Big P.R. firms see exodus of execs wanting to start their own business.

Seven years ago, Marci Blaze was a senior vice president with public relations firm Ruder Finn of California, pulling down a cool $84,000 a year and hating it.

"One day my husband said to me, 'You know, you come home every night and sit there and do crossword puzzles. I bet you think you do it to relax. I think you do it because you're bored,'" says Blaze.

"He basically humiliated me into starting my own business."

So Blaze started the Venice-based Blaze Co. in 1990 with a $40,000 loan from her husband, paying him back with 10 percent interest after a year in business. She now has 11 employees, little time for crossword puzzles, and the freedom to make her own decisions.

And that last prospect seems to be an irresistible draw for an increasing number of P.R. types.

The past three or four years have seen an exodus of top professionals from big agencies or corporations. They're splitting off to become independent contractors or to start their own small P.R. shops, largely as a response to the corporate downsizing trend. A lot of marketing people in the early '90s were laid off, only to be rehired as independent contractors by their former employers.

Downsizing aside, many people just get tired of working for somebody else. And a P.R. agency is one of the easiest businesses around to start.

There is very little overhead because you don't have to manufacture anything. And most people who start P.R. shops do it with little more than a Rolodex full of media and business contacts, a computer, a fax machine and a phone.

All of which are getting cheaper. Michael Saltzman, who started his Saltzman Communications on the Miracle Mile in September, does all the accounting for his business using an inexpensive computer and some Quicken software.

"For $100 (the price of the software), your bookkeeping can be put together by the computer," Saltzman says.

But that doesn't mean starting a shop is fool-proof. About half of P.R. agency startups fold within six months, according to Henri Bollinger, president-elect of the Entertainment Publicists Professional Society and head of Sherman Oaks-based Henri Bollinger Associates.

Bollinger is teaching a class with UCLA Extension starting in January on how to start and build a successful P.R. business. He says one of the primary causes of failure is a lack of understanding of the nuts and bolts that go into running a company.

"If there's one common mistake of people who have been mid- to upper-level managers, it's that they often feel the need to open an attractive office when they go into business for themselves," Bollinger says. "So they open something that's way beyond what they really need or can afford. That usually sets them up for failure."

Bollinger recommends setting up a home office to keep expenses down.

You also have to become proficient at drumming up new clients, the most important single element to starting a new P.R. business. Client development is a part of any big agency drone's job, but it takes on a special urgency when your next meal depends on your ability to find paying customers.

Salesmanship, according to Bollinger, is something many publicists are notoriously bad at.

"A lot of P.R. people feel they got into it for different reasons than selling," he says. "They want to be creative, they want to work with people. What they have to realize is that selling is 70 percent of the job."

Selling, when you're a startup, means self-promotion. When Blaze started her company, she put out press releases to all the media people in her Rolodex. She also embarked on an aggressive direct mail campaign to find clients.

But her No. 1 source of new business was, ironically enough, her competitors.

Blaze says that over the course of her 13-year agency career, she built up a network not just of media people and potential customers, but other P.R. professionals. To this day, she says her primary source of new business is referrals from other P.R. agencies, who send clients to her because the account isn't big enough or the agency has a conflict of interest, or for whatever reason they don't want the client.

Fear of failure is the primary personal barrier that must be overcome before starting a P.R. shop or any other business, Bollinger says. The best way of doing it is by learning as much as possible about running a company before making the jump.

"You need self-confidence to function effectively in P.R.," Bollinger says. "And the basis of self-confidence is knowledge."

Many P.R. entrepreneurs bring a handful of clients with them from their old jobs - something that does not exactly endear one to one's former employer. Others, though, manage to wing it on their own.

Dan Harary, a former senior vice president with the Miracle Mile-based Lippin Group, says he didn't take a single client with him when he split away to form his own company in Hollywood, Asbury Communications.

"It's much more overwhelming than I ever imagined," Harary says, after two months in business. "In addition to being a full-time publicist, I'm also an administrator. I have to make sure the money's coming in, make sure the expenses are being met. It's physically very demanding."

Does he have any regrets?

"I've never been as excited or stimulated in my professional life as I am now," Harary says.