When I signed up for PRLab at the end of last fall, I hoped for a remotely tolerable team and a client that is so busy running a business that they ask for little to no deliverables.
For context, PRLab is a student-run public relations agency that connects students with real clients (and also offers credits). While I’ve had some professional experience in PR, this was a whole new ball game; I didn’t know whether I’d get along with my team, if my assigned client would be difficult to work with, or (and this might be mean to say) if I’d even care about the client’s business.
My goal? Be cordial and earn those credits.
As I write this two months into PRLab, I can safely say that “remotely tolerable” is a horrible understatement to how collaborative, dutiful, and compatible my team is.
What’s more, our client, Friendship Park, is a brand that aligns with my values and interests. You all know that I love fashion (I mean, it’s all I write about), so working with a lifestyle brand with clothing and accessory products is a dream come true. And the people who run it are absolutely hilarious.
Of course, that doesn’t mean everything is smooth-sailing. When I say this agency makes us work for those credits, I mean work. Here are five things I’ve learned from my ongoing experience with Friendship Park.
- CONNECTIONS ARE KEY
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We hear this all the time as students: connections are everything. It’s not enough to complete a degree; students also have to get out there and make friends.
Joining pre-professional clubs, getting to know executive board members, and building a network of people willing to help us invest in our future (and whom we’d do the same for) was crucial to our success as a team.
We outsource photographers and videographers through our film and television friends, hire models through our Fabrio co-members, and do press outreach to our buddies in student publications all over Boston. How little would we actually be able to do if none of us had any connections?
And our networks don’t just help us earn credits, they also help our clients. Friendship Park values our familiarity with campus culture and ability to pitch to people who already know and like us.
When we enter the full-time workforce, we don’t just need a banging resume, but also people who will vouch for how much value we can bring to a business.
- BEING “A JOY TO WORK WITH” IS DIFFERENT FROM BEING A LIST OF ACHIEVEMENTS
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Boston University hosts many events that aim to help students network with alumni, hiring managers, and fellow students. But how helpful are they really?
How much time does a student spend chatting with an alum, and is it enough for them to even remember each other, much less like each other? How often does a student flex their resume and preach their career goals, only to leave an employer clueless about what kind of person they are to work with?
My team and I meet with our client once a week and are in perpetual communication with them. Our client gets to know us through the quality of the work we do for them, how effectively we communicate, how insightful our suggestions are, and how adaptable we are to changes in our scope of work. These traits strengthen professional relationships.
- A STRONG TEAM CAN TURN INTERNAL MEETINGS INTO SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO
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After our weekly client meeting, my team and I FaceTime to debrief key points, and then again the next day to further discuss next steps and plan action items. Even as I’m writing this, that sounds so boring, but I promise it’s not.
When I say “debrief key points,” I mean we collectively panic about an unexpected update, and when I say “plan action items,” I mean we schedule group shopping trips for marketing materials (on our client’s dime, of course).
My team gets along abnormally well. When we talk to our friends on other teams, it almost seems like we’re not even taking the same class. They’re strictly business, but the five of us are friends with each other.
Did I know any of them before PRLab began? No. Are we having charcuterie nights together? Yes!
When you get along with your team, collaboration is a thousand times easier. There’s no hesitation to ask for or offer help. Moreover, each individual member is excited about our work, so there’s no procrastination.
We were talking about this in our last internal meeting, actually: In prior teams, everyone tried to do as little work as possible. But now, we’re excited to sign up for tasks and take on more work ourselves.
For high-achieving students, it’s easy to take on the heaviest load of a project because you know you’ll do a good job. Everyone else gets to Slack. But when all members are high-achieving students, there’s no anxiety about some parts being more put together than others. Everyone sets a high standard for themselves, and everyone pulls their weight.
And to ensure standardized quality, everyone works on everything. We send each other drafts, and we check each other’s work. 99% of my positive experience is attributable to my team’s personalities and work ethics.
- ANYTHING CAN CHANGE, SO BE ADAPTABLE
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Fashion is finicky. Manufacturers might mess up, new products might fall short of standards, and priorities might shift. Our goal, however, remains the same: to get the word out about a brand and, consequently, increase sales. The means to get there, however, can change at the drop of a hat.
We’ve been working on a campaign to introduce potential customers to Friendship Park’s new product line. Hundreds of hours were poured into developing shot lists, reaching out to videographers, researching venues, and a week before our first shoot, the manufacturers sent over the new products. They were a bust.
So, we pivoted. We said, “Let’s focus more on storytelling. Let’s make the customers feel something about the brand instead of the clothes themselves.” We edited shot lists and re-imagined the campaign.
Our client reminded us that sometimes a business will scrap an idea altogether and try something new. We’re lucky that we didn’t have to ditch the campaign entirely, but now we know to be prepared if that ever happens in the future.
- YOUR CLIENT IS JUST A PERSON
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During our first several post-client-meeting FaceTime debriefs, we stared at each other silently for a bit, then said, “That was terrifying.” Our client was no-nonsense, didn’t want to waste any time, and always told it to us straight. That kind of honesty was something none of us were used to.
I’m sure this is a universal experience: in a group project, someone will make a low-effort contribution, and you’ll say, “This looks great! Thanks!” and then spend the evening fixing it.
Our clients never lied to us; if we strayed too far from what they asked for, they let us know. We’re great at graphic design, but I do not doubt that they’d stick it to us if we gave them an ugly flyer. But even if their feedback is brutally honest, they’re open to our ideas and receptive to our pitches. And that’s hard to find.
That said, it’s easy to think, “Oh, jeez, they hate us.” They don’t. Our clients have lives. They’re running businesses. Their priority isn’t to make a bunch of college students feel good about themselves; it’s to get their products into customers’ hands. That doesn’t make them scary; it makes them people with their own concerns and preferences, just like you or me.
That’s not to say they don’t care about us — they want us to have a positive experience; they want us to take away something from our time with them. But, as I said, we’re expected to earn our credits.
PRLab has given me the most substantial professional experience I’ve had since starting at BU, but not just in a “get to know the industry” sense. Friendship Park is all about connection and friendship, and my biggest takeaways are situated within those values: teamwork makes the dream work, and we’re all just people trying our best.
I know I am. I want my credits. (And many charcuterie nights to come.)
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