Still, many young professionals are hesitant to question leadership. But, in reality I have found that most effective leaders and managers appreciate input and suggestions from less-seasoned pros. I’m not saying it is okay to openly defy one’s supervisor, but challenging a position can be a great move for a career … as long as it is done professionally, etc.

While I don’t have much experience with SPAM in PR, I appreciate the discussion and understand the controversey attached to it. Currently, I am writing a blog post on another controversial issue in PR right now … paid media placement. To be more accurate the post will discuss paid blogger coverage.

Do you have any input, advice, knowledge, experiences, etc. on that subject?

Anyway, thanks for the post … keep up the good work!

Regards,
JMGrass

The main fault lies with the agency. Yes, clients can be a pain and oh we can’t afford to lose them… But are you really helping anyone by avoiding the issue and just saying “Yes”?

To agency owners that don’t have the balls to stand up to their clients and tell them what they’re asking isn’t practical, I’m sorry but it’s your fault the industry gets such bad stick.

You were hired for a reason – your expertise. Tell your client (nicely but firmly) that you wouldn’t tell them how to run their business – that’s not your expertise.

What IS your expertise is how to get them the attention they’re looking for, and paying you for. If you can’t do your job the way you know it will work, then the client will suffer.

And a final note. If you keep saying “Yes” to clients and then get complained about, you’re going to get a reputation as an agency not to work with. After all, what client wants to be associated with an agency with a bad reputation…?

@Jen Z – good point about billable hours. It does take a lot of time on the front end to build a media list if you do indeed research it, vet it, etc. But if the agency is doing a good job of vetting, then there should be less spam.

@dave – interesting that you bring that up. That definitely adds to the challenge. The problem is that no one method of distribution will appease all journalists’ preferences.

@ruth – can I say “amen!” to that? That’s always perplexed me. I have a friend who was told to pitch The Wall Street Journal on her first day at her first job out of school at an agency. She had never made a pitch call before. She stumbled through it, annoyed the reporter, who hung up, and felt like a tool. I still can’t believe her boss made her do that 2 hours into her first day.

@lauren – you can only push back so much. I’d recommend always pushing back once or twice, and if your boss doesn’t budge then you should eventually go to his/her boss. Share your concerns about damaging the agency’s reputation with key media due to non-worthy pitches dictated by the client and see how they react. I wouldn’t throw your supervisor under the bus at that stage. Hopefully the boss will go to the supervisor and say “hey we need to push back more with the client.” If that doesn’t happen, start looking for a new job because the truth is that your reputation with those reporters is being damaged as badly or worse than the agency’s.

@PR Cog – That is absolutely true. Hey, if it didn’t work on some level, people would be forced to do something different, right?

@christine – Here’s to clients who are former agency pros and “get it.”

@Jen W. and Geri R. – good for you guys for standing up and telling clients “no.” That’s what we need more of these days. I wonder if it’s harder to do that (financially) since you’re solo or easier to do that because you’re the boss. Does the good outweigh not getting the paycheck? (I’m guessing it does.)

That said, most of my career was spent in small to mid-size agencies where the client ruled. And as discussed, you never want to be the one to lose an account because of honest counsel. Sad but true and I’m guessing it remains so today. Especially today, in this economy.

Hence the beauty of working on your own. I find my clients accept my counsel with a much higher regard. If I tell them I think the universe of appropriate media is only five trade publications, but let’s establish strong relationships with those five, they’re receptive and eager to follow my advice.

I second Jen W’s post above — if a prospective client doesn’t get it and/or can’t be persuaded then I’m probably not the right pr/media relations person for them.

So, until the economy rights itself and parties on both sides (agencies/clients) are under less pressure to justify their existences, I expect things will continue as is. For now, those of us lucky enough to be solos will have to continue working to educate clients about the value of relationships as opposed to the reporting of worthless numbers of calls, e-mails sent. Best/Geri R

Clients who pay for something specific, even if their request is strategically poor, expect what they ask for.

Ultimately the agency must position itself as solutions based and not execution alone. In other words, “Tell me your problem, and I will tell you the best way to get it fixed.”

That’s a top down decisions that a lot of PR firms are struggling with every day!

Why then, does it seem like many firms resort to the lowest common denominator – i.e. untargeted blast emails and call downs? Honestly, I’m not sure, and I really wish we could get to the bottom of it.

It’s a chicken/egg scenario – show me quality results, and quantity becomes less important. Results lagging? The agency response is generally to show more quantity – like long lists of call down reports. I don’t think this meets either party’s needs, and certainly doesn’t help improve the media’s view of PR people or the companies they’re pitching.

You’re right – the spamming might not end anytime soon, but I actually believe agency reps could make great headway to lead to a change. Let’s all make an effort to focus on quality — and see if that doesn’t make for happy clients, account leads, and junior staffers.

I’ve literally been working on a similar one – oh well, back to the drawing board.

There is one more reason-it works (or more accurately it works enough to hook you, like Vegas).

Everyone who blasts or smiles and dials has gotten a hit at some trade or bureau they never would have gotten normally b/c it happened to be a slow news day or a freelancer flaked and the Ed. needed something to fill the space.

As long as the hits keep coming what’s a few bits of hate e-mail or rude hang-ups? If you ban the email account they’ll get another, it’s no biggie.

What happens, though, to the young PR pros that say “No, this isn’t a good idea to pitch” and aren’t listened to? Is it something that you keep pushing, or does this come off as defiant to a senior PR pro? I ran into this problem a lot at one of my old gigs, and I eventually quit because it wasn’t worth not being able to at least discuss differing opinions.

For a communications field, we seem to sometimes have a terrible breakdown in communicating with each other.

The truth is, there are very few PR practitioners who really enjoy media relations and there are probably even fewer who are really good at it. There are also very few agencies that set up media relations departments, instead protecting their turf and building their empires by hiring more assistant consultants to do the work the seniors don’t want to do.

Frankly, I don’t think media relations is any more frustrating than internal communications, where you have to have a newsletter AND an intranet because some employees like to read on the bus and others want it there on their computer screens.

I’ve heard it all from reporters: we don’t like attachments, we don’t like phone calls, we don’t like faxes, we don’t like email, we do like (all the above things the other ones didn’t like). Just update your media list, add a column headed, ‘prefers to be contacted by’ and let the folks who enjoy doing media relations and are good at it get on with it. And reward them accordingly, as the experts they rapidly become.