There are lots of different ways that clients use to appoint public relations companies. In the public sector there are a whole load of different acronyms to describe it. We've just completed an Expression of Interest document for one public sector client and a Pre Qualification Questionnaire for another.

It's often difficult to be able to answer without straying outside of the rigid format required.

This expression of interest was actually very well done, unlike some I've seen. What I liked was:

- It had a clear list of the types of activity required
- It gave an indication of budget
- It asked for samples of the different types of activity (I just hope they return them as it gets harder and harder to do these things as each time you send off samples of brochures, newsletters etc until you have none left!)
- The hardest bit was probably giving an indication of cost for the different activities required. There are so many factors at play here it is very difficult to accurately generalise. A news release can take anything from a couple of hours to three days. We solved it by putting the actual costs in for the samples we provided, but even that doesn't tell the whole story as sometimes there are hidden reasons why things are more or less expensive.

One thing that is frustrating is when the people buying the service, don't really understand it so set criteria that don't really work. One example we had last year was tendering for work that we (i.e. the people pitching) had experience of, although it wasn't through NetworxPR. The contract went to a company that had experience of doing a similar project - except all of the consultants who'd actually worked on it were no longer there. We didn't get it because our company hadn't done it!

Oh well on the two we've just done, it's now just a case of wait and see.