Shortly after I finished writing my book, Home Tutoring Business – A Comprehensive Guide to Starting Your Own Tutor Referral Service©, I went searching for a good public relations/marketing firm. My business was expanding nationally and I really needed to get the word out about my business packages. I have a fabulous web designer who also has some expertise in marketing, but not enough to reach the target audience I was after. I needed an expert to really market my story, my company and me. A close business associate who I respect a great deal highly recommended a husband/wife team that “specialized” in launching small businesses. I called them and made an appointment to present myself and my business. They told me they do not accept everyone that pitches their business idea but they were interested in meeting me.
I put on a business suit gathered all of my materials and found myself in front of four executives and account managers (all men), selling my idea. They were really wowed and told me how impressed they were. They started brainstorming and coming up with all of the remarkable ways they could really market me for maximum return on my investment in their firm. I asked where the female partner was they told me she only did graphic design work. After a two hour meeting I felt very pumped up, my self-confidence was soaring and I agreed to sign a six-month contract. Their fee was non-negotiable, and a bit over what I had budgeted, but I felt they really could help me, so I took the plunge, anxious to get started.
MY STRUGGLE
A couple of weeks passed and not much was happening with my new ‘partners’. They did ask me to write a biography and have some professional pictures taken of me and my children (I’m a home based working mom). They wanted some time to put together my first press release. After another week, the press release was emailed to me. They spelled my name wrong and misquoted me, not to mention the multiple grammatical errors. It was so unprofessional – I was totally shocked. I called their office and was told the principles were on vacation for another week and that nothing could be done until they returned.
Meanwhile, I had already paid my first month’s retainer and basically hadn’t received much for my money. A week later the partners returned and I told them how upset I was with the sloppy press release. They apologized and asked me to correct and submit it to them. Wasn’t I supposed to by paying them to do this kind of stuff? I wanted to get it out though, so I did it and promptly returned it to them. I asked them to send me a list of all of the places they sent the press release. To my dismay, they sent it to all of the local papers. My new business is selling a business package about how to begin a tutor referral business just like the one I have been operating for the past 4 and a half years – Bright Apple Tutoring Service, Inc. (www.brightappletutoring.com) I made it clear to them that I didn’t want to create competition for myself – the press release was supposed to go out to the major business magazines and newspapers nationwide, not in Southern California where I live and work. At this point I was fuming. I had made two hefty payments to them and had gotten nothing accomplished.
I discussed this with them in person in their offices and I was promised things would change and that I would get the exposure I needed (and was paying for). Another month went by and, with the exception of one press release, which I basically wrote myself, nothing else was accomplished.
THE OUTCOME
I decided I had to end my relationship with them and break my contract. I couldn’t afford to keep paying them. They were obviously floundering. I truly felt they didn’t know where to market me, despite all of the brainstorming and terrific ideas they threw on the table at our initial meeting. I called them and told them I wanted to stop using their services immediately. They sounded shocked and asked me why. I had to be brutally honest and tell them in a professional way that I didn’t think they knew what they were doing! I recounted the terrible press release they wrote, how they didn’t listen to me when I told them not to send it to local businesses and that other than the press releases, they had not done much to earn their money. They wanted me to pay for one more month of their services. I said no, I had enough of their company and didn’t want to waste more of my time and money. After several conversations, they finally agreed to let me out of my contract. I then called the person who referred them to me and shared my story in the event she was going to refer them again.
I decided to contact one of the online women’s networking groups to which I belong and ask for a referral, which is what I should have done in the first place. All of their members are small business owners and female entrepreneurs like me. I contacted a Virtual Assistant who has turned out to be wonderful. Within one week of working with her, press releases were being sent all over the country, a Google Ad Word campaign was created and she had talked to my web designer (which the first firm refused to do) and they were working in tandem to get my new company more exposure of the internet.
Seven months later I am still working with my Virtual Assistant. My press page on my website is filling up with more to come. One of my business strategies has always been “everything is negotiable”. I usually have had to negotiate with advertisers and other vendors but never with a PR firm who wasn’t pulling their weight. Being honest with them and documenting everything they didn’t do worked for me as far as getting out of a legally binding contract.
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Laurie Hurley is the President and Founder of Home Tutoring Business and has been featured in Woman’s World magazine, Entrepreneur and Microsoft Inside Business News. In the coming months she will be featured in Redbook and Family Circle magazine. She is very happy with her publicist, Diana Ennen of Virtual World Publishing.
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