I, personally, have been struggling with how to label my evolving role in the marketing and communications process. People ask me, “What do you do?” and I reply, “I’m in public relations.” What image does that conjure up? If you are old school (like me) you think of the characters from Mad Men, schmoozing reporters over cocktails and trying to get stories printed about your clients. Although that perception is antiquated, I know it’s still out there.

Others who have worked with PR people that our job has to do with helping our clients refine their market message, package it, and get the word out to people who need to hear it. It used to be that our primary job wasn’t really public relations, but rather media relations. Sure, the clients needed help refining their story, identifying what might be newsworthy, and then creating materials like press releases to tell the story, but if I wasn’t working the phone and pumping the story with reporters and the trade editors I clearly wasn’t doing my job. Clients wanted press coverage, period, and that meant getting in front of the media influencers.

These days, the “public” is back in public relations. Sure a lot of my job still consists of a calling on editors and dealing with the media to promote client news, but now that the Web serves as a self-service news bureau, so it’s equally important to format brand messages to reach consumers and target customers directly. I spend more of my time feeding blogs and developing SEO strategies than I do pitching editors.

So how does this all translate into the latest definitions of “public relations” as refined by the PRSA? Here are the three definitions that are currently up for consideration:

Definition No. 1:

Public relations is the management function of researching, engaging, communicating, and collaborating with stakeholders in an ethical manner to build mutually beneficial relationships and achieve results.

Definition No. 2:

Public relations is a strategic communication process that develops and maintains mutually beneficial relationships between organizations and their key publics.

Definition No. 3:

Public relations is the engagement between organizations and individuals to achieve mutual understanding and realize strategic goals.

Like Reich, I am not really crazy about any of these definitions. The problem with opening these types of initiatives to public vote is you try to create by committee, and the end result is usually a compromise at best and not a definitive statement of purpose or intent. My issues with these definitions is they are too broad, and tend to have buzzwords and catchphrases which are rapidly becoming meaningless. The word “stakeholders” is overused and is starting to lose its core meaning. I also am not sure I understand how to interpret “key publics” or “strategic goals.”

Reich notes that PR pundit Jack O’Dwyer commented that none of these definitions don’t take into account vertical specialties, such as health care, technology PR, and the like. I agree, and I also note that these definitions fail to capture the broader role of today’s PR professional. These days I find myself doing customer relations, SEO consulting, market research, and general marketing support as well as what could be considered traditional PR work.

Perhaps the greatest challenge we all face is that the communications market is changing rapidly, and with it our role in that market. The  rules and the tools have changed. I recently cleaned out my office and I found boxes of dusty print labels for press release mailings. It dawned on me that I hadn’t done a press release mailing in over a decade and would probably never have to do one again. And although I continue to work with editors and analysts, I also know that reaching customers directly is now even more important than influencing the influencers. My role continues to change with the needs of my clients, and trying to define what PR really people do on a day-to-day basis is becoming more like holding smoke in your hands.

1. Solo PR consultants are self-motivated. This is a given since when you work for yourself, whether you are in PR, a freelance writer, or even painting houses for a living, if you aren’t self-directed, you won’t stay in business long. PR soloists are virtuosos at many tasks, including finding and pitching their own business, which requires many of the same skills required to promote yours.

2. PR soloists can become dedicated partners. This is a little known fact for those who have never retained a PR consultant. Most PR consultants who have been doing it for a while like what they are doing, and they like working for themselves, which means they do make great partners because they want to work with you, not for you. They like working with short-term projects or projects with a limited, well-defined scope because they know they can excel at those types of projects. They can work closely with your marketing team in ways that a larger PR firm can’t.

3. You can find PR consultants to fit the need. Not all PR soloists offer the same services. Some like to do everything from strategic development to execution, and others like to fill in for a missing team member of help with specific projects like writing white papers or product launches. PR practitioners come in all shapes and sizes, so you can find one who fits your needs.

