Smaller independent PR firms…surviving the unsurvivable…

At the risk of being labeled with the new, old buzzword…dare I say, “socialist”…I actually believe that the new administration is doing everything it can with the knowledge and skills it has available to it, to push, drag, cajole this economy back to a level of respectability. But I also know that if we sit, wait, and expect the newly elected folks in Washington, D.C. to do all the heavy lifting than economic failure is a certainty. This is particularly true in the entrepreneurial and small business sector of this country…dare I say, “capitalist?” ( see WSJ article “Entrepreneurs Can Lead Us Out of the Crisis”)

We in the public relations business that are proud to be considered smaller non-traditional and boutique PR firms, certainly fit within that sector. Most of us have built our businesses and practices, large and small, through innovation, a fierce independence , and an awful lot of hard work over more trial and error than any of us wish to remember. Ok, not all. There are the “lemmings” in the world of boutique PR just like everywhere that believe duplication of the big old boys is the greatest form flattery and quickest path to PR riches….an oxymoron if ever there was one. There is a reason that our, not their, client rosters are most often weighted heavily with entrepreneurs and start-ups beyond smaller budgets. There is a kinship and an understanding of what drives these young companies as well as the processes needed to reach and convince their audiences that “different is good.”

So what can those of us that have taken more of an entrepreneurial PR path be doing to survive and maybe even grow during these days before we all begin to see some light over the horizon? First and foremost, recognize and remind ourselves that two of things that got us here are key to our survival…innovation and a smaller more flexible size. We’re built to adapt and move quickly to rapid shifts on both a macro and micro economic level. We’re the sailing sloop darting amongst the waves compared to the mega tanker with all its bloated weight charging headlong to an unseen reef.

At the risk of offending my fellow PR firms with my audacity and even possibly strengthening my competition, here are a few specific tips that this smaller size and flexibility allow…

1. Realize and accept that your clients and everyone’s interest and focus is totally on efficiency and accountability… and savings. Be prepared to demonstrate value in the form of real price/performance for your fees. Time to drop the B.S.
2. Listen to them and be prepared to adapt if necessary. Again…listen to the client. It’s a buyers market.
3. Shore up what you do best and make sure your current clients are highly serviced (extremely important).
   
4. But honestly analyze where there may be weaknesses in your firm and form alliances to offset these. There are other complimentary firms…advertising, marcom, web design, social media…also in the same slowing predicament. It is much less cost intensive to form a complimentary alliance to compliment your strengths than investing in new people and infrastructure.
   
5. Market yourselves aggressively with the tools and expertise at hand: publicity and the Internet.
   
6. Stay alert to the market. Keep listening to the client marketplace and stay flexible.

Lastly, keep the faith… and keep moving forward. We entrepreneurs have been through tough times before.

Back to basics: how a financial crisis is good for business

I love recessions. They bring out the absolute best and worst in people and in business. When the economy slows, which invariably does after we have had a delightful run of greed on both Wall Street and Main Street…old terms with new political meanings we will explore in more depth in a later blog…life becomes much simpler. The choices become much more clear, and the consequences of those choices, much stricter. Marketing and PR budgets become leaner and decisions therein must demonstrate value and accountability. Wow! Really?…amazing concepts that have traditionally received plenty of lip service but little action at the height of a burgeoning economy; but now, oh my, are the cornerstones of every recessionary decision. And just how do companies and organizations define and measure value and accountability; and do these definitions change depending on the prevailing economic wind? While of course never overtly stated, they often do. Marketing and PR dollars spent against internal research and audits, strategic positioning, message development, et al, are highest during flush times. They provide an excellent way to spend money and reinforce the importance, the very value, of the synergy between bloated internal PR departments and bloated PR agencies…the very reason for their mutually dependent existence. Alas, with tough times and the shrinking of budgets, value turns more to accountability (not synergy nor size) and metrics not abstract concepts.

It’s almost a cliché that during an economic downturn, we return to those simple, most basic, tested vehicles of commerce. Flat-rate mortgages, not ARM’s, more cash, less credit, personal relationships, not virtual reality, and in the world of PR, positive publicity, not another meeting, lunch, or audit. What a concept…real measurable results against predetermined goals. But what if you went one step further and created a compensation model based on only being paid if this positive publicity actually appeared…not just that it is “in process” or an interview had been completed, but actually had been broadcast or published? Now we’ve really returned to a simple, most basic tenet of commerce…being paid for actually accomplishing a measurable result. Wow…now we’re edging close to revolutionary. But if paying for results-only PR catches on, what’s to happen to all those bloated internal PR departments and bloated PR agencies? Not to worry. Although it would benefit us all if they went the way of the subprime mortgage, unfortunately like these real estate derivatives, bloated PR will rise again like the cycle of greed that fosters it.