In this episode, Brand Revolt’s Camden Bernatz joins host Jason Mudd to discuss why traditional agency pitches often fail, how clients can build better partnerships, and why diagnosis must come before solutions.
Tune in to learn more!
Watch the episode here:
Meet our guest:
Our guest is Camden Bernatz, creative director and strategist at Brand Revolt and author of “Stop Asking for Pitches: 10 Rules to Fix the Client-Agency Relationship.” Once drawn to psychiatry, he now applies that same curiosity to branding, helping organizations diagnose challenges and build stronger brands.
5 things you’ll learn during the full episode:
- Why traditional agency pitches often prioritize performance over real problem-solving
- Why diagnosing the problem must come before prescribing any solution
- How treating agency relationships as strategic investments improves outcomes
- How shifting from vendor transactions to partnerships leads to better results
- What a true client-agency partnership looks like in practice
Listen to the episode here:
Quotables
- “You want that agency that helps you develop the brief [to] help you figure out what we actually need. What are we trying to accomplish? What would success look like?” — Camden Bernatz
- “The reason you have a need for an RFP or to hire a firm and hire an agency is because you don't totally know what you need.” — Camden Bernatz
- “It’s just having things on the table early, talking about like, ‘We think that you're prescribing something that's going to cost more than you say you have money for.’” — Camden Bernatz
- “There's a difference in the way it feels to spend money on an agency versus spending the money with the agency.” — Camden Bernatz
- “Your agency is like an engine to fuel as opposed to a resource to drain. You will treat it differently, and they will perform differently.” — Camden Bernatz
- “Buying agency services is about buying a creative class of expertise, experience, guidance, and consulting that is much different than buying staples, pencils, and other supplies.” — Jason Mudd
If you enjoyed this episode, please take a moment to share it with a colleague or friend. You may also support us through Buy Me a Coffee or by leaving us a quick podcast review.
Resources
Guest’s contact info and resources:
- Camden Bernatz on LinkedIn
- Camden Bernatz on YouTube
- Brand Revolt website
- “Stop Asking For Pitches: 10 Rules to Fix the Client-Agency Relationship” book
- The Win Without Pitching Manifesto
- Clients behaving badly: Video store, hair salon haggling
Additional Resources:
- How do we find a PR agency?
- 7 steps to working effectively with your PR firm
- Listen to more episodes of the On Top of PR with Jason Mudd podcast.
- Find out more about Axia Public Relations.
If you like this episode, you're going to love this:
- Hiring a PR agency with Shannyn Lee
- Maximizing agency partnerships with Mark Riggs
- Hiring and working with a PR agency with Drew McLellan
Recorded: December, 2025
About your host Jason Mudd
Jason Mudd is a nationally recognized public relations expert featured by CNN, Entrepreneur, Forbes, NPR, The New York Times, PRWeek, and The Wall Street Journal.
Named North America’s top PR leader by the World Communication Forum, he serves as Partner of Axia Public Relations — recognized by Forbes as one of America’s Best PR Agencies.
Jason has advised some of the country’s most admired and fastest-growing companies, leading campaigns for iconic brands including American Airlines, Budweiser, Dave & Buster’s, GE, H&R Block, Hilton, HP, Miller Lite, New York Life, Pizza Hut, Southern Comfort, and Verizon.
He’s also a professional public speaker, accredited PR practitioner, published author, entrepreneur, and host of On Top of PR with Jason Mudd — a podcast ranked among the top 2.5% globally by Listen Notes and a top 100 marketing podcast on Apple Podcasts. His guests have included leaders from Disney, Microsoft, Southwest Airlines, and Wells Fargo. Learn more about Jason at https://www.axiapr.com/team/
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
00:00:00:01 - 00:00:18:11
Camden
if you have people who are trying to win your business with a pitch, they're going to be more focused on pleasing you in that pitch, in that moment, that limited time that they have than actually getting deep in solving your problems. You may think on the surface, those are going to be the same thing, but there's so often not.
00:00:18:13 - 00:00:38:19
Camden
It brings in subjectivity too early where they'll try to you, you kind of get the dog and pony show of a pitch or presentation to wow you, or to make you like them, or to make you chuckle or to make you feel like they're really smart and what they're saying, but they haven't gone deep enough into your situation, your needs, your opportunities to fully understand the problem.
00:00:38:21 - 00:00:45:23
Camden
So the solution that they're giving to you is going to be, without having enough diagnosis to know it's the solution that you need,
00:00:45:25 - 00:00:55:07
Announcer
Welcome to On Top of PR with Jason Mudd.
00:00:55:10 - 00:01:18:04
Jason
Hello and welcome to on top of PR, I'm your host Jason Mudd with Axia Public Relations. Today we're joined by Camden Burnett. He is the author of Stop asking for pitches ten Rules to Fix the Client Agency relationship. Once drawn to psychiatry, he now applies the same curiosity to branding, helps organizations diagnose challenges and build stronger brands.
00:01:18:06 - 00:01:29:12
Jason
Our topic today is stop asking for pitches, how agencies and clients can build real partnerships that actually work. And I want to welcome tandem to the show. Cannon. Welcome.
00:01:29:14 - 00:01:31:09
Camden
Thank you very much. Glad to be here.
00:01:31:11 - 00:01:49:11
Jason
Yeah, I'm glad to be here too. So for full disclosure to our audience, this is the first time cannon and I have ever met. But I was referred to his book, Stop Asking for pitches. And, when I saw it on LinkedIn, I purchased it and then shortly asked him to come on the show and be a guest to tell us more about his book.
00:01:49:14 - 00:02:15:09
Jason
In it, he's got, ten rules to fix the client agency relationship, and I think this will be an interesting conversation for our audience, who is public relations professionals, but also like a super majority of our audience is actually, marketing, directors, vice presidents and chiefs who are looking at hiring and bringing in a PR firm like Axia to help them with their needs.
00:02:15:09 - 00:02:48:17
Jason
And so I thought this would be an interesting topic for us to explore. And, we are both kind of connected through the concept of we both read and follow, the book and the, philosophy or kind of, mantra, if you will, or mandate, if you will is another book called Win without Pitching. And so what you've done and I don't want to put words in your mouth cannon here is you've taken kind of some of those similar concepts where the author there Blair ends of an organization called win without pitching and his win without pitching.
00:02:48:17 - 00:03:12:09
Jason
Manifesto is kind of suggesting ten things that agency should do to avoid bad client. You know, relationships because of the way or lack of the way the agency positions itself in the marketplace. And I think you've done what appears to be kind of the the inverse or the reverse of that is you've said, okay, here's ten things that you think clients should know before they engage an agency.
00:03:12:09 - 00:03:13:09
Jason
Is that fair?
00:03:13:11 - 00:03:31:02
Camden
Exactly. Yeah. And full credit to to Blair and his organization for I don't take credit for the the originating of these manifesto points or these rules as you want to call them. Although I change the wording a little bit in my book, what I did is I come from being on the agency side of that relationship. I haven't hired agencies myself.
00:03:31:02 - 00:03:49:22
Camden
I've just worked in them for years. And so I've read that, the when without pitching manifesto for, a few years now, I've been I've been going back to it, referring back to it, bringing it up in conversation with coworkers and thinking, this isn't just, it's not some sneaky way to, like, take advantage of your client or of your clients if you're the agency.