4. They take their work personally. I like to work as a consultant because it suits my temperament and allows me to deliver well-thought-out, well-executed projects because I am responsible for strategy as well as the hands-on work. I take my work personally because I have to answer to my clients directly, without an agency to run interference, and I have to use my past performance as the means to sell future and repeat business.

5. Soloists have a niche. PR consultants often have a handful of skills at which they are particularly skilled, as well as the PR basics. the good consultants know what they are good at, and that’s what they sell.

6. There is no such thing as a truly “solo” PR professional. Every PR consultant is the product of his or her professional experience, drawing from past PR agency work, professional affiliations, clients, and contacts. Most PR consultants I know use a “virtual”agency model, tapping their network of friends and fellow consultants to find the right resources for any project.

Those are the common traits that Alison identified for PR consultants. Of course, there are many others that I often cite when I talk about PR consulting.

7. What you see is what you get. One of the things that used to irk me when I worked with larger PR agencies was the “bait and switch”; the firm would bring in the senior practitioners with years of experience to sell the business and build a program, but once the contract was signed, the actual work would be turned over to the junior team for execution. The challenge with the agency structure is that the senior staff is actually too valuable to actually do the work. They are much more valuable closing new business and running the agency. Within the agency, the goal is to rise above doing the day-to-day client work. With PR soloists, it’s exactly the opposite. When you hire a PR consultant, you know they are the ones actually doing the work they promise.

8. You pay for results, not process. A curse of the agency business is the billing process. Most agencies work on the billable hour, and even those that don’t use billable time against a retainer model to measure employee productivity. A large part of the agency business model is proving their raison d’etre by generating reports and spending an inordinate amount of time proving their value. When you hire a good consultant, they’ll concentrate on getting the job done and not wasting time justifying the invoice.

9. You get more flexibility. Part of the idea of being a business partner is adapting to the needs of the program. Sole practitioners are much more nimble at adapting to their client’s needs, suggesting ways to improve the program and achieve the target objective without a lot of internal discussion to realign the agency team.

10. You get better, dedicated service. I also believe you get a lot more loyalty from consultants. After all, you are one of a handful of clients who make up their entire business. The stakes are higher when you are a consultant, and you have a greater vested interest in keeping the clients happy.

11. You save a lot of money. The savings you get versus the quality of service is not to be discounted. Consultants operate with much lower overhead and less infrastructure so you are paying for their expertise, not for maintaining the office for their staff and their administrative overhead. Consultants can generally charge a more cost-effective rate and offer better service because they have less overhead.

So overall, you can get more from PR consultants. You get experienced professionals willing to work hard and apply all their expertise. You get a business partner who is committed to helping you succeed because your success reflects on his or her success. And you get more value. When you bring a PR soloist in to solve the right kind of problem, chances are you’ll get superior results.

The challenge with trying to complete a Request for Proposal is that the prospective client has already thought-through their needs for you and you have to plug your services into their template, which means you automatically start at a disadvantage. They are looking for an expert to solve their problem, but through the RFP process they have already defined their problem in a way that they have already decided on a specific solution and so they are looking for a vendor to provide that unique service. If you don’t fit the solution profile, you are out of the running before you can show what you bring to the problem.

But does it make sense to start with a well-defined set of assumptions in the form of an RFP? When you structure an RFP, are you asking for what you really need, or has the RFP process already boxed you into the wrong corner before you even start? Let’s consider the following example:

A company is struggling to build its sales pipeline. What are they going to do? The head of sales and marketing decides that a kickass advertising campaign is needed to raise market visibility, since the company is new to the market. So they put out an RFP for an ad agency and hire a creative award-winning firm. The firm develops the kickass campaign that gets lots of visibility, a lot of comment in social media and at trade shows, wins a few awards, and helps make the company a household word. However, the phone doesn’t ring and the client company doesn’t get email requests for sales information. They defined their problem – lead generation – and then defined the wrong solution to the problem – advertising. Instead, they should have gone to different marketing creative firms and asked for help with lead generation. In return, they would have gotten more creative proposals with a blended strategy of branding, direct marketing, and prospect outreach that would have added contacts to the sales pipeline.

