PR Protocol

I wanted to talk a bit today about PR protocol. I am finding, more and more, that many publicists these days hit the ground running simply to obtain clients – with no real plan or standard for quality control. The main goal is money and growth, leaving protocol policies on the back burner.

Well, this is a bad idea. There are many, many reasons why you need to have protocols set up and signed for when you go to contract with any client.  Levels of conversation needs vs. actual needs should be defined in a protocol or Terms of Service statement.

I find many PR people are grabbing the client, going to contract, and figuring out the big things later.  While this may work for a while, it will not work for long. My advice to anyone aspiring to be a publicist is to obtain an attorney-approved protocol defined contract, this way you kill two birds with one stone.

Protocols make it easier for you to define goals and expectations to clients and it helps keep clients in-line when things are not moving fast enough for them or they request work outside of the contract.

If you hold a PRSA account, and you should when starting off in the PR field, check out this B2B video: http://www.prsa.org/Learning/Calendar/playback/5962/Best_Practices_for_B2B_Public_Relations  It helps define Best Practices and protocols.

Until tomorrow,

Coco the CEO