Occasionally, prospective clients reach out to us who have never engaged with an outside public relations agency before.
This lack of experience can present a challenge, and an education about the overall PR process itself becomes vital if the prospective clients hope to achieve their business goals.

Those new to PR are usually new to the concepts of an integrated communications strategy, how it works in practice, and what the cost and ROI will be.

Many of these businesses that are new to these concepts have gone on to become long-term DLPR clients.  But sometimes, the real challenge is overcoming preconceived notions of what a PR agency’s communications program can deliver and how the process should work.

Based on these past experiences — and in an effort to help prospects and everyone engaged in the public relations process — we thought it would be helpful to compile a list of “9 things to know” before hiring an outside communications consultant:

• PR is more art than science. This can be a very new way of thinking to executives who are more quantitatively focused. PR relies heavily on the qualitative, such as creative ideation, subject-matter expertise, media and client relationships, teamwork and industry experience.
• ROI is often subjective and somewhat intangible, despite the myriad attempts and importance of quantifying public relations results. Common metrics like “impressions” and “audience reach” only tell part of the story. It is the cumulative impact of the PR program over time, and not the eyeballs trained on a single media placement, that will drive business value.
• The best communications counselors are able to provide unfiltered advice. Sometimes, that means giving clients very direct and even critical feedback.
• Bias admitted, but the fact remains the same: The more time a client invests in a program, the more the effort of said program will pay off. A new communications strategy typically takes at least six months to one year to prove effective (although there are some exceptions).
• Earned media placements, especially profile stories, aretruly earned. They should not be thought of as advertisements or puff pieces—journalists care deeply about their editorial independence and the “public service” nature of their work.
• Strategic communications is part of a long-term value creation process and not something to “try out” or with which to “test the waters.”
• The best clients communicate openly with and trust their PR firm. This level of trust and openness directly correlates to the success of the program.
• No matter how much news one consumes, clients need an expert on how the media operates. Interacting with journalists is often counterintuitive and requires a nuanced understanding of how they think and work.
• A PR firm’s credibility with the media is often tied to the public perception of the client. Help the PR firm succeed on your behalf by maintaining a spirit of transparency, accessibility and accountability.

Keeping these nine points in mind before and during an engagement with a communications firm will not only align expectations, but also create a more valuable and successful PR program.

In 2010, a small group of mostly amateur investors began researching dozens of Chinese public companies traded on North American stock exchanges. Share prices were doubling and tripling over short periods of time, and the sleuths wondered if the boom was too good to be true. What they discovered was a massive string of frauds led by companies whose business was a fraction of what they were telling shareholders. It was a house of cards ready to blow over.
 
These investors, including Dan David of FG Alpha Management and Carson Block of Muddy Waters Capital (both DLPR clients), shorted the stocks and published their research online for everyone to scrutinize. While the stocks usually plummeted in value, these so-called activist short sellers were often met with a biting blowback from the investment industry and many China bulls on Wall Street. Nevertheless, they continued to alert regulators, lawmakers and everyday investors, but little or no immediate action was taken even as massive regulatory overhauls such as Dodd-Frank targeted other corners of the financial industry.
 
Despite some high-profile blowups, like Sino Forest, which Muddy Waters identified and Canadian authorities confirmed was a giant fraud, most of the wrongdoing went unreported outside of the major financial media. But in early 2015, Sarah Gibson, a documentary filmmaker, caught on to the story and approached us about filming some of our short seller clients. More than two years later, The China Hustle premiered at the recent Toronto International Film Festival to a packed house. In addition to Gibson, who is a producer, the film was written and directed by Jed Rothstein, executive produced by Alex Gibney and Frank Marshall, and backed by 2929 Entertainment (led by Mark Cuban and Todd Wagner).
 
Variety called it “wildly entertaining” and dubbed the film a sequel to The Big Short. It “is assured a theatrical push and a long life on streaming,” they said. 
 
If it attracts wider attention, The China Hustle will hopefully help the public understand why markets need highly skeptical investors who put their money and reputations on the line. Devising communication strategies for activist short sellers is never easy - it’s a constant battle to educate the public on why they should be taken seriously.
 
