How to Succeed in a PR Agency

Real Talk to Grow Your Career & Become Indispensable

Kristin Johnson, Shalon Roth

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429785542
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Public Relations
• Index: Business

Learning how to be successful in a public relations (PR) agency is a stressful on-the-job, sink-or-swim, immersive experience. While other texts teach PR theory and practice, no other book guides early to mid-career PR professionals through the day-to-day life of working in an agency and the skills required to excel and build a career.

This text demystifies the PR agency experience with foundational information to simplify and clarify agency life. Authors Kristin Johnson and Shalon Roth, who each grew successful careers in PR agencies, share secrets that no one will teach in a class or a seminar. This is real talk about real life in an agency – punctuated by anecdotes from leaders in the industry. This is a must-read for communications students and PR professionals looking to grow their career and become indispensable to teams and clients.

Part I

Why Indispensable?

1  About This Book

Everything you do or say is public relations.

(Unknown)

We are agency pros based out of New York (Kristin) and London (Shalon). (Hi there!) We met in a public relations (PR) agency, led several global teams together at two different agencies for multiple clients, and pretty much have seen it all.

We value service, both to clients and to teams. In working together, clients always came first. However, as managers, we were constantly finding opportunities to teach after years of growing in our own careers. We believe that the uplifting guidance of a generous mentor was much more beneficial to us than floundering on our own, which we did plenty of early on. Agency work is greatly team based, so it’s important to understand not only PR but the secrets that make successful agencies tick. Unfortunately, many of those secrets are revealed only after years of experience – until now.

In this book, we draw on our own personal experiences rising in our careers and as agency leaders to explain what it takes to thrive as an individual, as a team member, and as a client partner in a PR agency.

2  Who Is This Book For?

If I was down to my last dollar, I would spend it on public relations.

(Bill Gates)

If you have fewer than 10 years of experience in a public relations (PR) agency, this book provides practical advice and shortcuts to success. Why learn all the lessons the hard way, right? This book is also a must-read for anyone entertaining the idea of going into the industry from college or another career, so you know what you’re in for.

PR is all about the team, and the work the team produces is not always visible, but its impact can change the world. While personal acclaim is in short supply in PR, you’ll get a solid adrenaline fix since a busy PR agency always delivers an exhilarating work environment. Every day there is an opportunity to work on new challenges spanning multiple and often complex issues. PR is a fast-paced industry, and from the moment you wake up until the moment your head hits the pillow, it’s go time.

Adrenaline aside, PR agencies are complex and often peculiar organizations to navigate. Although your job satisfaction can be greatly shaped by co-workers and client relationships, the office environment, and the impact of your projects, you’re not going to get far on that ladder until you truly understand what it takes to be indispensable. Recognizing that billable hours are currency, flawless execution is expected, and new business is a mandatory extracurricular activity is only scratching the surface of what you need to know. If you’re interested in a successful career in PR, why waste time figuring it out yourself, when you can just turn the page?

3  What’s in It for You?

Either write something worth reading or do something worth writing.

(Benjamin Franklin)

There are great books on public relations (PR) theory, and industry rocking case studies. There are also hundreds of books that focus on management consulting, principles of outstanding client service, and leadership philosophy. Much of what’s out there is instructive, best practice material that you should learn and know. However, until now there has been no book that synthesizes theory and practical advice of all of the subjects above to demystify the unique environment, culture, and skills necessary to be successful in a PR agency.

PR can be an enthralling or a frustrating career experience depending on how you juggle and perceive the many facets required to be a success. In an agency, patience, diplomacy, endurance, and imagination underpin successful campaign ideas and relationships with clients and colleagues. The difference between those who succeed in an agency environment and those who throw in the towel is often simply one of understanding the business structure, which is unique to PR agencies.

This book is going to help demystify why things are the way they are in PR agencies. If you understand the system from the get-go, then you can work it to your advantage to succeed faster. It wasn’t just serendipity that we, the authors, had leadership positions in our twenties while leading major accounts and big teams – we figured out how to make ourselves indispensable.

In addition to practical advice about the agency system, you’ve also signed up for a dose of real talk and personal brand coaching. The intersection between what you say, what you do, and how you’re perceived will dictate whether you’re revered as indispensable in a PR agency or any other job.

No matter your title or billing rate, if you ever think what you’re being asked to do is “busywork” or below you, then you already have the wrong attitude to succeed. Every task is on someone’s plate for a reason, and who gets what generally comes down to aptitude, competence, years of expertise, enthusiasm, capacity, and which mix of billing rates is going to turn a profit. This book is going to teach you how to build a brand and maneuver the system so you get to do more of what you want, sooner, and become a go-to for clients and colleagues in the process.

