Glass Half Full: Chapter 2
A former drinks PR’s optimistic guide to life after redundancy
No. of times BlackBerry left unchecked for five minutes: there were one or two, I think
Shoes purchased: none, honest
Probability of conctacts lunched this week giving me any work: slim, I’d say
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Reading the supportive posts to last week’s blog was a warming experience – and given the temperature in my too-expensive-to-heat home office, warmth is a good thing. Though for future reference, anyone asking whether I have a husband should also submit a recent photograph and pay slip.
Into Week 4 of my post-redundancy life, things are beginning to make sense. Like the direct relationship between hours spent shopping on-line, running errands and doing the crossword and the absence of any real work at the Shiel Communications nerve centre. Work displacement insinuates its way into your diary and good intentions, precisely because you can just about persuade yourself that it’s good use of time to go to the supermarket/dry cleaners/gym when they’re queue-free and catch up with work later. Which is, of course, b****cks and you’ll spend your evenings watching Little Dorritt (if you can locate it in the schedule) just like everyone who’s done a full day’s grind.
Life certainly has a ‘honeymoon-is-over’ feel about it now. I thought it was fair enough to take it easy for a couple of weeks after the job ended, but now I have to do some serious thinking about my next move. I think I’ve done well on the networking front, but, while it’s great to be invited to a press launch here or an industry dinner there, I’m starting to re-evaluate their worth as a way to win that elusive contract. It is of course good to get out of the house and meet people, but going to events takes time that I could be spending on a more hard-nosed drive for business. In the time it takes me to go to lunch in London, I could probably make 15 sales calls. Or complete my sadly neglected website. Or be really grown-up and write a business plan.
I know it’s not uncommon to have demands on your time, but, ironically, being unemployed seems to be adding to those time pressures. For one, the money will, of course, run out sooner or later (sooner, probably) and for another, I know that the longer you’re out of work, the longer you’ll stay out of work. It’ feels like it’s time to take proper stock of my options and stop being quite so optimistic.
That said, my words last week about referrals have proved prescient. No sooner had I posted them than the call came from a friend of an ex-colleague who’d been left in the lurch when her current PR went into early labour. I stepped into the breach, a bit like a cash buyer in a broken property chain. With, happily, a similar ability to negotiate on price.
So I’ve done a day’s paid work with a promise of more to follow. And it wasn’t just about replenishing the shoe fund, it also reminded me of how much I like doing PR and, importantly, made me more disciplined on the other days. You know, fully dressed way before lunchtime, only watching one Australian soap a day. It’s surely just a matter of time before such focus is rewarded.
Ros Shiel was public relations manager for Beautiful Beer, a campaign funded by the UK’s brewers and pub companies to improve the image of beer. She was made redundant last October after funding for the project was cut and is now working as a freelance PR consultant and copywriter. Ros lives in Horsham and spends her free time running round the park, writing blogs and drinking beer in as many local pubs as she can justify visiting in the name of research.
http://www.shielcomms.co.uk/
Showing posts with label optimism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label optimism. Show all posts
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Glass Half Full: Chapter 3
A former drinks PR's optimistic guide to life after redundancy
10 November 2008
Days since redundancy: one month (decided against commemorative drinks party/shopping expedition)
Bona fide new business leads: two (v exciting)
Ratio of business to personal mails/texts sent from BlackBerry: improving
-----------------------------------------------------------
On the whole, events of the past week have reaffirmed my ‘half full’ world view. And that’s despite the very depressing news on the economy. Up to three million unemployed, and a fair few of them in the south east and London? These are surely the sort of figures we thought we’d never see again? However, there are still pubs trading out there, and brewers making beer, and some of them want PR. So this is no time to sit and weep.
I’ve attended a press launch and an industry dinner, handed out a few business cards, followed up on initial conversations and now have a couple of meetings in the diary. And if just one of these prospects turns into a piece of business, I might recoup my investment in a haircut, spray tan and manicure. I’m rapidly learning that high maintenance and low funds don’t go together.
It seems slightly odd to be spending entire days effectively networking. I wonder how I managed to do it as well as a full-time job, and conclude I probably wasn’t doing it very well. If I had, I would presumably have been helped seamlessly into the next role by a lovingly-fostered contact. A life lesson I’m learning rather late in life.
Spurred into action by the one-month milestone, I’ve written a business plan. Not one that would pass muster on Dragons’ Den, but putting objectives, deadlines and finances on paper was both a sobering and empowering exercise. I’ve also faced up to the fact that, much as I’ve loved working in the drinks industry for 20 years, if there’s no work for me in it at the moment , my skills are transferrable. Pet food, power tools and personal hygiene all beckon, and the money is the same, wherever it comes from. .
I also have a website – albeit just one page at the moment – which means that now, visitors will get an idea of what I can do for them, rather than the previous, sloppy ‘under construction’ sign. If you’re claiming to be a good communicator, you surely have to get your own communications right. I’m grateful to my designers, Radius, who built the site and created the Shiel Communications identity.
With limited money coming in, I’m taking a close look at what’s going out. It’s easy to rein in on some spending; for example, I don’t need any more handbags or lipsticks for a while. I’m wary of cutting back too much, too soon, though. One of the better pieces of advice I received was to “concentrate on doing the things you can earn money from, and pay others to do the rest.” Dabbling in web design, cleaning the house or redecorating the office all smack of work avoidance. . I need to avoid them and crack on with some PR. And get my work-avoiding teenagers to address and stamp the Christmas cards this year.
