The best thing about PR are the dream clients. The top-rated business school with cutting-edge research; the globe-trotting entertainment attorney in the center of major international deals with a classic motorcycle collection; the engineering professor who can explain the Internet of Things with infectious enthusiasm.
The worst thing about PR are the nightmare clients. The consumer product manager who fires you then tries to hire you again and again; a client who changes their business model, asks you to hold off contacting reporters, then demands to know why there’s no media coverage – in the first month; and the manufacturer with five different websites who brags about the “world’s most expensive” product that is a photo-shopped picture.
Amy Goldsmith, a PR professional based in Los Angeles with international clients who also owns a gourmet food company, has worked at major agencies before starting her own shop. “I had a client once who owned an online floral company,” Goldsmith says. “We had been working together briefly. I had done some great work and obtained some solid media mentions. During this time He was getting involved in a philanthropy focused on global environmental issues. There was going to be a celebration/parade and conference in his city. He wanted me to handle the PR and he had only one criteria for a successful PR campaign around this event: he needed to make the cover --- the cover!! of TIME Magazine.”
At this point, Goldsmith attempted to be realistic. “I graciously tried to manage expectations. He wouldn't hear of it. Needless to say I declined that campaign and we stopped working together. He believed his own PR. His ego was out of control.”
Bob Gold, who owns an agency in Redondo Beach,
Two more examples Gold adds include “The case of the company scheduling a major online event with media and analyst and postposing it 6 times in 3 months. Then deciding at the last minute to proceed. We are racking up late calls to get folks lined up.” And a final indignity Gold experienced was “the client who hired us to raise their profile and prestige in a major industry and we discovered that the CEO had been negotiating secretly for 12 months prior with the D.A. in a fraud case. He’s now serving jail time.”
The Nightmare Clients from Hell seem to share one or more of the following traits:
1) EGO. Delusions of Grandeur that by hiring a PR firm and paying money they will immediately get on the Today Show and on the front page of the New York Times regardless of their accomplishments.
2) IMPATIENCE. They demand instant gratification and want results immediately even if they are not prepared with the product, story or strategy.
3) UNINFORMED. They don't understand PR, and/or confuse it with advertising. A former client demanded I tell the media they wanted a story to run, on a certain date. If we weren’t competent enough to obtain coverage, this client asked me for phone numbers of journalists we contacted so he could close the deal. Other clients asked reporters to run stories by them for edits before anything gets printed.
4) BULLYING. Yelling at PR professionals, while reminding them you’ve paid their retainer last month, rarely works.
5) DISORGANIZED. Changing stories, launch dates, adding new websites, posting photo-shopped images, inserting new business plans, etc. is a recipe for disaster. “Why did you call the media and tell them that? We changed our model last night, you should have known that.”
There's a wonderful graphic at the Everything PR website about impossible clients. "Every firm has that one client – the one who monopolizes your time, frustrates the entire staff, and makes unreasonable demands.”
Bob Gold lists four major “Don’ts” that define nightmare clients. If you want to fail, do not:
- Get back to your PR person in a timely manner, we are here to help you
- Tell a PR person I just hired you, where’s my story on the front page of the Wall Street Journal?
- Put out a major announcement and then not be available for follow-up interviews
- Say “trust me,” that’s a sure sign you are lying.
One other characteristic of bad clients is lack of judgement. The SoCal PR Blog addresses this problem. “Insisting the agency devote as much resources to irrelevant projects as those that actually will get press. So you have the perpetual motion machine that also brings Elvis Presley to life and your PR person is chomping at the bit to pitch it to Oprah, but you are more interested in getting the word out your new sub-level assistant to the assistant vice president who you just hired.
Yes, that stunning announcement will surely please the ego of the parties involved (and even the Web site that prints any announcement no matter how pointless), it needs to take a back seat to the big picture. However, that doesn’t always happen. Many people are too close to the subject and don’t understand that just because YOU are interested in something doesn’t mean media people will be.”
The stories above are all true, and G-rated. We didn't mention the woman who wishes to remain anonymous that was presented with a sex toy (gift wrapped) by a client at the end of the dinner with other clients present, or the client who mailed photos of adult bedrooms with bondage themed artwork. Halloween is coming up in a few days. Many PR pros may take a pass this year. No need to dress up and go outside to be scared. Nightmare clients, even those in the distant past, continue to haunt us.
