Do Nice PRs Come Last?

If I do say so myself, Roxhill’s Autumn Brunch Club last week at The Pig at Bridge Place had an excellent media line-up. Not just in terms of quality, but the number of journalists too. There were 13 (two of them regional media), with just 27 PRs on the day — at such networking events, that’s an atypically excellent 1:2 ratio.

Predictably, us journalists were in demand. Very often, if you really wanted to talk to an Andrew Eames, a Gaby Le Breton, a Phoebe Taplin or, failing all else, a Richard Mellor, you had to wait patiently while another PR did so first — and, à la London Underground in rush hour, position your body cleverly so that no-one else could nudge in (while pretending to be doing nothing of the sort).

There are unwritten rules of etiquette at these things. If you’re a PR, never hog a journalist because you know others are waiting. If you’re a journalist, try and give everyone an equal amount of your time — while actually listening, rather than glancing around the room — and notice who’s been waiting longest, rather like a bartender.

Still: these events, and more so others with worse ratios, do reward the rude. If you are pushy and unsubtle, you’ll probably get to speak to more people than if you’re a respectful wallflower type. As I was the latter, plus fairly shy and insecure, when in PR, I never fared well at networking events. I’d wait and wait and wait to talk to Tom Robbins, conscious of how awkward I felt, then finally begin to only for, after 10 seconds— “Hi Tom, it’s Fiona from Bolshy PR, how are youuuuu?” Ugh.

I hate that. To some degree it’s uncontrollable; short of bringing a colleague to act as a de-facto bodyguard, you can hardly control whether someone butts in. It’s really up to the journalist: if this happens to me, I gently tell the interrupter to go and practice patience. But that’s probably because I’ve been on the wrong side of it before.

Anyway. One thing that eventually helped shy Richard the PR at events was knowing what I wanted to say. I’d rock up with a few solid ideas prepped and ready to capably talk about. “Can I pitch you one story really quickly?” I’d ask, and almost always that was received positively. It made me feel more confident, knowing I had something decent up my sleeve, and it made me efficient. Hello, pitch, goodbye, next journalist. Hello, pitch, goodbye, next journalist.

So that’s what I advise. That, and choosing your events, and perhaps bringing a bodyguard.