A few people have taken exception to my post … and no doubt there are a few exceptions. But it is certainly more the case than the exception in today’s PR world.

Thanks for commenting,

David

Ed

I ‘retired’ from the agency game 5 years ago after spending most of my 30 years in the business working for big firms or owning my own. One of the bigger reasons I stay mostly retired and focus on consulting is how broken the business model is — and how many meetings I sat through talking about it with no changes.

What we’ve been selling for decades is our time. Our most frequent justification is how many people read, respond to and now engage with what we place. Sometimes that’s adequate but unless or until we do a better job of proving our results improve business performance we’re not going fix the broken business model. Which is what I think you’re really talking about here.

In marketing PR we sometimes get the chance to prove how many units we sell. In corporate communications I haven’t found an affordable, repeatable method for showing we’ve moved the needle. More importantly, we need to prove that moving the needle in the right direction improves business performance. That is what our clients do and should care about. Peter Himler’s blog, The Flack, has talked about that justification lately, but we need more of that discussion.

Yes, at H&K and, briefly, at GCI your criteria were on my mind for any senior hire. Then I had to figure out how much of that revenue we could push down to the real profit centers — AAEs and AEs because that is where the real margins were (and probably are). For most agencies, particularly the big ones I don’t see there’s been a change in that while I’ve been gone. Web 2.0 is changing many things but in a professional services environment the compensation to fee ratio math still rules. At least until ‘we’ do a better job of demonstrating how we boost performance and start selling expertise and competence instead of hours and eyeballs.

If I’ve missed ways we’ve improved proving how our work improves our clients’ performance I’d love to read / hear about them, but until we do a better job at that I don’t see how we’re going to change / fix this broken business model. Please keep stirring the pot.

@RTRViews (Rick Rice)

As always you stir the pot and make me think about the past, present, and future. I find it interesting that the majority of the world of public relations firms, not Danny Brown or the progressive firms like Brett Weiner’s, still support press release spamming as a function of good solid viral marketing.

It also amazes me that these less progressive or savvy firms are not firmly planted at the source(s) of the next huge wave in search: conversational search.

It’s no coincidence that Facebook recently implemented changes in an attempt to mimic the Twitter “conversational stream” and conversational search engine benefits.

As Brett stated, if the progressive firms are hiring people who can get deep inside a client’s story, are resourceful, and are social media savvy, then why aren’t the rest of the majority following their lead.

Even more puzzling is the fact that this majority is not completely embedded in Twitter’s search engine scouring for conversations that matter to their clients, to their own firm’s image, and to the coming trends in social media.

Appreciate your comments here. I intentionally tried to be provocative with this post, not to bash the hand that’s fed me for more than two decades, but rather to send up a warning flare that much of the industry today is falling behind the fast-moving online world.

Your agency would appear to be among those who will define the future, recognized for being nimble, aware of storytelling as an essential element of communications, and not only savvy about social media, which is now, but mindful of what’s ahead.

But today, my friend, you … I … and others who have commented here are in the minority. Big PR is back in the 90s.

David

Interesting post. I may be living in a cocoon, but as the “hiring” partner at my PR agency, I don’t think about any of the three things you list. We’re hiring right now at senior levels and the things I’m looking for are:

1) Can you get deep inside a client’s story? Can you break it down into interesting newsworthy storylines? Can you clearly communicate complex topics?

2) Are you a go-getter? Resourceful? Will you leave no stone unturned to deliver value to a client? Are you a good client service person? Are you entrepreneurial? Willing to try new things? Have you done your homework on my agency before an interview or before sending your cover letter? Can you succintly and passionately explain why you’d be a great addition to our team?

3) Are you social-media savvy? This one is a bit cliche-sounding, but I’m looking to see if you are active in new media? Are you active on Twitter? Do you blog? Is your LinkedIn profile up-to-date for starters. Do you have other technical skills that can be applied to the changing world of PR?

I certainly hope other agencies out there are measuring dollar values against candidates, cause we’re measuring client value and innovation against our candidates. I think PR is a great field for smart, entrepreneurial, tech-savvy folks to get into and help shake things up.

I agree with your second point though – I started out in an agency 13 year ago (where does the time go!) and for the last 10 years have been in house – about three months ago I started looking into going agency side again and was surprised that very little seemed to have chaged.

What struck me most is how many, if not most, agencies have totally failed to embrace social/new media – even the ones that profess to have “digital” experience (whatever that is).

Maybe part of the problem for those that shy away from social media is that the ROI is far easier to measure than it ever was in the old days when you handed the client a nice fat clippings file at the end of the quarter. Google analytics etc. have seen to that.

But for those of us that see this as an advantage it is a great time to be in PR/Marketing – it is an exciting land of opportunity – not wanting to get stuck in the past at ABC1 & Co I have struck out on my own and have found clients who are very keen to get the most out of social/new media and the excellent value for money marketing it can represent.

Finally I am truly amazed that when you contact PRs they don’t get back to you and offer you story ideas for your publication – what do they think they’re paid to do?