Inspirational Female Founder Spotlight: Lisa Fox and Stacey Jaffe

Co-Founders of PR Consultancy, Espresso are Lisa Fox and Stacey Jaffe. Lisa and Stacey have over 30 years combined experience working at leading PR agencies, working with many clients including well-known household name brands and smaller start-ups to establish their market presence.

Can you tell us a little about your background and the company?

Espresso is a PR consultancy that tailors campaigns to deliver commercial results for clients. We have unrivalled contacts across all media channels and use our network to deliver brand awareness and ultimately sales for our clients in their target markets. Espresso is a senior-led hands-on duo, born out of the love to getting stuck into projects and the ‘doing’!

We are one year into Espresso having launched in February 2021.

How did the idea come to you for the company?

We have been friends since our chairs used to be back-to-back to each-other in one of our first roles in PR. We both are driven, determined and have exactly the same work ethos. We want to achieve great work for our clients and deliver results – whilst having fun at the same time. We’ve both have different strengths and we knew from the outset that setting up our own PR consultancy would be a great step for our careers.

How did you achieve awareness?

We have a great network of contacts in the PR industry so as soon as we launched we contacted key figures in the industry to make them aware.

We also worked with the industry magazine to gain PR coverage for us. We have our Instagram channel which is where we share all of our projects and campaigns and new client wins – @thisis_espresso

What are the key successes?

We put everything into delivering for our clients. We ensure that communication is key when working with clients, a two-way honest relationship. We are delivering a new concept, a fresh approach as we are a Senior hands-on duo – which means we can deliver strategy and business advice for our clients as well as hitting the phones to the contacts we’ve made over the years to deliver coverage.

What were/are the challenges and how have you overcome these?

Espresso was born in the middle of the pandemic, we spent the first two months home-schooling our children (5 children under 8 years old between us!) However for us the launch of Espresso was an escapism of the stresses of juggling homeschooling. We launched at a time when businesses were just opening up again after the pandemic and to date (after having launched one year ago) we’ve worked with 20x clients to deliver campaigns to raise awareness of their brand.

What are your plans now/for the future?

We have some really exciting work to look forward to in 2022. We have just been appointed to work with one of the largest national restaurant chains which is really exciting considering we are one year old – we can’t wait to get started.

We want to grow our business, continue to deliver fantastic work which impresses our clients and work on new projects which takes us into a completely new space. We don’t specialise in any particular sector and we love a challenge!

What would you like to share with others to encourage them to start their own entrepreneurship journey?

• We would say, if you have an idea to launch a business then just go for it! Have the confidence to just go and do it.
• Take as much advice as you can from various people who have done it all before and have goals laid out so you know what you are working towards.
• Find a partner who shares the same work-ethos as you!

Can you share you top tips for entrepreneurial success?

• There is no right way to do everything. Yes take as much advice from other people but if you have a vision in mind then go with that vision, the gut is always right.
• Learn from mistakes – everyone is human, everyone makes mistakes – but use the opportunity to learn from these mistakes so you can turn them into a positive.
• Communication – communication is key to success – both with clients as well as partners and team members. Ensure you are always talking and chatting through everything.
• Use your little black book of contacts, throughout our careers we build a huge network of contacts and it’s important to continue to grow positive relationships as you never know where they can take you.

Who are the 5 people who inspire you the most and why?

• Both of us have family members with entrepreneurial backgrounds and they inspire us every day. We are grateful to have them for advice.
• Working mums who inspire us with the juggle e.g. Sara Davies, a powerful career woman who is relatable, respectful and compassionate – which is how we like to work.
• We work with a restaurant founder Jamie Barber who once gave us a piece of advice that stood by us, he answers every phone call and takes every meeting as you never know where something might lead. 
• We both use exercise as a form of escapism and relaxation and whilst running we love listening to podcasts – our favourites are Stephen Bartlett and Fearne Cotton who we take a lot of inspiration from. Both are smart and interview some incredible guests.

What are your favourite inspirational /motivational quotes?

“Be less curious about people and more curious about ideas.” – Marie Curie, first female Nobel Prize recipient

“Whatever you do, be different – that was the advice my mother gave me, and I can’t think of better advice for an entrepreneur. If you’re different, you will stand out.” Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop

“Option A is not available. So, let’s kick the sh** out of option B.” – Sheryl Sandberg , COO of Facebook

“Find the smartest people you can and surround yourself with them.” — Marissa Meyer, CEO of Yahoo

What are your Instagram, Facebook and LinkedIn social handles and also website links so our readers can connect with you?

Instagram: @thisis_espresso

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/thisisespresso

www.thisisespresso.com