Monday, October 27, 2008

How To Start Your Own Public Relations Firm


EPPS Workshop

“Prepare Now, Because The Day Will Come!”

By George S. McQuade III
West Coast Bureau Chief
www.odwyerpr.com

“I started my own agency on a fluke,” said Murray Weissman, president, Murray Weissman & Associates, Los Angeles. Murray was amongst eight Entertainment Publicists Professional Society (EPPS) Panelists at the recent (Oct. 16, 2208) media workshop “Mechanics of Starting Up Your Own PR Firm.” It was held at the ICG Headquarters in Hollywood.

Murray Weisman

“I knew I was going to leave Rogers & Cowen and I would be calling around town for another job, so I let them know in front, and also called a good friend of mine, the late Thomas M. Pryor, who was editor of Daily Variety,” said Weissman. “For some reason he put my story on the front page of Variety, and I said, ‘I’m leaving to form my own PR agency,’ and that resulted unbelievably in two clients coming in to follow my leave, and boom, I was in business.”

Weissman also said, be prepared, have confidence and use all that background experience to be successful when starting your own PR firm. Weissman’s first client was Charlton Heston, and the movie “Mountain Men.”

“I say to everybody in this room, and if you work for a big company, prepare now, because the day will come when you’ll use all of your good contacts that you’re making with your different clients. They’ll come back to you, you’ll learn from them, and they will become valuable assets in the future. Some where down the line when you work for big companies as I did, like ABC, CBS, NBC and Universal for 10 years. The day will come when there is a management change and they’ll show you the door.”

Madelyn Hammond, Variety

“If you are ever in a position to help someone start their business you should do that,” said Madelyn Hammon, Chief Marketing Officer, Variety, who started her own business and went back to corporate life. Madelyn moderated the workshop. “If you are ever in a position where you are really successful, and got a spare office, and someone is going on their own, you should say, ‘come here for awhile, because that will make all the difference in the world.”

“When you start your own business you need to plan how you get clients, but also how you plan to organize your life,” said William Vu, Esq. Lawyer, Los Angeles. “There isn’t one thing, there are a lot of risks that have to be managed, you will need office space, but more importantly how you plan to organize your life.”

“My situation was a little different from Murray’s, said Stan Rosenfield, president & founder of Stan Rosenfield & Associates. “I had had worked for a very successful company, and I had always wanted to go out on my own. I read an article about the Master’s Gold Tournament, which said, ‘The average age of a Master’s champion was 33, however if you had not one the Master’s by the time you were 28, you were not likely to win it.’ I equated that to going out on your own. I did not want start out on my own when I was 45, but I didn’t quite know what or how I wanted to do it, and spent one year at the former company doing nothing but planning my company, developing a mental business plan.”


Rosenfield, who started his company in August, 1975, suggested creating a business plan, and obtaining a line of credit to start your company. Rosenfield’s first client was Actor Bruce Dern, and his friend who was general manager of KHJ radio in LA, and I had the movie “One Flew Over The Cookoos Nest,” (starring Jack Nicolson), and there were a couple of actors in that film that I had talked to, because we were representing the movie. Three or four actors came with me.”

“I operated the first three months on adredeline alone, but that’s how I did it. My former boss used to say ‘eight phone calls then I am out of business.’ You could lose your company if you get four or five phone calls saying ‘you’ve been really good for me, but I want to go a different direction.’ There’s no protection against that, because personal service contracts are not valid unless they have a 30-day out clause, and clients can leave you. I had very loyal clients,” said Rosenfield.

Amy Prenner (R) & William Vue

“I actually started my company out of burnout,” said Amy Prenner, The Prenner Group. ‘I ran publicity for Wheel of Fortune for five years, and I spent half of every month on the road. It got to the point where if you knew the city, I knew the journalist. I knew the radio person, media affiliates, so I felt I built a great basis for anything I wanted to do. I decided to leave after going to the same markets (media) again, and I realized maybe it is time to do something else. Slowly through the contacts I’d built, I put the feelers out just to see what was going on, and what was out there without even trying, I started getting clients. Right as I was leaving (Wheel of Fortune) I started getting referrals left and right. I took in a lot of meetings, but I knew I wanted to stay in television, since I had been working TV for nine years, so it is what I know, if I couldn’t work for someone, I would do it on my own.”

Prenner said about six years ago, she felt like, she was too young to handle it and wasn’t ready, and that she didn’t know how to handle money, billing, retainers and “chase things so, it fell apart really fast. Be sure you know what you are doing before you jump in,” she said. Her first client was on TLC (Discovery Channel) called Big Medicine, that stapled people’s stomachs.”

Contracts and unpaid billings

“Letter of agreements are okay, but I like to see contracts, because that’s the kind of lawyer I am,” said Vu. “Relationships are built on trust, and I like paper, but you have to maintain that relationship with your clients, so they will stay with you year after year.”

“When an independent film company comes in we have a letter of agreement, we have do an indemnification clause, which I highly believe in so you don’t get sued, and you incorporate your company, so they don’t take your house away if there is a legal action. If we haven’t dealt with this client before, we require two months fee in advance, along with a $1,000 for expenses, which is accounted for, so we know we’ve got that in the bank, before we start working,” said Weissman.

