Blue Skye thinking helps planning for 2023 - Nick Freer

Whoa, 2022 what a year. For me, more so than other years, it felt like it went in a blur. Was that a post-Covid thing? I don’t know, perhaps. The pandemic was and continues to be a traumatic experience and the after-effects are still being felt in the business world.

I think a lot of people spent so much energy just getting through Covid, that there is a good deal of post-traumatic stress around. How many of us got through the last three years unscathed? I know I have some battle scars, and I’m pretty sure they exist in both the conscious and subconscious.

Throwing yourself at your work can be a good distraction from the travails of life, with less time to sit around and navel gaze. Up on Skye this week, where I have come to fully realise the meanings of “windswept” and “rain-soaked”, there has been some time to reflect and look forward to the year ahead.

As an agency, I believe we did some of our best work last year, for longstanding, occasional, and new clients. Corporate communications is always nuanced, and because of Brexit, Covid, and times of economic crisis, it has only got more nuanced. We have been mindful of this, and it has been built in to the strategic advice we have offered, and how we have gone about executing public relations in tandem with our client base.

Out of the office at Glen Brittle's Fairy Pools on Skye

If one principal underpins the approach of the agency, I think it centres on client care. If we take on a client, we will go the whole nine yards on their behalf, no matter their size, or the financial fee.

An example? Over the last twelve months, we have advised on investment deals totalling over £100 million - mainly tech startups and scale-up companies raising funds from venture capital and angel firms. The largest one was circa £20 million, the smallest in the region of £500,000. In spite of the divergence in quantum, both these investment announcements required lots of legwork, albeit in different ways, and we received rave reviews from the respective CEOs.

Working for my uncle’s public relations firm in London in the late Nineties, I remember I had dropped a ball on a client assignment, and he brought me to task. I think his analogy was along the lines of “if I ask you to do a job, you do it to the best of your ability, whether I ask you to paint my office or look after a key client.” I’m pleased to say that I never got called in to do the paint job.

One thing I learnt last year? I have a great instinct for my own business, but that doesn’t mean I always get it right. Having Carolyn Jameson and George Mackintosh on speed dial as advisers has helped to address this chink in the armour.

Nick Freer is the founding director of corporate communications agency the Freer Consultancy

The best move I made last year? That one’s easy. Bringing former BBC dynamo Vanessa Collingridge on to work with client CEOs on presentational training. Ness has been amazing.

We have one more walk planned on Skye, to the Fairy Pools in Glen Brittle, then it’s back to the old routine. 2023, let’s do this!

Nick Freer is the founding director of corporate communications agency the Freer Consultancy