I know a guy….

This seems to be the most popular PR Strategy in 2025.  I know a guy.

Let’s not a have a crisis media plan.  Let’s not put any effort into building our profile and digital legacy.  I know a guy if we have a problem, or we need a story out, we’ll just phone him.

That’s where it seems Public Relations has ended up in the business consciousness.  There are budgets for every conceivable and necessary spend, accountancy, marketing, HR etc.  And PR is I know a guy.  Don’t stress, he’s great!!  You have no plan, no budget, but you’ve got a guy.

For a lot of people, I’m that guy.  More than once, I’ve been told my contact details have been put into a crisis media plan.  Or my number is in handover documents.  They know a guy.  What problems do you see with this approach? 

Our most frantic inquiries come from people who are in deep media and reputational trouble because the guy they know isn’t available.  Surprise, surprise.  The strategy has some holes in it. The guy you know has a life, has leave, may have hundreds of paying clients, a team and is most likely unavailable when you most desperately need him.

Who answers the phone now anyway in any circumstances?  We’re all keyboarding and texting warriors who are seldomly available now.

When a  hospital discovered a camera in the girls’ toilets and the papers came calling, the guy they knew was me, and I was busy.  I’d met them a year earlier to handle their launch complete with a Federal Health Minister attending.  We did some media training afterwards.  I told them health is a risky business reputation wise, and a lot of things go wrong and that a crisis media plan could come handy and they didn’t proceed.

I even followed up and mentioned that our crisis media plan includes an on-call component so if anything pops up you have a direct line to my team, and we could support you.  But they went with the cheaper, I know a guy strategy. 

When this strategy fails your comfort of knowing someone evaporates into desperately phoning PR companies off google ads hoping one of them sound OK.  The I know a guy PR strategy gets worse from here.  You have an actual problem; you’re stressed so your IQ now is  lower and you have low price sensitivity because you need urgent help.

Dangerous stuff.  Your greatest asset that being your reputation is at risk and now you’re jumping into a brand-new relationship, probably paying over the odds because they’ve had to drop everything to help you.

You knew a guy, but he didn’t pick, now you wish you had have taken that guy a little more seriously.

The I know a guy strategy stems from people thinking it will never happen to them, but that facts are it happens to everyone.

GTM has the best and most fairly priced on-call crisis media management program in Melbourne and Sydney.

Don’t rely on just knowing a guy.