Dear Doctor Spin,
My boss referred to North Pole/South Pole in relation to a client the other day - but he didn't explain what it meant. Can you help?
North Pole/South Pole is code for the relationship between the client's expectations and the client's budget - "jeez, his expectations have just passed Greenland and his budget is nestling with penguins."
Dear Doctor Spin,
A client has asked us to put a monetary value on the relationship we have with a journalist. I'm a bit stumped as I don't know where to start. Do you have any pointers?
An interesting question. Any PR company will tell you they have great relationships with the press. When was the last time you heard an agency say: "We know a few people, but if you rang up most journalists, they wouldn't have a clue who we were. Or if they do, they hate us."
How does one go about assessing the value of a relationship with a journalist? And exactly what does "relationship" mean in this context?
Here are some initial thoughts:
- how well does the journalist know members of the PR team at the agency? ie if asked, would they know who you were? How well do they value the interaction and/or information provided by the agency?
- Is there a measurable correlation between the apparent good relationship the agency has with said journalist and positive stories appearing by that journalist about the agencies' clients? If the good relationship never translates into a result, why place a value on good relationships?
Imagine a website where all media facing PR people are logged and journalists can rank their view/value of them? That would certainly provide an objective way for clients to assess whether the relationship the agency claims to have with a journalist really exists.
Anyone for www.rank-a-flack.com?
Dear Doctor Spin,
I read on a blog somewhere that the average PR freelancer earns around £60K a year and gets 20 weeks holiday. It seems like a no-brainer that I should throw in the towel with my current agency and go it alone. Any tips on how should occupy the 20 weeks holiday a year I will now have?
Before telling your current employer where to stick it, I would offer some words of caution. The calculation for the average freelance wage has a technical description known as a BOAFP (Back Of A Fag Packet). The CIPR only estimates that the freelance market is worth £200m a year and that there are 3,300 freelancer PRs. Remember, this is a trade body for the PR industry - so any figures quoted should be treated with a healthy dose of scepticism.
There may well be freelance PRs out there earning £60K, but I doubt very much whether you would attain that healthy income in your early days. First and foremost, you need to have people prepared to hire you to do the work - unless you already have a high profile within your potential client base, you may find that your first 20 weeks are spent trying to drum up business rather than browsing through exotic holiday destination web sites.
Nevertheless, freelance PR does suit many people - however, you should examine your motivations more closely before taking the plunge.
Dear Doctor Spin,
I have to fill out a weekly timesheet. Whenever I fill it in honestly, I always seem to get a lecture - ie I'm either under or over servicing clients. I seem to get the most praise when I fill it in with the numbers my account director wants to see. I'm confused.
The timesheet should be a valuable management tool, allowing for assessment as to whether resources are being deployed appropriately. Unfortunately, in the wrong hands, it can be something rather less valuable. In your case, your account director doesn't seem to have grasped the point of the exercise. This could be because he/she wants to demonstrate an amazing level of control over account activity - however, if I was their boss, I'd immediately be suspicious of such an apparent untrammelled grip on how the account team spends their time. What would be interesting to know would be whether or not client objectives were being met and/or whether the client is happy with the work. Having flawless time accounting becomes meaningless in the face of lack of performance and/or client dissatisfaction.
If your agency has a regular company meeting, why not ask for timesheets to be put on the agenda. If you raise the question of honesty in time sheet filling in the open, it may help to flag to senior management that all may not be well with the current system. If they have any interest in whether the company is best servicing its clients, then I've no doubt you will get a sympathetic hearing.
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. I am therefore delighted to see Lucy Kellaway at the Financial TImes has obviously been looking at The PR Surgery and been inspired to launch her own problem column - albeit concerning more general career advice. You can view Lucy's new service at FT Problem Page.
Dear Doctor Spin,
I'm the MD of a PR agency. My co-founder and I want to sell the business and spend our time drinking G&Ts on the beach. However, nobody wants to buy us - or at least they won't offer us what we want. We did £500K pre-tax profit last year. I'd understood the rule of thumb was that we'd get x8 that amount if we sold. So we'd get £2m each. One potential buyer said they would give us that, but only if we stayed with the business for another 6 years and we generate £8m pre-tax profit over that time. That seems too much like hard work. Where can we find someone who will pay us our £4m so we can walk away from the business?