“I agree and it is a great idea," said Dan Harary, president & founder, Asbury Public Relations, LA. “Most of my clients are small little boutique companies or big marketing agencies, and multimillion dollar clients thank God. But, for the smaller ones, I have lunch with them, I shake their hands, I look in their eyes, I get some references, and I have to go with my gut. In 12 years I’ve only been screwed a few times. My second year I was screwed for about $40,000, and several companies had gone bankrupt.

When talking about fees, Harary drew a huge laugh from the audience when he said, “I’m like the Wal-Mart of PR. I don’t care about quality; I go for quantity of clients.”

Harary said fees could range from $500 for startups working out of their apartment to $5-$7K. The average amounts to $3,000- $5,000 per month. Most of the panelist believe in getting fees at the beginning of the month, before work begins. On larger accounts some publicists like Weissman ask for half the funds upfront, which are placed in an escrow account.

“I wish I had the leverage to ask for payment upfront, however I am third party of some film projects. Always get something in writing with expectations written down,” said Caroline Rustingian Bruderer, owner, K-Line & Company. I always ask for some kind of contract, because some clients will say you didn’t what you said you were going to do. So cover your asses,” she said.

“I have a one page agreement, which includes an indemnification clause and works well for all my clients,” said Weisman. “Both of us sign and date it after we agree on the scope of work.”

“Homeowners will not cover your business if you use your home or apartment for business,” said Michael Mesnick, CPA.

“You need liability insurance, and obviously you need workers Compensation Insurance and malpractice insurance in the even of a lawsuit. Anyone who does not get malpractice insurance is a fool, because you can get into a situation, and I’ve known this to happen to two people, one of them was a friend of mine and business manager, who got sued by two of her employees in a sexual harassment case, she said it didn’t really happen, but the two employees collaborated with each other. It cost her a $250,000 to settle the case, and it cost $3,500 a year to have the malpractice insurance. It protects you against an employee suit. If a client, for whatever reason wants to sue you, you can be out of business, lose your home and you can lose everything.”

Attorney Vu says to protect yourself you need to be incorporated, because letter of agreement you sign with the client is with the company. If you do not have a good business support team on your side and get great advice, you’re making a huge, huge mistake. You need a good accountant, and a good labor attorney. You are running business, which has nothing to do with the creative aspect of being a publicist. Other panelists agree adding a bookkeeper and Information Technology expert to the list.

Last piece of advice; do not get rid of your company insurance until to secure health insurance for your new company.

MAYO PR - "We don't guarantee media, we just get it!"

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

LOS ANGELES TIMES IN FOR LONG RUN



By George McQuade

West Coast Bureau Chief


The Los Angeles Times is not like an endangered polar bear stranded on an ice floe, it has some smart people who are making tough decisions to insure the long-term survival of the 120-year-old paper now owned by real estate baron Sam “The Grave Dancer” Zell.


That was the message Darrell Kunitomi, public affairs representative of the L.A. Times, had for O’Dwyer’s following a tour of the newsroom and a presentation at LAT headquarters.




Kunitomi

Darrell Kunitomi, public affairs
representative of the L.A. Times


Change is the reality at the LAT. “The Media Group will get webbier, the newspaper will change sections, fold them, create new composites; retrain still photographers and reporters to become VJs and use video reports more and more; and the newspaper will continue to change its look,” said Kunitomi. “The graphics are changing as we speak, including the front page of the future. Don’t be shocked – it’s a new era of new ownership.”


He put the change mantra into context. “A great organization such as The Times should be one of those companies that will go on long after its original founders have passed from the scene, change its spots, adapt, and survive to prosper and grow.


“The movies survived the breakup of the studio system. The music business has dealt with synthesizers, vinyl to cds and now file sharing,” he said.


Here’s the best part for PR pros pitching the LA Times: “We still take hard information, images, commentary entertainment, food and sports and fun and put it to newsprint every 24 hours. It might be a traditional, retro way of informing society, but at The Times it is what we know and what we do best. We’re changing. We know we must to survive. And really, we know that,” said Kunitomi.

During the tour, this writer noticed several changes. Stacks of newspapers, media kits, dictionaries and books have been replaced by more computers, high tech gadgets, high tech monitors and electronic wizardry.


But really noticeable were fewer people, almost like visiting the newsroom on a weekend night with a skeleton staff onboard.


The group tour was sponsored by PRSA-LA, Southern California American Marketing Assn., Direct Marketing Assn. of Southern California and Women in Technology International (WITI) and held in one of the ‘great buildings of LA history.”


Four globalization considerations



John Longhlin, president of Targeted Media and senior VP marketing, told the audience how the LAT wrestled with globalization.


He said the LAT answered four questions:

  • Which countries should we support? In which order?
  • Which languages should we offer? Which should we do first?
  • How much content should we offer? How deep should we go?
  • Should we just market ourselves on the web? Or should we sell?

“If you want news, politics, sports, entertainment, we got something for you, so come and send some time with us,” said Longhlin.


The Tribune Direct/LA Times event was billed as helping PR Pros learn “what the LA Times is looking for today in news coverage and how it is dealing with current changes in print media.”


However, the closest we got to any editors or writers was the distant tour of the Los Angeles Times Newsroom, which was quiet, nearly empty and almost surreal compared to even two or three years ago.


For the newspaper business, it might just be the sign of the Times.



MAYO PR - "We don't guarantee media, we just get it!"