Or consider the RFP I am currently working with. The assumptions are extensive and the proposal spans a broad range of activities. But is all that activity really necessary? What is the real objective – something that is not clearly spelled out in the RFP. Is it to recruit new students, help with fund-raising, increase community awareness, increase market awareness, or all of the above? If it is all of the above, what is the order of priority?

Through the RFP process, this institution is working on the assumption that they need EVERYTHING, from advertising to PR and social media. But is that an effective use of their budget? And would it make more sense to segment this process into multiple proposals so you can find the best-of-breed service providers for each component: advertising, PR, social media, direct mail, etc? (Let’s face it, no one agency can do all these tasks well.)

So by starting with an RFP process, the company or organization is limiting its options. Rather than trying to define the solution to their problem and shop for vendors to provide the solution, why not solicit expert help in defining their problem as well as the solution?

Okay, there is a risk here. If you bring in various agencies to help you define your problem, the agency will define their problem in terms they understand, and can solve. For example, if you ask an ad agency to help build sales, they will look at the problem in terms of market awareness and offer an advertising-driven solution, since that’s what they know how to do. You ask a PR firm for help with the same problem then you get a PR proposal to address sales growth. However, if you have a smart firm or multiple firms bidding on the same project, you will get a blended recommendation that includes a number of program elements, many of them right on target.

This is where you, as the prospect looking for help, need to set aside your assumptions and take a hard look at the suggestions offered. Assess the recommendations based on what you need and what you know about your problem. Ask for ways to measure results, and see if the metrics address your requirements. See if there are creative ideas in the proposals that you haven’t thought about before and how those ideas change your thinking.

The best proposals are a collaborative process between the prospect and the agency. It’s a dating ritual. You meet, compare notes, learn about one another, and see if you are well suited for one another. If you start with a checklist of predetermined criteria, e.g blonde, blue-eyed, six-feet tall, Master’s degree in engineering,etc., then you may overlook some great potential partners.

However, one of the things that clients often fail to understand is that any successful PR or marketing support team is only as good as the collaborative support they receive. If they don’t give you sufficient support and information, then the results will be only as good as you can deliver without setting the right objectives and doing the right data gathering from the outset. I have a couple of clients who make our regular strategy call a low priority and just assume that the program can bump along without much input. The real problem clients are the ones who expect I am supposed to read their needs and fill in the gaps to make the program work in a vacuum. As with computing, if you put garbage in, you get garbage out.

I spotted an article in Ragan’s PR Daily last week that addresses some of these issues. The idea is that as an external consultant, you need to be a collaborative partner with your clients, and that’s a door that swings both ways. You not only need to give your best expertise and effort as the contractor, but the client needs to be forthcoming with any relevant information and concerns, and set an expectation that you can both agree upon so the desired results of the program are set in advance and measurable. Here is some wisdom from the nine tips on how to promote good PR/client relationship from Ragan’s PR Daily:

