Louise Findlay-Wilson is Founder and Managing Director of Energy PR. Feeling that something was missing in the PR world, Louise founded Energy PR in 1995 to help innovative and complex business brands that weren’t getting the recognition they deserved. Previously part of big agencies who were only interested in working with ‘household names’, she’s now proud to boast a vibrant, trusted and growth-focused company that helps companies build both their brands and their web traffic. A serious PR strategist with a strong understanding of online metrics and the latest tools and techniques, Louise has worked with organisations as wide ranging as BBC, Schwartz, 20th Century Fox, Cap Gemini and Innovate UK through to exciting start-ups in the quantum, biotech and renewables sectors.
- Can you tell us a little about your background and your company?
I started out in marketing for a major industrial company before deciding the PR bit of the job was the element I was most interested in. So I joined a top five agency, keen to learn from the best. After about a year or so there I rather arrogantly (and probably naively) thought ‘I can run one of these’ and so co-founded my first agency when I was 26. I sold out four years later to my then business partner as we wanted different things from an agency and I created what is today my agency Energy PR.
Energy has been going for almost 30 years, and during this time it has adapted and changed as the world of communications has changed. Today the things we do are incredibly varied – media, social media, content creation, events, influencer programmes, SEO, audience analysis, crisis and issues – but our core purpose has remained the same – working with great, innovative companies that deserve to be better known. They are often complex, misunderstood or under appreciated. We remedy that – putting them on the map and helping them build their brands and through that massively boost their business.
- What inspired you to start your business?
If I’m honest, I started my first agency because I was annoyed. A guy at the big agency where I was working had just been promoted over me. To be fair, I’d only just joined the agency, so my promotion was unlikely. But I felt he wasn’t as good as me. In that single moment I concluded that things were skewed in favour of men, which they certainly were back then. If I wanted to get ahead at the pace I wanted, I’d have to run my own agency. I couldn’t wait for anyone else to recognise my talents. It sounds a bit mad and petulant as I look back, but that was my motivation!
That desire to have control, but this time control my work life balance, especially as I was going to have lots of children, is also why I then set up my second agency – the one I still run today.
- How did you create awareness for your brand?
As a PR agency creating brand awareness is what we do. But there was always a bit of a risk, especially in the early days, that we’d neglect ourselves, because we’re too busy looking after clients. To avoid this, from day one I treated the agency as one of our clients and ever since a team has been assigned to look after the company’s PR. When I first founded the agency, I did a lot of guest speaking, contributing to panels, to build up word of mouth recommendation. I was also in the media a lot. Today we also of course do huge amounts of social media – LinkedIn to build business, Instagram and TikTok to promote our employer brand.
- What strategies helped you secure funding and scale your business?
Luckily we’ve never needed external funding. That’s because I’ve grown the business gradually and had a pretty strict handle on cashflow and expenditure. I’ve been very sensible in terms of what I take out of the business. This was a very conscious decision on my part as while I was growing the agency I was also having my four kids. When I was home with them I wanted to be 100% present as mum. I didn’t want to be distracted by having to worry about the finances. Nor did I want the worry of having to repay loans.
Although funding hasn’t been needed, I’ve deployed plenty of strategies to help us scale more easily. The most important of which is probably our capacity model. Our resource is expert time – that’s essentially what we’re selling. Through the model I know at any one time how much of our capacity is being used. I also have a capacity trigger point which tells me when we need to start looking for our next recruit. This has hugely helped me smooth out workflow, ensure people are busy and profitable, but not over-worked and stressed out.
- What have been your biggest successes so far?
Gosh there have been so many high points within the agency. Employing my first person was a milestone. Running campaigns for big brands like the BBC, New York Toy Fair, Innovate UK and Historic Royal Palaces is obviously exciting. As is handling the PR for incredibly worthwhile causes such as carbon monoxide awareness – where I seriously think we saved lives. I’m also proud of the way we’ve taken lesser known, far less glamorous businesses like Siltbuster – a Wales-based engineering company – and helped them become a global leader in water treatment, exporting machinery to 34 countries, creating amazing jobs and prosperity to the regions where they are based.
