So the challenge isn't convincing the decision makers who sign our checks of the value of PR: It's about demonstrating the value of your counsel, according to the agency leaders we spoke with on this topic. Following are the insights of three of these key sources. Much of their collective wisdom comes down to this: Demonstrate and deliver. Here's how it's done, especially in tough times:

Will Spivey Managing Partner Trone

Tim Schramm SVP Coyne PR

Tim Schramm, senior vice president at Coyne PR, offers a similar perspective: "I think the biggest thing you have to convey is that you can provide them with ideas, with a level of thinking that they cannot get themselves. That's why people seek outside counsel. Once you establish that, you can then "backfill' with your agency's expertise—the strength of the team, the experience in the agency, and so on," he explains. It's talking about the prospect's issues and "relating it to something we've had experience in."

Coyne's client roster helps make that case—being able to cite Disney, Kraft, Goodyear and Shell, among others, "shows we have a breadth of knowledge across industries." After all, Schramm says, clients want to know who they are working with.

But be careful, warns Spivey. That conversation needs to be about the prospect, he counsels. A potential client doesn't want to hear when you were founded or by whom. Put simply: Prospects (and clients) will be happier when the focus is on them, not on you. "It's about engaging in a dialogue, discussing the situation, business challenges and possible solutions. That should be the pitch," says Spivey.

Any business-development seminar offers the same advice, he says. But many agencies still don't follow through. Why? Sometimes, they are afraid to do things differently. But sometimes, Spivey says, they lack the systems and processes to provide the relevant insights that win clients.

2. The engine that drives the work drives the pitch. To deliver relevant insights, says Spivey, you must have the research tools in place. So the same engine that drives the PR effort drives the pitch, he explains. One of the tools Trone has is place is a consumer panel it can mine for research. He tells of a prospect that called on a recent Friday and gave the agency seven days to make a pitch. Using the consumer panel, the firm conducted a survey. The results—from 3,000 consumers—came in Monday. The team mined the data to come up with insights about the prospect, pulled everything together and made the pitch Friday.

"Insights are not the result of a wise person sitting in room by herself," Spivey says. "What's needed is a system—a process—to identify and deliver that relevant message." As with all great PR, insight starts with research—and a business pitch, where prospects are expecting some tailored value, is no different. If you can't deliver a tailored, relevant message or solution when talking to the potential client, asks Spivey, how can they expect you to deliver one to their audiences?

Tom Amberg President and CEO Cushman/Amberg Communications

• The value of the agency's particular skill sets
• The importance of an outside perspective
• The economics (e.g., that the client can access these skills on a part-time basis—hiring a la carte, if necessary, specifically for what the client needs)
• The benefit of ongoing counsel to reputation and brand
• Access to the creative input of the entire agency (i.e., the client isn't relying on the wisdom of one or two individuals, but all of your creative resources)

In addition, Schramm also suggests "stressing the role of the agency as an extension of the client's internal communications department. It may sound obvious, but it's important to bring up," he says.

4. Bring prospects up to speed regarding PR's Power. Sometimes, potential clients don't realize how much the PR function has evolved. "Some may still see it as merely a publicity machine," says Amberg.

That needs to be reframed in terms of delivering a message to an audience, he says. "Shift their thinking away from the idea that an agency is all about media relations, in whatever form that may take." Help them understand the real value is not in getting stories out there and exposure, but in driving messages, contribution to the conversation surrounding a company, product, service or brand—and, ultimately, in impacting, protecting and strengthening reputation. Media relations, trade shows, interactive online media, crisis and issues communications—it all comes down to message management, says Amberg, not media clips or "publicity."

Schramm agrees: Even thought the basics are the same, the way the message is delivered—and the various stakeholders PR now reaches—has changed, notes Schramm. "There's been a little blurring of the lines." Clients may need a little education.

5. They understand the value, but… So, if companies understand the value of PR, an agency that can deliver relevant insights about and for the prospect should be thriving, right? Well, that ignores the obvious: Companies are cutting budgets. As much they may value PR in theory, that budget item is being trimmed, too.

The message Amberg hears is generally this: "We love what you do. We just don't have any budget." That sentiment, he says, suggests a temporary cutback, not a permanent one. "I think these budgets will come back and continue to expand," he says. This make this downturn very different from the recession of the early 1980s, he points out. Then, clients would outright eliminate outside PR counsel. That's not the case today, where it's looking like PR budgets are being trimmed, while advertising or other related budgets are suffering a worse fate entirely.

So, in a perverse way, these budget cuts overall can be seen as something of a positive—since they're not being shelved outright. "It's a vote of confidence," Amberg says. "It's just a really hard vote to live with."

Roxanna Guilford-Blake [roxannaguilfordblake (at) yahoo (dot) com]