1. Communicate goals and expectations. You need to agree on the objectives of the program and the key performance indicators, i.e. how to measure success, in advance! If you deliver a huge clip book for a product launch, for example, but all the client cares about is coverage in Gizmodo which didn’t cover the story, then you failed, no matter how many articles you generate. However, if the client didn’t clearly set Gizmodo as a priority, the failure is theirs for not communicating expectations.
2. Commit time to communicate. This is a two-way commitment between the client and the consultant. You both need to set aside time to discuss strategy, tactics, and reaffirm goals and expectations. Your team can only be as good as the quality of information and access given, so make time to talk on a regular, scheduled basis, as well as with ongoing email, instant messaging, whatever it takes.
3. Be respectful of agency time. Many PR firms bill by the hour, and others, including mine, bill on a retained basis, although I track billable time to gauge performance against the retainer. Clients need to be respectful of agency time. If they take up all your time for too little return, you will be less inclined to go the extra mile when they really need it.
4. Demand feedback. Feedback needs to come from the client about performance, but the client also should rely on the PR consulting team to provide independent input on media perception, brand reputation, and what the market buzz is saying about their brand. The PR firm’s role is to provide neutral insight into brand reputation, and the client should be open to feedback.
5. Be transparent. The client needs to communicate business goals and impediments to success in an honest, frank manner to get frank feedback. The PR team is working under confidentiality, and to be effective they need to know the good, the bad, and the ugly.
6. Manage expectations. One of the reasons I try to work only with senior decision makers is I know I will get the straight story on what the expectations are for the program. Most programs fail not because of execution, but because the objectives for the program weren’t well defined in the first place. You may reach the defined goal, but the end result may not be what the client really wants because they failed to set the proper expectations.
7. Give credit where it’s due. Positive feedback helps fuel the PR team. We all like to be praised for doing a good job, and I know I work harder for clients who appreciate the work. I always praise my team when they perform, and I love to get praise from the client when we do a good job. It really fires up the team.
8. Challenge the PR team to deliver more. Ask for new ideas and creative input and you’ll get it, and more. The more interesting the project, the better the effort.
9. Be a strategic partner. Okay, I know that all agencies say they are strategic partners for their clients, but that strategic relationship only works if there is mutual respect and shared goals. If your client can engage in a way where you feel invested in their success as part of the team, then the performance and results will be that much greater that if you are just asked to handle the block-and-tackle tasks.

Successful PR and marketing programs are build on successful client communications and a mutual commitment to achieving results. It has to be a cooperative effort where both parties commit the time and resources necessary to make the relationship work. Lack of commitment and lack of communications will be sure to have a negative impact on any program.

(With special thanks to Dorothy Crenshaw is CEO and creative director of Crenshaw Communications, who authored the original article for Ragan’s PR Daily and for the blog MENG Blend.

Now, paying for posts, Tweets, Facebook shoutouts or video mentions is not only acceptable, it’s good business.

According to new numbers from eMarketer, 48.8% of marketers have used a sponsored blog post. 39.4% have sponsored Tweets and 50.2% said they were open to using some kind of social media sponsorship.

Paid-for-Post programs run the gamut from sketchy clearinghouses pushing articles on windows blinds and times shares, to well-funded, creative properties that pay people for posts they would have written anyway for free.

As a marketing professional, my reaction was, “Cool, a new way to promote clients and maybe make some money.” I was particularly impressed with the amount of coin that sponsors are willing to pay for content – as much as $100 for a blog post. Not bad wages for freelance writers.

Then I thought about the flip side of this coin. If there is a market for paid posts, that means that any number of web sites, Facebook fan pages, Twitter feeds, and more are willing to pay for contributors to generate content. This seems counter to the spirit of social media. Do paid posts undermine the power of social media campaigns and online marketing?

If you are paying for content from third party contributors, does that undermine the value of your social media outlets? How do these social media channels reflect your brand if you are taking paid contributions from a host of contributors?

It also reminded me that blogs, Facebook pages, and Twitter feeds can’t be confused with conventional, or dare I say “legitimate”media outlets. When you see a byline in a publication like Forbes or BusinessWeek, you know that it was either a paid contribution by a staff writer or freelancer, or it is a contributed article by a guest expert. The publication makes it clear, and you can read the article using the appropriate filter and adjust your skepticism accordingly.

The rules for web contributions aren’t so well defined. Content providers come from all corners of the web. Some have a story they want to share to add to the conversation. Others have a product to sell. And still others are apparently now using a pay-for-placement strategy which looks a lot like advertising to me.

