08/01

That's devastating because it is as if a bond of trust has been broken between client and agency.  But it happens.  In fact, it just happened to me yesterday.  I had to stop work for a client because the client is months in arrears.  I'm not angry or upset.  The person to whom I report has tried hard to get us paid, but somewhere in the bowls of this major corporation, something went wrong.  No one seems to know what it is.  Our invoices go in:  Nothing comes out. 

What is needed is a hammer to the head of a person in payables.  That mystery individual has been sitting on our invoices for some reason.  Maybe, it is cash management -- accelerate collections but delay payments.  Maybe our invoices have been lost.  I'm told there has been turmoil in the department.  Whatever the reason, we're not getting paid, and my client has been unable to get anyone  to listen.

So we did the only thing we could do.  We stopped work.   We told the client by e-mail we were stopping, and I called the client directly to provide an alert.  The client is upset, and I suspect a bit angry that she has been put into this position by her own people.  Another contact at this client who is a wonderful and effective individual is unhappy too. He promised me to walk the accounting department until he finds someone to cut a check.  (He'll do it too.)

I would rather not have done what I did.  It upsets the rhythm of client service.  It puts a barrier between the client and the agency.  It smacks of of money-grubbing -- even though we are well justified. 

It's going to take a while for both sides to get over this.  I'm going to work extra hard to be nice to the client once we have received payment to show there are no hard feelings on our side. 

We just need to be paid.  That's all. 
 

07/31

Sixty Ways.  Cyberjournalist published an article recently titled "60 ways to improve your news site."   You can read it  here.  http://www.cyberjournalist.net/news/000369.php.

Even though the site is targeted to news organizations, it has ideas PR practitioners should use for their companies' sites. 

For example,  No. 5.  Have readers send in photos and make slide shows of them.  That's a low-cost and quick way to build rapport around an organization.  Have your employees send in photos and make slide shows that let everyone learn more about each other in the company.  It costs you nothing except the time to put the show together, and it builds morale.  We have a soon-to-be-ex-client (They've been bought out.)  that was placing postcards from around the company in its e-mailed HTML newsletter.  It worked.

Try No. 14:  Use the Weblog format to cover a breaking news event.  We've suggested before that this idea would be good for companies with major events such as trade shows.  Individuals can log thoughts and observations as they participate in the show and check out competitors.

No. 18: Have newspaper or station top editor send e-mails to all e-mail subscribers occasionally to let them know how the newspaper or TV station is improving.  Most companies are doing something like this already in the form of e-mailed reports from the CEO.  If your company isn't doing that yet, now is the time to start.

No. 21:  Tell an entire story that would normally be written in plain text entirely through a slide show.  This is a great idea.  How about the doing that the next time that you give a financial report to employees?  Show the revenue and earnings lines crawling across the screen.  Break out each line in the income statement, and link it to an understandable graphic.

No. 26:  Give all reporters digital audio recorders and digital cameras to take out on stories to get material for posting on Web.  Why can't you do that for each plant and office in your company?  Call them "A trip to..." Visit the factory floor, the cubicles, the sales offices.  Talk to people and make a continuous story about the company and its employees that will deliver its key message and make the business real to those who work in it.

I've run out of space, so I'm going to let you read the rest of the suggestions.  The point is that it takes little imagination to adapt these ideas to company web pages.   There is an old rule about good ideas:  When you find them, steal them.

 07/30

You write about PR, but you mean media relations.  You are much too narrowly focused in your commentary.  Look at the major firms.  They do a little bit of everything.  Take Burson-Marsteller, for example.  Here's how Burson describes itself:

"We focus on delivering measurable business results to clients through a full range of consulting and communications disciplines: strategy development, corporate/financial, brand marketing, technology, healthcare, employee relations, media, public affairs, crisis management, advertising, Internet development and integration, and production. Burson-Marsteller companies include Marsteller (advertising, interactive, design and production), Direct Impact (grassroots marketing) and BKSH & Associates (lobbying)."

