Launching Lucecannon PR

Why would you launch a business during a global pandemic and an economic downturn?

Well, if you were furloughed for six months and had time to think about priorities and then offered voluntary redundancy, perhaps you’d make the leap too.

I was freelance for about 10 years while I was a journalist so I’m not new to self-employment. Back then, between 2002 and 2012, I thought of myself as a freelance journalist. Now I’m very much a business owner, scary as that may be in early 2021. One of the silver linings of the pandemic (there are several) is that there is a lot of support for new businesses. So I’ve taken advantage of the South West Growth Hub and even secured a small business start-up loan.

That’s allowed me to commission a website from the marvellous Landon Marketing & Design which I’m delighted with and hope you are too.

What’s slightly annoying is that the lucecannon WordPress blog that I wrote between 2008 and 2012ish is no longer accessible, probably because I let the lucecannon.co.uk domain name lapse. But never mind. That was all about TV and this blog will be mostly about PR. Or, like the other blog, it will be about whatever interests me in a particular month.

So, the answer to my rhetorical question about who would launch a business in a pandemic and an economic downturn is, quite obviously, me and people like me. I’m far from alone – the government-backed Start Up Loans programme issued £31.9m between May and July 2020 compared to £22.9m in the same period in 2019. And I’m feeling positive about the future of the business, the future of PR and communications and positive that I can make a difference to other great businesses.

I bring almost 30 years of experience to my business – 20 as a journalist and editor, and eight as a communications and PR professional. As it says on my home page, I was also part of the team that brought 42,000 people into Salisbury to experience Salisbury Festival in some way in 2019. So I know about PR, media relations, social media and events, as well as being really quite a good writer.

Over the final four months of 2020 I met lots of great business owners through virtual networking and I’ve seen the same mix of experience and excitement for their businesses as I’m sharing in mine. The first few months of 2021 will undoubtedly be hard (and I wrote this before lockdown 3) but I’m optimistic that they won’t be as hard as the first lockdown of 2020 when so many people were in shock and business in many forms simply dried up for a while.

Smart businesses have adjusted and, just looking at my LinkedIn news feed, I can see that people are raring to go in 2021, keen to raise their profile and earn more business and make 2021 a really productive year. I’m looking forward to getting stuck in and to working with great businesses, large and small, as we all improve our visibility in our sectors.

Here’s to a great year. And if you’d like to work with me, please do get in touch.