What separates the web, and specifically the blogosphere, from traditional print journalism is transparency. Journalists have a code of ethics and specific rules they must abide by, and when they fail to abide by those rules by misrepresenting the truth, manufacturing a source, or selling their influence in print, they are publicly censured and usually lose their position. The same is not true of the web. The code of ethics is different, and you can’t be clear about the objectivity of motives of the party on the other end of a post.

So while social media is great for building buzz and can be good for business, we all still need to view what we read on the web with a grain of salt (if not the entire shaker). Web sites masquerading as news sources are potentially dangerous, and can undermine the entire concept of legitimate journalism.

As a PR professional, I now have to ask myself, do I pitch or do I pay?

Which is why I was heartened to read in Entrepreneur magazine’s “Daily Dose” this week profiling the proactive action that Blake Mycoskie, founder and “Chief Shoe Giver” of TOMS Shoes, took to deal with his own communications crisis.

It seems that following a successful presentation at this year’s SXSW Interactive Conference, Mycoskie was asked to speak to a Christian organization called Focus on the Family. During his SXSW speech, Mycoskie talked about launching TOMS shoes as a socially responsible company that has been providing free footwear to impoverished children around the globe. After speaking to Focus on the Family, Christianity Today wrote an article suggesting that TOMS Shoes had forged an alliance with the Christian group, which had a firm stance against abortion and same-sex marriage; positions that were in direct opposition to Mycoskie’s equality message, and the foundation message for TOMS Shoes.

Here’s where Mycoskie demonstrates that he and his PR team are on the ball.

Rather than trying to sweep the accusations under the carpet or point fingers at Christianity Today, Mycoskie took to the web to issue an apology and get the attention, and ultimately support, of his critics.

He turned to Facebook and Twitter to listen to outraged customers and hear their complaints, and respond.

He worked with Ms.Magazine to launch a petition to Change.org in favor of , coincidentally on the eve of passage of same-sex  marriage law in New York (a large market for TOMS). Mycoskie was quick to issue his own apology to set the record straight.

He issued a written heart-felt apology on his own blog, stating:

When I accept an invitation for a public speaking engagement, my purpose is to share the TOMS story and our giving mission. In no way do I believe that this means I endorse every single aspect of the organization I am speaking to. That may be naïve, and you may disagree, but it is my sincere belief.

TOMS and I have made mistakes internally and externally over the past several weeks, and I am deeply sorry for letting you down. We have learned a lot and are taking steps so that they do not happen again. I regret that I, and many of you, have been pulled into this issues debate as a result – which was never our intention. However, my biggest regret is that the controversy has disrupted our effort to convene people of good will around our similarities rather than our differences, so that we can join together in serving those in the greatest need while inspiring others to do the same.

Once he inadvertently put his foot in it by speaking before an audience with a contrary political agenda, Mycoskie did everything right in extricating himself from the mess:

• He immediately started talking to his followers and his customers to gather information and get feedback. Social media has become a terrific forum to establish immediate customer dialogue.
• He was proactive in taking charge of the crisis, admitting his error in judgment, and setting the record straight, without laying blame or finger-pointing.
• He took personal responsibility, stepping forward to face the music and accept responsibility without hiding behind corporate mouthpieces or minions.
• He was sincere and empathetic in his apology to his followers.

The result has been positive to Mycoskie and TOMS Shoes. The executive comes across as a straight-shooter and a mensch who made an error in judgment. The response was cogent, rational, and appropriately apologetic and sincere. If anything, this crisis has strengthened TOMS Shoes’ brand image and brought in even more customers while restoring the faith of his followers.

It amazes me how many of my clients over the past 20 years have been obsessed with their competitors. I have had clients approach me to do news releases about competitive face-offs in trade magazines and exp0lain why we had to outline, in detail, how their speeds and feeds are faster than the competition, and provide specific names and metrics. In the last few months, I have even seen a competitor of one of my clients go to the extreme of issuing an unapproved press release explaining how a Fortune 500 company (and a customer of my client) was using their technology – a bold-faced lie.