00:03:49:22 - 00:04:07:07
Camden
It's not it's not some like, you know, secret. Secret, playbook. It is really establishing the best relationship for both agency and client. So more and more, I found myself wishing. I wish our clients understood this principle. I wish, I wish that they had read this chapter. I want to send this to them. And so over time, I just thought, well, I'll just write it.
00:04:07:07 - 00:04:24:03
Camden
Like, how would I, how would I position this? And instead of just handing them the one that's written for the agency, although it's still valuable, how would I kind of translate some of this stuff to the client facing the brand, facing audience and that led me to initially just taking some notes and then putting it together and putting a cover on it.
00:04:24:03 - 00:04:27:21
Camden
And that's how I got to this book.
00:04:27:23 - 00:04:55:18
Jason
Well, that's very cool. And you certainly got an endorsement from Blair himself, which is how I originally heard about you and, and saw the book and, and decided to buy it, read it and then say, okay, this guy would make a great guess because he's done what I think. Lots of agency. Professionals would love to see a client do, which is kind of understand, some of the nuances of the business and, and best practices for going about selecting a firm.
00:04:55:20 - 00:05:26:00
Jason
You know, I remember early in my agency career, you know, a consultant of some sort said had some research that said, you know, at the most, your average person buying, services from an agency, whether that's PR, marketing, advertising does it three or less times in their career. Right. And so by no stretch of the imagination are they should they think they are or should they be considered an expert in this process.
00:05:26:03 - 00:05:46:02
Jason
Now there are exceptions. Right. There are people who work as brand managers or chief marketing officers. And you know, our hiring agencies regularly, hopefully they get it down to a good science. Hopefully they get down a really good agency relationship that they can continue for many years. But for the most part, people are approaching this, you know, uniquely and looking for help.
00:05:46:02 - 00:06:15:07
Jason
And sometimes they turn to procurement for help. Sometimes they can do more of a direct hire. And I think this is a relevant topic in my mind. And you're the author, but in my mind, for procurement to become aware of as well, because buying agency services is about buying, you know, a creative class of expertise and experience and guidance and consulting that is much different than buying, staples and pencils, and, and other supplies.
00:06:15:07 - 00:06:33:01
Jason
I mean, you know, when you talk to procurement, they refer to you as a supplier. But I don't think we're a supplier at all. Right? We're not, offering products. We're offering, you know, strategic advice, and services, which I think is a lot different than who's got the best deal on staples for the next year.
00:06:33:03 - 00:06:51:05
Camden
I you're describing how I believe it should be. And there are some who do it that way, but too many, I think in my experience, you do kind of see it like staples, see it as like a, a commodity. And there's a certain shelf of products or services you offer, and they'll look for the lowest price or the one that they, they, you know, got referred to you or something.
00:06:51:05 - 00:07:14:23
Camden
And those are, those are price and, and people's word of mouth. Like I'm not saying that doesn't matter, but it is it should be different. It should be it should be pairing a relationship up and not buying like, like like staples, like you said. And so I think part of that's part of the message I'm trying to convey is don't think about it that way, because then you're going to get diminishing returns, or you're going to have buyer's remorse, or you're going to have an agency that's frustrated with you, lots of potential things that could happen.
00:07:14:25 - 00:07:16:15
Camden
So, yeah, you're spot on.
00:07:16:17 - 00:07:38:16
Jason
Yeah. I mean, it's treating, a trusted advisor or an advisory type service as a commodity in many ways. And, you know, you said, I've seen this ironically in RFP saying we're looking to build a relationship with the right PR firm or whatever it might be. And yet, the way they're going about acquiring the relationship is through a commodity process.
00:07:38:16 - 00:07:58:02
Jason
Right. And so you never get to meet the people you're going to be working with until you're at like the final stage of the negotiations. And then they get there and they're like, I don't know if I really like these people. So I just, you know, and I, I know from experience when I've had my team or my assistant or whatever say, go out and find somebody or a company who can do X, Y and Z for us.
00:07:58:05 - 00:08:17:20
Jason
And then I, I see what they brought back. I'm like, oh, I should have been more involved in this from the beginning. Right? So I think we both understand that what I want to do is go through, the ten topics and you've written the book the way I recommend people write books. Right. So you've you've created chapters for each topic that you want to cover.
00:08:17:22 - 00:08:37:20
Jason
And so let's talk about the first chapter, and before we press record, I was referring to these, yeah, as rules. And, you've got ten rules as part of your subtitle. So, rule number one says don't hire generalists. So let's talk about this one for a minute. And then I'll probably have some follow up questions for you.
00:08:37:27 - 00:08:57:17
Camden
Sure. And being, being kind of inspired by win without pitching manifesto from Blair ends. Some of these are very similarly wordy because they're, they're they're like kind of the other side of the same point. Some of them are a little bit different extension. This is one that's pretty much the same from his. And so a lot of the things we'll talk about now are similar things that Blair touches on at the agency consider.
00:08:57:24 - 00:09:23:10
Camden
But essentially people need expertise. That's what they should be hiring when they, when they hire, a firm or an agency. And so I think this is especially relevant to you and your audience because specializing in PR as a firm that is a specialization, there are some agencies out there that say we are a whole service, one stop shop, marketing agency or business consulting, whatever they want to call it, and they'll have some digital media, they'll have some a little bit of PR sprinkled in here.
00:09:23:10 - 00:09:43:29
Camden
They'll, they'll websites and and that serves a certain audience. But what I believe is people who are really trying to get the best bang for their buck and have their problems solved. You need the expert in that. I, both I and Blair kind of point out the analogy of, like, going to the doctor. There's a general family medicine doctor and not knocking those guys at all.
00:09:43:29 - 00:10:07:26
Camden
They're great. They serve a purpose. But if you find out that you have a brain tumor or you need a heart transplant or something, you want a specialist for that, you're not going to the general family medicine. You need someone who's really good at that thing. And so the thing that I encourage people who are considering agencies or a firm to to hire, it's figuring out what expertise do you need because you're saying, oh, an expert expert in what is it a certain demographic?
00:10:07:26 - 00:10:27:19
Camden
Is it a certain geography? Is it a certain type of, media or communication? Is it crisis management versus something else? And so I won't try to list every possible expertise you might be seeking, but figure out what is it that we don't have internally that we are not able to do ourselves or we don't have the experience in, or we don't have access to?
00:10:27:25 - 00:10:39:04
Camden
What expertise do we need? And then that should be one of your main criteria in seeking out and interviewing and vetting potential agencies. So don't hire a generalist. Find what you need for the problem.
00:10:39:06 - 00:10:53:10
Jason
I think that's a great point. And I see this a lot, where someone comes to me and they say, we're not really happy with our current PR firm. And I ask, who do they use? And if I've never heard of them. You know, I look into them, I go, well, the problem is, you didn't hire a PR firm.
00:10:53:10 - 00:11:24:04
Jason
You hired an ad agency who's got a couple people in the corner that do some PR, and they can show up to meetings when you need them. And then you wonder why the PR is not working out for you. Which I think is acceptable if you've got very basic PR aspirations and you need a paid media agency or marketing agency or something like that to help you, but what I find is sometimes they're just aware of an agency who happens to have PR and and then decide to hire them, and then they have, lackluster results, if you will.
