My first concern had to do with competition. Primetime had just placed Koss in Newsweek, and that made me nervous. Our lead time -- the time between when a writer finishes a story and when it gets into print -- is usually about two months. I was afraid that by the time I was finished, the Koss story would have appeared in so many other places that no one would want to read it yet again.
Not to worry, Roth assured me. Besides the Newsweek story, they had a short mention coming out in Business Week, a paragraph about Koss's new line of stereo headphones with a mention of the bankruptcy. But no one was doing the story I wanted to do.
My second concern had to do with the ground rules. What made the story promising, I told him, was the degree to which everyone would talk candidly about the mistakes that had gotten Koss Corp. into trouble, and talk about them in personal as well as business terms. On the record.
Understood, Roth assured me. Everything would be fair game for discussion.
Great. Now, all I'd need was two days of access. To the entire executive staff. No later than next week.
Roth paused only briefly. "Mike Koss is supposed to fly to Tokyo then -- but we'll see if we can make it happen." He called his client that afternoon. The deicision about whether to cancel the trip was Koss's alone to make, Roth began, but he was convinced that INC. wouldn't be planning to fly a senior editor out to Milwaukee for two days if it wasn't interested in a major story. That interest could be perishable, he added -- by the time the schedule opened up again the Koss story might seem old to me, or I might have found another bankruptcy to write about instead. As it turned out, Michael Koss didn't need much convincing. The trip to Japan was postponed and our interview scheduled.
Then, as far as I could tell, Roth disappeared -- which may have been the smartest move he made during the entire process. Many PR types try to chaperon meetings between their clients and the press, to help them with their answers and hold their hand. But that only gets in the way of any one-on-one rapport between reporter and subject, and leaves a lingering suspicion that the subject may have something to hide. Roth understood that the shape of the final story would depend on the impression his clients made and their ability to tell their story clearly. He called me once more, after I'd come back from Milwaukee, to make sure there was nothing else I needed, but he kept the telephone call, as always, short.
The Koss family was a reporter's dream. They put themselves completely at my disposal for the two days I was in Milwaukee, introducing me to their wives and children as well as to the executives in their offices. Nothing was off the record. I was given access to all the information I asked for and more, and introduced to everyone I asked to speak with.
What I didn't know at the time was that nearly everybody had been briefed by Roth in detail before I arrived. Roth brought them up to date on his conversations with me, sketching out the type of story he thought I intended to write, then leading them through possible questions -- everything from their childhoods to the social stigma of going bankrupt in Milwaukee. "He's going to need to talk about the warts on Koss, too," Roth warned them. "You should be prepared to talk about virtually anything. The best advice I can give you, though, is just to be as frank as possible." It was good advice.
I was, I confess, a little surprised when I found out after I had written the piece that Koss Corp. had paid $13,700 to get its story into INC. With Primetime, unlike almost every other PR firm, you pay only when a story actually appears about your company, a gambit that has been the source of considerable controversy within the PR industry. The placement fees are adjusted depending on the size and importance of the media outlet -- a story in the Los Angeles Times, for example, costs $8,830, while sitting on the couch next to Johnny Carson runs you $23,005. The $13,700 seemed like way too much money to me, although I'm always surprised at how much companies are willing to pay for public relations.
More to the point, however, Michael Koss thinks he got his money's worth, particularly in contrast to the $90,000 retainers he used to spend. So far, besides the $13,700 for the appearance in INC., he has paid $19,260 for Newsweek, $15,000 for Business Week, and $6,125 for CNN. "I'm glad to pay, if I pay for results," he said.
Did it matter that, rather than paying the standard retainer fee, Koss paid his public-relations bills on a performance basis? Not to me. Any PR agent could have done what Richard Roth did, but in five years not one had. In fact, if I had any recommendation for getting a piece into a magazine like INC., it would be not to hire a PR agency at all. Like most reporters, I'd much rather talk to company owners with a truly dramatic story to tell than company flacks. And, if an owner is willing to invest a few minutes of his time, all it will cost is the price of a long-distance phone call. By my calculation, that would put him $13,698 ahead of the game.