The sprit of economic Darwinism has always been a motivator in business. Today it is driving innovating on all fronts. Toyota has demonstrated the economical viability and popularity of hybrid cars, and there are dozens of copy cats entering the market. Facebook has proven such a success that the social media space continues to boom with new competitors, the latest entry in the social media race being Google+. Competition is healthy because it promotes innovation.

However, in marketing and PR, the rule is to learn from your competition, but never mention them. As Machiavelli once wrote, “Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer,” so you need to keep a close eye on where the competition are appearing, what they are saying, and who is following them. That task has become much easier in the era of the web and social media, so follow their followers and keep your eyes and ears open. But whatever you do don’t mention them by name in your own press or marketing material – why give them the free publicity? And why undermine your own authority and assumed leadership by pointing to the other guy and saying, in essence, “But we’re better than they are…”

Another popular phrase talks about mud slinging, and when you sling mud, some of that mud will land on you. This is especially true in marketing. Even if you are the CEO of Microsoft, dissing the competition is a bad idea.

So what can you do to effectively combat the competition without looking like a bully, a whiner, or a fool? Outmnarket then!

1. Take the high ground, and hold it! Be the authority. Instruct without being demeaning and show the market you know your stuff.

2. Lead by example. Show that you have, indeed, built a better mousetrap by offering data on return on investment, proof of value, and why your customers love you and mice fear you.

3. Enlist evangelists. Get customers and others to sing your praises. Third-party validation is always more powerful than comparison shopping.

4. Let the truth set you free. If you trash the competition or, worse, tell lies to make your point, the truth will find its way to your customers and prospects and the trash talk will only sully your reputation. You never win by lying.

Keep your campaign positive, forthright, and real, and forget about the competition. Win by playing your own game and listening to customers and the market. If you see your competition winning business where you can’t, change the rules and promote your strengths to gain market share back. And if the competitor starts pointing fingers and shouting “J’accuse!, let them. Keep to your high ground and they will slide back down the hill in their own mud. But don’t engage because when you get into a name-calling contest, everyone loses.

What prompted this chain of thought was a situation that arose with a client recently. One of their senior managers was using information gathered for the company to feed his personal blog about a semi-related topic. Was this theft of IP? Was this individual stealing IP from the company even though he wasn’t using it for competitive purposes or to make money from the data?

First, let’s consider what, exactly, is intellectual property. According to CSO magazine, IP can be broken down into four basic categories: patents, trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets. These are fairly straightforward concepts and the notion of protecting them is well-defined. But what about protecting an idea? As the CSO article states, “But IP can also be something broader and less tangible than these four protected classes: it can simply be an idea. If the head of your R&D department has a eureka moment during his morning shower and then applies his new idea at work, that’s intellectual property too.”

Intellectual property (IP) can be anything from a particular manufacturing process to plans for a product launch, a trade secret like a chemical formula, or a list of the countries in which your patents are registered. It may help to think of it as intangible proprietary information. The formal definition, according to the World Intellectual Property Organization is creations of the mind — inventions, literary and artistic works, symbols, names, images, and designs used in commerce. IP includes but is not limited to proprietary formulas and ideas, inventions (products and processes), industrial designs, and geographic indications of source, as well as literary and artistic works such as novels, films, music, architectural designs and web pages.

So how far do you go to protect ideas as well as other creative products? Consider the case of the Winklevoss twins, who accused Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg of stealing their idea when he created Facebook. They took their case to court and the outcome was never really satisfactorily decided. Did they lose a potential billions of dollars because Zuckerberg violated their intellectual property rights by stealing an idea? Who’s to say.

