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It’s been just over a year and a half since I opened the doors to this agency and, having chipped in with my thoughts, progress and learnings at both three months and one year, it was great to hear from people that found them useful or interesting. I find a lot of what I do and say excruciating mere moments after doing, writing or saying it, but stand by most of those updates and want to keep to my intention to chronicle things this end every now and then.
I’m in that weird position where, though still early-stage in my mind and almost entirely making it up as I go along, friends, ex-colleagues and even strangers within the industry are starting their own firms and asking me for advice or what to expect.
Here then are a few updates (one I’m very excited about!), tips and musings, having simultaneously built something I’m quite proud of AND avoided homelessness/destitution for this long. FORM AN ORDERLY QUEUE, CLIENTS.
1. It’s OK to shout when things go well
Alongside your typical press-office/creative work, we do a lot of link-building PR. A month or two back, I wrote up a client case study I found myself immediately apologising for, as I was worried it made me sound a bit Billy Bigballs. We’ve since picked up a couple of clients on the strength of that outcome-conscious piece, with friend, sales maestro and all-round good egg Darryl Sparey basically telling me to suck it up and get out of the mindset that it’s gauche to talk about your successes… Which leads me onto something I could easily have mentioned by now, but haven’t yet (probably for this very reason).
A few months ago, back when I was still finding time to write and be a part of the wider PR world, an actual real-life publisher approached me, said they’d read and liked my writing and asked if I’d like to write a PR book. After a phone call and a couple of meetings (thankfully, not in a lock-up ‘office’ a la Mark in Peep Show – nichejokeisniche), it’s happening – I’m going to be a published author. I can’t say much about the topic or theme, except to say that there’ll be enough romance, intrigue and plot twists to keep readers turning the pages, obviously. There’s just the small matter of 70,000 words or, more accurately, ten to fifteen bottles of whiskey to get through, first.
2. Hire slow, fire fast
It probably helps that the person that imparted this piece of wisdom did so in his trademark straight-talking South African accent. You can’t beat it for a recruitment tip, though, and being in a position where we’re often waiting for client wins to finalise, I’d sooner stretch ourselves than hire prematurely. Tying nicely into this next point…
3. Think like a startup
There’s nothing like an anxious investor or two to keep business owners on their toes. Watching an entrepreneurial client spin plates is inspiring, especially when they go on to future rounds and, ideally exits. The pursuit of traction, margins and better costs per acquisition is all most startup founders care about. I’m not sure if it’s an issue of ambition, keeping up with the Joneses or something else entirely, but I see much less of this in the agency world. When the PR Week top 150 came out recently, my first instinct was to paste the figures into a spreadsheet and look at average revenue per staff member both inside and outside of London to give me a benchmark to work to.
As a service industry based primarily on the selling of time, PR isn’t as scalable as your average e-commerce startup, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t focus on our margins, too. I’ve only ever spent on what I’ve absolutely needed to and don’t intend to change that just yet. Awards, new business agencies and top-end services are great, but I can’t help but look at the price of, say, entering and attending your average award scheme without seeing the eventual total cost as being somewhere not far shy of an exec’s monthly wage. Thinking like this has helped to build a buffer in the business (which people close to me will know has driven me to stress) and ultimately I know we’ll be in a better future position for it.
4. Patience pays
When a great potential client comes along – we get on well, they trust in and respect our expertise and they don’t immediately start to haggle hard on fee – it’s in my nature to want to close that as quickly as possible. I realise now that in doing so, I might have occasionally been coming on waaaay too strong. There’s a bubble of businesses that bounce around the top UK firms, each holding a significant and rarely-dipping budget. It might seem that they are, especially if you’ve never known anything but the relative security of working in a top agency, but they are not the norm.
The norm is instead businesses that are happy to pay for the right work at the right price, but for whom shelling out on PR is a big commitment. This is as much a reminder to me as a tip for others – appreciate that, once you’ve done everything you can do, many need time and space to consider.
5. Treat your team well
As I touched on, PR is all about selling the time of the people within the business. It’s all too easy to keep your head down and/or lose sleep over client results, but a genuine interest in employee happiness, progress and input have to be balanced with the fact you’re running a business. We couldn’t do this without them, after all.
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