00:11:24:07 - 00:11:44:20
Jason
Yeah. And, you know, I can empathize with that, because, you know, I've, I found myself early in my career in a situation like that where I'd hired an agency and they couldn't do PR. They said they could. They had an account executive doing media pitching and a copywriter writing, news releases, and it read like, advertising copywriter wrote a news release.
00:11:44:20 - 00:12:09:03
Jason
Right. And so there is some specialization, there that's required. And I think, you know, most people, if they think about it a little bit, you know, they realize they don't want a generalist, they want an expertise. And that's part of the problem, I think, of hiring a big firm is that they've got a lot of internal capabilities, but maybe they don't specialize or have, deep, capabilities outside of a certain area.
00:12:09:05 - 00:12:30:20
Jason
A trick I've learned over the years in kind of maybe you agree with this or not, but I've always found if you look at the principal of the agency, the founder of the agency, the leader of the agency, what they typically do best is what their agency ends up doing best. And so, yeah, I know agency owners who come from a background research or an account service research or copywriting or art direction background.
00:12:30:25 - 00:12:47:16
Jason
And typically their agency is really good at that. One thing they used to do right before they started the agency. So if you're having a hard time figuring out what your agency specializes in one, maybe find a different agency or two. Look at what the founder you know was really good at, or the head of the agency is really good at, good tip.
00:12:47:19 - 00:12:49:00
Jason
Yeah. Oh, go ahead.
00:12:49:02 - 00:12:52:09
Camden
I want to say, yeah, it's a good tip. I hadn't thought about that, but that's that makes sense to me.
00:12:52:11 - 00:13:11:15
Jason
Yeah. I can't take credit for it. Somebody else said it, and I just. It just latched on to me. The second rule you have here is stop asking for pitches. Which, is the subtitle or the title itself of your book? And so let's talk about that. Why should clients or brands stop asking agencies for pitches.
00:13:11:17 - 00:13:31:14
Camden
So this one is the title chapter because I do think it is the kind of the crux of the the main, most, pivotal chapter in the book. And I did obviously coming from I'm not I'm not specific to PR, my background, in fact, that's not really my expertise. I would say, don't hire me personally for PR, but, so I wrote this for kind of more general agencies, but especially creative agencies.
00:13:31:20 - 00:13:50:04
Camden
But I think it very much still would apply to a PR agency or someone looking to hire a PR agency professional, or to help them. I mean, and the reason you don't want to pitch. And so again, the pitch looks a little bit different. If it's like a creative agency, they might be coming. You might ask for a pitch like an ad campaign, give you a creative tone, said, give me a headline.
00:13:50:04 - 00:14:16:14
Camden
And the and the different ads that are going there. I'm going to go with that. A PR pitch is obviously going to be a little bit different, but either way, by asking for an agency that you haven't hired, that you haven't invested in with your time or money or your you're buying in that relationship is inherently going to give you something that you may be excited about upfront, but is going to have diminishing returns overall.
00:14:16:16 - 00:14:17:19
Camden
So, for example,
00:14:17:23 - 00:14:36:03
Camden
if you have people who are trying to win your business with a pitch, they're going to be more focused on pleasing you in that pitch, in that moment, that limited time that they have than actually getting deep in solving your problems. You may think on the surface, those are going to be the same thing, but there's so often not.
00:14:36:05 - 00:14:56:11
Camden
It brings in subjectivity too early where they'll try to you, you kind of get the dog and pony show of a pitch or presentation to wow you, or to make you like them, or to make you chuckle or to make you feel like they're really smart and what they're saying, but they haven't gone deep enough into your situation, your needs, your opportunities to fully understand the problem.
00:14:56:13 - 00:15:06:28
Camden
So the solution that they're giving to you is going to be, without having enough diagnosis to know it's the solution that you need, it's going to be more performative than actually having the substance,
00:15:07:00 - 00:15:16:21
Camden
and then you're going to subjectively react to it. You're like, oh, I don't like that publication. Or in the creative, agency space, like, you know, they're pitching a brand logo or something.
00:15:16:22 - 00:15:36:13
Camden
You're like, I don't like that color. I don't like purple, you know, something like that. And so you choosing that you do or don't want to work with that agency is too often built on the wrong things. Instead of identifying alignment of, strategic mindset. And then of course, that expertise. And so there's a lot more than that I kind of go deep into.
00:15:36:15 - 00:15:55:12
Camden
But I don't want to get you too wordy unless you have more questions about, section two. But essentially pitches overall. They're fun. They put you in a position of power, being able to be like, I liked that one. I didn't like that one. They're all, they're performing for you. It's convenient, but it doesn't end up usually getting you an agency relationship that's going to help you in the long run.
00:15:55:12 - 00:16:03:02
Camden
You get where you need to go. You just take your favorite performance and then you have to figure out if it actually was the right agency. After that.
00:16:03:04 - 00:16:12:01
Jason
Yeah. Very true, very true. We're using the word pitches. But, sometimes on the brand side, they refer to them as even RFPs or request for proposals.
00:16:12:01 - 00:16:12:22
Camden
Yeah.
00:16:12:25 - 00:16:35:17
Jason
You know, there's, I find it amusing when you're talking to someone who might be doing their first, you know, RFP with or without procurement, to select an agency. And they never they always seem to underestimate how much work it's going to take on their behalf to go through all the proposals and read them and score them and, and, and remember them and go through their entire process.
00:16:35:20 - 00:16:57:25
Jason
And then they typically have no, very limited understanding of how many hours it's going to take for the agency to provide a thoughtful response to it. And so, you know, I, you know, I usually generally say, okay, an agency is going to spend at a minimum 40 hours responding to your proposal, no matter how short it is, you know, and not just that, but it's not just one person.
00:16:57:25 - 00:17:16:15
Jason
It's it's members of the entire team or multiple members of the team throughout the agency contributing to this process and to this, to this effort. And I think they really underestimate that. So just a couple of things you're making me think of that I just want to share anecdotally is like, you know, it's literally been about 20 years.
00:17:16:15 - 00:17:37:00
Jason
But I remember a company came to us and they had a and the reason I mention was 20 years because they had, a budget of $7,500 and they paid each agency to prepare, for this, you know, pitch that they were asking for. They weren't really they were doing an RFP, but it was to have agencies come in front of them and make a pitch versus like a written submission.
00:17:37:02 - 00:18:08:05
Jason
And I thought it was very thoughtful of them to consider that we should probably pay the agencies for this effort, number one. And number two, in doing so, you better believe every agency they invited was carefully selected, number one and number two given undivided attention in the pitch. And I think they limited to three agencies in total. But, you know, as a small agency and as the owner of the agency, I appreciate that gesture of saying, you know, we're going to invest in the relationship, because we're looking for, you know, you know, your best.
00:18:08:07 - 00:18:23:16
Jason
The other thing I would say that, I think you would appreciate candor is, we got an RFP once, and they were asking us to basically do a ton of spec work. And for those that don't know, spec work stands for speculative work. So you're doing work. And if the client likes the work, then they decide they're going to hire you.