Having said all that, it may sound cheesy but probably our biggest successes are our client and staff retention rates – they’re pretty off the scale. This tells me we must being doing something right both as a PR agency but also as an employer.
- What challenges have you faced, and how did you overcome them?
The biggest challenges have been around balancing work and home life. I wanted to have my cake and eat it – own my own successful business and be a mum. I never wanted my kids to look back and think ‘mum was working all the time.’ This meant I couldn’t let work dominate.
To meet this challenge I quickly recognised that I had to keep the agency’s size in check. If it got too big it would take over my day and my attention. But running a business with the handbrake almost always slightly on is difficult, but I think I’ve done it. Luckily for me, part of the solution has also been that I’ve had an incredibly supportive husband who did a huge amount of the childcare and household stuff. He sacrificed a lot of things so that I could run the agency and then walk through the door and instantly slip into all the fun bits of mum mode but without the slog of all the housework.
- What are your plans for the future?
Now my plans are to grow the agency – we’re a team of 12 now but I think 20-24 people would be about the right size. Still small enough to know everyone and control the quality of our work and approach.
- What advice would you give to aspiring female entrepreneurs?
Gosh I’ve loads but my key things would be around prudence, passion, positivity and people:
Prudence – Make all the mistakes on someone else’s dime…in other words, if you are going to set up say a software business, work for another software business first. See where the pitfalls are and where the money gets wasted. You don’t want to be learning all this stuff for the first time in your own business.
Passion – Go for it – someone is going to run a business like yours, why can’t it be you?
Positivity – Treat everything – even the disasters – as a learning opportunity. Don’t dwell on the negatives. Don’t be distracted by what others are doing. If you are surrounded by negative people you are in the wrong room.
People – Treat everyone well – not just the ‘’important people.’
That’s it!
- What are your top three tips for entrepreneurial success?
Know your numbers – if you aren’t good at finance get someone to teach you – you do not want to be relying on other people to tell you how profitable your business is.
Do something you love that you have a genuine talent for.
Don’t be afraid to employ people who are smarter than you.
- Who are the 3 people who inspire you the most, and why?
Kate Bush – creative, interesting and utterly authentic. Not a people pleaser. I love the way she had the power to know what she did and didn’t want to do, and didn’t let the lure of her own talent, greater celebrity or money ever take hold. For instance, at the height of her fame she realised after one tour that she hated touring. And so never did it again. The commercial (and possible artistic) pressures on her to reverse that decision must have been huge. But she knew what made her happy and followed it. I think for a lot of people, especially women running a business, to do so successfully, so that you end up with a life that you like, requires this kind of single-minded courage and conviction. Courage to know that the ‘existing perceived model’ of success isn’t the only model. Success doesn’t necessarily mean having a huge empire that you sell for zillions. If your entire life is sucked up creating that empire I don’t think, for me, that’s a successful life.
Rand Fishkin – he’s a tech entrepreneur. He was a co-founder of Moz and more recently has developed a company called Sparktoro. His technology helps you understand the audience – which I love as it’s a critical bit of what we do. He’s constantly sharing useful insights free. His generosity of spirit is utterly inspiring. I love his idea of sharing knowledge not to earn more but because it’s the good and helpful thing to do. That attitude absolutely chimes with me.
My husband Stephen Findlay-Wilson. He’s not in PR and has no idea what it really entails, even after 32 years of being married to me, which suits me fine. But if ever have a work related niggle, something I’m struggling to think through, relating to perhaps people, the rights and wrongs of a situation, or a potential risk, he cuts straight to the core of the problem. He’s completely fair and utterly decent. So I can 100% trust his perspective.
- What are your favourite inspirational or motivational quotes?
“Do your best and leave the rest”. It’s something my mother always said and I think it’s a brilliant piece of advice, because it stops you over-thinking or beating yourself up when something doesn’t quite work out. If you’ve given it your best shot that’s all you could do. Don’t sweat it…learn of course but then move on.
- Where can our readers connect with you?
