In business, is it better to be honest with someone and risk offending them, or be kind and waste their time and money?
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, because I've had two conversations in the past few weeks where I chose honesty, and they went in completely opposite directions.
The email that could have gone badly
A colleague introduced us to a property developer who was looking for PR support around a new project. On paper, it sounded promising, a significant development with a real story behind it. But when I looked at the materials they'd put together, I knew we had a problem.
The renders weren't at the level New Zealand journalists would expect. The visual assets were generic, the kind of stock-style imagery that doesn't stop anyone scrolling. And without strong visuals, property stories are almost impossible to place in mainstream media. Editors want something they can put on screen or at the top of an article that makes a reader pause, and what we were looking at wasn't going to do that.
I had a choice. I could book a meeting, spend an hour going through the motions, ask all the right questions, take some notes, and then follow up a few days later with a carefully worded email explaining that we didn't think we could help at this stage. That's the polite approach, and it's what most agencies would do.
Instead, I wrote a direct email. I explained that the renders needed significant work before the project would be media-ready, gave specific feedback on what would need to change, and suggested they come back to us once the visual materials were at a level that would give us a realistic shot at securing coverage.
I half expected radio silence. Or a defensive response about how their renders were fine. What I got instead was this: "Totally agree and just what I needed to convince the owners to further invest in the right software."
I was stoked to get that response. Not because it validated my opinion, but because it proved something I've believed for a long time: most people would rather hear the truth early than discover it themselves after spending thousands of dollars and months of frustration.
The call that went sideways
A few weeks later, I had a very different experience. We took a video call with the founder of a technology company who was looking for help getting media coverage. Within the first ten minutes, we'd asked the questions we always ask. What makes your product different? What's the story? Are you raising capital? How many clients do you have? Any names people would recognise?
The answers came back: a handful of clients, none of them household names, operating in a market that's saturated with competitors all telling essentially the same story. No funding round, no major partnership, no obvious news hook that would make a journalist sit up and pay attention.
I could feel the conversation heading somewhere uncomfortable. We could have kept asking questions for another forty-five minutes, nodded along, thanked them for their time, and sent a follow-up email the next day with a polite but vague explanation about capacity or timing. That's what a lot of agencies do, because it avoids the awkward moment.
But I've been doing this for too long to sit on a call for an hour just to be polite and reject someone by email afterwards. Or worse, take their money knowing full well it would lead to disappointment. So I said it on the call. Kindly, but directly. That based on what we were hearing, we didn't think we could get them the kind of coverage that would justify the investment, and I explained why.
The response was immediate and frosty. She said she thought her business was interesting, even if we didn't. The call ended awkwardly, and I'm fairly confident she walked away thinking we were arrogant pricks.
Two conversations, two reactions, one principle
I've replayed both of these conversations in my head more than I probably should. In the first case, honesty was received as a gift. In the second, it was received as an insult. Same approach, completely different outcomes.
And I keep coming back to the same conclusion: the approach was right both times.
Because the alternative to honesty in our industry isn't kindness, it's cowardice dressed up as professionalism. The polite thirty-minute call that ends in nothing. The "we'll get back to you" email that never comes. The agency that takes a client's money for six months, delivers thin results, and blames the market. I've seen all three, and they're all worse than ten minutes of uncomfortable honesty.
Why PR has an honesty problem
PR agencies have a bit of a reputation problem, and I think a lot of it comes down to this exact issue. Too many agencies say yes to everyone, because every new client is revenue, and it takes courage to turn revenue away. The result is a long list of businesses paying for services that were never going to deliver meaningful results, and a steady drip of people who walk away from PR convinced it doesn't work.
PR does work. But not for every business, and not at every stage. A company with a handful of clients and no differentiator in a crowded market isn't a bad business, it's just not a business that's ready for a PR campaign right now. There's nothing wrong with that. What's wrong is taking their money and pretending otherwise.
In a small market like New Zealand, this matters even more. There are only so many journalists, only so many outlets, and word travels fast. If we took on every client who approached us regardless of whether we could deliver, we'd burn through our credibility with the media in a matter of months. And our credibility with the media is the only thing that makes us useful to our clients in the first place.
What honesty actually looks like
I want to be clear about something: being honest doesn't mean being unkind. There's a significant difference between "your business isn't interesting" and "the media landscape right now makes this a very difficult story to place, and here's what would need to change for that to be different."
When we say no to a potential client, we try to make sure they leave the conversation with something useful. Specific feedback on what's missing. An honest assessment of what journalists are looking for that they don't currently have. Sometimes a suggestion to come back in six months when their story has developed further. The property developer took our feedback, agreed with it, and is now investing in better materials. That's a win for everyone, including us, because they'll almost certainly come back when they're ready.
Not everyone will take it well. The technology founder probably tells people we were dismissive. And that's a cost I'm willing to absorb, because the alternative, stringing someone along or taking their money under false pretences, carries a much higher cost in the long run.
The maths of honesty
There's a practical argument here too, not just a philosophical one. An agency that takes on clients it can't deliver for eventually faces the consequences. Poor results lead to unhappy clients. Unhappy clients tell other people. In a country of five million, your reputation precedes you into every meeting.
An agency that says no when it should say no, on the other hand, builds a different kind of reputation. People start to trust that when you do say yes, you mean it. When you tell a potential client that you can get them coverage, they believe you, because they know you're not the kind of agency that says that to everyone.
If you're curious about what realistic PR outcomes actually look like, and what it costs to achieve them, our pieces on how much PR costs in New Zealand and how long PR takes to deliver results are worth reading alongside this one. They're written with the same honesty, because if we're going to argue for transparency, we should probably practise it on our own website.
The question I started with
Is it better to be honest and risk offending someone, or polite and waste their time and money? I don't think those are actually the two options. I think honesty, delivered with respect and specificity, is the kinder choice. It just doesn't always feel like it in the moment.
The property developer thanked us. The technology founder probably thinks we're terrible. Both of them are better off than they would have been if we'd smiled, nodded, and taken their money.
If you're considering PR and you want someone who'll give you a straight answer about whether it's right for your business right now, even if that answer is "not yet," get in touch here. We'd rather have an honest conversation for ten minutes than a polite one for an hour.