“If I was down to my last dollar, I would spend it on public relations.” Legend has it, a long, long time ago, Bill Gates chiselled these words into a stone tablet before carrying it down from Mount Umunhum*.

Ever since (no one knows quite when the event took place), PR evangelists have worked tirelessly to spread the word, shining a light on Gates’ omniscience.

To be fair, putting to one side the thorny issue of whether he ever actually said it – primary evidence is concerningly hard to find – it’s one hell of a quote for PR professionals to call upon. One can only imagine just how many LinkedIn posts and client pitches have featured that sentence.

But, with context so lacking, Gates’ words warrant scrutiny.

Why should a business commit to PR even if it’s in the financial doldrums? Or why should a startup invest in PR while on tight, bootstrapping budgets? Or why should PR come before other forms of marketing?

If only someone had responded to Gates’ remark with the question ‘why?’, we’d have at least known a little more about his particular rationale. Instead, us PR evangelists are left to proffer our own thoughts.

Perception is everything

For my two pence, I’d like to quote another of the great business brains of our times: David Brent. Werham Hogg’s Slough branch manager famously said: “Does a struggling salesman start turning up on a bicycle? No, he turns up in a newer car. Perception, yeah?”

I’m not even joking. There is the crux of a very sensible point in there: perception is everything.

PR is fundamentally about building and maintaining a positive image of an individual or organisation. When done well, it improves the awareness and reputation of a business in front a particular audience.

Now, one of the most common mistakes that business leaders make – and, in my experience, this is particularly true among tech startup founders (those who become engrossed in the inner mechanics of the tech they have developed) – is to assume the quality of their proposition will be directly proportional to the quality, and quantity, of the media coverage they will get. And given earned media coverage sits at the heart of public relations, this is a problematic mindset.

Very, very few businesses are talked about due to the genuine inventiveness of their product or service. No, the prominence of a brand and number of articles featuring a business will almost always be the result of its PR strategy: what content it is publishing on its own marketing channels, as well as what materials and ideas it (or its agency) is putting in front of journalists.

How you do it well is a different question entirely. But why you need PR is clear – even with the greatest product in the world, if no one knows that it exists, the business will go nowhere. Put another way, why invest in any other part of the company if there is no PR strategy to ensure the right people have the right perception of you. This would be my take on the Gates’ quote.

Sharing your story

Whether to support customer acquisition, build the profiles of the leadership team, attract and retain talent, or elicit interest among investors, PR is essential. It will help tell your business’ story – who you exist for and why. It ensures people are aware of all the values you champion and perceptions you challenge. It will establish your brand’s tone of voice. It will keep the world abreast of your latest news. And it will maintain the desired, favourable image of your business.

Bill Gates knows this (apparently). So does David Brent (definitely). And while you might not choose to spend your last dollar on it, any business not actively engaged in PR – in-house or with an agency – is undoubtedly overlooking one of the most singular ingredients for business success.

*Mount Umunhum is in the Santa Cruz Mountains, California, not far from Silicon Valley, hence saying this rather than Mount Sinai.

Dominic Pollard is the director of City Road Communications (CRC). Launched in 2017, London-based CRC is a PR and comms agency that specialises in using research, data and expertly crafted content to secure media coverage for its clients, which are spread across the finance, technology, property and investment sectors.