PR professional - Business development manager, medium-sized law firm
Q13: We are about to start recruiting a senior PR professional to our firm and wondered how other firms have found their incumbent has added value to the strategic management of a professional services firm? Has this been possible to measure?
RESPONSES
9 July - Director, Corporate Bank
My recommendation would be to NOT recruit a senior PR professional. This person will get stale quickly, be too inward looking with ideas based on past experience and not necessarily keeping up with market sentiment
On top of this I think it is very difficult to hire the right person and get it right first time, they are often believers of their own self publicity. This could prove to be expensive - recruitment cost, salary, additional hires that they will want to do, outsourcing to specialist agencies as required.
I would recommend you undertake an in house exercise with a cross section of staff to understand what values your firm has, what market areas you wish to be in with potential income or market share guesstimates and how you can promote these by embedding the right behaviours throughout the firm. Additionally I would recommend some informal lunches or dinners to gain client feedback on the hot buttons of their needs. Perhaps also include some potential clients in this from your chosen target markets.
Lastly, when this has been achieved, hold a beauty parade of quality PR firms and appoint 1 or 2 for specific initiatives. They will have fresh ideas and up to date knowledge of what works and does not. You can do this on a pay and go basis without taking on a highly paid PR person in house. It is imperative they are well briefed on the outcomes of your in house sessions.
9 July - Principal, Professional Services Consulting Firm
In my experience, larger professional firms (£20+m fees) are more likely to have a Director/Head of PR, as distinct from the Head of Marketing. Usually, this is not a board level appointment and any influence they may have on strategic matters is mainly indirect. However, you get what you pay for, so the quality of the individual is down to you and the importance you place on the role: a high calibre individual will have good ideas and vision, and demand to be heard. Someone less able may do a good tactical job but risks getting mired in delivery of the day-to-day stuff, without developing a true agenda of messages and perception. The real question for you as a firm is "what do you want, and what do you want it for?" If you are clear and united on this you have a chance of getting the right person and allowing him/her to do the job without undue interference or distraction.
I don't know what metrics are used, but this would depend on the strategy adopted: it could involve client and market awareness surveys, but will inevitably be fairly subjective.
9 July - Director - Head of Leeds Office, Top 10 Property Firm
Here in the Leeds, Birmingham and Manchester offices of our firm we had previously had our PR handled externally. We took the decision in early 2007 to bring this 'in house' with the appointment of an experienced PR Manager that divides her time between the three offices. Since employing PR in house - the number of press clippings we have achieved has grown considerably, we also think that this has lifted our profile within our respective marketplaces and lead to opportunities for speaking on local media. In short an in house PR manager can devote more time to promoting the business and less time 'account handling'. An in house PR manager is more likely to really understand the main drivers of the business, as opposed to an external offering, that might act for a wide range of companies all with different goals.
9 July - MP, Top 25 Accountant
We have found some resistance to the cost as achievements are virtually impossible to measure but a good number of partners believe that PR is vital to the firm. Advice on implementation of strategy is probably greatest input.
9 July - MP, Top 10 Property Firm
I think it would be hard to say our PR Executive has added to the strategic management of the firm. But I can say with absolute certainty that she has done a much better job for us than our previous external PR agency, and at a much lesser cost. As part of the business she is better able to understand the different service lines and is much closer to spotting PR opportunities than an outside agency. We have more and better PR exposure as a result and that is good for the firm.
15 July - Partner, Management Consultancy
It is important, before you start the recruitment process, to clarify what your objectives are for PR. It is important to be clear on the details of what you want your "Senior PR Professional" to do and achieve on behalf of your firm.
I would suggest that part of the recruitment interview (possibly a case study and/or exercise and/or presentation) could be on Planning a PR Strategy for the Firm for the short, medium and long term which includes objectives, targets, measures, monitoring and remedial action which might take place. I also suggest that in the recruitment process you ask the questions of the candidates themselves:
- What do they perceive as their objectives
- How do they measure the results of their activities
- What results would they expect and what timescale would they expect them in?
There are a number of ways of measuring results such as column inches; number of articles placed; number of times a name is mentioned; number of times profiles are achieved; with weightings of value, according to the influence of the journals.
There needs to be an objective measure of the extent to which PR is raising the profile of the firm and ultimately whether it contributes to fee income and profitability of the firm. For example, I am an Interim Director Of Business Development and when asked about my role, my measure of my contribution to a firm is threefold.
- Increase the fee income
- Increase the profitability
- Increase the profile of the firm.
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