We recently connected with Anna Crowe and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Anna thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Folks often look at a successful business and imagine it was an overnight success, but from what we’ve seen this is often far from the truth. We’d love to hear your scaling up story – walk us through how you grew over time – what were some of the big things you had to do to grow and what was that scaling up journey like?

Growing a business from a concept and vision is no easy feat, regardless of how large you scale it. For me, it was integral to surround myself with likeminded people from the very start. While I’ve had other ventures and many years of experience in PR, marketing, sales and finance, Crowe was my first PR agency, so the learning curves were high. That can be paralyzing if you don’t take time to step back and assess your progress, accomplishments and learnings. Even as a small team, we would celebrate every win along the way and we’d implement changes quickly.

In addition to building a community of supportive fellow business owners, I leaned into books and operating systems that would help me create structure within the organization, one that would be scalable. I found that having a clear vision and being very strict with values has made a massive difference. Over the years, we’ve had to make tough decisions when we found a core value misalignment, whether it be an employee, a client or partner agency. I believe being able to retain the culture around our company core values has been instrumental for our growth. One of our values is entrepreneurial spirit, and we empower all team members to see the opportunities for growth and course correct daily.

I’ve also learned that as your company grows, what might have worked for two people does not work for four people or 20 and so on. As you scale quickly, your systems also become outdated quickly and may no longer be applicable, so it’s paramount to continuously refine systems and apply new information on the go.

Over the years, there have been major clients that took a chance on us as a smaller firm and that has also made an impact. We earned their trust and did work that we’re proud of. For instance, early on we partnered with a major telecom provider who remained our client for nearly 5 years and enabled us to hire best in class talent and invest in industry-leading technology and resources.

When starting and scaling a business, mistakes and failures are par for the course, so I embrace and welcome those. In year 4 of our business, the pandemic set in which threw a curve ball to us and the entire world. As a young company, we had to overcome that and move forward. Since the start of my business, there have been huge changes in the marketing environment, in technology, and in the way that consumers engage with brands. We’ve learned to take these changes in stride and lean into our values, which has propelled us to the next level.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

I’m the founder and CEO of Crowe PR, an integrated public relations and digital agency, an author, speaker and proud board member of several organizations that support fellow entrepreneurs and non-profit organizations. As CEO of Crowe PR, I oversee our organization, ensuring we’re staying true to our vision and mission, strategically helping our clients and setting our team up for success. The company is 8 years old, and I’m proud of our growth trajectory and the businesses we get to work with and help grow. Most of our clients are leaders and innovators in their industries, and I’m honored that we get to tell their stories so that they can make significant impacts on the world and humanity. We represent mid- to large-sized consumer goods, healthcare, technology and hospitality brands, supporting their goals with strategic integrated public relations campaigns including media outreach, thought leadership, influencer marketing and social media. Although I’ve been doing this for quite some time now, I’m still enthusiastic to get out of bed every day to help my team and our clients be successful and execute strategies that make an impact. Additionally, I strive to give back to the community, and am president elect for the San Diego chapter of Entrepreneurs’ Organization (EO) which is a global, peer-to-peer network of influential business owners that encourages entrepreneurs to learn and grow. I also teach marketing at the University of San Diego and my other full-time job is being a mom to two amazing boys.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

One of the things I’ve always been proud of in my career is my abundance of ideas. A habit I’ve had to unlearn is my tendency to share these ideas before letting others bring their ideas forward. In my previous jobs, for instance, I was always excited to brainstorm new, unique ideas to market products. What I’ve learned since becoming a CEO is that it’s more valuable to listen and let others bring their ideas to the table before providing my input. This way is more empowering to team members, creates a collaborative environment and generates a lot more great ideas.

Any stories or insights that might help us understand how you’ve built such a strong reputation?

I think our authenticity and core values have contributed greatly to our success. We pride ourselves on being a very ‘real’ company. We’re transparent with our teams, customers, vendors and partners, and we’re not afraid to have open conversations. I find that this leads to trusting relationships with everyone involved in our processes. Without building trust and consistency, you can’t get far. Similarly, our focus on results has propelled our team and clients to the next level. And when you combine trust with excellence, the sky is the limit!

Contact Info:

• Website: https://crowepr.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/crowepr/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/crowepr
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/crowepr/mycompany/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/crowepr
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCARoPnz2_7NgaPECIAovBDw
• Other: https://clutch.co/profile/crowe-pr#reviews

Image Credits
Crowe PR