A new quarter and an anniversary

I had a real sense of a fresh start at the beginning of October. I wrapped up work on a two-week arts festival on Sunday 26 September and took the following week off to recover. The arts festival coincided with my delayed 50^th birthday celebrations and taking my firstborn to university for the first time – all emotional stuff.

For the arts festival, we landed local BBC coverage and a lovely write up in the Guardian plus lots of local press and rewarding social media traction, thanks to a fabulous 30 year old I’m working with who is a digital native.

So, I started a new quarter on 4 October, and marked the first anniversary of Lucecannon PR. I started trading on 1 October 2020 – and earned just three figures in my first month. A tiny redundancy payment and a slightly more substantial start-up business loan kept me going.

Needless to say, the learning curve is steep when launching a new business, especially in the first few months. I have a totally different mindset now, as a business owner, compared to 2003 when I embarked on a freelance writing career that would last until 2012. Back then I lived from one commission to another, without any clear plan or back up for when work slowed down following the financial crash in 2008.

Here are 10 things I have learned in my first year of trading as Lucecannon PR. In one week alone, I learned the first four of these lessons.

1. My initial day rate was too cheap given my 30 years of experience
2. I mustn’t overschedule myself
3. To allow time for client work as well as all the paperwork (invoicing, contracts)
4. To make time for marketing (this blog, Instagram, and most importantly networking and 121s)
5. One of the most useful things has been a time planner from Sara Jane Ladums
6. Lindsey Burden’s early encouragement and content marketing plan have been invaluable
7. Talia Zamora’s insights and encouragement have also been vital
8. The support and validation of great friends is hugely important – huge love to Anna, Juliet, Kate and Cheryl. Behind every great woman there are several more equally great women
9. Free virtual networking is one of the truly great silver linings of the coronavirus pandemic – saved loads of time and unnecessary travel
10. There are piles of great books out there (and you have to make the time to read them). I particularly enjoyed The E Myth by Michael E Gerber. He writes about the different stages of a business: Infancy, Adolescent, Maturity; which am I in? Infancy moving into Adolescent? Given most businesses don’t last more than two years, I reckon I’m still an infant.

Recent work

Inside Out Dorset Festival in September had a stellar year with 27,500 visitors. I’m an arts festival comms veteran having delivered comms and PR for Salisbury Festival from 2013 to 2016 plus 2019; and there were mini festival weekends in 2018 and 2021. Although Salisbury is bigger than Inside Out Dorset (Salisbury gets up to 50,000 visitors), the two are comparable in terms of the fantastic experiences they deliver for audiences.

This year was of course particularly poignant, after last year’s postponements and lock downs. Thousands of people enjoyed a giant illuminated puppet display at Weymouth with accompanying drums and thousands more flocked to see Gaia, a seven-metre globe created by artist Luke Jerram accompanied by a soundscape that invites reflection on the fragility of the earth and our role in protecting the planet from further destruction. (That’s an image of Gaia above, taken by Roy Riley.) Plus, there were many more outdoor performances at the festival’s five sites around Dorset: Poole, Christchurch, Moors Valley Country Park, Weymouth and Symondsbury Estate near Bridport.

I’ve also done some work for Gritty Talent, a source of on and off screen TV talent that is diverse and inclusive. Expect to hear more from Gritty if you’re in the creative industries.

I’m now busily contacting TV indies outside London who might want help with their corporate PR – contact me if you know someone who might benefit from my experience as a media journalist and a communications professional.

I’m also offering some PR and media training on 29 October, where small business owners can learn the basics of media relations and gain the confidence to get their stories out into the wider world – contact me for details.

In media news

The terrible idea of privatising Channel 4 is still on the agenda. TV producers are saying C4 privatisation would put them out of business.

This is interesting, about a new subscription model for newsletters.

New Culture secretary Nadine Dorries was unnecessarily dismissive about the BBC. Then there was a seeming riposte from Boris Johnson.

And finally, how were you affected when Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp all went down one evening here in the UK, and in other time zones around the world? Scary how much we’ve come to rely on one social media giant, isn’t it?

Of course, I wasn’t the only one to ponder how reliant we’ve become on Facebook.

And having just read Caitlin Moran’s book More Than A Woman, with its heartrending account of her daughter’s eating disorder and body dysmorphia cued by Instagram, I have some sympathy with the whistle blower accusing Facebook of damaging children’s mental health, among other evils. That’s all for this month. See you as we get a bit closer to Christmas and once we’ve enjoyed Halloween and Bonfire Night.