#WIB-Q&A With Nicky James Co-founder & Director Of Tribeca Public Relations

1. Can you please tell us more about your business?

A. Tribeca Public Relations (Tribeca) is an independent, B-BBEE Level 1 accredited, award-winning, public relations agency with an honest and results-driven approach to public relations. It is a people-first agency invested in our team’s work-life balance.

We help our clients communicate and connect with those who are important to their businesses and we create PR strategies that deliver measurable results. We dedicate ourselves to understanding our clients’ business needs and the industries in which they operate. We aim to be a business partner and trusted communications advisor – not an external supplier.

Our agency has proudly accepted industry awards for excellence in PR services every year that we have been in business – including 18 gold awards.

2. When, how and why did you start your business?

A. I co-founded Tribeca in 2006 at the age of 26.

The how was the easy part, South Africa is a fairly easy country to start a business in. We registered the company with SARS so that we could get our VAT, PAYE and Income Tax numbers, and we opened a bank account. We sub-let office space from a mining software company in exchange for PR services. They were very good to us and let us grow to being a team of six employees before we moved into our own rented offices two years later. Since then, we have grown into a team of 24 consultants working with amazing local and global brands across many different sectors.

As for the why, I always knew from when I was a little girl that I wanted to run my own company one day. When I was seven I used to make brooches out of leaves, intending to sell them from my pavement – I think I sold one and made 5c. At 14, I started waitressing on Sundays, and loved every minute of my new found independence. I earned R20 for five hours of work. I have worked ever since. My first professional job was in 2003 as a lecturer of business communication at Damelin, and later that year as an intern at a PR agency, which is where I met my future business partner.

I remember we had a mutual interest in starting our own companies one day. It wasn’t until mid-2005 that we began ‘official’ discussions to go out on our own. With around three months’ salary saved, we took the leap of faith and started Tribeca Public Relations in 2006. I often get asked how we came up with the name – we split the alphabet in half, A – M and N – Z – and we each came up with a long list of potentials. We had to narrow them down to three to submit to the CIPC (then CIPRO) and then they let us know which one was successful.

3. What is your role in the business?

A. I have quite a few roles at Tribeca. I am a co-founder, director and senior consultant. I’ve had so many roles over the years because at Tribeca we teach you to not only be an extremely competent PR consultant, but you also learn to be an HR manager, a finance guru, a new business development expert, and a leader and mentor.

4. Where did you study and what did you study?

A. I really wanted to take a gap year after finishing school, but when those plans fell through, I registered for a Bachelor of Science degree at the University of the Witwatersrand, with the intention of studying occupational therapy. I couldn’t get myself motivated enough to excel in the BSc, so eight months later I dropped out and au paired until the end of that year. My amazing mom, a school teacher who was paying for my studies, gave me a second chance, which is when I registered for a BA Marketing Communications at the University of Johannesburg (then RAU). I loved every minute of this degree and went on to achieve my honours in this subject.

5. How did you finance your business?

A. We mostly funded our launch with savings and the kindness of others. I have always been a saver, so I made sure I had enough money to last me for at least four months. This is exactly how long it took us to secure our first paying client, which was Richard Branson’s Virgin Money that we launched in South Africa in 2006.

6. Describe your average workday, if such a thing exists.

A. Pre or post COVID? Pre-COVID I feel my life was a lot more structured and organised. I was in much more of a routine with my kids, their school, work, and my social and home-life.

For the past few months however, I have surrendered to the situation we find ourselves in, and I’ve accepted that everything actually needed to slow down. I now don’t set an alarm clock to wake up, but I’m usually up by 6h45 anyway. I make sure I get up, get dressed and ready for the day, even if it means sitting at my home desk at home for most of the time, or popping out to do the school run when my kids go to school.

I was only ever able to drop my son at school in the morning, my husband would drop my daughter off. I had organised a lift home for both of them, and with that came all the guilt of not being the parent who could do everything. I have loved spending lockdown with my family, I will appreciate and remember this time forever.

7. How do you balance your home life and your work life?

A. That’s easy, my family always comes first. We have structured Tribeca in such a way that work-life balance is front and centre of every decision we make, every policy we create and every change that is implemented. Work should never be the most important thing in your life. Yes it’s important, and you should always do you best, but there is so much more to life than work!

8. What drives you and inspires you?

A. South Africa! I love this country so much, even though we have our good and our bad days, but there’s no place like home! South Africa has so much potential, so much opportunity, so much to give, and it’s up to all of us to realise this potential, to stick it out through the tough times, and to show the rest of the world how incredibly resilient we all are!

9. Where and when do you have your best ideas?

A. Normally at 2am – and of course I never remember them in the morning because I’m not one to write them down at that time! Otherwise, when I’m in a team brainstorm, I find that feeding off everyone’s energy and amazing ideas helps me think of great ideas too.