00:18:23:16 - 00:18:42:00
Jason
And and then, you know, because they liked the work you did. So it's called spec work. And every agency listening to this should say no to spec work. Every client listing this or brand listing this and thinking about spec work. And even if you're like, that's a good idea, I should do that. It's not a good idea. And I'll give you an exact reason why.
00:18:42:02 - 00:19:14:19
Jason
So we had an RFP that we received at our agency, and they basically said, hey, we want you to build out speculative. Well, the first thing was we want you to build consensus among the stakeholders here, the five stakeholders that we need to build consensus with. That's phase. That's the first part of this program. We want you to build consensus with these critical audiences, investors influence influential groups, etc. and then once you get that input from them and you build consensus with us on behalf of those groups, then we want you to implement a campaign for that group.
00:19:14:22 - 00:19:40:26
Jason
And the campaign was called to be PR logo branding names like, like this whole elaborate thing. And so Camden, we submitted a letter, I think it was 1 or 2 pages and we just said it doesn't make any sense to us to work speculatively on creative execution of this campaign that is driven by what the stakeholders want.
00:19:40:28 - 00:20:02:20
Jason
And if we start working down that path of preparing speculative work, our role will be biased towards pointing those stakeholders to agree with the work we've already created for you, and you'll already have seen the work. They may have already seen the work which will create a biased or a perception for them, you know, going in a certain direction.
00:20:02:22 - 00:20:19:23
Jason
And so we'll be leading them towards the solution that we've already prescribed. And so we just said we're not going to participate because of that reason. And it would be in your best interest to, you know, not consider any agency that submitted that one, that 1 or 2 page letter. We won the work.
00:20:19:25 - 00:20:23:19
Camden
I was going to say that would make me want to hire you. But yeah, you finish your story.
00:20:23:24 - 00:20:41:27
Jason
Yeah. So we stood out. That's what they said. And the other thing is this organization had sent us several RFP and we just kept saying no, because they wanted spec work. And we just weren't going to do it. And so part of it was we were kind of desirable because we had already said no, we were playing hard to get a little bit not intentional, but that was what happened.
00:20:41:28 - 00:21:01:21
Jason
Yeah. Now, as a good agency owner and competitor, not spent too much time on this. Then I said this was a public RFP. So I said, hey, we'd like to see the proposals that you received. So when we came over to our first meeting to meet with them after they hired us, either before or after that meeting, they'd set aside the proposals for us to look at and can.
00:21:01:25 - 00:21:28:11
Jason
You would appreciate this again, we sent a one page letter. They had stacks of creative stacks of created from each agency, you know, binders, booklets, logos executed, themes executed like the whole campaign was built, you know, and that's what really rubs me wrong is like the client just got a free campaign that unless everything's tightened up and done the right way, they could unethically steal that work and just implemented themselves.
00:21:28:14 - 00:21:46:08
Jason
Yeah, but the point is, they said, hey, you were the only one kind of ballsy enough to tell us that we were making a mistake. And that's why we picked you guys. And I felt so bad for those other agencies there, like seven of them that had done all this work, you know, tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of work.
00:21:46:10 - 00:21:49:08
Jason
And we kind of outfoxed them with just a letter, you know.
00:21:49:10 - 00:22:16:04
Camden
And it's I want to if anybody's listening to this, who is the who's not the one doing the the PR or doing agency work, but is the one hiring them. I want them to understand that we're not anti pitching this because it's inconvenient for us, or because we have to put in time. It is. You think about this if you are, if you know enough about your own problem and what the solution is, what you what you actually need enough to make a good RFP, you don't need the agency because then you know you are the expert of your own situation.
00:22:16:04 - 00:22:34:00
Camden
You know what you need, just go do it or hire internally or whatever. But you don't, and that's okay. The reason you have a need for an RFP or to hire a firm and hire an agency is because you don't totally know what you need. So it's silly to then dictate what you think you need in an RFP and have someone say, hey, give us this exact thing.
00:22:34:04 - 00:22:53:11
Camden
Show us how you're going to do the thing. We we've we've self-diagnosed because even if it totally nails the objective of your RFP, you don't want the agency that nails the brief. You want that agency that helps you develop the brief, help you figure out what do we actually need? What are we trying to accomplish? What would success look like in your example?
00:22:53:11 - 00:23:09:06
Camden
Is you doing that kind of a little bit through the through the back door of saying, hey, you asked us for this. We're showing enough of our strategic thought, our, our expertise to say, here's why you actually might need do need something else and you should consider this. And so that's why I said I would have hired you based.
00:23:09:06 - 00:23:24:11
Camden
I would have hopefully not put out the RPP in the first place, but that's to me more indicative of, oh, these guys are going to think critically about what I need, and not just when we say jump. They say how high and give us something that looks pretty. That can be fun. Those pictures can be interesting, and maybe there's some good ideas in there.
00:23:24:17 - 00:23:38:19
Camden
But you showed the thinking about, hey, I don't have the solution yet necessarily, but here's how we're going to get there. As opposed to just you asked for a prescription. We wrote you the medication. Like I'm going back to the doctor analogy, but so yeah, I love that story.
00:23:38:22 - 00:23:47:17
Jason
Yeah, yeah. Thank you I do too. That's why I mentioned it's I think it's worth sharing and interesting. So rule number three is seek diagnosis before prescription.
00:23:47:22 - 00:23:48:22
Camden
And it's led right into.
00:23:48:22 - 00:24:07:16
Jason
That doctor analogy. Right. And you know, when we talk to potential clients, I always tell them, look like a good doctor. I want to diagnose your situation, prescribe something to you, and then let's apply it. Right. And that's I think I got that from Blair, actually. So, I shouldn't make people think that's my own idea, but.
00:24:07:16 - 00:24:20:19
Jason
Yeah. So you diagnose, prescribe, apply. And then in theory, if you go to a doctor, you reapply it. If it's if it's not, you know, the right dosage or the exact, you know, the description that you need. So did you want to add anything else to that?
00:24:20:22 - 00:24:38:22
Camden
Just that we kind of just touched on that. I guess I'll just add like again, think about the example. It makes so much sense and seems obvious in the medical space. If you were up late and web MD and diagnosing, I think I might have this situation. And when you told your doctor it would be medical malpractice, I'm gonna say, okay, well, if you say so, let's start surgery.
00:24:38:22 - 00:25:06:26
Camden
Let's start giving you medication or chemotherapy, of course, even if you are right, which you're probably not. But even if you are right in your self-diagnosis, they'd want to verify that they'd run some tests. They make sure they know what your situation is and then prescribe. So yes, it's not as life and death, you know, doing, doing marketing PR as medicine, but why would you why would you expect your expert, the doctor of marketing, the doctor, a PR, so to speak, to just accept your diagnosis and give you what you're asking.
00:25:06:28 - 00:25:18:04
Camden
Do let them validate, let them help figure out what you actually need and then prescribe as opposed to just, hey, you diagnosed yourself in a RFP. Let's start it. Start the process. I don't think it might just make sense.
00:25:18:07 - 00:25:43:20
Jason
Yeah. If I was a doctor, I'd have to tell somebody, oh, web and says you had a tumor. Well, let's just take it out right now, you know? But yeah, I also like to say that it's, it's PR, not your, And so I don't know if that's a helpful comment here, but, yeah. And, you know, one time we had a client of ours who issued an RFP, and, you know, they had this is the message that we want to put out there.
