own business.
5. If the agency account managers squawk about being too busy to take on another account: listen to them.

Special note to agency principals: this sounds sanctimonious and preachy (sorry), but for all of our sakes, now is not the time to be licking our piggy chops as we approach the trough again. Let's focus on continuing to provide the substantive services we've been offering throughout our darker days. And let's be thoughtful about waging a talent war: pay too much for the people and we'll be forced to charge too much to the clients. ... And the cycle that ended so badly last time will have begun anew!