News & Updates
Starting over...
New website, new blog, (relatively) new business...
The process of starting over in business (starting over, because we’ve actually been around in public relations account management and consultancy, helping South Yorkshire businesses for almost ten years now) is fascinating for many reasons...
Working and developing your skills-set within an organisation is one thing, establishing your own first company is a very different beast. And despite the challenges this inevitably poses – it’s the clichéd ‘best thing we’ve ever done’ and its becoming clear to us why so many people have said this of their own first business.
One of the fascinating things is the sudden immersion into a much deeper level of involvement both with clients and suppliers. This should not be a surprise by any means – but it is a crucial point at which you recognise two things; a) your ability to network in a meaningful way, rather than feeling obliged to do it, and b) that your work, your values, your personalities and your company are also important to other businesses.
What’s also fascinating is the development of a culture within your company. These cultures are dictated over the years by how much shared vision you have within an organisation, group dynamics, freedom to make decisions and to be creative, how strong or weak the company’s leadership is and many other factors. When you start a new company, culture isn’t necessarily the first thing to try and get right – in fact, it would in many respects be foolish to try, because a significant part of that culture will be created as you find your way through those early stages and start to find consistency and new strengths in a world of upheaval and systems organisation.
Then there is the matter of identity. Operating from within an existing organisation offers a certain level of buy-in to a pre-defined brand, but unless you are for example set to own the business at some point, it will be a limited level of buy-in. Once you begin to define your own company brand with the creative help of others you are giving a part of yourself to the process and creating a framework for how you and your business will be perceived by the wider world, and it’s a great individual learning experience.
And the natural progression from the branding process is to then establish your first website. We’ve worked on many websites for companies before now, some of them quite high-profile. And getting that right, seeing the results of your efforts, is very rewarding but comes with its own challenges as you manage the requirements of the client company with an allowance for creativity from the design team. Creating a ‘boutique’ website for your own new company is simply great fun from the outset.
So here we find ourselves. Agent Public Relations Ltd. Established since November 2013, been around for much longer - and brand new all at the same time... We hope you like what we do.