How to be a good client in PR

I prefer not to add up the number of client/agency meetings I’ve been part of over my career in PR, suffice to say – it’s a lot – and sitting on both sides of the table too. Meetings are that odd moment in time that shine a spotlight on a relationship and partnership. Most are good, the best ones are great and leave you motivated and energised, and a few are genuinely horrific and stay with you for a very long time. And it’s those horrific ones you rarely see coming either. It could be the culmination of stuff bubbling that the client is unhappy about, poor preparation on both sides, or that everyone forgot the basic rule of PR - i.e. under-promise and over-deliver. But more often than not, in my experience, it’s unrealistic expectations from the client and a lack of understanding and empathy on what makes a great agency/client relationship.

We hear and read a lot about what makes outstanding agencies, but I struggle to recall the last time I read anything about what makes a good client. Although I have been in-house for nearly ten years, the majority of my career has still been agency side. I like to think that agency foundation and grounding in PR - and frankly hard graft at the sharp end – means I know what it takes on both sides to make it work. I’ve been that AD in an agency who didn’t prepare for a client meeting and got fired by the client as a result, hoping that the relationship would see us through. I’ve seen agency teams beaten into submission by an over-controlling, demanding, and aggressive client so that no matter how good they were, they could never deliver their best work under such conditions - and I've resigned the client as a result of it. And I’ve been the client who didn’t walk into an agency meeting prepared and ready to share, motivate and inspire the agency team for the quarter and year ahead. It’s easy to get into bad habits on both sides, but there are a few things I like to remember and remind my team of in how we should manage our partnerships with agencies.

Be clear – None of us are mind-readers, so be clear on objectives and set expectations on what it is you are asking for. Write a brief, discuss the brief, be prepared to answer the questions from your agency that challenge the ‘why’ to what you’re asking. Never (ever, ever ever) say ‘we’d like a big idea’ or ‘we want you to be more creative’ – meaningless subjective statements with no clarity or context to what the problem is you’re trying to fix, nor what you’re explicitly asking the agency to do.

Be respectful – Respect every member of your agency team, regardless of their level or experience, and respect their time equally. Be realistic about what can be achieved and by when. Don’t ask for things last minute that have sat in your email for a week or more and could have been briefed in a week ago. Be realistic on turnaround times and what it takes to get work done. Understand your agency’s existing client commitments, ask them what else they are working on, what new business pitches they have going on, and be interested to hear what else they are doing – this is their greatest strength in what they bring to the partnership and the work they do. (Side note – I remain outraged to this day when a former colleague told me how she wouldn’t allow her agency team to talk about work they do for other clients or use them as an ‘excuse’ not to ‘do work for her’.)

Be efficient – There is nothing that frustrates me more than over-engineering a process/piece of content/campaign plan or pointless reporting that no-one ever reads. While I always strive for the best, sometimes ‘good enough is good enough’ - a phrase I know my team is bored of hearing me say. When budgets are finite, time is precious, and the world moves fast, then prioritise the work that matters and has value to what you’re trying to achieve – and get the job done. Oh, and don’t meddle when you don’t need to!

Be human – This is just a job, we all have friends, family, and lives that matter more. Respect time off, childcare commitments, and other things we’re all faced with outside work that may impact how people on the team feel. PR is a tough gig with long hours and plenty of stress. If you’re asking your agency team to do more and go the extra mile for you, you better have the relationship in place which means they will happily do so.

Be brave – No one likes that client who says ‘no we can’t do it like that, because…..’. You’ve hired an agency not just to help you do the work, but to prod, poke and challenge on what you do, and how and why you do it, and ultimately make it better! Expect to be challenged by your agency team and welcome it with open arms. Your agency is the critical voice that can help you think and do things differently.

I’ve written this post following a week that included a quarterly business review (QBR) with one of our agency partners Zeno Group. As well as the usual looking back/forward part of a QBR a big part of the discussion and questioning of the team from me is ‘how did we do' – is the agency getting the time/content/insight that they need from us; are we being fair; are we being reasonable…..etc. etc. And if the answer is ‘no’ to any one of those questions, then we dig in as to the ‘why,’ and it’s my job, as global client lead, to make sure I fix it – and I won’t settle until I have.

While results of course matter, none of us are remembered solely for the great work we do. Instead, we are remembered for how we did it, and most importantly, how we made people feel. You can have the best agency in the world, but if as client lead you don't motivate and inspire them to achieve their best, then it will fail before it even starts. Summing up my advice would be simply this:

Be nice. Say please and thank you. Recognise and celebrate successes together.