In this edition of our Wantrepreneur to Entrepreneur Spotlight, we're excited to feature Liselle DeGrave, founder of DeGrave Communications. Her boutique firm specializes in serving public agencies, a niche that not only leverages her extensive in-house experience but also showcases her commitment to making a meaningful impact. As we dive into our conversation with Liselle, get ready to be inspired by her journey from a wantrepreneur to a successful entrepreneur who's making waves in the public sector PR landscape.
Hi, Liselle! Thanks for joining us today. Tell us about your business. Who do you serve, how do you serve them, and what's the impact that your business and work makes?
DeGrave Communications, a SoCal boutique public relations firm. We specialize in working with public agencies. I have worked internally for several public agencies and the world of government is different than other sectors. Having an internal perspective of what it's like to work in a public agency allows our firm to serve our clients differently. We work closely with in-house communications professionals and we understand the amount of work that is on their plate. When social media entered the world it was a game changer in terms of the workload. While a digital world makes a lot of tasks easier, it also increases work responsibilities and expectations that require speed and precision. We impact the organizations that we work with by lightening their load and handling the heavy lifting.
Tell us about the moment you finally felt like you went from wantrepreneur to entrepreneur.
When I secured my first "real client," as I like to call it, I knew it was showtime. I had slowly been building the PR firm since my early career days, but then I decided to reply to a request for proposal and bid on a public PR project. I was elated when I found out I had secured the project and never looked back!
Describe the moment or period in your life/career that motivated you to make the entrepreneurial leap.
I started my career working for a fast-paced international PR firm. I felt a desire to slow down and be free early on in my career. The idea of sitting down at a desk for 10+ hours a day was not sustainable and it was evident by the senior-level staffers that I was reporting to. They were missing their kids' sporting events and had little to no social lives. I was working both east coast and west coast hours and I thought there must be another way to do this. Not really knowing what I was doing, I set up a sole proprietorship and slowly started to build.
Describe a tool, service, or software that has been a game-changer for your business. How does it contribute to your success?
This may seem like a no-brainer, but Quickbooks Online and Tsheets are business essentials for me. Being that we offer a service and our time is what we sell, having a time tracking software like Tsheets that exports directly into Quickbooks Online has made invoicing more efficient. When we were just getting started, we used a time-tracking software that was inexpensive but had a lot of bugs and we wasted a lot of admin time. We also had to manually input hours for each project. Looking for solutions that are easy to use and integrate are game changers.
We know that success is very often a non-linear path. Tell us about a failure, pivot point, or lesson that changed your course or direction and helped to get you where you are today.
I had worked in the public sector world for the majority of my in-house career. When I decided to expand my freelance side hustle into a career I thought it would be exciting to explore other types of work including consumer goods, skincare, fitness, and lifestyle brands. I quickly realized that where my niche was, was where my company would be able to grow the most, this was in the public sector. Working with public sector clients was what we now specialize in. Partnering with what might seem like more "exciting" organizations turned out to be a mismatch of the services that we offer and the expertise that we provide.
What unconventional strategy did you employ that significantly impacted your business?
Too often we think there is only one way to do something and we feel defeated before we even begin. As a PR person and not an accountant or HR specialist, I always try to find resources to fill in the gaps. When you first start out on your own you may be a lean team heavily relying on online resources or cost-effective resources, but as you grow, make sure that your support does as well. You can't do everything on your own or you won't grow. When I first started out, I would often trade services for a service that I needed.
What’s something you wish you knew sooner that you’d give as advice for aspiring or newer entrepreneurs?
Don't wait for the perfect opportunity to present itself, go out and get started today. Put together a simple strategy and little by little make a dent in it. If you wait for the perfect moment it will never come. Running a thriving business doesn't happen overnight with one defining moment, it happens over time through perseverance and determination.
Want to go deeper into Liselle's work? Here are some links where you can find her:
- Visit DeGrave Communications' Website: DeGravePR.com
- Listen to her Podcast: PressingOnPodcast.com
- Follow Liselle on Instagram: @DeGravePR
- Connect with Liselle on Linkedin: Liselle Regueiro DeGrave, APR