I'm afraid you may be waiting some time before you get the deal you want. PR companies are nothing more or less than the people who work for them - and buyers are rarely willing to let the principals disappear with a great wedge of cash if they are instrumental to the success of the business. Unless of course you have put in a place a rock solid management team and you can show that your departure will have no impact on the peformance of the business (though some may then question what value you have been adding if your not being there will make no difference). It seems as though your potential buyers don't believe you have done that.
Perhaps you should put yourself in the buyers shoes - would you pay x8 the pre-tax profit of a business when there is no visibility of whether you'd be getting your money back? Your first suitor is offering you an "earn out" - namely they will pay you with money you will earn yourself. You may ask why sell in that case - but you seem disinclined to put the effort into doing growing the business - so if you won't do it, why would someone else?
If you really want to go and sit on a beach, accept you will have to sell the business for considerably less than what you are asking for - and consider a more frugal, downsized existence after you have departed from your agency.
Dear Doctor Spin,
I have a problem with PR people that concerns me greatly. I'm quite worried about the fact that the incidence of blindness appears to have reached epidemic levels in the PR community. Or perhaps it is illiteracy - it is hard to tell. At least that appears to be the case with PRs who use the popular Response Source service.
As a journalist, I often send Response Source queries to PRs requesting information for whatever I am currently writing about. I always ask for contact by email, because there are a limited
number of hours in the day. And I like to be able to eat and sleep as well as answer the phone!
However, unless I also add a note in the query saying I'll be out of the office (so email is the only method to reach me), I still get inundated with calls. In fact, a colleague and I have been taking bets on the Response Source "races" (as we call them). The current record is 45 seconds for the first call to arrive after sending out a Response Source request. I've now decided to add a handicap. First it was irrelevant clients.But I now wait for the first call offering a client in a sector I've specifically said I won't be covering.
Am I being unjust? Is the contact preference so hard to spot on this service, or is the dialling reflex too ingrained? Please help me!
There a number of conditions that PRs could be suffering from in this case. First is one known as selective word blindness. This is caused by the PR exec not taking the time to read the Response Source request properly and seeing a key word or phrase that they believe is relevant to their client and simply picking up the phone as a Pavlovian reaction. Experiments have been conducted using text recognition software hooked up to an electric chair that provides a large shock to the PR if they attempt to pick up the phone when the message tells them not to. This certainly seems to cure some, but in the more severe cases, it has no effect.
Another possibility is that they are suffering from "They don't really mean don't call me-itus". This is a condition where the PR has understood the message, but refuses to believe that you won't take a phone call from them. They find it inconceivable that a journalist wouldn't want to talk to a PR. Some journalists have found that verbal abuse can be quite effective in these circumstances (eg, Are you a f**ing idiot or what?). However, this is to be used at your descretion.
A related condition is where the PR completely understands that they have nothing relevant to your request - but use it as an excuse to call you anyway. This is generally motivated by the need to demonstrate that they have been "liaising" with journalists (see earlier entry). Perhaps call screening might be needed to deter repeat offenders.
However, as a sure fire way of getting some kind of recompense for your trouble, have you considered setting up a premium rate phone number for incoming PR calls? In which case, even though you may be irritated by irrelevant PRs, at least you'll get paid for your trouble. The financial impact on PR companies may over time help to weed out this annoying practice. Then again, some may simply decide this is a business cost that will be passed back to the client - with, naturally, a 17.5pc mark up.
Dear Doctor Spin,
I'm an account exec and apparently my new client has been told we are going to get them on the BBC and in FT within the next few weeks. Having looked at the story angles I'm supposed to pitch, I don't feel very confident of success. However, I don't want to seem as though I can't do my job. What should I do?
This is a very common condition known as the hospital pass. The client has been sold on the promise of immediate top level media coverage, presumably by your business development director in cahoots with your account director (AD). It is very easy to guarantee things that one does not have to personally deliver on. That has been delegated to you to achieve.
However, there is no shame in going back to your AD and asking for clarification on exactly why such high level media would be remotely interested in the company or story you are being asked to pitch. The response to such a request should hopefully flush out the the truth behind the request. Your AD should be able to give you clear guidance as to why such a promise was made as well as help as to how you should proceed.
A superior should never ask a subordinate to do something they wouldn't be prepared to do themselves. If your AD refuses to give you any help in this matter, you could perhaps put a note in the company suggestion box asking for your boss to be sent on an expectation management course. You could also point out that if you are left to try and pitch such a lame story to top level media with no support, you could be damaging your agency's standing with these journalists as well as setting the client up for a major bout of disappointment. If this still fails to get you off the hook, then allow events to unfold. If this is symptomatic of the agency's approach to media relations, you could consider looking for a job with another PR company that takes a more considered view of media relations.
