When Neilie Dunn decided to launch her own public relations firm earlier this year, she made a promise to herself.
“I committed to myself that I would find companies that would have the same values and mission that I did, which is giving back the gifts you’ve been bestowed,” she said.
Dunn, a mother of two, said after 10 years as the head of marketing for J.T. Turner Construction, it was time for a change.
For one, she wanted to spend more time with her kids, ages 5 and 3, who were growing up way too fast. And two, she had the full endorsement of her former boss, Tripp Turner, who encouraged her to strike out on her own during a conversation about work-life balance earlier in the year.
“I thought, if this is not God slapping me in the face and now your own boss is telling you to leave his company and start your own and saying, ‘I will be your first client, I am proud to be your first client,’” she said. “With his support and my husband’s support, I knew this was what we were going to do.”
By March, Neilie S. Dunn Public Relations was up and running.
And Dunn isn’t the only one to start her own consultancy. Several P.R. firms have sprung up this year, among them Karen Guinn and Meg Albertson’s Collective Marketing and Ann Carroll’s Four Trees Marketing. Melissa Yao Hille also launched her own boutique advertising and marketing firm, MY Agency, in May 2013 after 13 years with Visit Savannah.
Dunn believes the uptick in the P.R. industry is indicative of two things — the robust growth of Savannah’s economy post-recession and a demand for professionals who can help new companies navigate Savannah’s business landscape, built around intricate and often personal networks.
Carroll, who launched her own company around the same time as Dunn, said she too was looking for a change after 26 years in the corporate world, the last six and half in marketing at accounting firm Hancock Askew.
“The good news, since I decided on the spur of the moment that I was going to quit my job and start my own company, is that I already had a thriving business,” said Carroll, a part-time yoga instructor and doula.
Since Carroll had spent most of her career in the banking and accounting fields, she figured she would seek out professional services firms that need marketing help. To her surprise, however, she found clients coming to her from a variety of fields.
“When I announced that I was doing this, I had so many people come out of the woodwork and say, ‘I need your help,’” she said. “So I guess the fun part of it is I’m not really working so much with professional services, but I’ve got a whole variety of clients I’m working with.”
Those clients include a lawyer, manufacturer, juice company and several nonprofits. During her interview, Carroll had to check a text alert because she was on call as doula for a client who was expected to go into labor soon.
Both Dunn and Carroll are members of Savannah Marketing Group, an organization of like-minded professionals who support each other. Far from being cut-throat or competitive, said Dunn, most P.R. professionals are friendly with each other and usually end up collaborating on projects at some point.
Even more established firms such as Abshire Public Relations see the growth of smaller consultancies as a positive.
“The best news of all for more P.R. people is that business is busy in Savannah,” said Jennifer Abshire, CEO and founder. “Seeing that there’s growing business is the best thing for everybody.”
After her stint as executive director of the Savannah Olympic Committee ended, Abshire said, she began taking on small projects and grew her business slowly.
“I wasn’t sure what to do so I basically did what some of these other folks are doing, which is freelance and take a few projects and from that I was able to slowly cultivate a team,” she said.
That team includes Susan Hancock, Nancy Fullbright, Kara Ford and Jane Grismer, all of whom bring different expertise to the firm.
Hancock said the most rewarding part of the field for her is seeing companies take off.
“It’s been fun through the years to watch companies we helped launch, see that they’re growing and successful,” she said.
Abshire said Savannah is different than other cities
such as Atlanta or Jacksonville in that businesses have to be much more conscious of their image in the community.
“We are a reputation management and word-of-mouth community,” she said. “People are finding they need that strategic partner.”
Marjorie Young of Carriage Trade Public Relations, which will celebrate its 20th anniversary next year, said reputation is tantamount to success in Savannah.
“It’s one degree of separation in Savannah, not six,” she said. “It’s not who you know, but who knows you.”
Young has been one of the pioneers of the P.R. field in Savannah, sending local media outlets an aggregated newswire of story ideas, dubbed “Community Headlines,” every Monday since 1995.
“I started when the Internet was just taking off, and we’ve been a high tech, geeky company since,” she said.
Carriage Trade has two full-time employees and 14 freelancers who work on Young’s visibility team, many of them mothers with young children.
“A P.R. firm is the best career choice for any woman who wants to stay at home and raise her kids,” said Young. “I’ve coached a lot of women in a lot of places on how to do their own business, their own P.R. firm. It’s just the perfect career.”
Young’s specialty, reputation management and search engine optimization, have only gained more importance since the advent of social media in the last decade. While some firms offer both advertising and public relations services under one roof, she said she sees more separation between the two.
Carriage Trade, like Abshire, does not sell or create advertising for clients.
“It’s a completely different science ,,, you pay for advertising, you pray for P.R.,” she said. ”My prediciton is we’re going to see many, many more P.R. firms pop up because that’s how busy Savannah is.”
Pros and cons
Like any startup, there are obstacles. Carroll said she renovated her home office on Tybee Island to make it more workable, but her printer is on the fritz.
“Not having an IT person and not having an administrative pool can be a bit challenging,” she said.
But those inconveniences seem to balance out when Carroll talks about her new work environment: “I can sit out on my porch and listen to the ocean while I answer emails.”
Dunn also said she’s pleased with the way things are going and is handling about five clients presently.
Beside community-oriented businesses, she said she would like to help startups expose their brand and will offer internal communications to help employers inform their employees of their mission and values — an important theme at J.T Turner.
Dunn said there is enough good news out there for everyone to share and believes more companies have good stories to tell.
“It’s about having the passion of being a believer in what they’re selling and what you’re selling for them,” she said.
While personality certainly helps in the P.R. world, being authentic is paramount.
“I think people who are in this industry have to be very vivacious, energetic, creative but you have to be real ... truly real,” she said.