Marcus Richards
Cerub PR provides ambitious, fast growing businesses with insight-driven PR and communication solutions.
Our 360° PR approach means that our clients benefit from strategic and creative campaigns which help them stand out from the competition. We also offer guidance and support in ensuring all marketing platforms including websites and collateral communicate the right messages.
We focus on developing effective PR strategies and implementing tactics which deliver results that can be measured and evaluated.
Tell us about yourself?
When I left university my aim was to work in publishing, I wanted to be a commissioning editor, but after working in a couple of different roles which didn’t work out, I found myself temping at a large PR agency in London. The variety of work really interested me and I moved around the company working in the healthcare, consumer and then corporate departments.
The creativity involved in creating campaigns, speaking to the media, and seeing the results of the work were really rewarding and as a people person, PR was a much more suitable choice of career for me than publishing.
Strangely enough, while interviewing for publishing roles, I got some feedback from a company I really wanted to work with, which was that I was too chatty to be editing for eight hours a day which turned out to be great advice. Since then I’ve stuck to reading for fun and as my job involves writing and editing, I have the best of both worlds.
If you could go back in time a year or two, what piece of advice would you give yourself?
If you’d asked me that question two years ago, the answer probably would have been very different given the events that have taken place since 2019!
If I could go back, I’d probably say that I need to spend more time investing in our own marketing. We are very focused on achieving results for our clients, which is as it should be, but it means that our own PR and marketing gets neglected.
I think I would also have told myself that I don’t need to be so regimented about things. Two years ago I was very focused on time, everyone being in the office at a certain time, taking lunch at a certain time and being present in the office. I’m far more relaxed now (although you’d need to ask the others to confirm this!). The pandemic has demonstrated that I don’t need that rigidity.
I do still want to be based in the office. I need to be with people to feel energised and being in communications I feel that we communicate better when we’re together, but I do recognise now that there are other ways to work and I am far more flexible.
What problem does your business solve?
Businesses often struggle to explain what they do. Owners and managers are so invested in their business and their vision, that they lose focus on what it is that they’re selling and what they want to communicate. In some cases, they’ve lost their way, they think they know what they’re selling, but what the customer is buying is entirely different.
We help B2B businesses to define their key messages, understand their audiences and communicate with them more effectively to raise their profile, position them as credible and encourage trust among customers, potential customers and staff.
What is the inspiration behind your business?
Necessity! It became apparent quite early on that I wasn’t cut out to work for other people. I loved working in trade PR and organising events and really enjoyed the charity PR and the celebrity pieces when I worked with FMCG brands, but I really flourished when I was in charge of my own projects.
Freedom to be in charge of myself is really important to me, and while I’ll never pretend I’m good at everything, I work with people who excel at the things that I don’t and that’s when I’m at my best.
Running my own business gives me the freedom to work with the people that I want to, both in terms of colleagues and clients and I like the fact that I am ultimately responsible for what happens. While some things are out of my control, I am responsible for what happens next and that gives me the push I need to keep moving forward.
What is your magic sauce?
Our relationship with our clients is the most important thing to us. We work with businesses who see us part of their team, so we are consulted on a variety of things rather than just providing PR services.
Our clients ask for advice on advertising opportunities, product launch dates, partnership opportunities, and just about anything you can think of. Apart from bookkeeping perhaps but we can provide recommendations about bookkeepers if necessary!
Ultimately, and as we all know, people choose people so perhaps there isn’t a ‘magic sauce’. It’s about working with people you like, understand and get on with, and for us and our clients, that’s the key.
What is the plan for the next 5 years? What do you want to achieve?
We want to grow the business and work with more great clients. What matters to us is the working with interesting clients and using our experience across different industries to benefit them, so we want to keep doing what we do best on a bigger scale.
What is the biggest challenge you’ve faced so far?
We had a tough year in 2016, when we lost our two biggest clients. It was circumstantial but it didn’t change the reality of the situation so we had to make some difficult decisions.
It did teach us that things are precarious and we are very aware of not putting all our eggs into one basket. We know of agencies who have lost one big client and had to shut down and luckily we weren’t in that position but we are very conscious that we need to have a spread of clients and have money in the bank to see us through.
How do people get involved/buy into your vision?
We are open to having conversations with different companies to find out about them and to see if we would be a good fit to work with them and vice versa.
We offer a strategy consultation day for people who are considering starting PR activity but who need some guidance on the process. The time we spend with them gives us time to do a deep dive into their business examining all aspects of it which gives owners an opportunity to reflect on their business and really understand why it would be of interest to the outside world.
There is a common belief that every business owner thinks their own business is endlessly fascinating but we often find the opposite. People have been working in their businesses for so long, they’ve forgotten what’s interesting about it and this session enables them to see it from a different perspective so they start to get reenergised and enthusiastic about their business and the PR process which is something many people struggle to see how it will apply to them.
We’d like to hear from B2B organisations which are looking to work with a PR partner who will help them implement a long-term strategy to engage with their target audience more effectively.
