Building in Public: How Radical Honesty Built a Global Agency

Speaker A: Go. Welcome to the PRCA Fuse podcast. The podcast for people in and around the PR and comms world. But recently we've seen more business leaders building in public, talking about work, life, balance, mental health, ups and downs of running a business, um, being a parent and doing that as well. And with that has come some mistakes. Um, famously in the PR world. Gordon Beattie resigned from Beatty Communications after a LinkedIn post that was ill conceived, but some people are getting it right and building their business by being more vulnerable. And this week we are speaking to one such person, Rachel Allison from Axe and Soar. She tells us how she's been inspired by reality TV and pulls back the curtain on that now infamous LinkedIn post she wrote about Stormzy and and a partnership with McDonald's. Hi, Rachel. Welcome to the podcast.

Speaker B: Hello. Thank you so much for having me. What an honour.

Speaker A: Um, um, first of all, for our listeners, could you tell us who you are and, um, what you do?

Speaker B: Yes. So, firstly, anyone that's listening, thanks for listening. I am, um, Rachel Allison. I'm the founder of Axonsor, which is a creative comms agency. Um, we essentially look at doing communication and storytelling that moves brands from just being spoken about to being loved and doing that through creating, well, in placing them into communities, um, showing up in work that, uh, drives impact for the business and ultimately doing things that we care about. And I think that's kind of our, uh, usp.

Speaker A: I think you're underplaying what you do because I think what you do is absolutely phenomenal. I mean, I first came across you, I think, when an event that Elizabeth Bananuka put together and I saw the name Axon Saw, and then I looked up your agency and thought, oh, my God, this work is absolutely phenomenal. And I started following you on LinkedIn and what has struck me was how open and honest you are on LinkedIn about your journey, setting up your agency. And that felt very, very different to what a lot of other people are doing out, um, there, particularly in PR leadership. And I know that, uh, this is something that you're quite passionate about. Why don't we get into that a little bit more? Could you tell us, in your experience, how does PR leadership show up in terms of external communication?

Speaker B: Yeah, well, firstly, thank you. I would say, um, it's always weird to hear people, like, say that they follow me or they know, like, they read my post because I think LinkedIn for me and like, posting authentically was something that was a means to an end. And it was like, I didn't have Intentionality behind it. Like, I wasn't thinking, oh, I really want to be a LinkedIn influencer. Uh, uh, what I was thinking was, I started the business, I had absolutely zero network. I had no money to start the business. It was just the fact that I was like, I tried working for other agencies and I was just like, I do think that I can do something better. And I do think that there isn't anyone that really looks like me that's, like, doing things the way that I think they could be done. And yet I'm always in boardrooms where they're playing videos of, like, people that look like me and then positioning under the word culture with no one really understanding the audiences they're speaking to. And. And I found it quite frustrating. There was a particular moment I remember, I think it was for, like, a fast food brand. And the whole voiceover was, like, intentionally sounded like London slang. And they, like. It was like, everyone got trainers and it was, like, traded in for, like, fast food. And it was just. The whole thing was like, for me just. It was just so icky. And the no one in the room at all would have any connection to the communities that they were serving. And, um, they, like, said something being like, oh, I think the client was like, oh, my God, this is so authentic. I love this work. And they were, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I. And then everyone kind of looked at me as if I was meant to, like, be the voice of the black people. And I. I found that was one of the moments that really stuck in my head and I was just like, this is not how boardrooms that are speaking to this audience should look like. And. And I was quite desperate to just, like, change things. Um, posting authentically then for me was like, I started the business and I was like, how on earth am I going to get into these rooms where the decisions are being made without having any friends in that network? And so my conclusion was, like, I could just try and add them on LinkedIn. Like, it's the only place I knew that I could get access to them. Um, and so I just was, like, very intentionally adding. I made lists of brands and added them all. And then I just posted about things that I was seeing and what I. What it's really like to build a business and how, like, so many challenges, like, I built it in. Just as we came out of lockdown, I think it was like 20, 21, so everyone was like, tables of six. I think was the vibe in that era really taking us back. And I feel like, um, yeah, like, Leadership and PR and being authentic were all things that just came naturally because I was like, I don't believe that, ah, you have to sound like a robot in order to be at the top of a business. I've never been good at being in corporate environments because I'm human. I don't like dulling myself down in terms of like the way I speak or like the things I find funny. I'm just, I, I think that sucks the fun out of life. And I feel like, yeah, if you can show up just being human instead of just like focusing on like pretending to be what you think a leader should be, I think that's thing you can do for your business.

