Skate Simple

Stick Wave

When it Comes to Picking Clients: Stick With What You Know

One of the trials and tribulations of being a public relations practitioner is building and maintaining a client base. Everybody who enters the field on their own has to roll that proverbial boulder up the hill; however, how you answer the challenge of finding and maintaining client relationships will have a long-lasting impact on your business.

It's during the launch phase that key decisions are made that will affect your practice indefinitely. Issues such as what you'll charge, what kind of clients you'll focus on, how you'll differentiate your practice and other key issues are big decisions and ones not to be taken lightly. However, rather than giving these decisions the proper analysis they deserve, many just starting out assume they're too time consuming and are things that can be handled later rather than in the beginning.

In any business, even one where the barrier to entry is theoretically low like PR, the most successful in the bunch have clear differentiation points. Some try to win customers by saying they're the biggest, some emphasize service, etc. However, in most any business sector you can think of, at the end of the day, most people are fighting for slices of the same overall pie and doing relatively little to differentiate themselves. The biggest public relations agencies can get away with this more than the small, especially since larger agencies will almost certainly have a few corporate clients that bring in five and six-figure annual fees. However, for smaller practitioners, trying to promote yourself to every single company that could potentially be a client will be a time-consuming endeavor that will likely have mixed results.

I've been amazed over the years at the number of PR pros that will basically just say “pick me!” to every request for a public relations practitioner, regardless of whether the prospective clients they're pitching fit into any pattern whatsoever. One of the things that I pride myself on is knowing my clients' business very well and being able to go in and talk about specific issues and challenges and how best to meet them. In my mind, if you're out there trying to be everything to everybody, there's no way you can have a level of specific knowledge in any particular industry that's sufficient to establish yourself as a true, trusted resource.

Rather than trying to be everything to everybody, the best strategy is to clearly differentiate yourself in a few key areas and try to stick to them. Within those areas, you can further focus your marketing efforts to put yourself in front of key audiences that have potential clients. One area that can be a potential goldmine is professional associations; however, don't go into them trying to find clients right away. Instead, a better strategy is to actually get involved in the association, take time to learn key members and the organization's structure and, best of all, take time if possible to volunteer. Volunteering on an association committee is a great way to not only get your name out there as a PR professional who serves that industry, but will also help build the relationships that are so vital when it comes to getting recommendations when a company's seeking public relations counsel.

Following this strategy, make everything you do align with the industries you seek clients from, whether that be making the content of your blog postings relevant or deciding how to best contribute to social-networking platforms. All these activities will ideally get you in front of people who will be potential customers; ideally, your participation will soon launch a wave of visits to your Web site, or better yet, direct requests for more information from potential clients. Don't expect a torrent immediately, however, as it takes time to build up visibility and gain recognition as a trusted service provider.

Once you've begun to establish yourself as a specialist in certain industries, do everything you can to let others know about your relevant experience and your body of work. That can consist of articles in trade publications or on well-read blogs, as well as participation in awards competitions sponsored by industry associations. Almost all marketing-oriented industry associations have an awards competition containing categories for examples of best practices across a variety of key areas and doing well in these is certainly a feather in one's cap.

Finally, don't shy away from picking industries that seem to be dominated by major players, as long as you know the industry. Most any large industry sector has lots of smaller, independent companies that would be good potential clients for even a small PR shop. Add to that the fact that corporations also often spread their total public relations pie among several agencies, including small, independent ones, and it's easy to quickly see there are many available opportunities. In all likelihood, following these strategies will allow any proven PR practitioner to start getting their piece of the pie.

About the Author

Cyrus is president of Astoria Communications, a New York City-based PR consultancy serving clients in financial/professional services, technology and real estate. His clients include law firms, legal organizations, technology companies and several non-profit organizations. Before opening his PR consultancy in 2004, Afzali worked at several New York agencies as an editor and as a writer at several media outlets, ranging from small, daily newspapers to CNN Financial News.

You may also find articles by Cyrus at the TalentZoo.com website under Very Public Relations.

wave dashing 1p

This entry was posted on Sunday, January 31st, 2010 at 8:22 pm and is filed under Skateboards-Complete. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.