SAME GAME,SAME NAME, DIFFERENT RULES

Any Old PR Person Will Do

    There was a time when all you needed was a roll of nickels and a phone booth, and you were in the PR game. Of course, all clients expected then was that you get their names in the paper. For most of the publicity clients in those days, that was sufficient.

    Those days were the late 1920s and 1930s, before PR became Public Relations, and we were beset with such glorious concepts as image, and positioning, and niche marketing. Today, public relations is infinitely more sophisticated than that, as is the public relations client. The public relations program for any modern corporation is to its publicity ancestor as desktop publishing is to hieroglyphics. And of course, the public relations program for the professional firm is different, too.

     But to have a sophisticated public relations program requires not a sophisticated practitioner, but a sophisticated client. A firm, if it knows how, will always find a good public relations practitioner or consultant, but a consultant is only as capable as the firm he or she serves.

    This is what's so fascinating about professional services marketing. By the mid-seventies, a great many product companies were very knowledgeable about public relations and what it could and couldn't do. That's the point at which lawyers and accountants and consultants, bright-eyed, eager, and suspicious as hell of this new marketing stuff, found themselves entering the arena.

    Aside from the fact that professional marketers themselves had a lot to learn about what matters and works in professional services, and why a lot of what works in corporate public relations doesn't work in professional services, the professionals themselves had absolutely nothing to go on. And sometimes, even worse than inexperience or even ignorance, there was the mythology. You know, "We bought the guy lunch -- why doesn't he print the story?" and "If we buy an ad will they run the story?" and "Public relations? That's free advertising, isn't it?"

    The problem is that even the more than 20 years since Bates hasn't produced worlds of experience in dealing with outside public relations consultants. And while there are a great many accounting and law firms, and their outside public relations agencies, doing great work, there's still a good deal of groping. What does a professional firm do when it recognizes the need for -- and value in -- good public relations, but has never done it before? How do you know how to find, qualify, hire and monitor a public relations firm? How do you know how much to pay, and what you have a right to expect for your money?

    There are several ways to answer that question. You can hire an independent marketing consultant with demonstrated expertise in the field to do an objective independent audit. The cost is minimal, considering the potential savings to you.

    Or you can ask yourself the following questions.

• Does this firm have a background in either other professional services, or at least in financial services or corporate public relations? An ordinary product publicity firm, specializing in simply getting your name in the paper without a marketing context, just won't work for you, because your public relations program should address a point beyond just name recognition.
• Are the people who are going to work on your account smart enough to understand the technical aspects of what you do, and why it might be newsworthy? Publicity for professionals most often hinges on being able to make technical subjects newsworthy.
• Does the consultant understand the larger marketing context, of which public relations is only one part, and how public relations fits into that larger context? If not, you may be in for a lopsided program that will leave you frustrated.
• Is the consultant clear in spelling out expectations for his or her program? If your expectations are not clear, then the consultant is doomed to failure, because you'll always expect more than the consultant can possibly deliver.
• The size of the consultant's firm doesn't matter -- the thinking and ability of the person who will work for you do. There are some large and even famous public relations firms out there doing absolutely dreadful work (and some doing great work, of course), and charging vast fees. There are some very bright and energetic small firms that perform gloriously. In public relations for professional services, it's brains, not size, that matters.
• How much you should be paying a consultant is relatively easy to figure, these days. Organizations of both accounting and law firm marketers (AAM and ALA) have published surveys of costs. The range of fees is no different than the range of fees you charge -- more for the most experienced, less for the less experienced. Check the fee structures in your area.
• References are extremely important. Ultimately, public relations is an art form. There are only a limited number of things that a practitioner can do, but how artfully they're done is what makes the difference. You'd find very little difference from one firm's proposal to another's -- but a vast difference in references.
• How the firm reports is important. If they don't have a somewhat formal structure for keeping you informed, then there's a huge potential for mumbo jumbo reporting. There should be regular work sessions to give them input for their programs, but frequent status meetings as well.
• It should be the role of the public relations counsel to turn you from a naive to a sophisticated client, and you shouldn't hire any firm that doesn't offer to do that. There was a time when the client waited outside the door while the PR people on the inside performed their secret machinations. No more, and not in professional services, where the practitioner must be a partner in the marketing process. Hire the firm that understands that, and is willing to make you a part of the process. Eschew and forsake all others.

    If once public relations people were fast talking hacks, those days are gone. There may be a flack or two hanging around the campus, but most public relations people today are smart, experienced, and knowledgeable. Those are the people you want working for you. Then public relations works for you.

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