A tale of two pubs
I am cheered by a Friday evening in my local pub, The Black Jug in Horsham. West Sussex. It’s busy, buzzy and yet relaxed, as it has been every Friday night for the last decade. Proving that, when pubs can provide what customers want – in this case, unfailingly good food, drink and service – they will draw a crowd, credit-crunch or no. Licensee Ally Craig and his excellent team deserve to weather the recessionary storm ahead.
Sadly, the same can’t be said for the café-bar which recently turned away our party of four, despite having a number of empty tables, because their computerised booking system was down. My suggestion that they could book us in with a good old-fashioned pen and paper fell on deaf ears, and yet they were effectively reducing their takings for the night by around £2,500, by my calculation. In a different branch of the same chain a week later, service was so slow that customers were leaving before their meals arrived. Strikes me that what they’ve got wrong, and my local right, is staff training. Good training gives your team the confidence and flexibility to make sure the customers leave happy. You can bet I’ll go back to my local, but I won’t give the others a third chance to disappoint.
Ros Shiel was public relations manager for Beautiful Beer, a campaign funded by the UK’s brewers and pub companies to improve the image of beer. She was made redundant last October after funding for the project was cut and is now working as a freelance PR consultant and copywriter. Ros lives in Horsham and spends her free time running round the park, writing blogs and drinking beer in as many local pubs as she can justify visiting in the name of research.
http://www.shielcomms.co.uk/
A former drinks PR's optimistic guide to life after redundancy
10 November 2008
Days since redundancy: one month (decided against commemorative drinks party/shopping expedition)
Bona fide new business leads: two (v exciting)
Ratio of business to personal mails/texts sent from BlackBerry: improving
-----------------------------------------------------------
On the whole, events of the past week have reaffirmed my ‘half full’ world view. And that’s despite the very depressing news on the economy. Up to three million unemployed, and a fair few of them in the south east and London? These are surely the sort of figures we thought we’d never see again? However, there are still pubs trading out there, and brewers making beer, and some of them want PR. So this is no time to sit and weep.
I’ve attended a press launch and an industry dinner, handed out a few business cards, followed up on initial conversations and now have a couple of meetings in the diary. And if just one of these prospects turns into a piece of business, I might recoup my investment in a haircut, spray tan and manicure. I’m rapidly learning that high maintenance and low funds don’t go together.
It seems slightly odd to be spending entire days effectively networking. I wonder how I managed to do it as well as a full-time job, and conclude I probably wasn’t doing it very well. If I had, I would presumably have been helped seamlessly into the next role by a lovingly-fostered contact. A life lesson I’m learning rather late in life.
Spurred into action by the one-month milestone, I’ve written a business plan. Not one that would pass muster on Dragons’ Den, but putting objectives, deadlines and finances on paper was both a sobering and empowering exercise. I’ve also faced up to the fact that, much as I’ve loved working in the drinks industry for 20 years, if there’s no work for me in it at the moment , my skills are transferrable. Pet food, power tools and personal hygiene all beckon, and the money is the same, wherever it comes from. .
I also have a website – albeit just one page at the moment – which means that now, visitors will get an idea of what I can do for them, rather than the previous, sloppy ‘under construction’ sign. If you’re claiming to be a good communicator, you surely have to get your own communications right. I’m grateful to my designers, Radius, who built the site and created the Shiel Communications identity.
With limited money coming in, I’m taking a close look at what’s going out. It’s easy to rein in on some spending; for example, I don’t need any more handbags or lipsticks for a while. I’m wary of cutting back too much, too soon, though. One of the better pieces of advice I received was to “concentrate on doing the things you can earn money from, and pay others to do the rest.” Dabbling in web design, cleaning the house or redecorating the office all smack of work avoidance. . I need to avoid them and crack on with some PR. And get my work-avoiding teenagers to address and stamp the Christmas cards this year.
A tale of two pubs
I am cheered by a Friday evening in my local pub, The Black Jug in Horsham. West Sussex. It’s busy, buzzy and yet relaxed, as it has been every Friday night for the last decade. Proving that, when pubs can provide what customers want – in this case, unfailingly good food, drink and service – they will draw a crowd, credit-crunch or no. Licensee Ally Craig and his excellent team deserve to weather the recessionary storm ahead.
Sadly, the same can’t be said for the café-bar which recently turned away our party of four, despite having a number of empty tables, because their computerised booking system was down. My suggestion that they could book us in with a good old-fashioned pen and paper fell on deaf ears, and yet they were effectively reducing their takings for the night by around £2,500, by my calculation. In a different branch of the same chain a week later, service was so slow that customers were leaving before their meals arrived. Strikes me that what they’ve got wrong, and my local right, is staff training. Good training gives your team the confidence and flexibility to make sure the customers leave happy. You can bet I’ll go back to my local, but I won’t give the others a third chance to disappoint.
Ros Shiel was public relations manager for Beautiful Beer, a campaign funded by the UK’s brewers and pub companies to improve the image of beer. She was made redundant last October after funding for the project was cut and is now working as a freelance PR consultant and copywriter. Ros lives in Horsham and spends her free time running round the park, writing blogs and drinking beer in as many local pubs as she can justify visiting in the name of research.
http://www.shielcomms.co.uk/
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