Conflicts of interest and competing clients
Most PR contracts contain no exclusivity at all. Unless your agreement says otherwise, the agency can sign your direct competitor next month and owes you nothing beyond discretion. So before you sign, ask who else they represent in your category, and write three terms into the contract: category exclusivity, conflict disclosure, and a penalty-free exit if a conflict appears.
The problem is finite attention, not bad faith. A reporter on your beat publishes a story or two a week and follows a handful of companies, and that bandwidth keeps shrinking: most journalists now work in newsrooms of 15 people or fewer while filing a heavy weekly story load. An agency representing two rivals has to decide whose news reaches that reporter first, and that decision is invisible to you. You find out when your competitor's launch runs and yours waits a cycle. The larger the agency, the more likely its roster already overlaps your market, which is worth weighing alongside the tradeoffs on the agency-size page.
How to check before money moves:
- Ask in the pitch meeting - "Who else in my category do you represent right now? What happens if a competitor approaches you mid-contract?" If the answer is vague, treat it as a yes. Add this to your list from the pitch-questions page.
- Read the roster yourself - scan the agency's client page and recent case studies for competitors and near-neighbors. Agencies showcase exactly the work that would conflict with yours.
- Ask their references - former clients will tell you whether a conflict surfaced mid-engagement and how the agency handled it. The checking-references page covers how to get honest answers.
Then put it in writing:
| Term | What it protects |
|---|---|
| Category exclusivity | They will not sign a named type of competitor while you are a client. |
| Conflict disclosure | They tell you before onboarding anyone adjacent, and you decide if it matters. |
| Clean exit | If a real conflict lands anyway, you leave without penalty or notice-period fees. |
Define the category carefully. Too broad and no agency will sign it: "any B2B SaaS company" is a non-starter. Too narrow and it protects nothing. "Any company selling payroll software to restaurants" is the level of specificity that gets signed and actually holds. An agency that refuses every version of this clause is telling you the rest of the roster comes first; the red-flags page covers the other answers that should end the conversation.
Exclusivity is what you are actually buying: first call on the small set of reporters who cover your space. Get it on paper.