One of these days, your utility may feel the need to hire a public relations firm to augment your in-house team. And there’s always the possibility that you’ve replaced an in-house team with outside counsel.
Whatever the case may be, you should know a few things about your hired team that will help things run more effectively and save time.
Step No. 1 should always be to clearly define which tasks the PR firm will handle and what will stay in-house. Ideally, you will hire a PR firm that complements the skills your in-house team brings to the table.
The hired team should receive examples of previous work that hit the target. Include press releases, white papers, advisories, bylined articles, fact sheets, op-eds and anything else produced in recent years. Also provide the current company boilerplate and if your utility has specific style guidelines, provide them, too.
Obviously, ongoing communications will be vital, so figure out how often you wish to meet with the team.
After the first meetings to get up to speed, once a week is typical.
While meeting in person from time to time is beneficial, a conference or Zoom call suffices most of the time. You’ll want to discuss progress, set agendas, confirm deadlines and extinguish any short-term fires. Meetings aside, you’ll still be calling, emailing or texting your team most days anyway.
Just beware that, depending upon the kind of contract you’ve signed, there may be financial consequences. Some firms include all communications in their billable hour totals, so a 40-minute Zoom call with the account team leaders and junior staffers can add up quickly.
Planning is also a must for making sure things run without a hitch. There will always be last-minute things or emergencies that pop up, but knowing your agenda in advance allows you to retool on the fly if need be. And if both your in-house teams and PR counsel have time to breathe, they’re likely to do better.
But wait: There are other things to consider.
Keep your expectations firmly in check.
No matter how exciting the sales pitch is from our outside counsel, it can’t work miracles. You won’t get a front-page New York Times article within the first week and Lester Holt isn’t going to be introducing a segment anytime soon about the revolutionary things your utility is accomplishing.
Actually, any firm that guarantees you high-end placement should be met with a healthy dose of skepticism.
Also remember that while you’ve hired a PR firm to work for you, you must be realistic about your demands. Making the team drop everything on a holiday weekend when whatever you need can wait until the work week begins is just a bad look. If you wouldn’t treat your employees that way, don’t do it to your hired guns.
Remember not to fret over minutiae. Being detail-oriented is one thing, being obsessive is something else.
I can tell you multiple stories from my days working in PR agencies about clients who fretted for days about an “a” or “the” was the better choice in a press release sentence — thereby losing sight of the ongoing goal.
While you should be satisfied with the PR firm’s final products, you need to give them a little space and trust their skillset. It’s highly likely they not only know how to write better than you, but they can do it in a manner that attracts more media attention — and can pitch it better, too.
And let me repeat: Listen to and follow the advice your PR counsel provides. The different perspective offered ideally meshes with the in-house thinking to produce a better overall product.
Unfortunately, clients often reject the advice they receive nearly every time.
Whether it’s because the advice is bad or because they mistakenly think they know better, you’re only causing problems. Why did you hire outside counsel in the first place?
That’s not to say the hiring was a bad one – you’ll know quickly if you’ve made a mistake, and your contract should allow you to bail out if need be.
But you at least need to give the PR team a chance. Barring a serious breach of etiquette, three months should be the minimum time before you evaluate the relationship, with six months more reasonable. And you don’t necessarily have to terminate the relationship but could adjust it to add or decrease the number of hours or even ask for different team members if someone rubs you the wrong way.