How to deal with these 6 tough client scenarios

This is part 2 of 2 on the series on identifying potentially difficult situations when servicing client and how to better equip yourself when encountering them. Read the previous article here.

Here are some suggestions on how you can identify potentially difficult situations and better equip yourself when encountering them.

Scenario 4: The client says, “I want to launch all these four campaigns by end of this week."

In Singapore, or anywhere in the world, no project worth doing comes without deadlines. Part of being an effective PR consultant is assisting your client in ensuring that all projects are executed in a timely manner, and to do this, you need to understand the corporate culture of your client's organisation.

Is your client's marketing team small, overwhelmed and finding it hard to stick to deadlines? What is the proportion of junior to senior executives in your client's marketing team?

Are you and the client on the same page with regards to the amount of time and effort and methodology needed to execute a project at an acceptable standard?

If deadlines are a concern, you need to be astute in managing the workload based on the manpower available and expected result.

Draw up a timeline and distribute it to everyone on the project.

Ask the client important questions that will help him or her prioritise: Is it necessary for the team to invest such effort and time for a low-profile project? Does it have to be submitted tomorrow?

If the client's team is overwhelmed or if the team is mostly made up of interns or junior executives, ask if your team can step in and manage the project from end to end (while offering to train up the juniors), but ensure that you seek your client's approval where it matters.

Scenario 5: The client says, "Bottom line, my boss has to be happy."

This point is related to Scenario number 1 in my previous series about managing expectations. Both you and the client have to be fairly specific on how to measure the results of a campaign and the kind of engagement with the target audience that is not only meaningful to the client but achievable.

Some clients may prefer to have more feature stories, some may prefer to work towards a specific number of clippings as opposed to total value of clippings, while others may place more emphasis on bloggers and online media over traditional media.

Whichever option you choose, ensure that you're specific enough in that you address a range of possible outcomes and not just the best or worst case scenario.

Scenario 6: The client says, "Don't you know Serena from the XXX paper or Rahim from the ABC station?"

To win an account, it's not enough that the account servicing team is adept at spinning stories, ideally they should at least be on first name terms with members of the media related to their clients’ fields, and ideally be on occasional lunch or drinks terms with key, senior media such as editors and influential columnists.

Approaching the media for the first time requires discretion, charm and also sensitivity, and forging a relationship with them, or anyone for that matter takes time.

It's not advisable to invite media to lunch or drinks if you haven't already been introduced to them or if you have never met them at all; it is crass and reeks of desperation, the antithesis of good PR.

The good news is that it's normal not to know everyone in the media or recognise every name that the client thinks up unless of course, the media in question is an influential decision-maker relevant to your client's business or industry.

Unless having specific key media on your speed dial is a prerogative to winning the account, it's best to advise the client that a good relationship with any media is best forged over regularly pitching good story ideas; and perhaps a drink or two after work some time later.