LUCY SAMBROOK (L) & TOYA SAYNARINE (R)
24 Scene
How do you find working together as a couple? Entertaining, stressful, fun and motivating all in one go! We’re total opposites in our skills, which does help – Toya is a numbers queen and Lucy is a writing whizz. We’ve found it’s really important to step back at the end of each working day and remember that you’re a couple (not just business partners) and you love each other. Launching a business, it’s really easy to burn yourself out and work every hour of the day to try to get everything done. We try to put the laptops away at 6pm now and go roller skating or dance around the kitchen cooking dinner to fully relax together.
PR FOR THE PEOPLE
Lucy Sambrook and Toya Satnarine saw 150 diverse members sign up in just a couple of weeks to their inclusive membership platform aimed at revolutionising the media landscape for indie brands and experts. Here they talk about setting up the company and working together as a couple ) What were your previous jobs and how have they impacted on this venture? Lucy: I trained as a journalist and have written for many publications, including London’s Metro and wellness publication Dose magazine. I’ve also worked in PR for the last few years, and have helped hundreds of people and biz owners get featured in the media – from yoga teachers to restaurant owners to drag queens.
PR agencies are great, but notoriously expensive to hire, and out of the price range of most freelancers and small biz owners. I’ve always wanted to launch a service that would make PR more inclusive and easier for people from all walks of life to access, and share their stories with the media. Toya: My background is in dance, management and events – I’ve danced on stage and travelled the world touring with artists such as Mariah Carey. I’ve also worked on campaigns with major brands like Malibu, MTV, Nike, Adidas... Were you made redundant as a result of the pandemic? L: I was made redundant just before the pandemic broke, which was seriously scary at the time! It turned out to be the kick up the bum I needed to go freelance, and then launch my own business though. Sometimes being pushed out of your comfort zone is just what you need. How did you spot the gap in the market for this enterprise? L: While working as a freelance PR during the pandemic last summer, I noticed that loads of people were launching amazing new business ventures or going freelance themselves. I was
getting approached by many people looking for help with getting press coverage, but they couldn’t afford my very average day rate, let alone thousands of pounds a month to hire a PR agency. Me and Toya put our heads together and thought, something isn’t right here. So, we set out to launch PR for the People, an inclusive community supporting all people to get their brand featured in the media. For £25 per month, we teach our members DIY PR skills and how to approach journalists themselves. We have a Facebook community that journalists can join for free to connect directly with our members for journo requests, quotes and case studies, and we also run monthly workshops with media experts and top journalists. How did you go about getting the word out? We’ve been building a community on Instagram for around a year now, where we share free PR tips and interviews with journalists about how to get into their publications. We’ve also been doing interviews on podcasts, local radio and blogs to spread the word. How have you been able to help people through the pandemic? Working for yourself is so rewarding but it can also be super lonely, and it’s hard to find ways to promote yourself without spending loads of money on ads (especially during lockdown). We’ve had so many lovely messages from people to say thank you for sharing PR tips on our Instagram. Our members also use our Facebook group as a supportive space to network with journalists and other biz owners, which I think has helped through the pandemic.
How LGBTQ+ friendly is the world of PR? We’ve always found working in PR to be LGBTQ+ friendly on the whole, but the media still has a long way to go with representing diverse voices, which is something we’re hoping to help change. It shouldn’t just be those companies and people with big budgets that get to share their stories with the media. Journalists, newsrooms and editors are also on the whole still mostly white, male and cis-gendered, which is reflected in a lot of the stories shared.
“The media still has a long way to go with representing diverse voices, which is something we’re hoping to help change” PR for the People provides journalists with a truly diverse (not based on wealth) directory from which to search for experts or interviewees for their articles – we have a huge range of professions signed up from doctors, lawyers, fashion designers, entrepreneurs, musicians, artists and activists. So, if you’re a journalist reading this, please do get in touch to join our community and let us support you in finding more diverse voices for your articles. How has being members of the LGBTQ+ community yourselves resonated with people who have signed up? We’ve been inundated with lovely messages from people saying the industry was crying out for something new, and that the community we’re building is amazing, which is so cool! Many of our members are part of the LGBTQ+ community and reached out to us as a result of us being open about our relationship on Instagram, so I think this has resonated with some people and made them feel comfortable. We wanted PR for the People to be the opposite of what people think of when they think PR – a big corporate faceless company. We have had quite a few members come to us a bit broken from having spent loads of money with a PR agency and not getting the results they’d hoped for. We want people to know that as a solo entrepreneur or small biz owner, you can achieve amazing results by doing your own PR.
more info
D www.prforthepeople.co.uk F www.facebook.com/PRforthePeople I www.instagram.com/prforpeople