During our weekly #PRsUnite, this week we discussed advice we’d have given ourselves when we were starting out alone.
A number of people contributed and I got agreement to publish our collective responses in the hope it will give you some insight into how start-ups feel, in hindsight.
- Invest in staff when you need to, not before. Don’t staff up for business until you’ve got the contracts signed
- Don’t be so soft. You need to be a bit tougher when it comes to business. You’re not there to make friends
- Look after yourself
- Pay yourself
- Clear communication between everyone
- Know your worth
- Be confident in your value
- Trust your gut
- Use your personal brand to shine a light on your business
- Keep on top of your own development – be able to have conversations about technical and financial things with clients or even your own board
- Be confident in yourself – you CAN do it!
- Know that different brands and personalities are a good thing – there’s room and a place for everyone
- Honesty. Be a decent human being
- Don’t hide who you are
- Think about how you can do things differently
- Think of the proof points to support the brand
- Keep coming back to purpose
- Be strict (ish) on payments and invoicing and not over-servicing too much! Use software to automate
If you’ve not been on to #PRsUnite, please join us. It’s a global community of PR and communication professionals, each contribute as little or as much as they want. We’re there to check in on each other and lend support when required. Just sign up to PRFest emails to get the link.
With thanks to John Wilkinson, Anne Groves, Padraig McKeon, Adam Driver, Charlotte Dimmond, Andy and anyone else who chimed in!