You are encouraged to hire an outside PR agency to satisfy your employees’ or investors’ desire for a “big splash” but when you gather for the first meeting you observe:

1. Close to zero energy or enthusiasm in the room
2. They default to publicity ideas, not “market positioning”.
3. Both of you don’t leave with maximal clarity on the right audience to be targeted, it is not defined or is opaque at best.
4. You are being asked to join existing conversations, not strategic, category-defining or future-focused one’s with clear and unambiguous value creation.
5. There is no obvious revenue leverage from the proposed PR (marketing expense).
6. There is no obvious “fame” or perceived strategic importance, driven by the scarcity and value of the news.
7. Conversations are dominated by tactical inputs and rarely results-focused outcomes
8. An elongated needs analysis or fact-finding effort is recommended (you want fast results and success, the PR experts want “perfection”)
9. The clarity, creativity and simplicity proposed by your quick “AI-sense check” and intelligent prompts is more valuable than the PR experts in-person contribution.
10. The PR experts are trying to address and encouraging you to invest in too many moderate and low importance matters.
11. They start talking about deliverables not results.
12. They don’t clearly attempt to frame or re-frame the exciting news, in ways you hadn’t considered before that clearly create a “siren call” to your organisation’s value.