Did we go too far or was it sheer brilliance?

By now you’re all familiar with Chris Anderson’s, editor-in-chief of Wired magazine, email list of blackballed PR firms.

A quick glance over the list reveals email addresses from Edelman, 5W PR, Fleishman-Hillard, Ogilvy, Lippe Taylor, Morris+King, SS PR, Weber Shandwick, and dozens more.

Well being the aggressive PR firm that we are, BlinnPR’s business development team emailed some of the clients represented by these PR firms. We let their clients know in no uncertain terms that they’ve been blackballed by Wired and who knows how many other unnamed publications.

Oh and by the way, BlinnPR is not on the list and our clients enjoy unfettered access to Wired and a host of other publications because of our no-nonsense, get the job done without annoying reporters approach.

Needless to say, two PR firms didn’t appreciate our aggressiveness. One going so far as to try and entice our clients and employees to leave by promising greener pastures. BTW, it has been 10 days and still none of our clients or employees has left.

Maybe it’s me, but why would our clients and employees leave in the first place. For a PR firm who has been blackballed by Wired and can’t say for sure what other publications are trashing their emails? But that is a discussion for another day.

Anyway, some people thought it was a brilliant move on our part while others felt otherwise.

Personally, I’m not apologizing for what we did. A day doesn’t go by when our clients are not being courted by other agencies. If you think it doesn’t happen you have your head in the sand. As I see it the differences is in the approach.

Fact is, BlinnPR aggressively goes after new business and represents our clients with the same fervor.

I would like to hear your thoughts. What do you think? Did we go too far or was it sheer brilliance.

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Picking the perfect PR firm is like buying a puppy.

You can do lots of in-depth research, carefully narrow the field down to a few purebreds, mercilessly quiz and be quizzed by the owners of the kennel, then meet the litter and carefully decide which pup is perfectly suited to your needs. Or you can dash into the shelter, quickly survey what’s available, and pick the perkiest puppy.

Both methods work out just fine most of the time. The problems occur when you don’t know anything about puppies and what they’re supposed to do. Here are six steps that’ll help you pick a PR firm that doesn’t bite.

1) Define Your Organization’s Needs
If you don’t know what you want your PR agency to do, chances are you’ll hire an agency that will do nothing but bill you. No legitimate PR firm is enthusiastic about working with a client who is clueless about his or her needs. We all know from bitter experience that such a client will eventually turn feral and blame the PR firm for not delivering concrete results.

So figure out if you want to drum up interest in a public offering, a leveraged buy-out, have someone handle the release of bad news, or raise the general visibility of your organization. Put this information in a background document – it can be just a few pithy paragraphs – to share with the PR firms you’re considering working with. But wait … don’t press the send button yet.

2) Tell Me More
Remember the song Summer Nights from Grease and the line tell me more, tell me more. Well, apart from your PR goals, as mentioned above, it’s helpful to include your organization’s history, mission and aim, issues or areas of potential concern, current or past communications efforts, and your budget in the backgrounder.

This doesn’t mean you have to devote hours into conjuring up a beautifully crafted document. Just lay out the facts. If you give me this information up front I’ll be able to prepare an information package or presentation specifically addressing your needs. Otherwise, we’ll have a lovely breakfast at the Coffee Shop and I’ll spend a couple of hours trying to draw this information out of you. Save us both the time and trouble and tell me clearly what you need up front. We can still have breakfast.

Here is a sample Backgrounder and RFP1 and RFP2 for you to look at.

3) PR Pop Quiz
Now that you know what you want from your PR campaign, find a firm who can deliver it. You know the drill, ask people you trust for recommendations and check with professional organizations. If you know any reporters who cover your industry ask them what PR people they like working with and whose press releases consistently bore them to tears.

After identifying several PR firms that seem to fit your needs, send over your backgrounder information by email. Then get in touch with the firms whose responses impress you. If they say that they have a lot of experience in your industry, make sure there’s no conflict of interest – you really don’t want to be represented by the firm that reps your competitors. If all goes well, ask them to send over a capabilities package. This document should include general background on the firm, relevant experience, areas of expertise, bios of the people who would work on your account and any special skills or resources they may have such as, overseas offices.