00:25:43:23 - 00:26:04:22
Jason
And we're hiring an agency just to get it out there. And we so strongly we knew the client well, we so strongly disagreed with the messaging that they were proposing that that that they wanted to hire. Basically, we've created the strategy and the messaging now go implement it. And that was the RFP, implement it. And we felt like the strategy and the messaging were flawed.
00:26:04:27 - 00:26:25:24
Jason
It wouldn't resonate with the marketplace. It didn't make sense in general. And so we sent a one, maybe two page response to that. And you'll laugh at this, but we've never heard from that client ever again. So, you know, they what they wanted was an order taker. And what we responded back with is simply to say, and, you know, we weren't the agency of record.
00:26:25:24 - 00:26:46:18
Jason
We were one of many agencies that they worked with. And the big reason we probably never heard from them again is turnover, on their side. But at the end of the day, right. They didn't want to hear that. They wanted to see ideas and ways that we would execute the idea. But you and I both know we would have been judged by the success of that program, regardless of how, you know, good or bad, our implementation might have been.
00:26:46:20 - 00:27:09:14
Jason
And so at the end of the day, if we didn't understand the rationale and we didn't understand the messaging as people who understand their company well, how do you expect people, complete strangers or, you know, to understand that as well? And so I think that's important to emphasize your point, which is seek diagnosis before prescription, because they had the prescription all figured out and then wanted to lean on experts to simply implement it.
00:27:09:14 - 00:27:13:19
Jason
So might have sounded good in a boardroom. Yeah. Didn't sound good in the living room.
00:27:13:21 - 00:27:28:28
Camden
And like I said, at the beginning or a little while ago, it's not just trying to. It's I didn't write this and don't talk about this thing just for the convenience of the agencies or the first, but think about it from the perspective. You were the one who put out that request. I just said, hey, we have a message and we want you to put it out.
00:27:29:00 - 00:27:55:23
Camden
If you would have submitted to that and they would have hired you, they would have been getting a firm that is going to have to inherently devalue them because they're the you become order taker. I'm not saying you would try to devalue your client. You'd everyone tries to help their clients out, but if you're just waiting for them to give us the next, the next, assignment or they're only paying just the minimum, you're not thinking proactively provide new ideas or new pitches, new ideas, new things to put in front of them.
00:27:55:29 - 00:28:13:26
Camden
You're not, personally motivated intrinsically. Oh, man. What if we could do this for the. You just become minimum effort to get the job done, and they don't want to hire that. So why are you right? By putting out that kind of request, you're inherently asking, hey, who wants to come be like the most least effort agency for us?
00:28:13:26 - 00:28:23:24
Camden
Who's the who's once going to try is not going to spend any extra time on us, is going to put us at the bottom of the pile. That's who we want. No one. No one wants that. But you set that up when you put out a request like that.
00:28:23:26 - 00:28:43:23
Jason
I've never heard of an agency called Order Taker Creative, right? I mean, you know, at the end of the day, like, that's not what what, we're in this business for. I think there are, you know, there's certainly people on in your agencies who do, production work, right, with what we call. And so, yeah, there might be a time where you're like, hey, we just need this deliverable done.
00:28:43:27 - 00:28:58:08
Jason
It's not high level thinking. There's not a lot of strategy behind. It's not about creativity behind it. But to me, that's when you hire, a freelancer or somebody like that versus hiring the thinking and the value and the insights that an agency will bring to the relationship.
00:28:58:13 - 00:29:18:21
Camden
Bingo. I don't think it's everyone needs an agency and that's someone who works at an agency. I think it's like, yes, you need an agency. It's when you need that expertise that you don't currently have because you have a certain problem or opportunity. If you know exactly what you need and you just need a few hands on deck or, hey, someone's really good at this design element, I already know what I want.
00:29:18:21 - 00:29:46:02
Camden
Can they just make it happen? Great. Go find a. Yeah. Freelancer. Contractor. Have one of your internal employees, you know, use use and I, I get get it done that way. Don't hire an agency for that because an agency is set up and organized and priced in a way to give you more than that. And so it's not like, shame on you for not hiring an agency, but you're going to be if you're hiring agency for the wrong reasons, then it doesn't help you and the agency gets frustrated.
00:29:46:02 - 00:29:48:00
Camden
And yeah.
00:29:48:02 - 00:29:52:11
Jason
Perfect. All right. We're going to take a quick break here and be back on the other side.
00:29:52:13 - 00:30:01:25
Jason
This episode is brought to you by Audible. Enjoy 30 days free of Audible Premium Plus by going to ontopofpr.comp/audible.
00:30:01:27 - 00:30:26:04
Announcer
You're listening to On Top of PR with your host, Jason Mudd. Jason is a trusted advisor to some of America's most admired and fastest growing brands. He is the managing partner at Axia Public Relations, a PR agency that guides news, social and web strategies for national companies. And now, back to the show.
00:30:26:06 - 00:30:41:22
Jason
Welcome back to On Top of PR I'm your host, Jason Mudd with Axia Public Relations. Today we're talking about this book. Stop asking for pitches. It's by Camden Burnett. And, he is, sharing with us the ten rules to fix the client agency relationship.
00:30:41:24 - 00:31:00:03
Jason
We're having a great topic here. Thank you for sticking around with us. We're going to jump in here and knock out the remaining items. And we rule number four is to rethink your reasons for hiring an agency. And, we've hit on that a little bit, but can't handle, you know, kind of summarize a little bit for us.
00:31:00:05 - 00:31:19:26
Camden
Yeah. I feel like all these, all these, chapters, they do build and blend on each other. So we, we've kind of touched on this, but just to summarize in chapter four, rethink your reasons for hiring agency. I talk about a variety of common reasons. People come to the RFP or put out the RFP basically, or are considering hiring an agency that on the surface makes sense.
00:31:19:26 - 00:31:37:16
Camden
And they're kind of a default reason you might have in mind. But I point out the flaws in some of those different reasons. I won't get into the details for the sake of time, but some of them are like an extension of your team, or to look good to your higher ups, or to train your internal team on something that you eventually want to take in-house.
00:31:37:16 - 00:31:56:01
Camden
But you'll have an agency in the meantime. There's a variety of reasons that I think, are going to produce diminishing returns and not actually get you what you want as the one hiring an agency for that reason. So I break down why why they might look good, but what that what the downfalls actually are and present kind of some better ways to look at it.
00:31:56:01 - 00:32:01:23
Camden
And so I'm very pro hiring an agency if it's for the right reason.
00:32:01:26 - 00:32:23:15
Jason
Yeah, sure. And I think as a trusted advisor, we want to guide clients and companies in that direction of maybe you don't need an agency for this, or maybe you do, depending on what the challenges. And I think they'll find by talking to agencies and having, as Blair recommends, conversations with agencies as opposed to just sending a brief, over the wire and then waiting to get a response.
00:32:23:15 - 00:32:43:10
Jason
You know, having some conversations is a great way to get started. I know for our agency, we require a conversation or we're just going to say, no thanks. Right. And through those conversations, we've learned a lot more about the company. We're able to give the company better recommendations, and the company is now challenging some of their thinking through the questions we asked and the solutions that we discussed with them.
