Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Danielle Reed. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Danielle , looking forward to hearing all of your stories 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?

Since 2018, I’ve scaled my public relations agency Reed Limited Entertainment (RLE), hired a team, and now RLE has served over 50 different brands, talent, nonprofits and businesses over the last six years and I’ve given over 150 consultations. We specialize in strategy, growth and storytelling. We’ve recently placed clients on: Good Day Atlanta, Rolling Out, Madame Noire and CBS News and Roland Martin Unfiltered. We work with clients nationally and internationally, and now offer services for mid-sized to large companies and corporations as well.

RLE services include: Social Media Management, Social Media Marketing, Social Media Audits, Press Releases, Public Relations, Press & Publicity, Media Relations, Red Carpet Management & Production, Event Planning, and Event Management

I truly love pitching my clients to TV, radio and news platforms and managing social accounts. Now when I look back, after six years of all this work on my own, and see what I’ve created with the help of so many people including friends, family, mentors, my WEEN sisters, and my followers online – I’m in awe. They are real people, and I’m pretty social. I truly believe that social people make the best Social Media Managers.

Danielle , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My name is Danielle Shavonne Reed (@daniellesreed). I help make my clients’ dreams come true via storytelling, public relations, marketing and social media. I founded Reed Limited Entertainment (RLE) – a public relations and social media agency – in 2017 to create a platform to tell my clients’ stories because I saw a need for more Black-owned brands, businesses and entrepreneurs to have a direct line to national media outlets and opportunities to gain visibility and publicity.

I started as a journalist and reporter. (#ReporterReed) Growing up in Atlanta, Georgia, culture and talent were all around me and after I graduated from Syracuse University in 2016, and moved to DC then back home to Atlanta. The music, television and media industry opportunities were all around me – at least I could SEE them. Not everybody could, and that is how I came to understand the value of my network.

As a journalist and reporter for the last eight years, I’ve written articles and interviewed so many people – primarily celebrities like Doug E. Fresh, Tank, Lloyd, Angela Yee, and so many more, and entrepreneurs and music artists. I became a Talent Manager between 2017-2018 then pivoted to consulting with my RLE brand. I’ve worked at the Trap Music Museum, and over the years I’ve been blessed to work with Revolt, BET+, Def Jam, STARZ, and Urban One.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I’ve encountered a lot more racism and discrimination than I expected to encounter in the workplace between 2016 – 2021 which is ironic because I hold a B.A. in African American Studies from Syracuse University. I’ve studied American racism, written papers on it, completed projects and read Slave Narratives, but each and every time I was fired for no reason and without cause, it hurt.

I’ve had managers say to me:

“I wish Black History Month was over.”

“Was Kerry Washington’s hair in ‘Little Fires Everywhere’ real?”

“Play nice, Danielle. You could get fired.”

In every position, I completed projects and assignments and was praised by others for my work. In 2021, a tech company called Airtime left me stranded at a work event with thousands of people in a thunderstorm, and when I reported it, they fired me immediately. It was then, after I feel into a deep depression for two months following, that I decided to leave the idea of working for anyone other than myself in the dust.

In 2022, I took my agency full-time and scaled it larger than its ever been and I really love it here. I needed to create a safe place for myself to work, and I’m blessed to have exactly that now, working remotely out of my home office, in Atlanta, Georgia.

Do you have any insights you can share related to maintaining high team morale?

Managing a team can be difficult if you as an entrepreneur don’t have leadership or management skills. Thank God, I was a summer camp counselor who learned how to transport, direct and distract everyone from toddlers to teenagers for 4-6 hours a day, and I was a member of my local YMCA Leaders Club for six years and received amazing training.

All businesses need an organization structure and processes and procedures that are written down and then practiced and streamlined to be taught and passed down to a second-in-command or Operations Manager to know how the business should run to generate profits. The biggest dig to morale, is low profits and no money.

If you cannot afford to pay your team, that’s an issue, so you have to remember that the business must come first before anyone else’s feelings – even your own. I’ve had to fire people, and its not fun, but the business is the priority. If someone isn’t pulling their weight or even taking away from the business in any way, financially, spiritually, emotionally, or literally (like stealing) they need to go.

Business owners rarely talk about our failures or hard times, but my first team that I hired was absolutely terrible, but I learned a lot from them. I learned who to hire and not hire, and how to spot lies and ingenuine energy. To maintain high morale you have to rid your business of any bad apple that could spoil the bunch. That’s real. It happens.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.reedlimitedent.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/daniellesreed/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ReporterReed
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/daniellesreed/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/DanielleSReed_
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1zM25mFo2p0kUiERj5NiYQ
• Other: https://www.daniellesreed.com/

Image Credits
Khadijah Dennis Kalia Williams