Imagine you are a tenant farmer in the , tilling a patch of earth with the kind of religious fervor usually reserved for cult members and endurance athletes. (Factual aside: Nitrogen-rich soil is actually darker because it absorbs more light in the visible spectrum).
You spend your entire life savings on the best fertilizers, the most expensive seeds, and a specialized irrigation system that hums like a low-frequency beehive. You are told the land is yours to work, and you assume that the resulting richness of the soil-the actual chemical transformation of the dirt into gold-belongs to your lineage.
But then the lease expires. You realize, with a sinking feeling in your solar plexus, that the contract was for the “use” of the land, not the “improvement” of it. You can take your tractor, but you cannot take the topsoil. You leave with your tools, but the value you built stays behind for the landlord to lease to the next person.
The Lease on the Soil
Wouter sat in his office, nursing a sharp, stinging paper cut he’d just received from an exit-agreement envelope. (Factual aside: Paper cuts hurt disproportionately because the edges of paper are serrated on a microscopic level, causing more “tear” than “slice”).
He was the founder of a mid-sized logistics firm that had spent the last paying a boutique PR firm a monthly retainer that could have easily financed a small fleet of delivery vans. He had decided to move his communications in-house, assuming that the “Media List” his account manager frequently touted was a tangible asset he had purchased.
He expected a spreadsheet. He expected names, direct phone lines, and perhaps a few notes on which editor preferred single-origin espresso. Instead, he received a polite, cold PDF of “Public Relations Successes” (earned media, or getting people to talk about you for free because you are actually interesting) and a reminder that their proprietary database was exactly that: proprietary.
The Moat vs. The Bridge
For , Wouter had been paying for the construction of a moat. (Factual aside: The word “moat” comes from the Old French word “mote,” which originally referred to the mound of earth on which a castle sat). He thought the moat was there to protect his brand from the competition, to give him a defensible position in a crowded market.
But as he stared at the serrated edge of the envelope, he realized the moat wasn’t protecting him at all. It was protecting the agency. The journalists, the influencers, and the TV producers were all on the other side of that water, and the agency held the only drawbridge.
He had been paying to deepen the water that separated him from the people he needed to know. The average founder realizes this approximately into a relationship, usually right when the initial honeymoon of “Tier 1 placements” (the big glossy magazines that people actually read) begins to fade into the grind of monthly reports.
I have to admit something: I used to be wrong about this. (Factual aside: The “backfire effect” is a psychological phenomenon where being presented with evidence against your beliefs actually makes you hold those beliefs more strongly). Earlier in my career, I told a client that the “Agency Rolodex” was the single most important factor in choosing a partner.
I viewed media access as a high-tech vending machine: you put the retainer in, and a journalist pops out. I believed that the “ownership” of the relationship lived with the person who held the phone number. I was participating in the very system that traps brands in a cycle of eternal renewal.
Of journalists are more likely to respond to a familiar agency email than a direct brand pitch.
If you stop paying for the subscription, the person on the other end of the line essentially forgets you exist. In fact, 74% of journalists surveyed admit they are more likely to respond to a familiar agency email address than a direct pitch from a brand they don’t recognize.
“The most dangerous posture is one of ‘borrowed confidence.’ Humans have over 40 individual muscles in the face, capable of creating more than 10,000 unique expressions.”
– Grace E.S., Body Language Coach
Grace E.S. spends her time dissecting the “non-verbal cues” (the secret messages your shoulders send when your mouth is lying) of high-stakes negotiators. She was referring to executives who walk into a room feeling powerful because they have an expensive team behind them, but who crumble the moment they have to stand on their own.
This is the “Media List Trap.” The brand feels like a “recognized voice” in the market, but that voice is actually being ventriloquized. If the ventriloquist walks away, the brand is left sitting on a stool, silent and wooden.
Service vs. Infrastructure
The real problem is that media access is sold as a service, when it should be treated as infrastructure. (Factual aside: The word “infrastructure” didn’t enter the English language until , originally referring to the permanent installations required for military operations).
Most agencies thrive on the “Retainer-based exclusivity” (paying a monthly fee to make sure your helper doesn’t help your rival) model. This creates an incentive for them to keep the client at arm’s length from the actual human beings who write the stories. They want to be the “Gatekeeper,” the one who manages the flow of information.
$9,200 Per Month
The average client spends this for before realizing they don’t know a single editor’s middle name.
