‘Another day in the life of running a PR agency’

I was up early, as usual. The night before, I’d put the finishing touches on a client’s New York announcement of a foreign Initial Public Offering (IPO). It had been a monumental affair. The weeks leading up to this day were packed with creating the right messages, drafting and redrafting marketing materials, media training, synthesizing financials into plain English, writing press releases, and scheduling press interviews. For the past two nights, the CEO and I had worked well past midnight, and now everything was in place for the IPO announcement. We were confident it was going to be a great day.

My BlackBerry started buzzing just past 6 a.m. This isn’t unusual; early morning (or late night) calls from staff or clients are par for the course. PR doesn’t end at 5 p.m. and begin at 9 a.m. the next day. This anxious call was no different than dozens of others I’d received over the years.

“Ronn, did you read the paper yet?”

“No.”

“Well, read it now and call me back. Now. Now.”