However, the concept of IP can place those of us who create material for clients in a quandary from time to time. For example, if I use proprietary information to help a client develop a new brand strategy, can I then take that same information and use it elsewhere for a similar project? If it creates a conflict of interest by helping a competitor, then ethically the answer is clearly “of course not,” but if you are using the same intellectual process or concepts to develop a non-competing brands…?

And consider the challenges of copyright infringement. When I write an article for publication on behalf of a client, the work belongs to the publication. In fact, I routinely ghostwrite magazine article for clients, and as part of the process we usually have to surrender the rights to the work to the magazine that prints it (or at least surrender first time serial rights). I often get questioned by my clients about this practice, since they want to use the article for other purposes as well. The publication certainly can copyright the article but they can’t copyright the ideas in the article. If the content is original (i.e. not plagiarized) then you can always rewrite it using the same ideas to create a new work.

And what about IP and blogging? It has become common practice to “borrow” content from other blogs and articles posted on the web and repost them to your blog with a fresh viewpoint. In the blogosphere, giving an acknowledgment to the original source and essentially saying “this is my take on someone else’s good idea” seems to be fair game. But what if you repurpose someone else’s blog content for your for-profit blog, essentially using someone else’s freely posted ideas to make money?

I think the question of abusing IP largely boils down to who profits? Who benefits from someone else’s intellectual property is the litmus test as to whether or not there is an IP infringement. If IP is tied to a specific brand, product, of process that is tied to profits, then it has real value and as property should be protected. That doesn’t mean there aren’t gray areas. Consider the case of a piece of software code that finds its way into a competing software product. The patent attorneys spend a lot of time and money trying to ascertain if a piece of code is unique and therefore intellectual property, or if it is a more generic expression of a machine instruction that can’t be legally protected.

As a consultant, I apply a simpler criteria. Clients own the end product but I own the process to create the product. If I create an article or a press release or even a brand strategy for a client, they own that material as a deliverable for which they contracted. However, the templates I use and the process behind the deliverable are my intellectual property, and I get to reuse it as part of my service and brand. if I deliver a crisis plan to a client, for example, the specifics and protocols in that plan are theirs. However, the format, templates, and process I use to generate that plan remain my IP. Their IP – the plan, or article, or white paper, or brand strategy – is a tangible asset that promotes profit for their company. The process to create the IP deliverable remains the secret sauce that allows us to provide value as communications professionals.

I’d love to hear your stories from the field on your struggles with IP. Please comment or drop me an email.

While there are some who argue that to be a successful executive, you need to have psychopathic tendencies, I do know that successful senior managers have very healthy egos, don’t often take criticism well, and are very wedded to their own ideas. I can’t recall how many times I have had a client come to me with a project already mapped out in his or her head, complete with impossible targets and unrealistic deadlines and the mandate, “Make it so!” Your job is to assess the situation and determine if you can pull the rabbit out of the hat, or reset the scope and expectations of the project so you can pull off a lesser miracle, make the client happy and help him or her achieve his goals, and still look like a hero.

Of course, agency executives and consultants have egos too. I have been in a number of meetings where the senior executive on the account clashes with the client in a battle of wills over who is right and who has the best approach or idea. I have worked with consultants with the same challenge. Their argument is “you are paying me all this money for my opinion, why won’t you listen to me?” (Of course, one of the reasons consultants become consultants is that they don’t play well with others, especially authority figures, so consulting is preferable to unemployment. But I digress.)

Trying to win an argument with your client may be good for your ego but it’s bad for business.

As with most interpersonal relations, you need to learn how to pick you battles. There are so many small things that you can let go, despite the fact it may hurt your professional pride, if it doesn’t’ compromise your professional integrity. Let’s look at some specifics.

