By Samantha Gonda
When starting a PR agency, often founders come from a successful background in Public Relations. Maybe the founder was dominating at their last role by consistently bringing in big ticket clients and creating industry-leading campaigns. Maybe then they began to think about how wonderful it would be to continue their successful Public Relations career under their own name at their own boutique PR agency. I mean, they were driving business at the last agency, what could be so different at starting your own agency besides creating your own hours and working to build your own name?
Well, it turns out a lot of it is different.
While a successful background in Public Relations is vital to starting a boutique public relations agency, it is not the only key to success. One thing that is often forgotten by public relations agency founders is that a PR firm at its core is its very own business that will need to function as its own business.
Paul Furiga, President and Chief Storyteller of Wordwrite, states that it is vital to “understand from the start that while a PR agency founder may be a genius at PR, they will need the guidance of people who understand business to ensure that bills are paid and a great staff is built to support all of that fantastic client work.” Furiga advises PR agency founders to have a good set of advisors from both within and outside of the profession to learn the ins-and-outs of running a business from people who have already been through it all.
Like many other boutique PR agencies around the world, Furiga utilizes PR Boutiques International’s tight-knit community of boutique PR firms as a group of advisors within the PR industry. PRBI was built around this idea of providing a group of in-like PR agency founders who can help one another stay on top of the many demands of owning a boutique PR agency. This is a community of people who have created their own agencies and seek support from one another from people who have lived through and are living through some of the very same challenges. They are an invaluable resource of information and support for fellow boutique PR agency founders and as an example we’ve consulted the PRBI community and asked them to identify 3 common business mistakes that will kill any PR agency and how to avoid them.
1. Lack of Agency Focus
While large PR agencies will often work in various fields, boutique PR agencies have the unique ability to become masters within a certain industry. This is one of the greatest strengths of a boutique PR agency, to know the absolute ins-and-outs of a certain field and having many relationships with the various experts within said field. But oftentimes, new boutique PR agency founders get caught up in the excitement of it all and try to “be all things to all industries” according to Susan Fall, the Founder and President of Launchit. Fall encourages boutique agency founders to choose an industry where the founder already has the most knowledge and connections. She notes that, “it’s hard turning down potential clients but becoming a true expert in one industry is what made my firm stand out over the rest.”
2. Trying to be Too Many Things
Similar to the first point of sticking to your guns in choosing a field of specialty, new agency founders can often try to take on too many services as ways of creating more business. Thiago Vitale, Founding Partner of Torre, advises agency founders to avoid expanding services too broadly in the beginning. Vitale says that if you choose too many services that you are not an expert at yet, “you’ll have a hard time showing the market what you are good at.” In the beginning, everything you create will be a test of you and your agency’s skills. If you are signing on to too many specialties that you aren’t an expert of, the quality of your work will ultimately be seen as subpar.
Vitale also suggests being upfront with your network and clients. He mentions to not be afraid of saying what an agency might not be able to do as long as you have the network to suggest someone who is an expert within that field. Susan Fell adds that she has collaborated with other members of PRBI in the past to work together and the partnership has made both agencies stronger.
3. Inadequate Financial Management
While agency founders are often experts in Public Relations, more often than not they are not experts in handling the daily tasks of running a business. That’s why Tarunjeet Rattan, Managing Partner of Nucleus PR, identifies that hiring someone who doesn’t shirk away from the financial management should be the first step in starting a PR agency from scratch. Rattan highlights the importance of seeking out a mentor or career coach who can “guide you on your entrepreneurship journey and push you to the next level.” Rattan has identified the PRBI community as an enormous help to her and her business that has served as a “global brain trust that ensured my clients have a global reach and counsel as and when required.”
If you would like to be a part of this outstanding circle of seasoned boutique agency owners from around the world, please visit PR Boutiques International at https://prboutiques.com/about-prbi/membership/