00:32:43:12 - 00:32:54:06
Jason
Yeah. Chapter five is I like this one. Earn the enthusiasm of your agency. What what's your what's your, recommendation there?
00:32:54:09 - 00:33:13:21
Camden
This one again to talk about the perspective agency, thinking about this versus the person hiring them. It might sound a little self-serving of the agency, like, hey, earn, earn our enthusiasm. And there is an element to that. We want to have people who appreciate us. But I also lay out in this chapter why it is in your best interests as the hiring that the brain that's hiring the agency.
00:33:13:28 - 00:33:30:19
Camden
You want your agency team to be excited about what they're doing for you, and that's how you get your best work. And so I lay out some ways to think about that. What kind of things agency people do get excited about. It's not always the biggest budget. I mean, yes, they want to get paid, but you might think, oh, I'm not the most exciting client.
00:33:30:21 - 00:33:51:13
Camden
I don't have the biggest budget for them. That's not going to be the case in most situations. And so I lay out some, some principles of that and kind of to summarize that now, I guess I would say the main takeaway of, of chapter five or the main way of how you can earn the enthusiasm of your agency or your your PR firm is treat them as strategic allies, not just vendors.
00:33:51:13 - 00:34:08:11
Camden
You brought up the example of like the commoditization of products and services or people feel like they're just buying something off the shelf. No one wants to get no one. No one gets enthusiastic feeling like they're just a button that you push when you need to have them kick out something. But if you go to them and treat them as like partners in this, let's talk about this.
00:34:08:11 - 00:34:11:16
Camden
What do you think they can get enthusiastic about it?
00:34:11:18 - 00:34:28:00
Jason
Yeah, I agree with that. I also think that the best clients are the ones that get the best work. Right. And, I'm not the one who's the first to say that. But my team is excited about clients who respect the work and the opinions and insights that we bring. They're not the ones necessarily the best budgets.
00:34:28:00 - 00:34:47:15
Jason
They're the ones that are the most cooperative, the most respectful, the most enthusiastic and appreciative. I'm not saying to butter up your agency or kiss their butt or be the teacher's pet, but at the end of the day, we do our best work for the clients that show the most appreciation and respect for what we do. It's not the client that says, oh, that was great, but that was yesterday.
00:34:47:15 - 00:35:06:01
Jason
What have you done for me today? Or, you know, they're micromanaging the process. So, you know, there's ways to earn the enthusiasm of your agency. And I think number one is to just make sure you treat them like a strategic partner or a trusted advisor, not a commodity that you're looking for the best price and that, you know, they can be swapped out at any time.
00:35:06:03 - 00:35:29:06
Camden
Yep. Which leads right to chapter six, the next one, which I'm kind of I sent setting it up for you, but it is value the expertise of your agency that's, that's kind of goes hand in hand with how they get. They feel enthusiastic about your account if they feel like you're valuing their expertise. And so there is a difference between expecting expert expertise from your agency and then valuing it.
00:35:29:13 - 00:36:05:06
Camden
I think expecting it is it's easy. You say, hey, I want it, I'm paying for it. Give me your expertise. That's kind of the natural default, but valuing the expertise, and that's the reason I use that word specifically, is creating the conditions in which it can actually be put to use. It can actually be useful. And so, by doing that, like I said, it's I could get into a long winded answer, but if you think about how you're treating your agency or your potential agency, if you see them, as I use the example of, you know, pushing a button and something comes out, the vending machine type of agency relationship, think about how that's
00:36:05:06 - 00:36:24:10
Camden
going to make them feel and react to you versus if you have if you value the expertise that they're giving you and not just the assets or the write up or the designs that they're giving you, you're going to approach it a little bit differently. And so you can see the domino effect as if I you might having the same conversation, the same kind of brief, the same kind of interactions.
00:36:24:17 - 00:36:32:23
Camden
But if it's valuing expertise over just expecting it, you're going to be a lot more collaborative and get better results in the long run.
00:36:32:25 - 00:36:55:21
Jason
Yeah, I like that. And I think you're exactly right. I mean, it my team and the people I work with, you know, they know that I expect to have them tell you, you know, here's three options. If I were you, I would go with option two, or I want them to give me advice. And so, you know, if I'm working with our art director or our copy editor, I might say, hey, what would you recommend here?
00:36:55:21 - 00:37:10:27
Jason
Or I want them to not even make me ask. I just want them to tell me. And I think we should be doing that in our client interactions. Also is coming to them with, you know, hey, here's what I would do if I were you, or I'd treat it like it's your own business or your own money. And so I think that's a really good point.
00:37:10:27 - 00:37:25:03
Jason
So, rule number seven, chapter number seven is don't ask for solutions without paying for them. AKA we talked about this a little bit earlier, spec work. And so did you have more to add to that?
00:37:25:05 - 00:37:45:18
Camden
Just another analogy I think. I, I think an analogy. So if the medical one didn't hit, we already touched a little bit on spec work, so I won't rehash that. But I think a lot of times people hearing this say, hold on, I think it's totally fair to ask for spec work. We asked for people to audition for like a sports team or audition for like, you know, acquire some a singing competition or whatever.
00:37:45:21 - 00:38:05:14
Camden
But I would say spec work is not the same thing as a tryout or an audition, a better equivalent to like, I'll take the sports analogy, I like basketball, I spec work isn't a tryout asking for spec work is like asking someone to come play a full game on your team. Score points, win the game for you to then decide if they're going to make the team or not.
00:38:05:21 - 00:38:24:19
Camden
Like you get to own that perform. You own that work they gave you because if you've seen it, you can use it without paying for it. We talked about that the you're getting their value and providing their, it's not just showing you what they can do, they're actually giving you something. And so it's not it's not fair to them in that way.
00:38:24:19 - 00:38:40:23
Camden
And they're not going to be motivated to give you their best effort. Because what if you do end up hiring them? It's not that they don't. They don't want to like, you know, under under deliver. But if you ask someone to give you spec work what their in their mind and say, how can we show our value while giving as little away as possible?
00:38:40:26 - 00:39:02:09
Camden
And so you're not going to necessarily get beside all the shallow understanding of it and things I mentioned before, you're are you're automatically setting up the relationship. How can I kind of help them but not fully give them my best effort? That is not how you want to start that relationship. And so instead of spec work, instead of what you see as the edition, even though it's not as good as an audition, you should have alignment.
00:39:02:09 - 00:39:25:28
Camden
And like Blair talks about conversations, think about what questions do you have about us and our brand. What do you what do you what do you assess the things that we need to answer about ourselves? What are we not seeing? How do you approach problems like this in the past and have conversations and questions and challenging of assumptions, and through a series of those conversations, you identify hate the way that they think, the way we interact.
00:39:25:28 - 00:39:44:21
Camden
I want to work with them. I want them on my team. And then we can talk about the ideas, the solutions, the messaging, things like that. It shouldn't be done by asking, give me the solution. Give me give me some work already. See if I like it because it doesn't. It's not fair to the agency, but also you're not going to get where you actually need.
00:39:44:24 - 00:39:55:06
Camden
You're going to get a flashy moment that maybe impress you in the pitch, but then you realize they don't actually align with us or they don't understand our problem or they whatever. So yeah.
