• 5 Ways to Lose a PR Pitch

    PR agencies typically have to earn the business they win by jumping through multiple hoops. Often we get an RFI (Request for Information) or an RFP (Request for Proposals) from the company looking to hire a new firm. Anyone who has completed these knows they’re laborious, time-sucking exercises that don’t accomplish much more than a half-hour phone call would.

     But, that’s part of the gig, and a blog post for a different day. Now, if your PR firm is selected to advance to the next round, that typically means  pulling together a comprehensive presentation that shows the prospect how your team thinks, what they’d actually do, and how much it would cost.

     That’s a lot of work, right? And when you consider that PR agencies often go up against three-to-five competing firms, the odds are stacked against you from the get-go.

     Here’s how you can make sure you have no chance to win the PR business, despite hours-upon-hours of work:

     1. Fill the presentation with 20 slides about how wonderful your firm is, and about stellar work you’ve done for other companies. This will effectively alert the prospect to the fact that you’ve just regurgitated the contents of the RFP into slide form, and haven’t spent any time actually thinking about their unique business needs. Kiss the business goodbye.

    2. Include boilerplate slides lifted from prior presentations that discuss PR basics like “thought leadership” and “byline articles” and “building momentum.” If you can simply switch the prospect’s name out for any other prospect, you aren’t fooling anyone except yourself, lazy bones.

    3. Bring five people to the pitch, including the principal of the firm and two vice presidents, none of whom will actually be working on the account for more than a few hours a month. Make sure the other two staffers in the room (both junior) remain silent until it’s their turn to clumsily talk through the one slide you made them practice in the mirror for five hours. The prospect will know who’s really going to be working the account. Pro tip: not your firm.

    4. Make sure the pitch team doesn’t research the key bloggers and reporters that the prospect obviously cares about.  Avoid researching competitors, analyst opinion and current industry trends. Winning teams leap at the chance to discuss these in detail. Losing firms all look at each other uncomfortably during the meeting, eyes darting wildly, when prospects ask pointed questions. But, hey, you’ll have a funny “worst pitch ever” story to scare interns with.

    5. Fudge the truth about services you offer, reporters you know, how many clients you work on, and your personal background – and do it unconvincingly. The key here is to leave as many question marks in the prospect’s head as possible, including: “How did these clowns get in here?”

    Matter

    ,
    , , , , ,

  • 6 Ways PR People are Like Salespeople

    I once told a young family member of mine to learn to sell, because “you’re always selling something to someone.” Like I’m doing now, trying to get you interested in whatever I’m going to type below. For years I’ve thought that sales should be a higher-profile topic at colleges and universities as the bulk of graduates will try to secure the interest of – and the associated commitment related to – something, sometime in their career. Some professionals will sell on a daily basis, while others only occasionally have the need to close a deal. Most professionals, sometime or another, will need to sell. And, that’s true in spades for PR people.

    Here are six ways that PR people are like sales people:

    First, in most cases a PR initiative begins with basic information and a general intent to bring a product, service or even an idea to market, and PR people work to craft a pitch that will resonate with the reporters, editors, bloggers and others who will communicate directly with the identified key audience. As part of the process of identifying business objectives, PR and communications professionals need to take the content available at the onset of the project and craft what is, in essence, a sales pitch that will yield results – and that process is hugely important.

    Second, no matter the specific pitch (or particular project) PR people work with a prospect list. It may be the list of media who could, perhaps, bite on the editorial pitch, or a list of publications or bloggers deemed a priority by the client. In any case, it’s the list of media targeted by the PR professional.

    Third, PR people need to sell their creative ideas to their client in advance of execution. With any luck, the creative idea makes so much sense that minimal persuasion is necessary. In most cases, however, a good PR person has to develop his or her case for why a particular idea is strategic and aligned with business goal – and get the OK from the client before execution. Yep, sales again.

    Fourth, PR people need to sell the value of PR to partners and other third-party organizations whose involvement in a case study, press release or interview may be extremely helpful to a client’s initiative. They may not entirely “get” it, but their respective buy-in is hugely important. The partner’s involvement may be the difference between carrying a credible story to market or not, so you need get their agreement to make your story stronger. How do you do that? You sell.

    Fifth, agency-side PR people need to pitch their agency as part of the employee recruitment process. Particularly in today’s competitive recruiting world, PR people are asked to contribute to recruiting success by meeting with prospective employees and persuading the prospect to consider joining their team rather than taking an alternate professional path. If you’re a solid PR pro, we’d love to hear from you, since our firm (a “Best Place to Work,”) is hiring. See what I did there?

    Finally, agency-side PR people need to pitch. They need to be part of a pitch team that shows the agency’s success and expertise in a smart and strategic way. They need to be inspirational and persuasive while being polite. They need to be smart and savvy, while not appearing smug. They need to be the very best PR people in their day job, and they need to sell their skills when called upon to help their agency thrive.

    What am I missing? What are other ways that PR people are like sales people?

    Scott Signore

    ,
    , , , , ,