Patrice Tanaka, CEO and creative director of PT&Co. and a PR diva of sorts, is earning a reputation for helping oversee a growing New York-based PR boutique (billings have grown from $600,000 in 1990 to $4.5 million now). But the company has also racked up publicity for the way its 11 owners run the quasi marcom cooperative, gaining ink for practices such as giving employees Fridays off during the summer and offering three months paid maternity leave.
The firm has 40 employees and some of its major clients include Avon Products, Godiva, Coors Brewing Co., Liz Claiborne, pharmaceutical Novartis and Wyndham Hotel and Resorts. PR NEWS recently spoke to Patrice in between her jaunts to Dallas and Chicago.
PRN: How did you end up in PR?
Tanaka:
I was a journalism graduate from the University of Hawaii and I first worked for a publisher, Hawaii Press Newspapers, specifically at The Waikiki Beach Press. I was a "Neighbor Islands" editor - writing stories on dining and what there was to see and do on the islands.
I did that for about two years, and then someone offered me a job as PR director at the Inter-Continental Maui Resort. It was strange - I knew nothing about PR, I wasn't thinking about it as a career. But I had visited the Inter-Continental property and had met the PR director there while I was doing a story. I remember thinking, "What a great job she has," and I never had thought that about any other job. Later, the PR director for Pan Am in Hawaii (whom I met while working on a story) recommended me to the director of marketing for that property. Ironically, they were looking for a replacement for the woman I had met who had left for another job.
They called me one day and asked if I was interested, but in my heart, I really wanted to move to New York and didn't think I was the best candidate since I knew nothing about public relations in the pure sense of the word.
PRN: What was the turning point in that meeting, the moment you thought, "I can do this?"
Tanaka:
That was years ago, in 1977, and I can't remember exactly. But I think it was because he was a great sales guy (the marketing director at the resort) and I would love the property. It was a beautiful resort and as he was talking, it occurred to me that maybe this was something I could do for awhile. I felt I could get some good PR experience and then move to New York, where I knew [from age 8 or 9] that I wanted to live.
PRN: Why?
Tanaka:
I grew up watching those old movies from the 1930s and 1940s, the cinematic flair - you know, everyone lived in penthouse apartments, spoke on white telephones and wore evening clothes all day along. I always knew I wanted to live there because it seemed much more exciting than my life in Hawaii.
PRN: So are you talking on white phones and wearing evening clothes? What's the reality of your life and business in New York?
Tanaka:
I get a real charge out of every day being so different. In large part, I'm not in control of my day because it depends so much on serving the needs of others here at PT&Co. I have to be ready to roll with whatever requests, deadlines or quick brainstorming sessions come up, which may not necessarily have been on the agenda.
I don't work on any account day to day, nor do I have day-to-day contact with any of our clients. My servicing is of the people that work here. Every Tuesday, we have finance and management oversight committee meetings during which we discuss finances, management problems, things that affect the agency. We look at account receivables, profit-and-loss statements, our cash flow report. In another company of our size, this might be done only by the CFO and CEO, but here, my model is managing by consensus and getting input from my fellow shareholders. It sensitizes all of us to the issues of profitability, ties back to the work we do and the constant monitoring of over-servicing, which affects the bottom line.
PRN: Do you feel that struggle every day - that you're in a creative business, but have to make your company profitable, something that PR executives seem to struggle with?
Tanaka:
When we first started in July 1990, none of us had owned a business before. We were not entrepreneurs in the classic sense. We knew how to do PR, but we had to educate ourselves about running a business. That's the constant lesson in PR ownership: that you can do great work, but you can also run a business into the ground by only focusing on doing PR. In starting the agency, our objectives were twofold: they were to create great work and create a great workplace environment, two things we felt could build our brand. Again, those were the two things that we wanted to be known for - to deliver and delight clients and attract and retain top talent - but we were less sensitized to the nuances of running a business. We've learned a lot.
PRN: Do you have any tips you can share for those going out on their own?
Tanaka:
I heard Harold Burson say this one day and it has always stuck with me: "The one thing I wished I had done earlier than later in my professional life is hire more seasoned, experienced people before I thought I could afford them." The more people you have with business experience, the more informed you'll be in making decisions to create a successful business. We didn't have anyone on board who had owned a business or had an MBA, and we spent a lot of time learning as we went. We're lucky we had the luxury to make mistakes, so my advice would be that if at all possible, hire people with strong financial experience and background. All of us - PR people who start agencies because we're great at doing PR - don't realize there is a lot of back-office support that we've taken for granted.
PRN: How did you raise capital?
Tanaka:
I was so naive then that I thought a bank would loan us the money to finance the buyback. In 1990, I went to Jay Chiat, chairman of Chiat/Day Advertising (our former parent company), and asked if we could buy ourselves back because we weren't happy as part of the advertising agency. We felt like second-class citizens, like we were misunderstood. You have to understand: Jay Chiat is a man of few words, and he finally said: "If this is what you're prepared to do, okay." (I had gone to Jay after 12 of my colleagues and I decided we wanted to do this.)...So, the lawyers went at it to create the deal. First, we started the process of meeting with six different banks, and I knew we were in trouble when one bank executive said, "Explain to me: What is public relations?" That's when I realized we might not be able to get financing from traditional sources such as a bank. In the end, what happened was that three of us had a significant amount of Chiat-Day stock and we used that in the negotiations. We struck a deal with that and also paid them royalties on our business for the first three years. And my parents also took out a second mortgage on their house to loan us some money. That was a significant thing since my father is very fiscally conservative: he won't spend a quarter in a parking meter, even if he has to drive around the block three times to find a space. When my father did this, my mother and I were stunned and speechless. It was an incredible leap of faith on his part. (Tanaka's father was a civil engineer and retired soon after that.)
PRN: Do you feel indebted to your Dad?
Tanaka:
He's my hero and I wrote him a letter on his birthday several years ago, telling him that. I started by saying that Elvis and Errol Flynn were my first heros and I've come to realize that he, too, is among that pantheon of Gods. My father became my hero through the years because of what he's done quietly and steadfastly.
The Tanaka Notes...
- Favorite films: "The Palm Beach Story," "Saratoga Trunk" and "The Philadelphia Story
- Favorite N.Y. restaurant: Union Square
- Favorite book: "Lolita" by Nabokov and "The Red and the Black" by Stendahl
- Favorite artist: Matisse
- Admires most in PR: Dave Drobis, Ketchum CEO, for his commitment to the newly created Association of Public Relations Firms