Part II

Agency Basics

Whether you are new to a PR agency or think you know it all, this part will help deepen your understanding of agency structures and dynamics.

PR agencies seem straightforward. Teams of people win new business pitches to bring in client work that ranges from awareness campaigns to brand communications to corporate reputation management and everything in between. Account teams are then formed to work for clients who are billed on a retainer basis or hourly for work completed. At the most basic level, that’s all true. However, if you look closer, agencies are structured to serve many masters – both inside and outside – resulting in a matrixed organization that can complicate client service, best practices, team dynamics, staffing, and finances.

In this part, we will:

• unpack agency structures, roles, and how teams are formed;

• clarify new business processes;

• present a comprehensive overview of finance in a PR agency;

• explain writing essentials that underpin exemplary client service, including guidance to avoid ‘rookie’ mistakes (and it’s not just newbies making these mistakes!).

4 Architecture of Agency Life

Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist.

(Pablo Picasso)

Agency Ecosystem

What agency is right for you? To get you closer to that answer, you really have to understand how agencies are organized, and how that organization may influence your experience. In the era of globalization, you may be surprised to learn that both privately held and publicly traded agencies are often brands owned by global marketing communications holding companies. DJE Holdings, a private company, owns global agency Edelman, Zeno Group, and others, for example. It’s even more common – almost ubiquitous – for public companies to follow this model (see Table 4.1). Publicly traded WPP plc (NASDAQ and London: WPP), OmnicomGroup (NYSE: OMC), Publicis Groupe (EPA: PUB), Interpublic Group (NYSE: IPG), or Havas Group (EPA: HAV) all have multiple agency brands under their umbrellas.

The decision to work for a privately held or publicly traded agency will make little difference in your day-to-day work. However, publicly traded companies have stricter processes for financial planning, tracking, and reporting, given legal accountability requirements. This may affect hiring, promotions, and compensation. The effects of stricter financial processes are felt most acutely at the senior levels of the agency, where financial management, oversight, and ultimate accountability rests.

Agency Structure: Hierarchy versus Flat

Most public relations (PR) agencies are structured similarly whether they subscribe to a hierarchy of job titles or prefer a “flat” organization, where there are no titles but a basic hierarchy still exists. A flat structure is often thought to instill a greater sense of ownership and merit-based opportunity unfettered by corporate role expectations. Although this may all sound very liberating, let’s not delude ourselves. Employees and clients alike use hourly billing rates, which escalate with experience, as proxies for titles. See Figure 4.1 for an example of roles in a flat organization and titled hierarchy. It is more common for agencies to use a titled hierarchy structure.

Table 4.1 Marketing Communication Holding Company Heavyweights

Note: Most recent figures available at the time the book was written

Figure 4.1 Agency Structure: Flat Organization (left); Titled Hierarchy (right)

Regardless of title, people will do great work, take responsibility for their deliverables, and seek opportunities to stretch their skills if they feel supported. For example, people with a couple of years of experience – junior staffers – are often asked to conduct media outreach around a press release to secure articles about a client’s recent news announcement or product launch. Junior staff must be taught what reporters want and how to pitch effectively, but they may be too shy or proud to ask for support when it’s not proactively offered. As you may already know, it’s really difficult to persuade overwhelmed reporters to write about your news even if you have existing relationships with them or are skilled at pitching, so imagine how scary it is if you don’t know what you’re doing! No matter your place in a flat structure or hierarchy, it will be challenging to be successful if you’re not asking for support when you need it or offering enough of it when results are at stake.

Both titled hierarchies and flat organizations have benefits and pitfalls. Titled hierarchies may feel confining, but they provide clarity in roles, power dynamics, and progression. Flat organizations can make you feel like the sky’s the limit; however, that may be daunting if your trajectory is unclear. Power dynamics and promotions can be mysterious in flat structures, and junior staff may be left with unrealistic expectations of what their daily workload should entail. The lack of clarity can often lead to amorphous roles at all levels, where new responsibilities are dressed up as skill-stretching opportunities instead of being treated properly as a promotion.

Here’s the thing – each agency type has its pros and cons so you just need to pick the structure that fits best with how you work and with what you value (see Table 4.2).

Table 4.2 Apples and Oranges: Hierarchy versus Flat Agency Structures

Account Team Structure

For the newbies, let’s take a minute to review how teams are structured. Whether you’re working in a hierarchy or a flat organization, or whether your PR agency brand is large or small, public or private, all agencies organize in teams with varied levels of experience and expertise. Each team is dedicated to one client. It’s possible – and very likely – that you will work for multiple clients, on multiple teams, and will need to become adept at juggling...