Zen and the Art of PR Client Management

For 25+ years, I've run a PR agency. For just as many, I've been a yoga instructor. For a long time, I treated these as two separate lives. One paid the bills through media strategy and press releases. The other kept me sane through breathwork and sun salutations.

Turns out, I was training for the same job the whole time.

A yoga mat doesn't talk back. It won't undo your edits, ghost you for three weeks on a byline, or ask your opinion and then do the exact opposite. Clients do all three, sometimes in the same week. Yoga wisdom tells us that it is easy to practice when things are going well. The real test comes when they don't, and PR clients deliver no shortage of tests.

This brings me to six client archetypes every PR practitioner will recognize, along with the yoga principle each one has taught me to lean on.

1. The Reversal Client

Santosha, or: I Have Made Peace With Your Track Changes

You get a press release that reads more like a New York Post headline than a news release. The headline is something like "The Hack That Broke the Internet," the actual news is buried in paragraph four, and there are more CVEs than a security bulletin. You edit it back to an inverted pyramid, tighten the jargon, add a link out to a technical blog for the readers who want the deep detail. They thank you for the recommendations.

Later, a new draft lands in your inbox for the next round of edits. It's back to the clickbait headline and the buried news, like the conversation never happened.

Santosha is the yoga principle of contentment with what is, not what you wish would happen. You can offer your best counsel. You cannot own what someone does with it after it leaves your hands. Breathe and send the release.

2. The "Just Asking" Client

Equanimity, or: I Have Released My Attachment to Being Right

"We have two releases ready to go, one Monday, one Tuesday. Good idea, or should we space them out?"

You explain, patiently, that announcing two releases back to back cannibalizes coverage, since you're pitching largely the same reporters who won't cover both. Space them out, you say. They thank you for the insight.

Two days later: "We decided to go Monday and Tuesday after all."

Equanimity is staying even-keeled regardless of outcome. It's not about winning the argument. It's about trusting that you gave the right counsel and letting go of what happens next. This one gets a bonus round when the client later questions why a reporter didn't put their company name in the headline, as though headline language were something the agency gets to negotiate. The same principle applies, some things are simply not yours to control.

3. The Slow-Approval Client

Patience, or: The Byline Will Get Approved When It Gets Approved

You draft multiple contributed articles, a Q&A, fresh pitch angles, whatever it takes to keep momentum going. They sit in review for weeks, sometimes months. Then, right on cue, comes the question: why don't we have more coverage this quarter?

Patience is one of yoga's most tested virtues, and your PR clients will test it relentlessly. You can't publish what hasn't been approved. You can only keep gently nudging and trust the timeline will eventually catch up to the vision.

4. The Missed-Deadline Client

Impermanence, or: That Speaking Slot Was Never Really Yours to Lose

The dream scenario for every PR person and every client: NBC Nightly News calls. They want to feature your client. You send the urgent, high-priority emails. You text, you call. The deadline passes and the opportunity is gone.

More often, it plays out slower and quieter, with ongoing editorial opportunities, speaking slots, award applications. You build the submission, draft the pitch, hand it over with the deadline clearly marked and nobody gets back to you in time, so the window closes just the same.

Impermanence is the yogic idea that everything, including opportunity, is temporary and passing. You can grieve it for a minute. Then you let it go, because the next opportunity is already on its way, and clinging to the last one just means you're not present for it.

5. The Unrealistic Expectations Client

Satya, or: Staying Grounded in the Truth of Where You Actually Are

Every agency has heard some version of "why aren't we on the front cover of the Wall Street Journal." Every agency has also had the CEO who wants an unproven spokesperson, someone without a single media hit to their name, booked on a major national morning show.

Satya means truthfulness, including the sometimes uncomfortable truth-telling of managing expectations.Ambition is wonderful, but the job is to match it to where the client's story and credibility actually stand today, not where they wish they stood. And sometimes, even when you explain that truth clearly and kindly, they never actually hear it. Satya asks you to keep offering it anyway, not because it will change their mind, but because it's still the right thing to give them.

6. The Media-Shy C-Suite

Acceptance, or: You Can't Build a Narrative Out of Silence

They want business press coverage badly. They won't put an executive in front of a reporter to earn it. They also won't offer a quote or a quick trend angle for the low-lift opportunities, the roundups and wrap-up stories where a few good sentences would be enough. You're left trying to build a narrative for a leadership team that won't show up in any form, big or small.

Acceptance in yoga isn't passive. It's recognizing what you actually have to work with, instead of what you wish you had, so you can do something useful with it instead of quietly resenting its absence. You find whatever material they're willing to give you, and you make the most of it.

We truly love some of our clients, and the others are our greatest teachers. Either way, moments like these are simply part of doing this work. Each one is a chance to practice something yoga has been teaching me for decades: give your best counsel, then let go of what happens to it.

I used to think teaching yoga was just a side job to running a PR agency. Now I think the agency is where I actually practice what I teach.

The mat teaches you to breathe through what you can't control. PR just gives you more chances to practice.