Writing has become a battleground where I am prepared to give ground on a regular basis. One of the biggest complaints within the PR community is that the latest crop of PR professionals are such atrocious writers (note: the age group varies depending on how long you have been in the profession). You can argue about grammar, usage, the use of the serial comma, and whether AP Style is dead. At the end of the day, you want to make sure you made your point, and there are no glaring spelling or grammatical errors. A common problem I see among PR professionals is writing and rewriting a press release or other copy, not because it’s wrong but because the text needs polishing or doesn’t conform to house style. While this may chew up a lot of billable time, in many cases it’s wasted effort. Early in my career, I had a client who referred to this as the “happy/glad” syndrome; there are different ways to express the same idea, so at the end of the day what does it matter? In cases where a client has an emotional commitment to the way a press release or article is written, there is no reason to argue.

Then there are the ethical issues. I have had clients ask, no tell me to lie to a reporter. Of course, I refused. There also have been instances when a client has lied to me and I, in turn, lied to a reporter. In such cases, it’s my reputation at stake and I will resign the client in a heartbeat. As I explain to all my clients, my integrity with journalists is my bread and butter, despite the fact they write the checks, so if they ask me to do something unscrupulous or dishonest, it’s a deal-breaker.

And then there’s everything in between. The smart PR professional doesn’t let his ego get in the way of his judgment. If you adopt that as a cardinal rule, you can navigate most client situations to a happy outcome for all, even if they don’t do things your way. Maintain your professionalism and always give your best counsel, but be prepared to compromise when the need arises. The best public relations professionals are excellent diplomats, and in the end, you have to remember that you are just the messenger. What’s the point in getting shot?

I question the validity of his hyperbole, and his overdramatized position, starting with the controversial headline that sucked me in to read the blog in the first place, demonstrates that spin sells, at least to an extent. His presentation of the lengths that Facebook PR team goes to in order to discredit his story seems a little extreme, and whether he chooses to believe it or not, Siegler is spinning his tale to make his point. Maybe he should go into PR.

In any case, he raises some valid concerns about the state of PR and some of the questionable practices of PR professionals. As he state it:

The fact of the matter is that the entire PR industry is like a weed growing out of control. Current estimates have PR people now outnumbering journalists 3 to 1. Think about that for a second. And one of the industries in which this infectious growth is most apparent is the tech industry, where it’s boom time. My email inbox is a testament to this. As is my voicemail inbox. I’d bet that at least 75 percent of the messages I get in the day are from PR people. Their campaign strategy in this war is shock and awe.

Now, I don’t mean to suggest that all PR people are evil or have the wrong intentions. Many are very nice people. And some are even very good at what they do. But increasingly what they do is nothing more than attempt to spin or grossly misrepresent what it is we do. For many of them, helping journalists/bloggers/writers get access to accurate information is secondary. It’s all about controlling a narrative — by any means necessary. And that has to stop.

That last statement is one I agree with. Our job is not to control the narrative. Naturally, we present our clients and their wares in as positive a light as possible. We point out the benefits that are derived from the features. We make a case for competitive positioning, and that could be called “spin” if you wish. However, the facts will out, and like a rotten egg you can’t cover up the stench of a bad story.

I make it my policy to work with analysts and editors in as frank and open a manner as I can, without compromising my client. As I have told clients in the past, my value to them hinges on my credibility with the press. If I can be helpful to a reporter or editor, they will remember that service. If I lie or mislead a reporter, they will never forget the disservice and I will have lost an editorial ally forever. I tell clients that the editors are as much my clients as the people who pay me, because I will have to call on that editor again, long after the client has gone.

So the Facebook PR disinformation campaign that Seigler describes in his blog post is bad PR practice, although I understand where it comes from. When bad news hits, the downhill slide starts and PR is at the bottom of the hill, trying to clean up the mess. Rather than trying to put the lipstick on the pig, it’s better to admit the error or embrace the bad story and neutralize it then and there. If you deny it, or try to adopt a non-denial denial, then the evasion becomes the story and compounds the embarrassment.

Especially in PR, it’s time we left the spin cycle to the washing machine and adopted honesty as the best policy.