Short sellers are often criticized by the media and business leaders and have been sued for billions of dollars by public companies with vast resources and global reach. No matter how accurate their research is, activist short sellers are almost always cast as alarmists who yell fire in crowded theaters and profit from the ensuing stock selloff.
 
But convincing the public that activist short selling adds value to our markets is tough - there’s something about betting against a company that rubs people the wrong way. Even after the premiere of the film showing the benefits these companies provide, an audience member called for a ban on short sellers in the market during a Q&A session with the filmmakers and others.
 
“Short sellers are doing what the regulators aren’t doing and they are policing the market in a way the regulators aren’t,” said Gibney, an Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker (Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room).
 
Dan David, who is also a co-founder of GEOInvesting and one of the heros of the film, called the idea of a ban “epically ridiculous” and explained that two sides of every story deserve to be told. The company’s public filings tell one side and short sellers tell another. The market decides which side to believe.
 
Short sellers search in corners of the financial world that regulators and other official watchdogs either don’t have the resources or expertise to uncover. Our recognition of the value these firms can provide explains why our firm represents selected short sellers, as well as conventional investment firms.
 
As the film shows, nearly everyone in the markets, from law firms and accounting firms to investment banks turned a blind eye to multiple red flags as long as investors were hot on China. Even with the exposure of dozens of Chinese frauds by short sellers, the schemes have continued, albeit at a much slower pace, and almost no one has been held accountable. Pension funds and other investors have lost billions.
 
Yes, the shorts and their investors can make money on these bets, and they don’t hide that fact. But there are major risks involved. A short’s research can be right, but the market may not agree with it. There have been plenty of times when short sellers were squeezed and shares rocketed upwards. It’s a dangerous and risky game (one researcher in the film was jailed for two years in China) and potential losses are unlimited because there’s no ceiling on how high a stock price can go.
 
Bottom line: Activist short selling is a tough business, but the markets should be thankful that it exists. Next up, the film has its U.S. premiere at the Hamptons International Film Festival.  

One of our clients, Mark Yusko of Morgan Creek Capital Management, recently sat down for a lengthy interview with Real Vision TV, a new video on-demand channel that features some of the world's smartest investors talking about global markets, the economy, politics and other issues. Here's a preview of Mark's interview:

We get requests for proposals, or RFPs, on a weekly basis these days and one thing I've noticed is that they all seem to ask the same questions. It's almost as if those looking for public relations advise are all playing from the same template. I saw two RFPs over the last two months from large asset management firms that had the exact same wording in the majority of their questions. I had to ask myself how much these firms actually knew about hiring a strategic communications consultant, or if they merely Googled around to find out what to ask. (Full disclosure: I've done the same thing when hiring a service provider.)

Having worked in the industry for almost five years now, I thought I'd put together a list of the tough questions that everyone should ask, especially when looking for a PR firm that is specializes in financial services. Unlike some other industries, financial services really requires a specialist firm who knows the message, understands the current landscape and has a solid understanding of all constituencies. You don't want a firm who needs a "refresher course" on what an exchange traded fund or managed futures strategy is - they should know.

1. Name five journalists you think would find our story compelling enough to sit down with some our spokespeople and listen to what they have to say?
2. How much can we expect the CEO, or senior person on the account, to communicate with us on a weekly basis?
3. What are we doing wrong from a PR standpoint right now?
4. What's a good reason we may want to turn down a high profile media opportunity?
5. How do you think our specific niche within the financial services industry is viewed right now and what can we do to improve?
6. What are the two biggest stories in business right now and should we be weighing in on these?
7. Will you come to us with ideas about trends and other news we should be commenting on or do we have to provide you with all of the content?
8. If I called some reporters up and asked them how they viewed your firm, what would they say?
9. Who specifically is going to be working on my account and how many other accounts does each individual work on?
10. What's your view of how to measure ROI for a PR campaign? Is it possible and how do you do it?

