Three Reasons Your PR Firm Should Make Friends

It’s easy to see business as a zero-sum game, dominated by competition between firms to secure limited resources and the best clients. However, one of the most beneficial things you can do to inject new ideas and a fresh perspective into your business is to interact with other professionals in the field – basically, you should make some friends.

As a founding member of the Public Relations Global Network, Buchanan Public Relations has always appreciated the value in sharing best practices with others in the industry. In addition to President Anne Buchanan’s frequent participation in
local networking events and international gatherings, last month a contingent representing all levels of the staff at Buchanan PR paid a visit to Abel Communications in Baltimore for a day of idea sharing and mutually-beneficial brainstorming. As a similarly-sized firm in a different market, this was a great opportunity to showcase our strengths and work together to solve some of our shared challenges.

While much was learned during our day-long visit, here are three of the most salient benefits from making friends with another PR firm.

Compare Style and Structure

Heading down to Baltimore, we knew that the overall staff size and company profile of Abel Communications were very similar to our own. But once we arrived, we were able to dig past these external similarities to identify several ways in which our companies are structured differently. From small administrative tasks such as how to report to clients all the way to the structure of Abel’s in-house video and creative teams, we gained fantastic insight and valuable lessons by sharing how we each run our offices in a different way.

Reveal Challenges and Solutions

While all businesses face challenges, those encountered by small public relations firms tend to be very similar. Issues surrounding pitching new business, onboarding staff members and managing the day-to-day running of a company (including timekeeping systems and the internal technology suite) all demand time and attention. Sharing best practices and identifying how Buchanan PR and Abel address similar problems with different solutions allowed us to engage in creative problem solving and view these issues from a new and insightful perspective.

Share Your Mission

In addition to the tangible benefits of sharing our different areas of expertise and educating each other on our business practices, the opportunity to engage with other professionals who share our overarching mission was refreshing. Discussing our favorite projects and innovative ways to tell our clients’ stories allowed us to see the goal posts at the end of the field and remember the importance of the work we do.

These are only three of the many benefits Buchanan PR has gained from interacting with other public relations firms. Whether in PR or not, what other business lessons have you learned from “making friends” in your industry?