The secret worries of a PR firm boss

Six issues that keep this manager up at night

Mel Brooks once famously observed that “it’s good to be the king.” It’s probably also pleasant to be Bill Gates or Michael Arrington. I’d even guess that some folks think it’s pretty good to be me.

What is it like to have responsibility for running a public relations firm? You might be able to imagine the upside, but there are struggles too. Here are some of the issues that folks like me think about on a daily basis:

• PR budgets can be small, so we need to position ourselves more broadly. We’re not the “big cheese” in marketing services—the advertising industry is (at least for now) Advertising agencies command huge budgets and the attention of CMOs. Maybe the digital explosion will change that, but we have some work to do first. In the meantime, our job is to reach beyond PR wherever we can and demonstrate our ability to seamlessly integrate with other areas of marketing.

• Employee turnovers force cultural changes. Every time we lose an employee, we lose a piece of who we are as a firm. This can be hard to live through, especially since the ones who are left behind have to pick up the slack. However, if you hang in there, you’ll benefit by seeing how new employees can infuse and improve the culture.