If you want to see one of the best rollouts of a fairly complex business book, witness Michael Lewis’ extensive PR campaign for Flash Boys. He started with a “60 Minutes” exclusive where he said the “U.S. stock market is rigged”—not exactly earth shattering, but it got a debate going on Twitter among Wall St. columnists and other pundits. (Here’s a good one) The splashy “60 Minutes” debut then basically steamrolled into an all-day debate and coverage of high frequency trading on all of the business networks and the main networks (including CBS, of course).

The New York Times had no less than four pieces from the book including an excerpt in the New York Times Magazine, a DealBook column by Andrew Ross Sorkin, an official review of the bookand a piece about all the hoopla. The Wall Street Journal had its own review and so did other major outlets. A search in Factiva yielded 385 mentions for the book in the last 24 hours, and that doesn’t include blogs.

Then, a BNP Paribas executive wrote to all of his clients and told them Lewis was invested in IEX, the platform to combat high frequency traders that he wrote about. That prompted Lewis to issue a strong rebuttal on his Facebook page calling out the BNP executive by name. Twitter went nuts in the afternoon just as the whole Lewis frenzy was beginning to die down. BuzzFeed obtained a copy of the email (the post got 58,000 views in less than 24 hours), which fueled the fire even more.

To top it all off, in a highly unusual move, the FBI reached out to media outlets to let them know they had been running an investigation of high frequency trading for over a year.

AND THAT’S JUST THE FIRST DAY!

The book is of course No. 1 on the Amazon Best Sellers list right now.

By Zach Kouwe

Zach Kouwe is a Vice President at Dukas Public Relations.

By Zach Kouwe

Of all the things that could go wrong during or leading up to a wedding I never anticipated having to deal with a government shutdown. I guess that's something you need to take into account these days when planning a wedding in Yosemite National Park, or any national park or monument for that matter. 

Once it looked like the park was going to be closed, we marshaled the forces of public relations....(BuzzFeed, a trade publication and the BBC.) 

But as the wedding date approached, it was clear the Congress wan't going to get its act together in time. Well, in the end it actually ended up working out in our favor. We had the ceremony in the park anyway - the park Rangers didn't seem to care - and nobody was in the park. That made for some amazing pictures and a cool story. I can't wait to tell my kids mom and dad snuck into Yosemite to get married! 

By Zach Kouwe

Ray Dalio on YouTube – A Great PR MoveRay Dalio, founder of the largest hedge fund in the world, the $150 billion Bridgewater Associates, has decided it’s time to really come out of the shadows and begin sharing his pearls of economic wisdom. Mr. Dalio, who has been called a “hedge fund cult leader” and “the world’s richest and strangest hedge fund,” has slowly been engaging with the media over the last few years, most likely to combat and explain his unusual management style.  But he never looked that comfortable providing a 30-second answer to a TV reporter’s questions about his outlook for the markets.

Now, instead of dealing directly with the media to demystify his theories on the economy, he’s taken his message directly to the people through YouTube. (As of this writing his video already had over 350,000 views.)

Mr. Dalio explained his move to YouTube to the New York Times:

“While I kept it confidential until recently, I now want to share it because I believe that it could be very helpful in reducing big economic blunders, if it was more broadly understood,” he wrote in an e-mail. He explained that, “I believe that most influential decision makers and most people cause a lot of needless economic suffering because they are missing the fundamentals.”

There’s no doubt Mr. Dalio wants to influence policymakers, regulators and academics. But another benefit of sharing his message on YouTube is that it humanizes him a bit and shows the world he’s a serious and transparent thinker – not just the billionaire leader of some hedge fund cult.

This is great PR for Bridgewater – it will help the firm recruit the best and the brightest thinkers from around the world and will likely attract investors as people from Asia to Africa learn about Mr. Dalio’s successful strategies and theories on the economy. (We wouldn’t be surprised if Bridgewater decides to open its strategies to retail investors at some point.)

Just a few years ago, you would never think one of the world’s best hedge fund managers would be appearing on YouTube. Most managers over 50 think YouTube is a service for funny videos or music. They’ve never thought about it as a way to actually reach the public, express their views and build their brands. But reaching out directly to the public and bypassing the media filter, even if the media does pick up on it later, is sometimes the most effective way to get your message out. Big and small asset managers should pay attention.