6 reasons never to pay ‘by the hit’

They wax poetic about how they are willing to pay top dollar or “market rate” for the best work—they just want that amazing work to be done without any guarantee of payment.

Their definition of paying for performance comes down to paying for hits. There are many reasons why you should never hire a PR team or contractor that is paid for “hits”—below are six of them:

1. You are motivating around the wrong thing.

Of course, you need media results, and ultimately your dollars should be spent on things that drive your bottom line. But positive performance doesn’t just mean hits in this day and age. (Frankly, I’m not sure if it ever did.)

Paying based on tactical outcomes motivates your team to simply drive tactics and ignore strategy. What if something not media related is a better use of time? What if meeting the right VCs or speaking directly to your community would better impact your bottom line? If you work in a pay by hit model, you could be out of time and money before you figure that out.