The 10,000 Question…
Tim has a great post on the multitude of start-ups with $10,000 to spend on a PR agency. OK, I’m one of them. It just seemed like such a nice round number to start with. Somehow it’s crept-up a little bit though… Must fix that…
Tim is right (he is right on most things)… we all want PR pros. But I don’t want $15,000 dollars worth of service. I don’t even know what that is!
I want results. I don’t care what it costs or whether an agency has to under or over service to deliver it. I just want results against the agreed budget. You commit, I commit, we all commit together.
What is more troubling to me as a Valley CMO is:
1) finding a great agency is bloody hard work. They are few and far between. At any billing rate. Few CMOs I know get the value of PR or AR, let alone the value of a good agency… I accept we are part of the problem, but…
2) finding an agency that gets your business and has a real enthusiasm for contributing to the growth of the business – harder still
3) finding an agency that understands that great ideas get funded – near impossible. They are caught in the conundrum or belief that ideas require budget prior to being generated. Bullshit. (and I am talking about real ideas, not those regurgitated from the last pitch)
4) finding a team that can explain why they should get paid more and then associate some kind of outcome with the result – well, if you find them, let me know. The most common justification – “we’ve been over servicing your business for six months now, you need to pay us more” – is nuts. Nuts!
5) finding an agency – the word is a bit of an oxymoron. It implies some kind of powerhouse of ideas and execution – the strength of a team. What you generally end-up funding is one very dedicated individual surrounded by some other folks – generally you aren’t quite sure what they are doing but they all arrive for meetings and scribble madly into notebooks.
What is needed is a new kind of agency. One not built on billable hours and 10k budgets. Maybe one built on the power of ideas to drive a startup’s growth curve? One with the courage and conviction to articulate a value proposition that resonates with the CMO of a start-up and ability to explain what the budget should be.
You see, we live less in the conceptual world of brand and reputation and more in the real world of qualified opportunities, pipeline growth and time to sale.
Until then, 10k sounds like a nice round number to start with. Agencies shouldn’t let it end there. We will pay more. And I am willing to put my money where my mouth is.
Big Changes At Fleishman-Hillard…
Dave Senay is the new President CEO! I worked with Dave for many years and am deeply indebted to John Graham and him for the support and counsel they provided to me over the years. The two of them represent everything any employee or client could wish for out of a leader.
Congrats also to Paul Johnson who is the new Vice Chairman of Worldwide Growth and President of Public Affairs.
This is a long and widely anticipated move by FH – and its the right move for them to make. John Graham remains, in my mind, the greatest agency leader we have seen in the past 60 years – what they have achieved at Fleishman is remarkable.
disclosure:: I was a Fleishman senior VP and partner for many years and Kristen is a partner there today.
Dell Launches Blog
Dell is out of the gate with a corporate blog… Like every corporate blog it is looking for a voice and will probably take time to find one. It’s a little corporatey – but then its a corporate blog. The bloggerati just need to get over every blog coming out the gate reading like a conversation at the local pub and not rehashing the past trials and tribulations of bloggers. It takes time for a corporate blog to find its collective voice.
Perhaps the best thing we could do to welcome a new corporate blog isn’t to critique it (just yet) but rather to participate. Engage them if you are interested. Give it time to settle and grow and nurture it with comments.
PRWeek says they are out to tell a story – if the story is – as it seems to be – “take a look at our really hot boxes” – then I hope they continue down the path of more recent posts which do seem to have more of a narrative.
The fact that they don’t address past issues doesn’t really bother me – I really could care less about the ranting and raving about Dell customer service – I use an Apple and a Sony… 🙂
Anyway – I have a long history with Dell and am a big fan – it’s great to see them taking steps in the right direction with regard to their communication. A company that has direct at its core should be engaging in conversations. The do to the tune of about 3 million calls a day so why not here!
On The Road & Back Again…
Been on the road over the last week visiting partners, customers, more customers and speaking at the PRSA technology conference in New York City. Thanks to Eric over at iPressroom for the invite. Also managed to catch-up with a few of my team that are now ex-Nortel. Was great to see them doing so well.
I’m not sure why I don’t post as much while on the road – no reason other than the frantic pace of running between this airport and that. Here are a couple of posts that I enjoyed along the way…
- The People Formerly Known As The Audience: Right on. Audiences are for people that transmit. For people that choose to engage, we are people as well (think complete humans, not body parts (aka, “eyeballs”), often living in tribes or communities.
- The New Analysts: Nice post from James. It occurred to me that calling “the new analysts” analysts is kind of stupid. Ok, the analyze, but the moniker has such an overhang that it is limiting.
- And, this piece on the power of the recommenders and conversationalists. “But as angry clients increasingly turn to the Internet to settle scores, companies, independent retailers and everyday wrongdoers are learning that consumers can have the last word — and often the last laugh. The Web has turned into a place where shame and humiliation are sometimes the strongest weapons in fighting scams and unfairness.”
On the flight home this all got me to thinking that we are in an age in which a power shift is occurring from specifiers to recommenders. Specifiers speak from a position of authority and exclusivity. Recommenders speak from a position of experience and participation. I picked-up a copy of PC Magazine – it is getting pretty thin. Once the power specifier in the consumer tech space it really is little more than a catalog. If I really want reviews and insight, I head to Cnet, Engadget, Amazon, Gizmodo… I look at what real users are saying and rating. I read the informed opinions of Redmonk and Alex. Then I filter.
(For those looking for my presentation slides, I’ll post them tonight).
Earth To Google PR
Ouch… quite a story from Jon Udell. BTW, InfoWorld’s use of tags is neat…