Outsourced yes, hack no

From time to time, clients hire me/Clarity to provide outsourced PR staff. Typically, the client’s staff PR position is vacant, but meanwhile the work won’t wait. Or the client is a mid-size company that doesn’t have enough work to justify a full-time staff position. Or the client is a start-up that doesn’t yet have the resources or demand for a full-time position. So they outsource to me.

In some cases, I’m given a company email address, phone line, business cards, the whole nine yards. In other cases, I identify myself as Clarity working “on behalf of” the client’s organization. The client and I discuss and agree on this up front.

Does working in the PR profession make me a PR hack, as a consumer I recently corresponded with for a client called me? Quite the contrary:

• I won’t work for just anybody. If I can’t believe fully in what I’m doing, then I won’t take the work.

• I stick to my principles. I’ll quit before I’ll do something at a client’s request that I personally don’t believe in.

• I’ll take on the difficult projects others don’t want. One look at my LinkedIn profile makes that clear.

These principles apply to Clarity’s associates, too. If one of my associates can’t fully support a client’s work, then he/she doesn’t make the client’s team. It’s never a job for any of us.