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Clients are the vehicle by which our work is put to use. So why do some of us view them with contempt? Recommending avoiding terms like "fire your customer" is good advice. But why do we talk like this? It's more than just frustration with difficult clients, or those who are a little slow to catch on to our brilliant ideas, or ones that keep demanding better service and lower prices.
The "fire the customer!" mindset is a symptom of contempt for clients. The term "contempt" might sound shocking. We love our clients, don't we? They pay the bills. They refer us to others. They are the vehicle by which our work is put to use. Yet this dismissive attitude toward clients is surprisingly pervasive. If you listen carefully, you will hear it from others, and perhaps even, on occasion, from yourself. Do you find yourself thinking any of the following?...
Earnings per billable consultant in PR agencies have not changed since 2009, but salaries are putting the industry under considerable squeeze, according to the Public Relations Institute of Australia (PRIA). Chairman of PRIA’s Registered Consultancies Group (RCG), Annabelle Warren, revealed findings of an industry study late last year showing salaries for senior account managers, account directors and group managers had increased, even though earnings per billable staff member had stagnated since the global financial crisis (GFC). “The data shows that while staff are getting paid more, the revenue generated per consultant is not increasing. This is deeply concerning as additional profit is coming from managing overheads, which is short-term,” Warren says....
Around this time of the year, surprises happen and I am not talking about surprise holiday gifts.
People become kinder to each other, more generous, show more care about the less privileged than they are and generally act in ways that they would never consider the whole year through.
What else happens, are lists…
For the third year in a row, we consider the top defining moments in PR not just for what they are – a moment in time or just a blip that made the news – rather for their implications, such as lessons learnt or the impact in our industry....
I hired a PR agency & all I got was a lousy T-shirt Are you searching for a PR agency? Do you know where to start? I've got seven guidelines to help you make the right choice for a PR agency partner. Today, many agencies offer a full complement of services in addition to traditional media relations. The best agencies also know social media, marketing, research and business management too. Planning an agency cattle call? Don’t do it. You need to design a smart process to follow. What’s your experience working with a PR agency? Positive, negative or excruciating? Don’t make the same mistakes the second time around. Time and again, clients and prospects share similar experience that’s best captured as “I hired a PR agency and all I got was this stupid T-shirt.”... [I've run PR agencies and also been the client. It' all true! LOL - JD]
My favorite TV character rant, linked (loosely) to the practice of public relations, is the one delivered by PR pro Eli Gold of “The Good Wife,” who is played superbly by Alan Cumming. Faced with a boneheaded media relations move by a political colleague, Gold lets loose with a wonderfully escalating barrage of outrage. He caps the tirade by spitting out a final, scorn-saturated insult,“The one thing I hate is an amateur.”
In the spirit of Eli Gold, but with a kinder, gentler attitude, I present the worst, most avoidable, most amateurish PR mistakes. Call them the 7 deadly sins....
Lots of agencies have booze on hand—Arnold in Boston even has an impatient and lonely beer vending machine that harasses employees on Twitter until they visit it. But JWT's Casa in Brazil has the most annoying agency beer fridge. It's hooked up to the shop's computers and refuses to open on Fridays until all staffers complete their weekly time sheets. [PR agency CEO, CFO, bosses, managers' alert! Must-have management tool! ;-) JD ]
While rummaging through my sock drawer the other day, I found myself unable to locate a clean, matched pair. I asked my wife if there might be any in the wash. She responded by telling me to check the mismatched sock pile in the laundry room. The name triggered a Pavlovian response, and I was immediately transported back in time to a major new business pitch we were making. We were up against some major players and challenged by the prospect to present “ideas that would get an agency fired.” As you might expect, we soon found ourselves struggling to formulate three truly innovative (and agency firing worthy) suggestions....
Let’s wrap up this series on “Designing An Effective Agency Training Program” with three points that I trust you’ll find valuable: “Build Support From Training Cheerleaders Throughout The Agency,” “Seek Participant Feedback Regularly And Modify The Program Accordingly,” and “Cultivate A Learning Environment.”...
Ok, so you’ve asked for and gotten a commitment for active support from the top (and if you’re the agency leader, you’ve committed to giving it), and done your research so that you can build the program around the agency’s strategic and professional development goals and client performance on agency feedback. You’ve probably started to lay out an outline of key must-haves. You might even feel that you’re ready to go deep. Stop right there....
The Holmes ReportWPP 1H 2011 Results: PR Again Outpaced By Other DisciplinesThe Holmes ReportLONDON--WPP, the owner of numerous PR agencies including Burson-Marsteller, Hill & Knowlton and Ogilvy PR, has reported that PR earnings grew by five...