00:39:55:09 - 00:40:13:01
Jason
That's good thing. We will add in the episode notes a link to your book, that we're talking about here, on Amazon. So that, our audience, if they're interested in what you're talking about here, what we're talking about here, that they can go in and purchase that, book as well. And, I'll also put a link to a video that I really liked.
00:40:13:01 - 00:40:28:01
Jason
It's kind of funny. And it's, it's, it's mocking kind of the client agency relationship, like, we're describing it where, a woman goes to the hair salon and says, you know, I want you to give, color my hair with a little bit of a red tent. And if I like, if my husband likes it, I'll come back and I'll pay you.
00:40:28:01 - 00:40:43:23
Jason
But if he doesn't like it, I'm not going to pay you for it. And, you know, you're nodding and I'm laughing. And I think some of our audience that is on the client side might not understand the humor behind this, but, you know, there are clients who are audacious enough to say, well, I want you to work on this, but if we don't like it, we don't want to have to pay for it.
00:40:43:26 - 00:40:53:00
Jason
And I think that's really hammering home. The point is, don't ask for solutions without being willing to pay for it. And the video is designed to be humorous in that regard. But, you know, you know.
00:40:53:03 - 00:41:02:01
Camden
It seems obvious in that setting. It's like, that's silly. Why would you ever do that? But it's like, that's literally what you do when you ask agencies to give you spec work and you may or may not paying for it. Yeah.
00:41:02:04 - 00:41:15:12
Jason
Yeah. Well, what's funny is, you know, I know a woman because I don't really need a haircut very often that cuts hair. And she tells me that she's had people try to propose something like that, like, you know, or whatever. And I'm like, are you kidding me? So I showed her the video and she's like, yeah.
00:41:15:12 - 00:41:37:14
Jason
In my long career of being a hairstylist, this has happened to me. So and, you know, it's pretty funny. So. Okay, wrapping up here, let's see, address issues of money early. I know I've won business from clients because I brought up money early, and everybody else was too afraid to bring it up, and the buyer appreciated that.
00:41:37:16 - 00:41:40:07
Jason
But why are you prescribing bringing up money early?
00:41:40:09 - 00:42:02:27
Camden
It's just about the psychological foundation of the relationship, setting it on the right foot. If you are jumping around, if you can't be upfront about what budget you do or don't have, or on the agency side, what things are not going to cost, you're wasting your time because you need to have open transparency, and it doesn't mean that you that that you are not going to work with them if their budget isn't isn't what it needs to be.
00:42:03:02 - 00:42:20:27
Camden
Or maybe it does, and therefore they're not a good partner. So it's just by it just having things on the table early, talking about like, we think that you're prescribing something that's going to cost more than you say you have money for, or here's a better way to do that, or I really love you don't want if you're the one hiring the agency, you don't want to get all these ideas that they're giving to you.
00:42:21:02 - 00:42:37:16
Camden
Heaven forbid they gave you a spec or two that has all this value and you're like, awesome. I love that we can't afford that. You've wasted their energy, you've wasted your time. And now they had kind of a bad taste in their mouth. And then what's going to happen to is you might say, oh, I love that. Can we just cut this part and whittle this part down?
00:42:37:16 - 00:42:55:22
Camden
Maybe we should water this part down and then it fits in our budget. And if you do that, it's no longer it doesn't have the power to before you think it's just like, almost as good version. So anyways, it basically is about being clear and upfront. And again, I want to point out my, the, the inspiration by from Blair and the women that pitching manifesto.
00:42:55:22 - 00:43:06:25
Camden
This is not a totally original concept, but I think it applies just as much to agency as you talk about money. Early clients should be willing to talk about money early and just have clarity from the beginning.
00:43:06:27 - 00:43:26:20
Jason
Absolutely. And I had a client, a prospective client meeting recently, and I told him, I just said, hey, what you're asking for aligned with your budget, we could probably do one of the three things we talked about here today. And that clarity was very helpful because I don't think they realized that they couldn't do all three for the price that they had.
00:43:26:23 - 00:44:02:19
Jason
And regardless, it was a helpful exercise of them to prioritize what was most important. And I'm not saying that because, the order taker role, because through the conversation, I came back with them and said, hey, if I were in your shoes, here's the three things I would do. However, given the budget, we've talked about investment capabilities we've talked about, you should probably pick one and do that one well, and I think we won the work because of our candor and transparency of bringing up investment earlier, early and then acting like it was our own money and what we would do with it instead of waiting for them to pick the option.
00:44:02:21 - 00:44:17:28
Camden
I'm glad you have examples of people who have ended up awarding you the work for you. Pushing back in that way, I think too often there's clients that say, okay, never mind. Someone else said they can do it all for this price, and then they become Agency Jumper because we're like, well, we weren't happy with it or it seemed watered down or they didn't prioritize us.
00:44:18:00 - 00:44:42:02
Camden
And so by the nature of their late, you set up something that couldn't. Maybe they were desperate to get anything in business in the door however they could, or they were delusional about what their own, you know, needs would be to charge you and set whatever it might be. And so there's a lot of times you'll see some of those brands that have kind of a weak of agencies behind them because someone told them yes, couldn't deliver because it was unrealistic expectations at the top to the next one, up to the next one.
00:44:42:04 - 00:44:57:16
Jason
Yeah. And that's good. I, I could, we could do a whole episode on that. I think, you know, the idea of a, a company coming to me and telling me the problems they're having with their current agency, and they say, well, they don't bring us ideas and they just take orders and they do whatever. Oh, and our budget is this.
00:44:57:16 - 00:45:25:03
Jason
And I'm like, well, that's what's happening is they can't afford to staff your account. Yeah. With with the types of results you're expecting, with the types of creativity and ideas, and the consultative approach, they're probably losing money every, every month just trying to deliver something to you, hoping that the business, relationship improves. And so, you know, I'm always a big fan of if you've got an agency, try to make it work with that agency first before you just jump to another agency.
00:45:25:06 - 00:45:46:15
Jason
Yeah. Chapter nine. Don't expect your partners to work at a loss. You know, they don't expect their I hopefully they don't expect their employees to come to work and lose money. Right. They want to provide a, a rewarding career and the ability for employees to, you know, have, a safe and rewarding, lifestyle.
00:45:46:18 - 00:46:06:23
Jason
And, if they don't, then those employees are coming to work less productive and more distracted and stressed. And a stressed out employee is probably not something that you're going to get your best work from. And your customers or clients or coworkers are going to get a great employment experience from. So, talk about chapter nine for us.
00:46:06:25 - 00:46:26:26
Camden
Yeah. So this one is, other side of a of the same coin when it comes to like spec work. So spec work is all about before you've hired them, asking them to give you stuff. But a lot of times agencies will be asked to work or expected to work, whether explicitly or through assumption, to work at a loss after they've already got the account.
00:46:26:26 - 00:46:46:01
Camden
And those are some things like endless revision cycles. You have a certain amount of time and energy and bandwidth dedicated to something, but then they want to review it again. And as it's a more and more, pretty soon you've gone way more time. And then and now you're working at a loss in that sense, scope creep where you agree to do something and they want a little add ins.
00:46:46:01 - 00:47:02:19
Camden
So can you also put it into this and can you also and pretty soon you've now inflated what you, what they originally agreed to do for you, for the price you agreed on, asking for free pitches or brainstorms occasionally. Just have a little brainstorm about this other other problem that we're having or this connected issues and the one you're working on.
