Relationships between clients and PR agencies get stressed, build misunderstandings, fail to communicate and fall apart. Then you set out on the expensive process of replacing one relationship with another.
I can help you save time and money in two ways, by sorting out the relationship with your current supplier or by managing the process of finding a new PR agency. Finding a new PR agency takes time, from writing the brief to spending time briefing every potential partner to listening to their presentations to assessing the candidates and negotiating the contract. I can run as much - or as little - of that list as you want and ideally, help you avoid it almost completely.
The most inexpensive option is always to fix the relationship with the PR agency you've got. Changing agency potentially causes a six month lag in your communications delivery. Six months - from completing the notice period with the previous agency, selecting a new agency, getting them on board and getting them to understand your products, your marketing strategy, your brand. The quickest time to coverage for a client for me was less than a week. Stuff can happen faster, throwing money at something always helps, but nothing really replaces proper knowledge and understanding of an organisation which takes time.
As an independent with experience in agency and in house, I can listen to both sides telling me what was agreed, expected, delivered or not delivered, and help both agency and client decide whether they want to work together or not. Sometimes it is the simplest things that make the most difference, such as a five point email once a week outlining the results that the PR agency has got from the work they have done for the client, so that there is transparency, the client can see what happens to those hours they bought. Sometimes, the agency has truly messed the client around - changing the team one too many times, failing to live up to repeated promises, bulking up the direct costs unnecessarily, taking on a client that is inappropriate for some reason, like size or sector or activity requirement.
Cut short the time spent obsessing about how wrong it is - and get my professional opinion of how good or bad it is from both points of view. Peace and reconciliation for professional organisations.
