How often does a PR company get approached by a potential client who believes they have a unique story to tell and has very high expectations about the level of media coverage they will gain – and yet when the brief comes in, they have a totally "me too" offering and no real story at all. And not even something that could conceivably be "packaged" to make it more attractive.
Curiously, if you tell people that you don’t want to work with them,it seems to encourage them to pursue you even more – and yet it seems only fair and proper to still tell them no. If you enter into a business relationship knowing full well that it is likely to end in disappointment, then you are simply creating a rod for your own back. The agency staff will become demoralised working on something that has no real chance of success – and the client would have been better off setting light to the money in the company car park.
And yet – how many times do PR companies just say "Yes" – and take the money and wait for the inevitable failure to happen?
Knowing when to say no is probably a greatly underestimated business skill in the PR world.