Speaker A: Uh, and uh, that's quite a contrast to what we've been led to believe previously. I think, you know, there. And actually quite a lot of PR agencies have made a lot of money and their reputations on creating very, very manicured reputations for senior leadership. You know, you have to get this word right. You can't offend anybody. You have to please all the people all of the time, all of your employees, all of your customers. Um, but what you're doing, you know, what you're doing is, is different. And you're not even necessarily talking about your customers or your employees. Sometimes you're just talking about yourself and people. People really seem to connect to it. Right.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I, I completely agree. I, I had to basically bet on the fact that the, that the old guard was going to shift at some point. I had to bet on that. And I'm so seeing it in real life. Uh, like I was seeing the way that people consume media. When I first started in the industry, the obsession with magazines, like that was the reason I got into it. Magazines, print, broadcast, I was obsessed. My first job was in broadcast PR and I loved it. I thought it was the coolest thing ever. It was so fun. Like the, the, the principles behind like even landing a story in broadcast is, is still intrinsic to really what has formed the backbone of like social media. Like hasn't shifted that much. Um, but what I would say is like starting in broadcast, it showed me the power of news and it was very strict around what they would consider as news. If I then looked at my friends in terms of magazines, the older I was getting, the less people had disposable income. Like it was the two, uh, thousand eight financial crash. It was like people were not spending money on magazines unless they were wealthy. The challenge for me was that everybody in agencies tended to come from a wealthy background. So so believed that everyone was still buying Vogue every week or, you know, spending all their disposable income on reading Harper's Bazaar and paying for things behind a paywall. And that was not the reality of my friendship group. Instead, what they were doing was getting their news from Instagram and looking at social media platforms and following people to start to understand the world. And so I knew that that was shifting in real life, but agencies weren't even set up for you to understand that because of the way that they were run, the people that were involved in it. And then only slowly but surely did, like, social media start creeping in and people's mindset start shifting a little bit. And I feel like that for me is like, I remember being in meetings where everyone was talking about Millennial Girl Boss Pink, and that was all over everything. And I was thinking, this isn't actually true again, of like, my friendship group. No one in my friendship group works in this industry. Um, and, um, you know, when you'd say things in those rooms, no one would listen because you were too young to like, have an opinion, but yet they were trying to sell to you. And I think all of those things made me just introspectively really think about how it is that I, ah, think I should share my story. And I think sharing my story not about my clients, I don't think it's always should be about them. I don't think they always want me to post about them either. Um, and not about my employees because I think there's like a level of privacy that should be involved in me running an agency anyway. But the thing that I can authentically share is like, my journey to becoming a mother and a founder. My journey to like, trying to grow a team without investment. My journey to like, you know, being pitching for 100 pieces of new business and like, not always getting what I want out of it and how that makes me feel like I think they are. I think so much of the industry gets stripped of being human. And I think I've always, always found that challenging. Like, I hate when people speak to each other disrespectfully in a work environment. It actually ir, uh, me, I've. I've grown up in a Jamaican household where, like, you'll have, like, people, you can answer back and you will, you know, like, cussing is okay. So for me to go to a corporate environment where someone can just openly talk to someone, like, horribly and no one say anything back, it just doesn't sit well with me. That's not my vibe. So I think all of these things came into effect when I was thinking about how I show up, um, on, on the Internet and like what authenticity means to me. And I, and I think that, you know, when you went on LinkedIn, when I first started posting, everyone was like really generic posts. They were like really like established CEOs, uh, that were sharing their voice. And um, it was all about sales and it was very, very business focused. And I thought, well, I don't really care that hard about this platform as like something my friends or whatever would be looking at. So I was just like, why don't I just try and speak like how I would in real life and then see if anyone thinks it's of interest. And that was. That was it, literally it.

Speaker A: And the assumption is that, ah, if, um, all the argument is that uh, if you try and do that, you're going to uh, alienate some people, but you'll be more attractive to others. So. And I guess the theory is that there's a bit of a tension with doing that because you'll do that and you might only appeal to a small number of people or certain type of brand. But having looked at the growth of your business, you don't seem to be, you don't seem to be suffering from that at all. You are attracting mainstream brands and mainstream briefs to your business. Why do you think that is?

Speaker B: Um, that's a really good question. I think that is a really good question. I think that people are, uh, you know, and everyone says this, but people are craving connection and people. I've always lived by the mantra that people buy people. The industry lives by that mantra, actually like people by people. And yet we want to make ourselves faceless, which makes no sense. And I think when you have an asset bank of zero, I don't have a product, I don't have anything other than like a service. The only thing I can use as an asset as PR people we know that is myself. So I kind of had to look at what that means for, for my growth once it started to kind of gain a little bit of traction and then how, like whether or not that would affect brands. And I think there's an element with sticking your neck on the line and saying like, this is what I believe wholeheartedly and you can either hate it or you can love it. I. But the, the thing I have to always remember is I don't actually care. Like this is just my vessel for expressing myself. And if it attracts people, that's a great thing. If it doesn't it's also not really like any sweat off my back. Like the reality of it is I have my life outside of my LinkedIn post. I don't, this isn't my like um, obsession in life. I have my family, I have the things I really, really value. So like I don't take it that like as that much of a serious thing in my, in my world. And I think it's funny when you see people like who's built their whole career. Not funny actually it's not funny but like when you see people who've got a whole career of social media platforms and then everyone's like oh, what happens if it crashes and bl blah blah. Like for me I, that I don't really care. Like it's a vessel that expresses what I believe in the world. But our uh, work will forever be the thing that I'm happy to like that lives outside of me. Posting on LinkedIn, that is the stuff that should reflect our values as an agency and me as a founder. And so I think that the posting and the vulnerability and all those things, like it half, it half probably does the job in terms of like building affinity for a brand or an in house expert. But I think our work is the bit that ah, actually gets people in. Um, it's like the proof in the pudding. Like I can, I can bark as loud as I want. Like if my work doesn't cut the mustard then everyone's going to be like she's a fraud. But you know, the work is living up to what I'm saying.

