Account Misrepresentation - Do You Know Who’s Speaking on Your Behalf?

The public relations (PR) team bounds through the door and into the meeting with the cool confidence of seasoned pros. They are smart, prepared, engaging…their presentation ends, the lights go up, and you know—you just know—that it’s a good fit.

Over the course of the first month, the PR team calls your team into a series of strategy sessions to synchronize objectives, messages, and tactics. It’s looking good, you're making important strides, laying the groundwork, and building rapport.

What you don’t see—what the agency keeps safely from view—are the junior staffers assigned to your account and who will be handling day-to-day account activities. While you “strategize” with your agency counterparts, the minions are being mobilized behind the scenes to man the phones and dispatch the e-mails.

The senior PR executive who knows your industry cold, with whom you’ve bonded over shared war stories, might not be the one speaking to the news editor at Business Week or the features editor at Forbes. Imagine you’ve engaged an attorney to represent you. You’ve spent months preparing your case. You’re confident that you’re in capable hands. And the first day of the trial you find a paralegal has been assigned to make your opening argument.

If you are going to entrust your reputation to a third party, you have every right to know who will be assigned to handle day-to-day activities on your behalf. In fact, it’s essential that you know who will be acting as your proxy with editors and analysts. Once you’re introduced to the team, you need to ascertain who will be charged with media relations…and it is then imperative that you find out the following:

• How competently and fluidly can your account reps communicate? Speak on the phone and draw them out, ask questions…make sure they are fully capable of communicating without the aid of a script or support materials. Also, ask to see their written communications—particularly the story ideas and pitches they e-mail to editors. You’d be surprised how little editorial oversight is exercised by senior account execs over their junior charges. It hardly needs to be said that a poorly written e-mail or one that is off-point reflects poorly on your company.

• Does he or she know your market space? It’s critical that your PR rep have a deep understanding of your business niche, your technology, and your unique value proposition. Too many account reps act as glorified telemarketers; once off-script they are lost. As is often the case, an initial pitch will meet resistance; the more informed and nimble the account person, the better able he or she is in improvising a pitch that strikes a chord with the editor at the other end of the line.

• Most agencies will ensure that the account rep who secured a media interview is on the phone during the interview to make introductions, keep the conversation on track, interject when necessary, and guarantee that all related editorial requests (for photos, support documentation, etc.) are followed up. You certainly want to know going in that the account rep running interference is poised and prepared.

Insist that your agency take you behind the curtain and introduce you to the entire cast responsible for the care and delivery of your message…the right message in the wrong hands and the show’s over.