The following problem just in from a technology journalist:
Dear Doctor Spin – I understand PR clients are hard to come by and hard to keep - but is that a good excuse for trying to suck up to them by adopting US practices? Since the downturn, PR companies have started to suck. They suck up to the Americans and seem to forget that UK journos have a different view of the world. Over the past year or two I have had PRs ring me to say their client wants to
take me to the US. Sounds good so I say "yes". The next question from the PR is: "Who will you cover it for? And how much coverage can we expect?"
I’m thus expected to ring up an editor and say, "Hi, I'm going on a trip to
the US. How much space will you give me?"
Any editor who hasn't hung up by this point will ask, "What are you going to
be writing about?" So I get back to the PR.
"What are they going to tell us about?" I ask
"Oh I can't really say because you might publish now before the
announcement," says the PR.
"Can't tell you what I'll be writing about," say I to the prospective editor.
- and the phone crashes down at the other end of the line.
For goodness sake PRs. Tell the client to have faith in your choice - you're
supposed to be professionals not pet poodles. Yes, they are spending a lot
of money on me and want to see some results, that's understandable. But
surely it's the PR's job to pick the right journalists without having to ask
for cast iron assurances of coverage. Isn't that the professional approach?
From my end of the telescope it sounds like the client thinks they are
buying coverage. Don't they have faith that their announcements deserve
coverage?
Am I being unreasonable?
This is common condition predicated on the fact that the needs of PR clients and journalists don’t necessarily converge. The client is paying the agency to deliver a result of some form. In a sense, the client is making an investment decision – and as with any investment, the client is seeking the best return for the lowest possible risk. The PR agency is thus employed to help the client achieve this – or in other words to minimise the risk and maximise the return.
In exactly the same way, the journalist has an investment decision to make – namely one of time and effort measured against likely return ie a story (or stories) that can be written.
The PR agencies concerned here are using a very blunt instrument in order to try and minimise the risk (ie maximise the guarantee of coverage). The fact is, there are no guarantees in PR. It also suggests that the real motivating factor for getting the journalist to go on the trip is other than what it might seem. In short, is going on the trip the only way for the journalist to get the information needed to write a story? Or is the PR company suggesting to the client that having the journalist turn up is result enough?
The journalist quite rightly needs to have some idea of what he may expect to get by going on the trip. Obviously the PR doesn’t want to give the whole game away, but there has to be some compromise in order to allow the journalist to make a valid assessment of whether it is worth his while. At the same time, the client wants to be reassured that they are not inviting someone who will simply come on the trip as a “jolly” and never have any intention of writing anything.
However, to ask the journalist how much coverage the client can expect is clearly a redundant question – aside from the fact that it is up to the publication to decide how much space a story gets, this can’t be predicted or guaranteed in advance – and certainly not without any information on which to make even an educated guess. A bit like being asked to guarantee the outcome of a race when you have no idea who the runners and riders are.
Is the journalist being unreasonable? Probably only in suggesting that this is an imported US practice. Although UK journalists tend to think of US journalists as being far more cosy with vendors, I very much doubt that US journalists would happily guarantee what they will write about with no insight into what they are likely to receive by way of information. Likewise, UK PR companies are just as capable of making such demands without the need to be taught it by their American cousins.
Can this condition be cured? Almost certainly yes. Though it will require both clients and agencies to take a more considered view of their media relations investment strategies.
Dear Doctor Spin,
Our client has just read our monthly PR report and asked us what we mean by the term "liaising with journalists". What should I tell him?
Although no hard data exists, it is almost certainly true that the word "liaise" is still being overused in agency PR reports. The problem is that it is open to a very wide range of interpretation. And is usually deployed to try and give the impression that some meaningful activity has occurred when in fact the reverse is probably true. Let us examine the possible uses and meanings behind the term:
"I sent the journalist an email but he never replied."
"I rang him to ask if he got the press release - however, he told to p*ss off as I'd rung him on deadline."
"We were in the pub at lunch time and saw him at the other end of the bar. We couldn't get the courage up to go and say hello."
The simple cure is to avoid using this word. You are always better to explain very clearly exactly what kind of interaction (or lack thereof) you have had with a journalist. If you are having a tough time getting to speak to a journalist, probably better to examine whether or not the material you are pitching to him or her is appropriate.
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