This story is part of our 1,000 stories campaign. What’s your story?

Name: Amy Britt

Business: Britt Banter, a New York based PR firm

Industry: Marketing & PR

Location: New York, New York, U.S.
 
Reason for starting: I wanted to work in a PR firm that was honest, ethical and void of drama. A place where people could be happy, where they could learn and be celebrated for their intelligence and not their looks. 

Related: 5 Things No One’s Ever Told You About PR

How do you define success? I could elaborate on this all day, but in short it’s having the means to foster and reward an incredible team who enjoys, drives and learns from each other. And, as silly as it seems, being able to offer all employees 3 weeks vacation to start, it was important to me.

Success also means a smart and successful team that I learn from as much I’m able to teach them; being able to reward my team for their hard work and success with pay and perks; having a creative, collaborative and congenial company culture; a culture where work/life balance is a way of life and corporate charity/responsibility comes naturally; having a business partner who believes in me and finds a way to make us feel successful every day. Having solid, long term relationships with our clients who we believe in and who respect our honesty and council is also very important, so they understand the strategy and quality of coverage – not just the mighty clip count.

Biggest Success: Having a team made up of girls who’ve interned for me in the past and sought me out to work for me again, especially since none of them thought they’d ever go into PR permanently. 

Related: Read about another PR & Marketing entrepreneur here.

What is your top challenge and how have you addressed it? The largest challenge is balancing the teams work load with profit. We can take on scores of small budget clients that could give us fantastic cash flow, but would have a domino effect on the office. The team would be over worked, stressed and have difficulty delivering the way they’d like to. It would essentially be setting them up to fail. I would rather have gone without pay and been late on other payments in order to stay focused on quality and a certain price point that allows that. My business partner who came along recently has also been a resource in negotiating higher pay from clients and finding investors. All things I wasn’t aware of without a financial background. 

On a personal level, both my Father and Aunt succumbed to the final stages of cancer and in both situations I put my self-funded business on hold to be there to take care of them until the end. The financial burden of chasing clients and time off caused me to rethink things and go back into an agency. I quickly changed course and found my business partner to re-establish my company. 

Who is your most important role model? I’ve been lucky to be surrounded by strong intelligent women most of my life. But if I had to choose, it would be a toss up between two women: Sandy, the first person I ever babysat for (she was in her early 40’s with newborn twins, 24 years ago that was unheard of) while working as a successful banker and I don’t think I’ve ever seen her without a smile on her face. She has since gone on to start a senior assistance company. And then, Judy, my Danish step-mother who dropped out of school to travel and see the world! She went back to school much later in life while raising my autistic brother on her own. She not only got her GED but then went on to get her masters in statistics! She now owns her own company and regularly sails around the world. They both showed me there is no such thing as impossible and that hurdles are just part of the journey if you really want something. 

[box_light]Website   www.brittbanter.com
Twitter   @brittbanter
Facebook   facebook.com/brittbanter
Tumblr   www.brittbanter.com/brittbanter[/box_light]

Tell us your story!
Read about another PR & Marketing entrepreneur here

Edited by The Story Exchange