Some people are made for public relations. Ever since their school days, they were the ones who made the links between people. They were the ones who were always in the loop and were always in every crowd. Although they weren’t the star athletes, they knew how to connect with them and become their best friends and confidants.
When you take those qualities and convert them into a career, you get yourself a PR business. Although the scope of people you deal with is slightly more complex, the game is the same. But how do you build a PR business from scratch?
The harsh reality
When you decided to start your PR firm, you were probably super excited about the prospect of pouring your talents into your own business. Then you probably also came to realize that things weren’t as easy as in high school. You started to see that your swag just wasn’t cutting it anymore and your confidence took a dive.
Now you sit with less than stellar clients and you are working yourself to the bone just to make ends meet. The clients that you have aren’t paying you what you are worth, but you don’t have much of a choice, seeing that there aren’t any other clients who want to bite.
On the other hand, there might be clients out there, but you don’t have time to reel them in because you are stuck with the small fish.
You can only improve from here
It’s hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel when you are in this deep. The problem that you are facing is not whether you are capable of landing clients, but rather with the running of a business. You might be excellent at connecting with people, but when you run a PR firm, you need to take the whole business into consideration.
Most people jump right in and burn out because they want to do everything on their own and don’t understand the fundamentals of running a business. For one, your day-to-day tasks will range from accounting to sales, to business planning, to client service.
When you start out, you might need to take up more than just one role and become proficient therein. From there, planning your day and sticking to your plan as far as possible is probably one of the most important things.
Once your business starts to show gradual and persistent growth, then you can start hiring an accountant or a personal assistant. In the beginning, though, you will have to be a jack of all trades.
Know the lay of the land
The PR world is exactly the opposite of the corporate world. In the corporate world, you get told what you are worth, and you get told what is expected of you. Expert UK Writers and Aussie writers, who have spent time in this field know exactly what they get paid to do.
There are no grey waters or guessing what you should be paid. In the PR world, you are the one who has to convince a potential client what you are worth. To do this, you need to tell them what you will provide them with in terms of service.
Most PR firm newbies don’t have a clue what the going rates of service are and end up throwing random ballpark figures at their clients. Very seldom will you hit the mark with this strategy and you might put a client off because your prices are ludicrous.
This is better than a client taking your offer and you realize that you need to do way more than what you bargained for. The best thing to do is to stock up on industry literature and webinars and attend other networking events.
You could also see what your competitors are charging and adjust your prices accordingly, but the best advice always comes from someone who was in your shoes. They will be able to guide you and show you through their experience what worked and what didn’t.
Building your contacts for success
Before you want to reel in the big fish, you need to know that you are going to need the help of a couple of people. Your whole business is about getting the word out for your clients and making sure that their brand is recognized by the masses.
You want to connect people to services and vice versa. You might have the right people in mind for the job, but before you can effectively do that for someone else, you need to do the same thing for yourself.
The main people you want in your team for yourself is a professional graphic designer and expert writers. The writers could be from a dissertation service, digital agency writer or anybody for that matter. The idea is to have writers who can write what is desired.
Your business is there to make money and having a proper accountant on your side to work with your money grants you some peace of mind. But the most important person you want on your team is a mentor. It is easy to get stuff wrong in the PR business, but a mentor will be able to tell you how to fix it up again.
Standing out from the crowd
When you look at the major brands of the world, you know that there is an amazing PR team that helped that company get there. You could land the next Adidas or Google or whatever brand you feel to represent, but you need to be able to beat the competition.
The best way to do this is to show the clients how you are different from the rest. You need to establish how your service is unique to the other thousands of PR firms and make sure you communicate that uniqueness well. For that, you need to understand your clients in a best possible manner.
People are constantly on the lookout for something new and fresh. With all the changes in this modern world of ours, you might just have what they are looking for.
The bottom line
If you thought that you were getting into a job that you were made to do, you might be right. But nothing in this life is as easy as it might seem. If you persist and hold on to your dream, though, you will make a success.
You are going to go through some troubled waters, but if you have a team of people who you believe in, you’ll be able to achieve your goals. The key is to plan carefully and not give up at the first sign of difficulty.
