PRBreakfastClub

Laboring over blog posts?  Crafting career-centric tweets?  Using your Facebook for self-promotion?  Taking meetings after office hours?

If you answered yes to all of the above, congratulations – you have become your own (worst) client!

So, now that we know what we are – what does this disturbing realization mean?

Wow, I’m a Time Suck

As I began drafting my third blog post of the day, I realized I’m my own worst client.  I demand time after office hours, harshly criticize my work and think nothing of recreating the wheel a dozen or so times.  I’m obsessed with finding not just a statistic, but the statistic to support my argument(s.)  Can I give myself an allocation of hours like I do my clients?  Better yet, if I do this, can I stick to the allotment?

So, What’s the Pay Scale?

Self promotion should pay well for the time it takes.  But guess what?  The only pay I could track down was the generous clothing retainer I pay myself.  Seems I’m pretty happy with the deliverables

If I’m My Own Client, Am I Objective?

Is it a joke to call yourself objective when representing yourself?  When a client chooses a topic for a bylined article, I am in a position to provide an objective, third party assessment of the topic and provide constructive feedback on its newsworthiness.  But when I choose a blog post topic, who am I to provide an allegedly objective assessment of whether or not it’s worthwhile?  Should I be hiring a focus group to make these determinations or it inevitable that I am at the mercy of my own biased judgment call?

Is Representing Yourself In Poor Taste?

So, we tell clients to hire a PR firm to provide an objective assessment of their communications tactics.  What should we tell ourselves?  To pay our peers for an objective off-hours assessment of our self promotional strategies?  Provide gratis services for one another?  Or chalk self-representation up to a necessary evil?

The Alternative Isn’t an Option

If we didn’t represent ourselves, either we wouldn’t be represented or we would have to hire someone else to represent us.  More importantly, as industry insiders, would we ever be happy with how someone else represented us?  Or are we so passionate about being ‘the voice’ that we would go against outside counsel and ultimately end up representing ourselves anyways?

I’d love to debate this further, but if I did, I’d be sacrificing another of my self deliverables.

• 10 February 2012 : Doing It Right & Doing It Wrong
• 9 February 2012 : 5 Ways that Bloggers Are Like the Cool Kids in High School
• 8 February 2012 : Drop the Salesman Mentality
• 7 February 2012 : Giant PR Lessons from the Super Bowl Champions
• 6 February 2012 : Video: Job Interview Conversations That Should Be Had

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