We were lucky to catch up with Ronjini Joshua recently and have shared our conversation below.

Ronjini, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you recount a story of an unexpected problem you’ve faced along the way?

One of the biggest learnings and challenges of running is going from being the expert to being a business owner. I started my business by being good at public relations as a consultant and growing very organically, so there was never an intention to be a business owner. There was a big learning curve when we got to the size where I was no longer really doing the meat of the account work and I had to transition to business owner/CEO. Being a business owner and CEO is very different than consulting and that’s probably why many of our colleagues are part of our team. We are all very entrepreneurial but the challenges of running a business and understanding the nuances of employee relations, taxes, having vendors and tools have been a learning curve. Each step you take towards management takes you away from the work of the actual skill. I think that was probably the most unexpected thing about being the “boss”, was that it’s a lot different than you may imagine and even different from being a freelancer. You’re responsible for a team and become a “we”. You have to remember to do what’s best for the “business” because otherwise things get way too personal and you start making emotional decisions, which I spent many of my earlier years making.

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

My name is Ronjini Joshua, I’ve been a public relations professional for the past 20 years. I started in college and graduated from CSULB with a major in journalism and minor in marketing. I always wanted to go into entertainment PR and strangely ended up at a Tech PR firm. It’s probably the best thing that could’ve happened for me. I have always been very scrappy and hard working so I moved up as I earned my stripes in PR. Eventually i moved up to the Bay area since I was in tech, that was ripe with opportunity for me. I grew my career further there and eventually came back to LA to work in-house at a video game company, which was fun for a stint. After getting work at a large agency, I realized that I liked the pace and excitement of working with startups. I decided to leave my job to freelance. With my connections I secured some work and from there, work starting coming in from all directions. Eventually I hired an assistant and we grew from 1, 2 to 3 to an office in downtown Long Beach, where The Silver Telegram was first born. Actually our first office was at a sweat shop in DTLA, once we realized that 300 square feet wouldn’t be enough, we looked for a bigger space and we were off from there. We grew our consumer PR business through the boom of crowdfunding and became a sought out PR agency for crowdfunding campaigns. Fast Forward to 2018, because we were co-located all over the country, our team became remote (way before the pandemic). We were able to stay nimble and run really successful PR programs all through referral. Today, we have a mix of B2B and B2c clientele in the tech and consumer goods spaces. We create PR programs that focus on earned media relations and content development.

Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?

PR is an industry that shifts a lot. When budgets are cut PR and marketing are typically are the first to go because everyone thinks they can do the job themselves. They always come back because they usually can’t do it as successfully as they’d like. The Silver Telegram has pivoted several times. In 2011, when the crowdfunding campaign boom happened, it wasn’t something I was necessarily considering but once we worked on 2 or 3 successful campaigns, emerging brands started asking us for help. During 2012-2015 we focused on all kinds of crowdfunding campaigns and primarily worked on those. Once that business started waning, we refocused on a more mainstream clientele and landed in startups. Then around 2019, PR starting shifting with the emergence and importance of social media, content creation and development became another pivot. Recently, after the pandemic, we pivoted again to be a fully integrated communications firm, so that brands can get a one stop shop for their pr, marketing and social media needs.

Can you open up about how you funded your business?

When you’re in a service based business, you really need very little capital, so don’t let the lack of capital funds stop you. I think what’s most important is making sure you have your business plan, pricing, processes and growth plan set as early as possible. Since I started this from freelancing not expecting to be in business for 12 years now, it was a shift that I wasn’t prepared for and I’ve had to pick up things as I go. If I went back to do it again, I would take a beat and get some business training or real understanding of what it takes to run and grow a business. There’s no wrong path here, but it will be a lot less bumpy if you don’t have to absorb lessons as you go and go into the business prepared for key milestones and make sure you keep those growing and moving forward. That is one thing that I did not set up early, because I had no anticipation of how long I would be in business. I just kind of went with the flow of the business.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.thesilvertelegram.com
• Instagram: instagram.com/thesilvertelegram
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheSilverTelegram/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thesilvertelegram
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/i/flow/login?redirect_after_login=%2FTheSilverTele

Image Credits
Ronjini Joshua Forbes