We were lucky to catch up with Jessica Greenhalgh recently and have shared our conversation below.

Jessica, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. What’s the backstory behind how you came up with the idea for your business?

My background is in PR and managing experiential retreats for media, and after running those for several years, I took a step back and saw that they weren’t delivering what brands needed. As the media landscape changed, so did the needs for brands.

The program I created gives brands two things that they need – social media impressions from trusted influencers, and owned lifestyle content to post on their channels.

The most important thing when putting together the programs was creating responsible content. I was sick of seeing the same thin, white women on my Instagram feed. Brands know better, so they should be doing better, right? Taking on the task of creating content on behalf of brands, I make sure that my models represent a range of ethnicities, body types, and abilities, so we can give visibility to as many different beautiful women as possible.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I worked in-house for brands and at PR agencies for more than a decade, and one day, I decided I didn’t want to do it anymore. I was done working for people who didn’t support me and for brands that I didn’t believe in, so I walked into my boss’ office and quit. I promptly went back to my office and panicked.

In the months that followed I returned to bartending to pay the bills, and then something miraculous started to happen – people from my network started coming to me with projects. As I ran away from the people who didn’t support me, I created a way for my most supportive network to show up and carry me through. I hadn’t planned to start my own PR practice, but here we are five years later!

My approach isn’t for everyone. I’m very direct, and I don’t like to sugarcoat. I’m always open to ideas, but I’ll tell you when you have a bad one. Lots of people prefer someone to pump their tires—what I do isn’t the classic way a publicist operates. What I’ve found is that the people who like to work with me are happier with good results and don’t need a Yes Man to make them feel good, and those are the kind of people that I want to work with, anyway.

As my practice grew, I added the challenge of starting a series of proprietary content trips. My trips are the best combination of influencer retreat and content trip, all in one experience. After I took the leap, it made things so much easier to take this big step! The first event was a huge challenge—I had to create all my materials from scratch, and I had no idea what I was doing. Now we’re heading into our sixth trip, and they’ve become very streamlined. Each one gets better and better!

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

My natural inclination is to acquiesce to others when confronted with a professional conflict. My background as a publicist involves being polite and smoothing things over so things keep moving forward, and as a woman, I think it’s a societal expectation. Well, when you’re managing your own company and creating your own production program, that’s not an option. I needed to remember that I am the expert, and to step up and ask for what I want.

I had a bit of a learning curve at the beginning because I wasn’t vocal enough with my teams – both my clients and my creatives. Now if you’re on a set with me, there’s no question about who is in charge. I always hire experts to help me along the way – like food stylists and makeup artists – but I am clear about my expectations. It’s a good way to make sure I get exactly what I want, and should anything go wrong, I only have to hold myself accountable.

How do you keep your team’s morale high?

I had to learn on the job how to keep things moving on a content production set. With so many people, it’s always a challenge to keep things moving and ensure everyone is feeling good.

Anybody who has worked with me will tell you that I’m a total momma bird. I fly around the sets asking everyone if they’re wearing sunscreen, hydrating, and making sure they’re not hungry. Do I remember to do those things myself? No. (As evidenced by my epic neck sunburn from the last shoot.) But I know that the more comfortable people are on set, it makes for happier groups and results in the best assets.

I never want someone to leave a project with a bad taste in their mouth—for any reason! Whether it’s something I did or something that happened out of my control, I want to make sure people depart feeling like I did everything in my power to make them happy. I’ve only had a couple of unhappy partners, and both times, it was a lack of communication that was at the core of the problem. When I don’t know about something, I can’t fix it! I work best with people who are open and can tell me if they have an issue – together there’s nothing we can’t tackle.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://greenhalghpr.com
• Instagram: @professionaljess
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jessicagreenhalgh1/