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The Council’s Q4 survey results are in, and our industry is surpassing even last year’s strong showing.
A full 81% of firms reported that 2012 revenues would come in higher than revenues the year before. In our survey a year ago, that number was only about 70%. Firms this time around reported revenues increasing by an average of just under 14% year over year—an extremely healthy uptick. A full 61% of firms reported a higher headcount compared with the previous year, with less than 10% of firms reporting fewer employees on the rolls. No firms anticipated lower budgets in 2013, and about a third anticipated higher budgets.
It gets better. Nearly half our respondents claimed that new business opportunities in 2012 were “more integrated than ever,” as opposed to 39% who said it was in “mostly traditional PR, plus social/digital” and only 5% who said it was “mostly traditional PR.” A small majority (53%) reported that they were gaining more of clients’ budgets than their competition from digital/social shops and ad agencies, with the rest saying the situation was remaining stable....
Over the past year, I found my company, Thornley Fallis, repeatedly competing for assignments against non-traditional competitors. Ad agencies invading our turf. Digital boutiques. Marketing agencies. Management consultants. An increasing proportion of the assignments we won from clients incorporated digital communications as a core element. Throughout 2012, we saw the budgets for these assignments shift away from traditional public relations activities to digital. The budgets didn’t shrink. The allocations against digital activities increased. In a world like this, if you want to be a Public Relations Survivor, you must be willing to reinvent yourself constantly. That’s what the most successful firms in the communications marketplace are doing. And that’s what we’re doing at my firm. And here’s the indicator that drives this home. Today, only about half of Thornley Fallis’ revenues are from what would have been considered traditional public relations services. The other half? Video production, public engagement, content marketing, design and development....
US PR industry defends standards in New YorkPRWeek UKPublic Relations Society of America associate director Stephanie Cegielski countered by stating that 'making broad generalisations about the behaviour of PR firms in New York is untenable.... [I sense a repeat of the original tea party coming on ~ Jeff]
Via LPM Comunicação SA
The average PR agency revenue for 2011 reached 18.6%, not quite as high as in pre-recession 2007, but heartening to agency owners nonetheless. PR agency profitability in North America spiked from a 2009 four-year low of 13.5% of revenues to an average of 18.6% in 2011 (see chart), according to the annual StevensGouldPincus Best Practices Benchmarking Survey results released in June 2012. Averaged from a total of 105 PR agencies in the U.S. and Canada, the 18.6% number compares with 15.6% in 2010, 13.5% in 2009 and 15.6% in 2008. “In pre-recession 2007, revenues averaged 19.7%,” says Rick Gould, managing partner at StevensGouldPincus, a N.Y.-based merger and management firm specializing in the communications field.... [PR agency rebound underway? JD]
As I scanned the monthly issue of PR Week (a thought that always makes me chuckle, by the way), I was startled by the glossy, full-page advertisements from a few of our industry's global firms. They literally jumped off the pages at me. Each was exquisitely designed and executed. Each obviously cost a ton of money to place. Each said exactly the same thing. And, here's the kicker, each MISSED the most important word in today's strategic communications landscape. Before I reveal the word, I must first share the holding company taglines...
Courtesy of Odwyer’s PR I learned today of a speech he [Lord Chadlington] recently gave at the Public Relations World Congress, and of characteristics he looks for in his senior employees and just had to share it....
‘A Call for Accountability’ in a Competitive PR Market... The role of PR has expanded over the years. The means for measurement and data analysis, though still a work in progress, have improved. Companies depend increasingly on public relations activities for building their businesses. As a result, PR has a greater responsibility to be accountable in ways that speak to a business’ bottom line....
Whichever training courses you choose to offer, remember that in addition to the specific skills your team will gain, a training program is a chance to share three important things... quality standards, company "artificial intelligence" and agency vision/culture... [Great PR agency advice from Ken Jacobs - JD]
What should growing public relations firms do to manage their success most effectively? We queried three executives who have experienced growth first hand—Brandon Edwards, President of Revive Public Relations; Mark Eber, President and Partner of IMRE; and Matthew J. Harrington, CEO of Edelman U.S.—and compiled the following five tips...
WPP, owner of Hill & Knowlton, Cohn & Wolfe and Finsbury, has reported first half headline revenue growth of 6.1% to £4.7bn, while its PR business grew 5% on a like-for-life basis.
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This post will get you thinking about client relationships... but you may still feel like firing a client regardless.