In praise of teams
Surely the quality of public relations counsel comes down to individuals. You’re either good at it or your not. You can either do it or you can’t. So the good people get hired, get promoted, get well rewarded. Is that the complete story?
Not quite. Successful consultancies most commonly retain the name of their founders (Edelman, Hill & Knowlton, Burson-Marsteller, Fleishman-Hillard and so on), thus making a connection between a talented individual and the advice given by later consultants who may never even have met their founders. So what’s the common thread? It may be an ethos, or a set of tools, or a continued reputation.
But all of these brand-name consultancies charge more than a freelance consultant (who may just have left the very same organization). Logically, the individual can offer the same quality of service at a fraction of the price. So why don’t they often win against the big firms?
Part of the answer comes down to teamwork. (Another reason is network.) A good consultancy team will offer a mix of experience and skills, brought together by a good manager. (They will also be able to operate nationally and internationally.)
To take a sporting analogy, it still comes as a surprise that Greece won the Euro 2004 international football (soccer) championship. Few if any of their players were well known (they’re still not today); their victory was evidently a triumph of teamwork and hard work over reputation and flair.