Three Girls CEO Erika Montgomery’s Interview With RebatesZone

PR Professional to running a PR Company: Our interview with Erika Montgomery

Many entrepreneurs have personal reasons for starting a new business. However, the reason most quoted is to be your own boss, to have a better balance between work and life. This is how it all began for Erika as well. She just wanted to spend more time with her son. Obviously, setting up an entrepreneurial business takes time and effort, but she has been able to achieve a success in both.

So, we got in touch with Erika Montgomery from Threegirlsmedia.com and asked her about the reasons behind her success, especially through the turn down back in 2008-09.

First of all, please accept our felicitations on catering to the need of small businesses, when most of the organizations were after the big ones. You launched back in 2005, and we believe that your story has a lot to offer the new entrepreneurs just making the leap.

You have said in prior interviews that when you started the company you had no knowledge of running one. We know it can be tough. But, what were the factors that kept you moving forward in the trying time?

Even though I didn’t have any business experience when I started, I think it was my determination to have better work/life balance than I had when I was working for other people that kept me going and striving to learn everything I could about running a successful business. Spending quality time with my son was a huge priority and something that I didn’t get a lot of opportunity to do when I was working for others.

What was the biggest difficulty that you faced and how did you overcome it?

Without question the biggest difficulty I faced was the economic crash in 2008. My clients didn’t have the resources to renew their campaigns and new business was incredibly hard to come by as marketing/PR is usually the first expense companies drop if they have a financial hardship.

To overcome it I completely revamped how Three Girls Media offered our services. Instead of pre-set comprehensive PR and social media packages, I moved to an a la carte model and allowed my customers to purchase just the one or two services that they really needed. I also started to offer payment plans instead of one lump payment. Those changes helped us survive the economic downturn and still serve us really well today.

Networking takes an important role in setting up any business. Do you agree? What is your take on it?

Networking was incredibly important to me when I started Three Girls Media. Attending networking events not only gave me access to other entrepreneurs I learned a great deal from, but it also opened up speaking engagements that led to consultations, which ultimately resulted in new business.

I recommend joining a couple of different networking groups in your area. The Chamber of Commerce in your town is a good place to start looking for groups to network with.

You had a PR background, however, many new entrepreneurs are actually very shy people with brilliant ideas, what would be your advice to them?

If you’re too reserved and shy to promote your business, hire someone to do it for you. I think a common mistake new entrepreneurs make is that they don’t dedicate any resources to marketing. They think that just because they’ve opened shop that business customers will automatically come. It really doesn’t work that way. Whether you hire a sales rep or a marketing firm like Three Girls Media, you need to spread the word about your business in as many ways as possible.

Lastly, what do you think is the most important aspect of entrepreneurship?

My motto as an entrepreneur is Never Give Up! Launching and running your own company you’re guaranteed to run into challenges, whether your business is 1 year old or 10 years old. If you throw in the towel every time you’re faced with a difficult situation you’re destined to failure. However, if you keep striving to overcome the hardships you face you’ll not only improve the chances for business success, but you’ll also learn a lot along the way, making you and your company stronger in the long run.