The 5 Evils of Agency PR: #1 - Churn

This will be a 5-part series of posts that discuss the "Five Evils of Agency PR." ... Specifically, the 5 prevailing reasons (in no particular order) that clients use for firing their PR firm.

#1 Employee Churn.

After investing time and money getting a new agency up to speed, clients find it off-putting when one or more of the key people leaves the Agency.

They need to "start over" with a new team. Momentum is lost. Maybe it works out with a new team, maybe it doesn't. It begs the question, though: "If we need to invest our time and money in evaluating and ramping-up with a new team, we might as well review other agencies."”

Can you blame them?

If you run a PR agency, and this issue resonates, then you might need to think differently about how to run things. You've probably heard the apocryphal Marketing 101 story: "The railroad barons lost the war against the automobile because they failed to realize that they were NOT in the railroad business, they were actually in the TRANSPORTATION business. If they'd realized that early on, they might have had a chance at re-architecting their business."

Here's how the lesson applies, at least at our shop:

SHIFT is not a PR agency. SHIFT is a TALENT MANAGEMENT AGENCY - whose talents just happen to be focused on Public Relations. It makes all the difference.