The question prospective clients and employers need to ask is: how do you earn coverage when you don’t have a relationship with a journalist?
“Do you have the relationships to get us into top-tier publications like The Wall Street Journal and the Financial Times?”
That’s the question one prospective customer – a founding executive at a startup – asked me a while back. We were 30 minutes into a new business call, a referral from a former client, and getting to know each other.
That question isn’t unusual, but it always makes me cringe.
Sure, relationships are important in public relations (PR), just like in any other business. It is possible for PR pros to build relationships with reporters, journalists and influencers. However, the idea that a relationship alone is how a PR person can phone up their bestie at the WSJ in the morning and have your name on the news that afternoon is a fairy tale.
And that’s how it ought to be, too!
We don’t want a media where reporters take stories solely on that basis. Instead, we want reporters, or should want reporters, to be discerning, healthily skeptical and interested in stories based on merit. After all, it’s called earned media for a reason.
To be clear, a good relationship can help get a story idea considered. There are reporters who will open an email pitch if you’ve proven to be a historically reliable source. However, while there are always exceptions and corner cases, that’s generally the extent of it.
Yet even when a relationship does exist, these are asymmetric at best. A good reporter will take a good story idea from anyone. That’s the key! A good story idea is the key.
So, the question prospective clients – and even prospective employers need to ask of candidates – is this one: How do you go about earning coverage when you don’t have a relationship?
The answer to that question offers real insight into a person’s ability, or an agency’s ability, to execute. You’ll have a better sense of their ability to identify story angles and conceptually match those to current news trends.
It’s also a good question for consultants, agencies and job seekers to be asked.
Why?
Because the client or employer that’s myopically focused on relationships is demonstrating a worldview that will probably have to change to be successful. Therefore, achieving their objectives is going to require double the effort. Price your services accordingly.
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