10. Where and how do you market/advertise your business for sales leads?

A. Most of our new business leads and requests come from our networks and word of mouth. We have also been around for a long time, with a good reputation, so we do get invited to pitch on accounts because of this too. And finally, our website has strong SEO (search engine optimisation) so if someone is looking for a PR agency in South Africa, we usually feature on the first page of Google’s organic search.

11. What is next for your business?

A. If there’s one thing that Lockdown has taught us is that we are a highly adaptable and agile agency that quickly and effectively changed our systems and processes so that we could continue to offer the exceptional service that our clients have come to expect from us, but just via a different medium.

In the short term, our next step is to find a way of integrating back into life as we knew it. Things will never be the same though, and I’m grateful for that in many ways. We have learnt that everyone is capable of working from home, and gone are the days of having to be physically present to get a job done. However, we have missed each other so much, and the importance of human connection will be what brings us all back together again. I don’t want to work from home forever, I love people, I love my team, I love our clients, and I can’t wait to see everyone again.

In the long term, we will place a bigger focus on digital public relations and internal communication. We have a big role to play in how organisations communicate internally, and we’ve learnt so much about this over the past few months. It’s definitely something we want to become experts in.

12. What advice would you give to female entrepreneurs hoping to start their own business?

A. For things to get better in our beautiful country, we need to create jobs, quickly. I was at a Heavy Chef event a while ago and this is exactly what Adrian Gore, CEO of Discovery reiterated: “What creates jobs is entrepreneurs, nothing else!” I am therefore encouraging, rooting for, and nudging anyone who wants to or is thinking of starting their own business, to absolutely go for it! It may seem daunting, and you may think of every reason why you can’t or shouldn’t do it – but you can, and you should! Here’s my advice to taking the big leap:

Be afraid and do it anyway!

Fearing all the what if’s, and’s or buts to starting your own business is absolutely normal. However, if you give yourself enough time to plan how you are going to get by for the first few months while you get your business off the ground – especially from a financial perspective – you will be ok.

There is room for everyone

Competition is what drives most businesses to succeed. Don’t think of your competition as the enemy – rather see how you can learn from them and how you could even support them. There are many times where I refer business to my industry friends if Tribeca cannot take on a client for whatever reason, whether it’s capacity, client conflict, or sector expertise etc. They may be my competition, but when they’re faced with a similar challenge, they often send us new business too. If you pay abundance and kindness forward, you will be rewarded too in time.

It’s not rocket science

Unless you’re a rocket scientist, whatever you want to start is not rocket science. Be open to learning as you go, you don’t have to have all the answers from the start on how things need to be, where you’ll be in five years, how many people you’ll employ, the clients you’ll have, or the marketing you’ll do – just start! There’s enough information available online on how to create a business plan, what you need to do from governance, legal, SARS, CIPC perspectives, and all the other acronyms you’ll need to learn, but starting a business is just that – a learning.

Your team is EVERYTHING!

The sooner you realise that the people who work with you make your business, the more successful you will be. Treat them well, be kind, and they will give you their everything. Treat them how you would want to be treated and consider yourself an employee as opposed to “the boss”, “the CEO”, “the MD”, “the GM” or whatever title you don yourself with. Make yourself a team member, and you will see that respect is earned and not an entitlement.

You don’t have to do it alone

I’ve had a business partner from the beginning, and I can highly recommend this route. A partner, sounding board, two brains, a team! But starting on your own is probably equally rewarding, because you get to do everything from scratch.

However you choose to start, please know that you’re never alone, there is a community and network of entrepreneurs waiting to help you. If you’re thinking of taking the leap, entrepreneurship is a highly rewarding, humbling experience that allows you to not only uplift yourself, and your team, but everyone who you support directly or indirectly too. Our country has some of the most incredible minds this world has to offer, and I believe you’re one of them.

Short Bio:

Nicky is the co-founder and director of award-winning Tribeca Public Relations with over 18 years PR experience. Nicky has gained extensive experience working in the consumer, technology, eventing, financial services and corporate PR sectors in South Africa, Africa and many multinational clients across the globe over the course of her PR career. A selection of clients she has worked on over include Epson, Logitech, TomTom, Red Bull, African Fashion International, Virgin Money, LEGO, Peermont and Mastercard to name a few.

Nicky’s passion lies in seeing the direct results that public relations has on her clients’ business objectives. Under her leadership, Tribeca has been a PRISM Award winner every year since the company was founded in 2006, including the PRISM Best mid-sized agency of the year, the PRISM Campaign of the Year for Tribeca’s work on the RocoMama’s #ElectionBurger campaign. In 2020, she and her team have been awarded three Gold Sabre Awards Africa in April and six PRISA Prism Awards in May. Tribeca has also just been named as one of Europe Middle East and Africa’s top five agencies to work for.

Nicky is married and has two children.