In August 2015, Jagged Edge Communications turns five years old. It doesn’t seem like a long time to be in business, for sure. But considering most small businesses go bust within the first three years, I feel that five years is a sound achievement. Also, a lot has happened during those five years.
In truth, Jagged Edge Communications came about because I was struggling financially as a cadet journalist. What you may or may not know is that journalists – particularly cadets – are woefully underpaid. I was working full time at the newspaper and two 12 hour shifts at a restaurant on the weekend just to pay the rent on my granny flat in Sydney’s west.
Needless to say, the business had humble beginnings.
At the paper, I landed the entertainment round and very quickly realised how hopeless emerging musicians are at marketing themselves. Thousands of dollars of free advertising at their fingertips and they would submit low resolution black and white images for publication, trying to pass badly written bios off as media releases.
I quickly identified a gap in the market. Affordable marketing for musicians. And, not one to waste time, the business came together over night – literally. I applied for my ABN, set up a WIX website (a phase which thankfully passed quickly) and a Facebook page, offered to sponsor a band competition and got started.
What my clients probably didn’t realise was that I was basically working from my car on my lunch break. Eating tuna on cruskets as I pumped out press kit after press kit.
As I grew professionally, so too did my business services.
At the paper I took on two council rounds, started police reporting, wrote feature stories, advertorials, even sports, and started securing front page stories. Simultaneously, my business grew; expanding its services to include media, marketing and website copywriting.
As much as I enjoyed working with struggling artists, I wanted to diversify my client base. So on the weekends I started travelling to markets around NSW, introducing myself to start-ups and pitching my services. The micro businesses came on board and, by word of mouth, so too did SMEs.
My responsibilities at the newspaper grew. I was tasked with creating all the content for two weekly newspapers, while contributing to four other publications. And I thrived. Meanwhile my business grew organically, with clients recommending me to family, friends and business contacts.
Once I moved into the SEO website copywriting era, business boomed. And I knew I had started to attract the right kind of attention when Bupa contacted me to quote on a job.
I remember sitting in my office – a little Ford Laser that had a leaky roof, parked on the side of the road – tuna crusket in hand, staring in disbelief at the end of the email address. How had they found me? Perhaps it was due to my SEO website copywriting skills, employed across my own site… And thankfully I landed the contract, because working with a trusted global brand conveyed an extra sense of credibility about my services.
Since then I have moved out of journalism and into marketing and communications. I work full time and run Jagged Edge Communications on a freelance basis.
And as I have diversified my skills, my business has reflected this, expanding to include public relations mentoring services in addition to SEO website copywriting. I’ve also partnered with other businesses to fill any gaps in the services I offer (website design, for example).
I’m no longer working from my car, but have a beautiful home office. And while I have some nice corporate clients, I really enjoy working with SMEs and non profits, to help them grow, just like Jagged Edge Communications did.