The end of the year is a great opportunity to reminisce about another year gone by – with all its accomplishments and lessons. For a business, it is no different. Business in 2020 has been a rollercoaster and the big plans many of us may have had were quickly muzzled by facemasks, lockdown measures and global insecurity. That said, PR Consult had a pretty good year so are some of the highlights from 2020.
PR Consult Achievements in 2020
- Remote Work from Europe. As a global corporate communications and public relations consultancy, we make a point to keep up with trends, media contacts and colleagues in various parts of the world. With the lockdown, we were forced to extend our time abroad and work remotely from Denmark and Germany.
- Expansion. We brought on a long-time colleague to PR Consult to expand our services into the Toronto area. The African proverb, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together,” was never more true. His expertise and insight were very well received by clients and the community.
- New Clients. COVID-19 threw many companies into crisis mode who sought help with their communications. We were there for companies struggling to keep their customers, partners and staff informed in a timely basis. It was an opportunity to overcommunicate and showcase the value of Public Relations as a partner to senior management teams. With the focus of businesses going online, many organizations also saw the importance of growing their brand abroad and could look to us for their global communications strategy.
- Professional Growth. 2020 was a great year for professional development at PR Consult. We learned from webinars with the International Association of Business Communicators, the United Nations, Facebook, vBrick and Simpplr (and many others!), plus received new certifications from the University of Toronto and ESSEC Business School. We also participated in intercultural communication and leadership training in Copenhagen. We are always learning!
- New Referral Partners. Businesses thrive on their referral partners to help make new introductions. PR Consult is no different. We are so happy to have great referral partners who continually sing our praises and make introductions. We will always help where and when we can!
- Continued Service. As a consultancy, we were already working remotely for our clients when remote work measures went into place so there was no disruption to our services. We were able to continue providing guidance while everyone else was adjusting. We even offered free COVID-19 response strategy sessions for small business and not for profits. In the last part of the year, we gave a presentation for IUBH University of Applied Science marketing students in Cologne, Germany.
- Podcast Guest. We were very proud to be one of the first guests on the Stories & Strategies podcast that focuses on the Public Relations and Communications industry. You can still listen to it here.
- New Blog Content. One of our goals this year was to write about our industry in a more timely, consistent manner. We achieved that goal by writing about diversity, crisis communications and key messaging at a time when people were looking for valuable resources. We also developed a free key messaging template for download.
- New Secure Website. After nearly a year in development, we finally relaunched our secure website that was properly optimized for search engines. We went with a black and white theme with touches of the PR Consult red because it echoes the black and white feel of newspapers, and how Public Relations can add some colour into the mix.
Of course, no Year in Review list is complete without also looking at some of our failures. Instead of failures, however, we prefer to think of these setbacks as lessons!
PR Consult Failures Lessons in 2020
- Monthly Blogs Are Important. As a small consultancy, keeping up with our monthly blog posts is challenging. We had a few months where we did well and raised our profile but it was hard to maintain. We discovered it’s much more interesting to write for our clients than ourselves! This is often why our clients normally outsource this task to professional wordsmiths – us! (Perfect segue to the following lesson!)
- Heed Good Advice. We need to follow our own advice to help grow our brand and showcase our expertise. We are always telling clients that we can help create new PR opportunities for them, and yet we weren’t able to follow our own advice for PR Consult. We’re a primary example of “The Cobbler’s children have no shoes” but will do better in 2021.
- Win Some, Lose Some. There were large, multi-faceted projects and countless other smaller projects that we were hoping to get this year that we didn’t. Despite the many weeks we spent creating proposals, we only secured a small percentage of them. As a small business, it’s hard not to take it personally; but we learned it’s just business.
- Change Is Inevitable. Best laid plans are just plans, they cannot be adhered to at no cost. Most businesses learned this lesson this year. We are no strangers to change as our profession mandates us to change with trends, news cycles, journalist demands, customer sentiment and crises. That said, PR Consult still had to adjust, change and adapt our own expectations with the changing needs of our clients and business environment.
Overall, 2020 has been a year like many others, with its ups and downs, with some major learning opportunities. PR Consult is still open for business and expanding our services to more markets.
Thank you very much to our current clients and partners. The work we do together is fulfilling and we’re thankful for your commitment to us and your own businesses, staff and various stakeholders. We look forward to working with you, and new clients, in 2021!
