South Londoner Caroline Lashley set up her own public relations company The Editor’s Office in 2003 specialising in services for sole traders and small businesses – writing press releases, Web content and speeches.
The journalism and law graduate spent her first year in business furiously networking and re-training after having spent 20 years away from the media.
She had worked as a secretary to get her law degree – having discovered that she knew nothing of the business of writing.
“Eaten alive”
“I was eaten alive!” she says of her efforts to land a job in Fleet Street and to sell freelance stories in her early 20s with “little” experience of life.
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But she soon realised that she didn’t want to be a lawyer and spent much of her corporate and public sector career as a press officer.
She was frustrated during that 20 years, feeling that her ethnicity, as a British-born Black woman, often got in the way of promotion. She speaks not of a glass ceiling but a concrete one. People in the workplace would often express surprise that she had a degree.
“Somebody asked me when did you last go home? Last night of course, I said. I’m from South London but they think I couldn’t possibly be born here,” she says.
Getting paid
Leaving “corporate UK” behind and setting up her own company was a dream come true. She could work to her own agenda and the sky could be the limit.
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“I thought no, if I’m going to be at risk let me take my own chips to the casino,” she says of the constant threat of redundancy in some sectors.
But two and a half years down the track she is having problems getting customers to pay and wants to refocus on a new kind of client.
“With PR everybody thinks they can do it, everyone thinks they can write. They don’t realise there’s a way of writing yourself up to get in the newspaper or on the radio or online.
“Writing an essay is very different. In my work you have to grab the audience’s attention in the first two seconds.
“Journalists and advertising copy writers can get people to read their work and buy a product because there is a skill in it,” she says.
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Legal threats
Ms Lashley doesn’t want to lean on these clients - waving her legal credentials and threatening to sue. She feels that for a PR company to get bad PR by dragging customers through the courts would be the worst outcome.
“I need to get it consistent. Getting clients to see that my journalistic training and law degree helps them – for example in avoiding slander. Most people in PR don’t have a law degree in their back pocket. But I don’t want them to be put off by that, thinking that I’ll be more expensive.
“I don’t have time for credit checks, I don’t want to put them on 60days.com either,” she says.
“I know I’m legally entitled to charge interest. But I don’t want to get known for suing clients – I’m between a rock and a hard place.
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“I want clients that will welcome someone who is legally trained. I want to keep away from the D clients. It’s ‘pay and download’ for them.“
The Editor’s Office is offering a fill-in-the-blanks template press releases that clients can download from its website.
Networking
Ms Lashley says she has done a “ridiculous” amount of networking and regularly publishes an e-mail newsletter to keep her profile up.
“I do a lot of public speaking, to get my name out there. People have come to know my face.
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“They’ve heard about me and they want to try to get me for next to nothing. Then when they find out I’m legally trained they want to pick my brains (for free) for legal help.
“I want clients that will welcome someone who is legally trained and are happy to pay for the skills. I want to keep away from the D clients.
“It’s been a steep learning curve. If I don’t shift this up a gear I won’t be able to pay the bills!”
Times Online asked its panel of business advisers to look at The Editor’s Office and its problems with clients and with marketing to the right audience. To see what they had to say, click here.