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

Hi Samantha , thanks for joining us today. Before we get into specifics, let’s talk about success more generally. What do you think it takes to be successful?

What most people get wrong about “success” is that there there is only one definition of it. This is usually dictated by societal standards – a good job, a loving, well-behaved family, a model citizen, white picket fence and the whole nine yards. I’ve learned that “Success” is best measured by an individual’s definition of it – it looks different for everyone. While the above scenario could in fact be the aspiration of many, success could also look like traveling internationally 2x a year, taking up a new hobby, starting a business or being able to set boundaries that serve you.

No matter what your definition of success looks like – in order to achieve this goal – you have to be self-aware to understand your own vision of success, while also being brave enough to plot the necessary path forward to achieve your goals. Discipline is a crucial ingredient to a success story – often being able to sacrifice the short-term distractions for long-term gain – is a recipe for achieving goals.

I never envisioned being an entrepreneur and starting my own business, in fact, I always just wanted to be a leader at a respectable public relations firm, working with clients to achieve their own goals. After about a decade of this type of work, I was burned out. I left my job with a goal to start my own agency – and my primary measure of success would be an increase of financial compensation. As I have navigated agency ownership over the past five years – I’ve learned that success is so much more than just the size of your paycheck – which is usually the end-all/be-all as to whether or not a job is “good.”

Not to dismiss the importance of making a living – as a the sole person responsible for my well-being, I found myself – especially in the early years, taking jobs that were beneath my desired pay scale and worked with challenging personalities to make sure that ends met.

As the firm continued to grow, I now define success as so much more than that. I’ve found that one of the best upsides to creating my own company is that I can control my schedule, who I work with and my time. In short, I’m able to now actually live my mantra: Do Smart Work for Nice People. Being able to choose who and what I pour my energy into, and the freedom to engage with potential and current clients as I see fit, is my new measure of success that is so much more well-rounded and deeper than just the size of my paycheck.

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’ve been working in the Public Relations industry for 15 years, the last five of which, I have served as Founder and Chief Strategy Officer at Junipr Public Relations. Prior to that, I led strategic and tactical public relations initiatives for clients across the sports, CPG, hospitality, food and beverage, cannabis, beer and non profit verticals with client partnerships including activations with the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, Good Morning America, the Wall Street Journal and more.

In 2019, I launched Junipr Public Relations. A culmination of my career work to date, the organization lives the mantra “Do Smart Work for Nice People” and provides strategic communications counsel to global, national, and regional clients to help them reach their business goals. Whether that’s through crisis communications planning for one of the country’s foremost hospitality brands, developing extensive thought-leadership content for a global biotech/pharma company, hosting press junkets and media events with popular Food Network personalities on behalf of their CPG clients, conducting messaging training for top executives for one of the nation’s largest real estate associations or coordinating anniversary events for Chicago nonprofits, the Junipr team deeply understands the foundations of what makes a good story and flawless execution to drive tangible results that affect an organization’s bottom line. Based in Chicago with a satellite office in Philadelphia, Junipr Public Relations has a team of 10 associates across three countries and was a PR Net 2023 Next Gen Agency Honoree. Additonally, I hold an M.S. in Public Relations from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications at Syracuse University, as well as a B.A in Communications from Pennsylvania State University.

Any advice for managing a team?

Perhaps there has been no bigger area of growth for me over the past five years than when it comes to managing a team and maintaining high morale. There were many misconceptions that I willingly bought into as a manager in my 20’s – most incorrectly the notion of ruling with an iron fist and the idea of “work hard, play hard.” This notion is flawed in and of itself, as we all know the “play” portion of this idea never comes to fruition as easily as the work hard part.