Media is a fraction of what Burson does.  Don't you think it is time to get off the media relations kick and to start discussing PR firms for what they are -- multi-dimensional communications groups?  It's only niche agencies like yours that concentrate on media relations, and they are as relevant as dinosaurs in PR today.   Your firm might take pride in serving the media, but you've been left behind a long time ago.

Do I say touché here?  Seriously, he is only partially correct.  My firm does concentrate on media relations, but I have not.  My first book was called "Integrating Corporate Communications," and it surveyed the panoply of communications technologies organizations use.  PR was a fraction of what I discussed.   I have also over the years examined many technologies and their application to the PR business.  Yes, I spend most of my days working with the media, but I like to think I do more than that --like this Web site, for instance.  Perhaps, I do use media relations examples too often.  I need to moderate that if I do.  But, give me a break.

07/29

You talk about counseling as if you were a consultant.  You aren't.   Only a few professionals reach the level of counselors to CEOs.  I don't know any.  I report to heads of marketing departments or the PR department.  They don't want counseling.  They want arms and legs, and they measure everything I do to make sure they get what they are paying for.  If we do a VNR (Video News Release), I've got minimums by markets, and I had better reach that number.  If I send a release, I had better count clips and reach a circulation goal.  If I go to a trade show, I've got to be on the floor handing out literature with quick breaks to check the press room, set up interviews, chase down reporters and tour competitors' booths.   Tell me, where is the counseling in all of this?  Jim, you live in a dream world.  It's not my world nor the world of PR pros I know.

I will not contradict his experience.  I have been in his place too in my career.  I'm not there now, but I can return with the next client that comes through the door.  It seems to me, however, that there is opportunity to counsel a client amid the chores one performs.  I think my acquaintance is too humble.  In fact, I suspect he counsels the client constantly about the media and the best way to produce materials, such as VNRs.  It might not be counseling I have been doing, but it is providing a client with the best advice for how to get things done.

I agree with my acquaintance that there is petty work in the PR business.  In fact, if one is not prepared to do the drudgery, he or she should not consider entering PR.  It's part of what we do.  I don't write much about it because I assume that most, if not all readers, perform basic tasks.  However, if one does not counsel clients while doing the basics, that person opens himself to being replaced by the next cheapest person who comes along.  That might happen anyway, but it seems to me that providing smart advice might delay the inevitable.  I suspect he will disagree with me about this too.
 

07/28

Jim:  Your thoughts about objectivity sent me over the edge.  You don't work in the same business that I have worked in for nearly 20 years.   All I know is that if the CEO wants it, the CEO gets it.  It doesn't make a bit of difference if the CEO's "vision" for his company is poppycock and not worth the paper it is printed on.  Paying clients are hard to come by.  I'm not going to do anything to scare them away.  If they want me to stand on my head, I'll do that.  If they want me to say that their software slices, dices and makes a Western breakfast, I'm going to say that too. There is no objectivity in the PR business.  We're paid to sell and we damn well better do that -- no matter what it takes.  Your thoughts about credibility are hokum.   In what I  do, we sell this product or service here and now.  We let credibility take care of itself because if we don't sell now, there won't be credibility, at least not for me and my agency.  You can prattle all you want about the need to understand the client's business, but my client tells me what to say and that is good enough for me.  It also prevents fights that I don't need to undertake. There is stress enough in this business. 

Who am I to argue with that point of view?  If it works for his business, it must be OK.  I fight because I was born that way.  As my colleagues tell me, there are some fights I should not pick because they're not worth getting exercised about.  That is what happened last Friday.   On the other hand, making a practice of caving into a client when the client is clearly in the wrong is not something I can do -- nor for that that matter -- can my colleagues.   Maybe that makes us a minority in the PR business.  I don't know.   We assume we are paid for our counsel, so we should give it.