Danny Brown:

Brilliant post, Beth, and strong and sensible points. I’m in the fortunate situation of owning my own agency so it’s easier for me to have more control.

But even without that, as you say it’s up to PR agencies to stand up and say: “You hired us for our expertise – so listen to what we’re saying.”

There are way more fish in the sea for getting news out to the relevant audience – outlets like Techcrunch (who’re no saints themselves) and others like them are just taking umbrage because they’re no longer the only players on the market.

Get the trust of your client; let them see you’re acting in THEIR best interest; and ask them to trust you. If that’s not there, why are they your client?

Danny Brown’s last blog post..Make 2009 Your Joe Pesci and Danny DeVito Year

Harvatin:

Points well taken! I also love that you mentioned the PRSA code of ethics because I don’t think ethics can be talked about enough.

Harvatin’s last blog post..Harvatin: @PressReleasePR I hope you don’t have to go anywhere anytime soon…Stay warm and safe!

Dirk Singer:

excellent post Beth, couldn’t agree more…and Merry Christmas!

David:

Great post. I fully agree.

I have been discussing this with all of my PR friends in the last few months.

With ad budgets at an all time low companies are putting a ton of pressure on their PR firms to work miracles. This is resulting in un-targeted clutter that is degrading the ethics and trust between firms and their outlets.

Jay Deragon:

The web presents a new “system” that is ever evolving and creating new dynamics and new rules to old games. The irony of the evolving “system” of the web is that it is largely influenced by the preferences and privileges of people having conversations about everything, everyone and the experiences with anything. The new markets are creating new rules to old games. The new rules are people centric and value driven. The Socialutions lie not within the system of technology rather of the relational system of “people and values”.

Get it? The conversational billboards are loud, bright, connected and extremely the people read them. What will or are the people saying about your business? Check the social billboards and you’ll find out.

One last thing. Whether you have a corporate social media policy of not your employees are free to converse with anyone.

Gail Sideman:

Beth —

This makes as much sense as anything I’ve read. It’s common sense, really. It’s also why I long ago stopped using mega-list services that send out mass releases. I learned that many of the journalists don’t even want to be on those lists. (That, and they’re outrageously expensive!) The “pitches” go right to spam.

It might take longer to establish relationships with reporters/editors, but PR types, media and yes, the client/organization benefit in the long run.

Kami Huyse:

I completely checked out over Christmas, but I LOVE this post!

You know that I am a staunch advocate of having a spine with clients, but truth be told, some are just not willing to listen. In that case, you just have to walk away sometimes and let them reap what they sow.

The problem is age old, and I suspect it won’t end with Arrington.

Kami Huyse’s last blog post..Bosses and Clients: Knowing When to Push Your Case and When to Drop It

Heather Whaling:

Beth,

Very interesting post. I totally agree with you when you say that PR people are supposed to advise their clients. However, the ability to do that well stems from the relationship between the PR person and the client. That’s why I don’t agree when you say we just need to say “no” sometimes.

In social media, we spend a lot of time talking about the importance of developing good relationships. That theory just as applicable when it comes to the client-agency relationship. When you have a good relationship with your client (whether that’s external or internal), you are in a position to push back when necessary and to suggest smart alternatives. In my experience, clients are more than willing to listen to good ideas, particularly if you can justify your reasoning. But, just saying no provides no value. That’s not why clients are paying you.

That being said, this all goes back to one common theme: Bad PR people are ruining it for the rest of us. Whether it’s the awful PR people who spam reporters with crappy stories … or PR people who all but stalk repoters in an attempt to to get placements — the end result is the same. Likewise, bad PR people don’t take time to really focus on the client relationship and as a result aren’t able to help shape the client’s strategy or approach. At the end of the day, PR people need to do a better job managing relationships and managing expectations. If we all worked a little harder on that, many of these other problems would disappear.

Thanks for writing such a thought-provoking post.

David Mullen:

How in the world did I totally miss this post over the break? Ugh…

Well, I’m incredibly late to the game, but I’ll jump in for good measure. Just remember that my opinion and five cents will buy you a nickel’s worth of bubble gum, for what it’s worth.

You should know where my perspective comes from first. I’ve only worked on the agency side – at four agencies. I’ve worked on major brands and small, regional brands just starting out. As I see it from my experience, the root of this age-old problem is three-fold.

1. It’s been mentioned here, but clients are definitely part of the problem. Many understand the value of building relationships. Many don’t. Many do, but don’t care because the have to justify their jobs to bosses who only want to see big numbers. And I mean BIG numbers. So they put massive pressure on their firms to smile and dial or e-blast. They want to see “call reports” and they’d better be long and chock full of details. The bigger the client’s budget, the more push they have with their agencies since most agencies aren’t in a position to lose a big client. These clients don’t care about the long-term rewards of relationship building because they won’t have a job at the end of the year if they haven’t produced impressive numbers.

2. The client lead on the agency-side isn’t standing up and saying “no” to the client. For many reasons. They’re worried the client will go elsewhere and no one wants to be responsible for losing a client. The truth is that telling your president that the client left because you wouldn’t call as many reporters as possible won’t be met with “atta boys” from most said presidents. It’s unfortunate, but true. Unless they see a true “ethical” dilemma, most aren’t willing to say “no.” Another reason they don’t say no, in my opinion, is that these client leads on the agency side aren’t the ones pitching reporters. They don’t have to hear the frustration on the other end of the phone or receive the frustrated reply emails. They call in their junior-level team members and doll out the commands to smile and dial. Frankly, the client leads don’t want to hear about “relationship building” and taking time to research reporters and bloggers to target your pitch.” There’s no time for that. After all, the client wants a call report on your 400-person media list by Friday.

3. I see many folks bashing junior-level account people as being the culprits of this. That pisses me off. The only reason they get busted for it is because they’re the ones making the calls and clicking send on the emails. Most of them aren’t willing to tell their agency bosses “no.” They’ve only been working for a few months or years and they’ve always been told “this is how we do it.” They’re scared of losing their jobs, so they do it. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard a junior-level pro share frustrations about a pitch their boss is making them do to a crazy number of media contacts because the client wants it.

I can vouch for that. When I started out, I cut my teeth “smiling and dialing” because it was the culture at my agency. It’s hard to take time to build relationships when you’ve got hundreds of media contacts to pitch for each client, and you have 4 or 5 or 6 clients. In fact, it’s nearly impossible. And I’ll tell you that I was judged on media hits, not on building relationships. I was never asked about what I was doing to build relationships with reporters. It was always “what hits have you landed today.”

I don’t agree with this philosophy, of course. And now that I’m the lead on most of my clients, I’ve had no qualms about recommending we NOT pursue a story they’re asking about. To date, they’ve all accepted the counsel, but that won’t last forever, I’m sure. It should get interesting the first time that changes.

For what it’s worth…

David Mullen’s last blog post..The One Thing I Would Change About Marketing