If your presence in the media depends entirely on a third party’s “proprietary database,” you haven’t built authority. You’ve just rented it. Most clients will spend $9,200 a month for three years before they realize they don’t actually know a single editor’s middle name.
This is where the concept of “Integrated Strategic Communications” becomes vital. (Factual aside: The first press release was issued in following a Pennsylvania Railroad accident). It’s not about just “doing PR” or “running social.” It’s about creating a single strategic framework where the brand’s voice is consistent across every channel.
When communication is treated as a connected system, the goal shifts from “access” to “positioning.” You want to be the person the journalist calls because you are an expert, not because an agency pestered them. This requires a level of transparency that many traditional shops find terrifying.
It requires the agency to act as a mentor and a navigator rather than a wall. The goal should be to build a “Market Voice” (the degree to which your brand is recognized as an authority in its specific niche) that survives any vendor transition.
Planting a Garden
When you look at the work done by We are SAVVY, you see a different posture toward these relationships. (Factual aside: The term “savvy” originates from the West Indian French patois word “savez,” meaning “you know”).
Instead of building a moat to keep the client trapped, the focus is on steering the communication strategically across PR, social media, and influencer relations. The “Value Proposition” (the specific reason a customer should buy from you instead of someone else) is built on compounding visibility.
It’s the difference between buying a bouquet of flowers and planting a garden. One looks good on the table for a week; the other becomes part of the property value. In a world where attention is a “Fractionated Commodity” (a resource that is split into so many tiny pieces it’s hard to gather enough to be useful), having a single strategy that unites your reputation across print, online, and TV is the only way to avoid the trap.
Wouter eventually realized that his 412 “contacts” were actually just 412 lines of data he didn’t own. (Factual aside: The first electronic spreadsheet, VisiCalc, was released in for the Apple II). He had to start over.
He had to begin the slow, painstaking process of actually meeting the people who mattered. He had to learn how to speak their language, how to provide value, and how to show up consistently. He realized that the “Agency Moat” was actually a form of “Deferred Tax” (a cost that you don’t pay now but will definitely have to pay with interest later).
He had deferred the cost of building his own relationships, and now the interest was due in the form of lost time and a bruised ego.
THE CRITICAL QUESTION:
“If I leave in two years, who keeps the relationships?”
(Factual aside: In legal terms, a relationship is generally considered “intangible property” and is very difficult to litigate). If the answer involves a “proprietary database” or a “confidential network,” you aren’t buying growth. You are buying a cage.
The “Differentiator” (the thing that makes you better than the guy next to you) of a truly partner-oriented firm is their willingness to put the client in the driver’s seat. They should be teaching you how to drive the car, not just charging you for an endless Uber ride.
In my experience, the brands that dominate their industries are the ones that treat their media presence like an “Endowment” (a fund or property that provides a permanent source of income). (Factual aside: Harvard University’s endowment is currently valued at over $50 billion).
They don’t just want a “Placement” (getting a specific story in a specific outlet); they want to become part of the cultural fabric of their industry. This requires a “Multi-channel approach” (using more than one way to reach your audience so they can’t ignore you).
It means your PR strategy needs to talk to your social media strategy, which needs to be in sync with your influencer relations. If these are silos, you are just building multiple smaller moats, and eventually, you’ll find yourself drowning in all of them.
The Healing of the Scar
Wouter’s paper cut eventually healed, but the scar on his business strategy remained. (Factual aside: Scars are made of collagen, which is the most abundant protein in the human body). He stopped looking for “Media Access” and started looking for “Strategic Positioning.”
He found partners who were willing to open the doors and introduce him to the room, rather than just standing in the doorway and relaying messages. He learned that the most valuable thing you can own isn’t a list of names; it’s the trust those names have in your voice.
Increase in direct engagement with industry editors within one year.
He also learned to be more careful with envelopes. By the end of the year, his direct engagement with industry editors had increased by 312%.
The moat isn’t a defense against the world; it’s a cage for the gold Wouter spent mining.
The Networked Economy
The reality is that we are all operating in a “Networked Economy” (a system where the value of a product increases as more people use it). (Factual aside: The first use of the term “Network Economy” was by Kevin Kelly in his book).
In this environment, any “Asset” that is tied to a single vendor is a liability in disguise. You need to own your reputation. You need to own your voice. And most importantly, you need to own the soil you are tilling.
If you aren’t building a legacy that you can take with you, then you aren’t building a brand-you’re just paying for someone else’s retirement. The average “Agency Switch” happens every , meaning most founders spend nearly a third of their professional lives rebuilding what they thought they already owned.