Brightside: our bright idea for business and family life
The reaction to me going freelance after having the children was overwhelmingly positive. “Good for you,” pretty much everyone said.
The news that my husband and I are going into business together is invariably met with wide eyes, head slightly cocked to one side and a “Wow!”
But that is indeed our news for the new decade. Phil Szomszor and I are launching a consultancy called Brightside to help business leaders, comms departments and agencies with their communications strategy and social media output.
With close to 40 years’ PR and marketing experience between us, we know what good and bad comms look like. And, unfortunately, a lot of what’s being pumped out on social media by business brands could be better. It’s bland and dry, with little to no personality.
Brand channels undoubtedly have their place. But people want to hear from people. And that will be the focus for our business: helping business leaders to deliver impact for brands.
Why now?
Those of you who know Phil will know he’s had a hankering to set up his own business for years. My risk-averse self was less keen, with a family to support and a mortgage to pay! But I’ve had a change of heart over the past couple of years, ironically since having our two children.
As I wrote in a previous post, I struggled with the juggle of two children and a job, so chucked in the job in favour of the smalls after our second was born. I took some of that time to complete a Digital Mums Advanced Diploma in Strategic Social Media Marketing to sharpen up my digital marketing skills which has led to more flexible freelance work than I could get from the traditional PR world.
I love being able to do the school drop-offs and pick-ups, attend assemblies and be around for the kids. But I also love having the space to think and do for other people, who don’t refer to me as “Mummy”.
Conversely, Phil wanted to spend a bit more time with the people who call him “Daddy”. And – crucially - as he explains in his own post, he wanted to spend more of his work time “doing the doing” rather than heading into general agency management.
And therein lies one of our guiding principles: we have no ambitions to build a massive empire. When you buy Brightside, you buy Phil and I. We won’t hand over to other people, unless a job requires technical skills that we don’t have. In which case, we’ll still project manage the process. We get our kicks from helping others.
Can we help?
We already have a busy few months ahead, but we have capacity to take on a little more. Our remit is to work alongside business leaders, comms departments and agencies in three ways:
Strategy – developing messaging and the story that will have the biggest impact across PR and marketing channels
Coaching and training – helping business leaders to build their profile to support the brand; and building social media skills in agency or in-house teams
Co-management and content creation – running channels and creating truly engaging content, from blogs to video, podcasts and graphics
So if this sounds like something we could help you with, particularly joining it all up with everything else you’re doing, please get in touch with Phil or I.