4) Test the Chemistry
After reviewing your responses, select the two or three firms that best meet your criteria and schedule a “Get to Know You” meeting. During this meeting you’ll get a better feel for the PR firm’s credentials and how they relate to your goals, but you’ll also be able to gauge whether you can work with these people or not. Remember, these are the folks who are going to be your public face, the people who will be putting words into your mouth and shaping your image. You don’t have to love them, but if you can’t stand to sit next to them on a cross-country flight, if they make your allergies appear and you don’t have allergies– look for another firm.

5) The Song and Dance
Yes, we’re finally reaching the end of this process. All that remains is nailing down the details. Find out what reporting methods the firm uses (AKA: how they’ll tell you what they’ve done for you lately), how do they measure success, and if the senior management team who have been wooing you will actually be working on your account.

At this point, you may be treated to a two-hour dog and pony show on how the PR firm will implement its plan to achieve your PR goals and objectives. Personally I think 60 minutes is all that is required but some people get all fired up when hearing the sound of their own voices. The more information you provided at the beginning of the process, the better and more concise plan you should expect to hear. If it all sounds spiffy to you, figure out the contract terms and sign on the dotted line.

6) Or Just Ignore All of The Above
If the idea of playing footsie with PR firms for hours on end makes you shiver with trepidation, cut right to the chase. Ask around for recommendations. E-mail a few likely candidates. Tell them what you want, what you want to spend, and ask them to tell you if they can make it happen, and if so how they plan to go about it. Review the responses and pick the firm that your gut tells you is the right fit.

Some of our clients chose BlinnPR after a very careful vetting; others just seemed to know they wanted to work with us before we even had the chance to dazzle them with my golf game. Happily it’s worked out well for all concerned — none of our clients have ever attempted to whack any of us over the head with a 4 iron.

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When a bestselling book about your profession is entitled “Toxic Sludge is Good for You!: Lies, Damn Lies, and The Public Relations Industry” it’s obvious that your business has a rather dodgy reputation.

But most of the suspicion that’s directed at us concerns the way we shape the truth to serve our clients. Hey, that’s our job – we carefully construct alternate realities where our clients can rule uncontested, their strengths highlighted and any possible potential tiny little deficits carefully glossed over.

What’s not talked about as much are the real lies that PR agencies tell clients and/or prospects. Yes, doing any sort of business requires the spewing of some polite fallacies to lubricate the wheels of commerce. But there are fabrications that are particular to the PR business. You see them lurking, again and again, in the latest cut and paste press release announcing a new client win. You read them on agency blogs. You hear about them from disillusioned clients.

And now here they are, neatly organized into a list that may pry open the PR version of Pandora’s Box. That would be rather apt since Pandora herself was gifted with the blessings of clever speech, crafty words, and a bit of a deceitful nature.

1: “This is such a terrific product/service!”
Part of public relations is managing clients’ expectations. Not all products and services are newsworthy; some will appeal only to a niche market. Others are entering a market that’s already oversaturated. But many agencies are scared of telling their clients the truth fearing they’ll lose the business. Instead of functioning as a strategic advisor, they act like an over-eager suitor on a first date. Has any PR person angling for your business ever told you your product/service just wasn’t all that exciting?

2: “Your account is in the best possible hands…”
PR firms often bring their best, brightest and most articulate stars (the Biz Dev team) to the pitch and infer that this is the talent working on an account that bills 3-5K per month. How many times have you heard that senior staff will be pitching the media on your behalf? Meanwhile, back in the real world, a junior AE or AE with limited experience is handling your account and has no idea what she/he is doing or why.

