We're returning strong! In this episode Stella interviews Lucy Hart, Executive Strategy Director at The Romans; the most awarded PR agency in the industry.

Often in PR there can be too much focus on media and not enough on the public. That's why this interview is so inspiring. Lucy talks about her passion for social anthropology and you can tell she means it. Its clear that her deep curiosity in people and the psychology of minds is one of the reasons her agency's campaigns make such an impact.

Lucy explains how The Romans global team work with their clients to make the magic happen. She explains their ideation process and the tools and data that feeds each of their award-winning strategies.

This is a special insight into an agency doing things differently.

Special Guest: Lucy Hart .

If your agency finances are feeling like a challenge right now you’re not alone.

Research has confirmed that PR budgets are being reduced. Data gathered in June 2023 from the world’s 100 most powerful communicators (Provoke 100 research) found that there has been a drop in public relations investment in the past 12 months of more than $1bn, from $4.8bn to $3.7bn. 

Although agencies can’t control client budget decisions, there are efficiencies that can be made in how fees are managed and how agency finances are protected.

To help guide you through this tricky time, Stella is joined by agency Chief Finance Officer Simon Collard. With over 30 years experience as an Agency CFO, Simon is an expert as safely guiding agencies to larger margins and consistent profitability, whatever the industry climate may be.

Stella first met Simon at digital PR and marketing agency Propellernet. Alongside a talented management team, Simon lead the agency to triple margin, quadrupled the revenue and generated 10x more profit. All without pressure on staff; the agency won Best Place to work in the UK 8 years running during this period of growth.

In this interview Simon shares his wisdom on;

• Pricing and fees; Should PR be time or value priced? Or should we charge by output and outcome bonuses?
• The importance to demonstrate the problems you are solving for your client, always.
• Resilience; how to build it and where conscious over-servicing fits in.
• ‘Profit vampires’ and how to deal with them.
• Why the profit and loss sheet is a lagging indicator to an agency’s health & noticing negativity in the P&L means it could be too late
• Numbers; The % of revenue you should spend on people, and cost per person
• And the golden key in all agency profitability; time and resourcing and the best ways to manage it.

Special Guest: Simon Collard .

Brendon shares his experience in setting up and running a completely remote global PR agency, not because of lockdown restrictions but because their ‘PR without borders’ strategy truly engages local markets and delivers the best possible results for clients. 

As we start 2021 with most PR agencies around the world working with pandemic-led restrictions, Craigie shares Tyto’s challenges but also huge successes in serving their global clients with a team of professionals located in 12 countries. 

From team practicalities to VR client meetings, this may just be the PR agency structure of the future.

Stella and Brendon discuss:

• The deeper audience understaning of always leading comms on the ground of the location you're targeting
• The danger of communications existing in an echo chamber
• What technology and processes it takes for a completely remote global PR agency to work
• How Tyto hired, manages and motivates a remote team of comms professionals

Special Guest: Brendon Craigie .

In this episode, Steve shares how he and his and co-founder Gary’s experiences in the PR industry led to their decision to create Talker Tailor and how they have poured their learnings and experiences (good and bad) into the operation.

Steve shares his views on diversity in Public Relations and why its essential to build freedom into a team.

He also speaks candidly about where Talker Tailor is at now and where he and Gary aim to take the agency in the future.

If you’re looking for an insight into modern PR, want to hear some very real language and a have good laugh, listen now!

Special Guest: Steve Strickland.