Opinion maker: Joel Jelen on the rising number of Liverpool PR firms
"YOU must love your job, Joel. All that Champagne, all that glamour. I'd love to do what you do. Have you got any vacancies at the moment?"
Just one quote from many similar ones that pass by me in a typical week in the public relations (PR) industry.
Sometimes, the potential candidate asking the question has been spurred on by the fact that you can be a "PR", for example, in Ibiza, by giving out flyers promoting the island's still bustling clubland.
On other occasions, they may have met the team promoting a property or business to business client in one of our other client's swanky retail stores, hotels, bars or restaurants (they definitely hadn't met us handling crisis management).
Given the above scenarios, the industry's image can be surprisingly misleading, and it doesn't help the candidate or us when it comes to recruitment.
The PR industry is also still relatively immature in this city - that only exacerbates the problem.
Currently, there is seemingly an ever-increasing number of sole trader PR businesses in Liverpool.
There's also an emerging top six or so companies who handle the majority of business that's out there.
Any good aspiring entrepreneur would tell you bring on the competition. I'm all for that.
Of course, it's how we all improve.
But there is a danger with the nascent competition and it's no different in many growing market sectors. Quality thresholds.
In the world of PR, businesses are tied to a contract.
A bad experience for the client (of which there are far too many that we hear about lately) unfortunately tends to reflect badly on the sector because of the image of PR, whether in Liverpool or elsewhere, but we all know how "village" this city is.
PR companies in Liverpool owe it to themselves to treat clients with the delivery they deserve.
More well-established and existing practitioners in PR need to be passionate about the industry and about delivering, not just achieving their own bottom line targets.
JOEL JELEN is managing director of Ubiquity PR
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Alistair Houghton
LDP Business reporter Alistair Houghton brings you the latest news and views from the creative sector in Merseyside. Get in touch if you've got a story you want to tell
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Couldn't agree with you more Joel. But I do think it is worth pointing out that far too many people see PR as some easy option, and think they are doing a good job when they aren't.
And it's also important that when a PR sets out on a new account with a firm, the firm actually understands why it is employing a PR. After all, it seems pointless to have a PR hired in to work on, say, press releases, only for the client to turn round and rewrite it. Why have a dog and bark yourself? Woof, woof.
Liverpool is seeing something similar to Manchester five or seven years ago. There are lots of smaller start-ups now and more firms coming in from out of town. This has led to existing firms sometimes going outside their areas of expertise. When I have worked in companies looking to bring in PR firms, I have always advised them to ask what other clients they have, and how long they tend to keep clients for. A high turnover, in my experience, is never good - and it's something I believe we are seeing more of in Liverpool