There is a version of consulting that I find professionally embarrassing. It is the consultant who nods at everything the client says, reframes their existing beliefs as strategic insights, and sends polished reports full of recommendations that everyone in the room already knew. This consultant is comfortable to be around. They never make the client feel challenged or unsettled. And they are, in my honest assessment, almost completely useless.
The real job of a PR consultant — the reason an organisation should pay for outside counsel rather than relying entirely on internal teams — is to say the things that people on the inside are either unable or unwilling to say. That requires courage, credibility, and a genuine commitment to the client’s long-term interests rather than the short-term comfort of the relationship.
I have told a CEO that the crisis his team was calling a ‘PR problem’ was actually a governance failure that no communications programme could fix. I have told a founder that the personal brand they wanted to build was inconsistent with the public information about their company’s culture. I have told a marketing head that the campaign they had already decided to run would likely cause the very reputational damage they were trying to avoid.
These conversations are uncomfortable. Some of them have cost me retainers. Several of them have produced exactly the outcome I predicted when the advice was ignored. And every single one of them was the most important thing I could have done for those clients at that moment — even the ones who did not appreciate it immediately.
The relationship between a communications consultant and a client should have the character of a trusted doctor-patient relationship. You go to your doctor not to be told you’re fine when you’re not. You go because you need an accurate diagnosis and honest counsel, delivered with competence and care. The doctor who tells you what you want to hear is not being kind. They are being negligent.
Honest counsel is the hardest thing to find and the most valuable thing a communications professional can offer. It is also, in my experience, the thing that builds the most durable client relationships — because trust built on honesty outlasts trust built on flattery every single time.
Be the person who says the uncomfortable truth. Your clients deserve it. And so does your profession.
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