00:47:02:26 - 00:47:23:10
Camden
And it seems like just a nice little, you know, side conversation, but you're unlocking a whole nother deliverable that's asking them to work at a loss. Asking them sometimes. This one particularly is a little bit of a pet peeve for me. I'm not any of my clients are gonna listen to this, but this is asking the agency to then sell the idea that you approve to their higher ups.
00:47:23:10 - 00:47:38:28
Camden
So they'll say, yep, I'm good with this. I want to run with this. Could you go get my boss on board, or could you present to the board or whatever? And now you're like, we work with you to get it figured out, and now we have to spend, put a new pitch to make them convinced of it. And you should be convincing your own higher ups.
00:47:39:04 - 00:47:51:18
Camden
And what if they don't like it and they have feedback to know how to respond to their feedback, even though you approved it and convince your own people. If you approve the work, convince your higher ups of why it's a good idea. Don't ask your agency to go sell it for you.
00:47:51:21 - 00:48:07:15
Jason
Yeah, yeah, that's a whole nother topic in and of itself. I can remember one time we did some for Chief Marketing officer. She's like, this is amazing. So much better than I ever thought it could be. And then she comes back and says, our CEO and president hated it. In fact, they think we should get another agency.
00:48:07:15 - 00:48:21:00
Jason
And I'm like, wait a minute. Like, we did this to the specs you asked for. You said it was great, and now they're unhappy. Did you tell them it was your idea? Did you tell them you loved it? Did you tell them we worked in steps or show them earlier revisions?
00:48:21:00 - 00:48:23:16
Camden
So you get that feedback earlier? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:48:23:20 - 00:48:41:09
Jason
And no she threw us under the bus, you know. And we did. We ended up getting fired. And I thought to myself like, you know, she was so happy with the work that we did. And then her bosses just didn't like it. So she was like, sorry, they didn't like it. And I and I'm like, well, you're the chief marketing officer, you know?
00:48:41:11 - 00:48:57:16
Jason
But I get it. I mean, you know, at the end of the day, I tell people we're insurance, so if something goes bad, you get bad PR or whatever happens, even if we're not involved, you know, it's a lot easier to fire an agency than it is to, you know, say, hey, it was all my fault. You can just blame the agency and they become the victim.
00:48:57:16 - 00:49:06:16
Jason
And some people hire agencies just for that reason. And I can't blame them when you're in these important roles and you're getting compensated. Well, you want to protect your position.
00:49:06:19 - 00:49:21:24
Camden
Yeah I talk about that and I just lost a little bit of number nine is again the why now it's just kind of gets a plug for the book. But yeah it is obviously easier to just throw your agency under the bus. But I think I laid out some reasons in there. Why you want in your best interest is the ones hiring them.
00:49:21:26 - 00:49:27:26
Camden
You actually you shouldn't want to do that because it's going to hurt you in the long run too. So read the book to see more about that, I guess.
00:49:27:29 - 00:49:35:05
Jason
Okay, nice. And the last chapter is number ten. Treat your budgets as investments. Tell us more.
00:49:35:07 - 00:49:56:28
Camden
There's a difference in, the way it feels to spend money on someone on an agency versus spend the money spending money with the agency. The dollar amount might be the exact same, but it's it's a it's a, frame of mind. It's. You see, your agency as I use the analogy of, like, an engine to fuel as opposed to a resource to drain.
00:49:57:01 - 00:50:18:15
Camden
You will treat it differently and they will perform differently. So this is not making any I don't try to make any specifics about what your minimum budget should be, or what's a fair price, or you and your agency, you can figure that out, but I'm suggesting that if you approach it as how can I find something that I'm excited to invest in, as opposed to every expense that goes to my agency as a necessary evil?
00:50:18:17 - 00:50:37:02
Camden
You will get the enthusiasm of your agency, obviously, but the ideas will be thing. You will fuel the right stuff, as opposed to holding yourself back from what you could be getting and missing opportunities because you're trying. You're scared to spend any dollars. I'm not saying you should take overinflated prices. I'm not saying you should spend what you don't have.
00:50:37:04 - 00:50:47:04
Camden
Nothing like that, but just a frame of mind. It's an investment. You will treat it differently than as a necessary evil expense. That's. That's final chapter ten.
00:50:47:07 - 00:51:05:28
Jason
Yeah, I like that, I like it, I like referring it to as an investment instead of cost, instead of budget instead of fee instead of whatever you want to call it. And, you know, at the end of the day, at least, when we're thinking about the PR work that we do, we know that PR, you know, results compound over time.
00:51:05:28 - 00:51:26:08
Jason
Yes. And we're building a long term brand and reputation for our clients. It's not an ad that was placed or paid for, and then it disappears into vapor. You never see it again. A lot of PR stuff is, you know, very long term. And so I'm a big believer in referring to it as an investment. So I talk about, what is your investment?
00:51:26:08 - 00:51:44:22
Jason
What your investment schedule, what's your investment capabilities? And it does it shifts it shifts that conversation around, especially if they're looking for a return from their investment. In PR and or whatever it might be. So I'm a big fan of that one. Camden, we ran a little long today, but I thought it was very helpful.
00:51:44:22 - 00:51:52:24
Jason
I appreciate you sticking with us and our audience as well. If a member of our audience wants to connect with you, what's your preferred way that they reach you?
00:51:52:27 - 00:52:08:01
Camden
Best way right now is LinkedIn. Type in my name. Camden Burnett's on LinkedIn. I'm pretty active there. Yeah, that's I think it's the best way is hit me up there. I'm happy to answer messages and jump on posts and things like that. And then, yeah, my book is on Amazon.
00:52:08:04 - 00:52:28:14
Jason
Perfect. We will put links to both your LinkedIn and your Amazon book. As promised, I'll link to a couple other related videos and resources, including the episode we did with Shannon from Win Without Pitching previously on this show. And, I'm glad to have met you. I think we could, probably share a beverage together and talk about this for quite a while.
00:52:28:17 - 00:52:38:06
Jason
And, you know, maybe one day we'll have the opportunity to do that, perhaps at a, industry or profession workshop or conference of some sort. So, yeah, thanks for doing this. I really appreciate it.
00:52:38:08 - 00:52:44:04
Camden
Thank you for having me. I appreciate your time. And let me. Sorry for going a little long. I got a little long winded, but I appreciate that's okay.
00:52:44:04 - 00:53:01:28
Jason
It's a topic I love talking about. I got long winded as well. So with that, this has been another episode of On Top of PR. Thank you for tuning in and giving me the opportunity to help you stay on top of PR. If you enjoyed this episode, take a moment to share it with a friend. Or even better, leave us a review on the platform of your choice.
00:53:02:04 - 00:53:13:25
Jason
Let us know how we're doing that will help us attract others and help us improve our show. For you again Jason Mudd from Axia Public Relations. Signing off I hope some great hams to you today. Be well.
00:53:13:28 - 00:53:26:08
Announcer
This has been On Top of PR with Jason Mudd presented by ReviewMaxer. Be sure to subscribe so you don't miss an episode, and check out past episodes at ontopofpr.com.
Topics: PR tips, On Top of PR
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