About six weeks ago a big prospect invited me to pitch for their business. It was to be a competitive pitch and they emailed over a very comprehensive brief. Clearly the company took PR very seriously.
It was all looking good until the bombshell dropped. The pitch was in 2 days time! Obviously I have accounts to look after, a business to run and prior commitments. I pointed out that this gave me very little time to prepare. As it transpired, the lady who had tracked us down had written down our name wrong when they received the recommendation and had only just found us. This only concerned me more as the other agencies would have had much longer to prepare.
However it was a great prospect and I pushed all other commitments aside and dedicated my time to creating a full professional pitch complete with creative ideas and an outline programme. The pitch went really well and they requested that I bring the entire account team in to meet with them again the next day! Trying to coordinate diaries was a nightmare but we did it and had another really good meeting. They then asked us to develop a full written formal proposal with more ‘meat on the bones’ for that Friday!
A whole week was devoted to them. They promised they would have an answer by Jan 31. We called numerous times and there was just radio silence. Only this week did I finally get through to be told that they had selected someone else. The reason they hadn't been back was that they were trying to find out a way of incorporating us in their roster. Still very frustrating!
This is a call out to anyone who is thinking of choosing a PR agency. Respect our time and treat us with respect. If a company puts time and effort into coming up with creative programmes then you should understand that it costs us in time and money. And even if you don’t like the agency or its ideas a simple thank-you goes a long way.










