How do you treat your gardener?

When you are looking for a PR partner, it’s always handy to remember, that you’re being interviewed too.

Ideally, the agency or agencies that you’re speaking to, shouldn’t be too desperate for the work.

A good agency will have a lot on and will essentially interview you to see if there is a values and skills alignment.

For you as the prospective client, it is important to put your best foot forward.

No one likes being treated like a transaction. Show your personality. Talk up your values, vision and team. Heck, even do some sports, family or weekend chit chat!

Well established agencies would have had 100’s of clients over the years. They see well past this first meeting.

While you’re thinking about them, they are thinking can we work with this person? Will they treat our team well? Will they be reasonable? Will they pay their bills?

It is very tough choosing an agency and you do have the right to be sceptical.

Though in saying that, your fear and scepticism can lead you to interrogate to the point where the agency won’t want to proceed.

It boils down to a simple question: how do you treat your gardener?

I thought this as I was walking out of a Melbourne CBD board room recently. We were pitching for a job, and the two co-founders were so scared about making a decision, that they were actually interviewing me like it was a Victoria Police investigation.

I wondered to myself. Do they say hello to their gardener at home? Or just walk straight past?

I’m betting, they keep walking.

Just today, a well known and very prominent organisation reached out for our help and then when we hopped on a Team’s call, they wouldn’t put their camera on.

I was excited to get the inquiry and then deflated to be treated like a task in a search for three quotes.

Should you treat your PR agency like gardeners who come in to mow the grass?

Or instead of that, should you treat them like landscape architects trying to make your house a home?

That decision will determine the quality of your agency relationships and results.