As I transitioned to working for myself, I’ve had extensive time to reflect on my shortcomings as a manager and to adjust my process to encourage fruitfulness within an organization, my team and myself. In short, I’ve found the following things are valuable for managing a team and maintaining a high morale:

1. Learn motivating factors – Everybody is driven by different things. In my 20’s I was a workaholic and incorrectly assumed this was the norm. I projected on my team an understanding that everyone was motivated to sacrifice an exorbitant amount of personal time to reach an arbitrary professional milestone. Boy was I wrong. As discussed earlier in this interview, success is measured differently by everyone. In the time that I’ve worked for myself – and have grown Junipr to more than 11 associates across three countries in 5 years! – I’m proud of the way that I can now understand each individual’s motivating factors and provide tailored support to make their work experience a good one. The work will always get done no matter what and I find that people do better work when they enjoy their work environment (crazy, I know! ;))

2. Make it a point to regularly “return to the trenches,” and walk a day in your team’s shoes. At the beginning of my entrepreneurship journey, there was a period of time where I was responsible for everything – from admin assignments to new business development, project execution to billing. This was incredibly valuable for me, as it allowed me to relearn a lot of the tasks I was reliant for a team on and a deeper understanding of the nuances and time required to move projects forward.

3. work environment. I used to believe incorrectly that only one woman could be present at the table, that there was only one way to do things correctly and that my way was inevitably the best way. And I was harsh on my team because of it without even knowing. The reality is that there is so much abundance in the world and everyone can carve out their own path and measuring stick for success and contribute to your team in a meaningful way. I have rarely, if ever, come across a scenario in which an error cost a client or an account and I’ve taken this experience to make myself better at minimizing missteps among my team. I’m also more cognizant of the power of praise and positive affirmation.

In short, I’ve realized you get more bees with honey than with vinegar. I wish I would have known this earlier in my career and definitely have regrets of how I managed my stress, my team and my workload with what felt like huge responsibilities at a very young age. But once you know better, you do better. You maintain high morale by being intentional about fostering a postiview work environment, tailoring opportunities against the individual employees wishes and knowing that the stakes, while always high for you personally, are never so high that you can’t make a mistake. We’re all human.

What’s been the most effective strategy for growing your clientele?

When growing your clientele, it’s most important that you focus on relationship building. There is so much that you’re unable to control on your own (hello Covid-19 related budget cuts!) that you must work to create lasting relationships that will have someone advocate for your work when times get tough. A lot of our clients have brought us along with them to new roles and responsibilities, but many of our now clients were once strangers that we had to cultivate through a long process (an average of a year or so!) You’re only as strong as your pipeline – here are a few suggestions to effectively growth your clientele.

1. Do your research and understand how your potential clients fits into their category. It’s not as simple as understanding the SKUs or knowing where their headquarters are. Follow them on social media and get a feel for how they talk and what their values are. Research their competitors and analyze what differentness them amongst others. Look at how they’ve engaged with vendors / services that you offer in the past and how you can build upon it. The trick here is there’s no shortcut for this. If you skimp on this part, you usually are found out pretty quickly.

2. Be concise and clear in your communication. What problem can you solve for them and how do you differentiate from your competitors? Organizations get cold calls and pitches every day – you have minimal time and real estate to communicate you know them and what you do. For example, we won a client meeting (and eventually the business) by reaching out to a marketing manager on LinkedIn, we noted that we saw commercial for the company and noted this likely was the first time they were supporting their brand via television marketing, which led us to believe that they may be ready to invest in additional marketing channels and would love to be in the mix to discuss how PR can impact business goals.

3. Follow up regularly with no ask attached. Relationships are two-way streets and it’s important to be consistently and know it’s a long game as you look to fill your pipeline. Many times when we reach out, we’re told that support is set for the year, which is no problem to us. What we end up doing is monitoring the company’s press hits and reach out during key milestones, we send best wishes at the end of the year and continue to show interest in their organization – even when we’re not in contention to work with them in the short (or maybe even long term!) Whether something turns into a six-figure annual client or a trusted counterpart in a similar industry, authentic relationship building is the best way to foster your network. Authentic is the key word here – at any given time, we cap ourselves at fostering a finite number of potential leads at a time – similar to your personal life, you’re unable to be everything to everyone at all times!

4. If you’re in the B2C space, allow ample opportunities for feedback between you and your customers and be respectful when you’re hearing feedback. Many times, most customers when they’re dissatisfied want to feel heard. If you can master them feeling heard, you can navigate most challenges.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.JuniprPublicRelations.com
• Instagram: https://www.linkedin.com/company/junipr-public-relations/mycompany/?viewAsMember=true
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samanthaflynn/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbuAgRfQfJHkPxJSkRj4OTw