3: “Our agency has deep experience in this space.”
Never mind the fact that likely 90%+ of that collective experience no longer works at the agency, having long ago moved on to competing agencies or retired/passed away

4: “We did all that we could do.”
Hire the IBM of PR firms and, if they fail to get the product noticed, corporate PR can always bow out gracefully with a “Hey, it’s not my fault. The agency didn’t do anything. And they have such a great reputation—who could have known they’d screw this up?” The agency should have done something, but so should corporate PR. When none of the PR players bothers to extend themselves a bit, it’s always the client who suffers. It doesn’t even take two agencies to play pass-the-buck, often an agency will tell a client after the agreement is signed and months into the assignment that something can’t be done because it’s beyond their scope of work. For example, the agency won’t pitch speaking opportunities because it’s “beyond the scope of work.” Nonsense – getting media attention for a client through any possible, valuable venue is the job, period.

5: “We know Web 2.0″
More and more PR firms are offering clients help with podcasts, promoting and writing blogs and writing releases carefully optimized to ride high in search engine results. That’s great, assuming the agency has real expertise and isn’t just along for the ride on the Web 2.0 bandwagon. There are plenty of blogs that were guaranteed to “ramp up your SEO” languishing unread in the backwaters of the internet, and you can podcast until you’re blue in the face without seeing any improvement in your site’s page rank. Run away fast from any agency that suggests that a widget can magically solve all of your PR problems.

6: We have great relationships with (insert high profile reporters’ names here)”
I’m dumbfounded when prospects want me to drop names of reporters I know. Dropping the names of reporters at key media outlets such as The New York Times, MSNBC, BusinessWeek or Forbes, to cite just a few, really means nothing for the client. Reporters know a lot of PR people, and visa-versa. And whether a reporter likes a PR rep or not, they aren’t going to write a story that isn’t interesting to their readers. In any case, it’s far better to find the right reporters to tell an interesting story than to keep pitching a small group of elite reporters.

7: “We have affiliate offices all over the world.”
Not a lie, exactly, (assuming they aren’t counting their freelancers’ apartments as satellite offices) — the falsehood is in the implication that this matters. In reality, lots of dots on the map that’s proudly displayed on an “About Us” page doesn’t mean squat unless there is a need or purpose. How will a branch office in Barcelona or Budapest serve your business?

8: “We offer highly-targeted strategic public relations.”
When in fact they just routinely blast out press releases via e-mail with the hope that something will stick, and reporters know to automatically delete the latest gibberish from ABC agency because they never send anything useful or interesting. Here’s a tip. Ask exactly who the agency is pitching, a small well-selected list of reporters is far better than sending a release to an entire mailing list comprised of every reporter that everyone in the agency knows, has heard of, or thinks may probably exist.

9: “We do a great job taking advantage of the news cycle.”
Certainly getting your clients comments out on the topic du jour is a good thing, but it’s far more important to think outside the box and make the news. Coming up with creative pitches is more difficult than riding the news wave so many agencies convince clients that a quote embedded in a few stories about the crisis of the moment is great PR. In reality, it’s a small part of what an agency should be doing.

10: “It’s not our fault, your product/service just isn’t all that compelling.”
The biggest falsehood agencies foist upon clients is that poor PR performance is largely the client’s fault. All too often the truth is closer to this: there are many untalented PR folk, with minimal smarts and/or communications skills, who send poorly written press releases via unsolicited email blasts and inundate a lot of journalists with boring, predictable crap. If the agency didn’t tell you your product was a tough sell at the beginning of your relationship, they shouldn’t tell you that after their campaign fails.

Okay, so I fibbed. I actually have 11 Top Ten Lies:

11: “You’ll get real benefits from our relationship.”
Years ago someone, who later became a client, told me he was paying $5000 a month to a big name PR firm who had suddenly stopped speaking to him. The last two months of the relationship there was no reporting, no answered phone calls, zip. Eventually he discovered that to this big PR firm his 5K a month basically covered only the administrative fees and nothing more. Yes, he was paying them to bill him. Sadly this isn’t a one-time instance, it happens frequently at PR agencies with a corporate parent. It’s particularly sad when it happens to smaller businesses and organizations for whom that 5K a month is their entire ad/marketing budget, and they opted to take a risk and spend it all on public relations.

So there it is. The 11 lies agencies PR agencies tell clients and prospects. I want to thank Andrew Edson, Jennifer Johnson Avril , Stephen Koenigsberg, and Rebeca Shiller for their feedback with this column.

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