Speaker A: And have you been inspired by other people doing the same? Like when you look around you have you thought you found someone and thought oh, you know what they've done? Well I uh, quite like what they're

Speaker B: doing from like in terms of building an agency or like uh, posting. Uh, do you know what? This is probably a weird reference but I, I really love reality tv. It's like my only thing. I'm either a documentary and it's super serious and I'm like half crying through it and I really am like massive empath. Like I'm feeling all their emotions. I love good documentaries. That's my favorite thing to watch. But if I'm like really like busy at work, whatever. I am addicted to reality tv and I think there's something in that. I say addicted. I'm not that addicted, but I've watched like all the Real Housewives. Like you know, that's my vibe and I think there's something in like them being able to Market their own brand and like, build something off the back of just showing up as themselves. I think there's something quite fascinating as someone that works in marketing and comms, like how they've managed to, um. Yeah, how they've managed to, like, understand that their personality is a valuable asset as well as just living their life. And I think that's quite interesting for me. I'm not saying I'm trying to be a reality TV star, just to clarify, but like, I think there's. I think reality TV actually allows a lot more access than people actually think about. Because, uh, the old way of becoming famous was often like, my parents are someone in power and say they thought, I've got a platform and I'm gonna get packed and I'm gonna do this and I'm gonna do that. I think, like, without having any of those means, like, you can build your own brand. I think that's quite interesting, actually. Now you've just said it. I think that's quite inspiring when you see that.

Speaker A: Yeah. So reality TV has been a massive leveler socially.

Speaker B: Yeah, there you go.

Speaker A: Is this something you've spoken about before? Is this something you thought about before in the past or has it just literally occurred to you just now?

Speaker B: It occurred to me now, literally, I was just thinking, like, what has inspired me. But I actually do think it is quite fascinating because some of the reality TV stars, there's an element where like, you know, the producers are in control and there's often the rags to riches story and that, you know, like now you look back on a lot of them, like the big brothers of the. Of. Of yesteryear, which I was obsessed with even as a teenager. Right. Like that, uh, I love, like when it was 24 hour big brother, I'd be like, I finally got a TV in my room and I literally watch it. Like, I'd wake up in the night and be like, oh, what's going on? And it was so boring. I never, it was never worth it. But I think there's just like, you know, that kind of opened your eyes into what the future could have looked like and actually just think, I don't know why this has come, to be honest, but no one's ever asked me, like, what's inspired you to do that. But I think it is interesting. I think there must be.

Speaker A: And, um, tell me about some of the impact it's had because I feel like it's, it's contributed quite a bit to your profiling and your success as a business person. I'd Love to hear some examples of how this has had a positive impact on your. On your business.

Speaker B: Yeah, I think how it's had a positive impact on my business. Well, it's obviously had a brilliant impact on my business because we're growing. Um, we're in the US and the UK right now. Like all of this has realistically come from me starting off just posting on LinkedIn. I didn't have anything else. Right. So like we're in our fifth year, we're hiring. Like we're on some dream brand pitch lists. Um, we were talking about it a little bit earlier, but like there was the top 10 account moves of the year and of the top five, I think we pitched for three of them.

Speaker A: Oh, nice.

Speaker B: It was very, very busy. It's continuously busy and I think that's an amazing, amazing effect of actually just showing up consistently and actually being quite vocal about it. Um, but I think the other thing for me is that like, I am happy to, to die on a hill around being clear about what my point of view is and not. And not wanting to appease everybody for the sake of it. I think the best work is when it's sticky and when it has a point of view. And I, and I think that that will forever bring the right people to us. And I think that's, that's what it is. Um, I was actually just thinking of like someone who slightly. Or a company that's slightly outside of the PR world and A24 the film, um, studios are, ah, a really good of that. I think they're just incredibly clear on their taste and their point of view and they don't do things to like, please everyone. And I feel like it's that, um, that is actually cutting through in today's world because we are just inundated with so much noise and so many generic things where everyone sounds the same. And I think actually just being like, this is what I stand for, this is what I'm about. This is the kind of work that I want to be known for. And actually being quite like belligerent about that actually shows that clarity is the way to move your brand forward or your agency forward. And I feel like that's. Yeah, that's what I would say.

Speaker A: Let's dig into that. Because you mentioned, you know, you love the tension, the stickiness of a hill to die on. I, um, would love to dig into a post that you put up and I can't remember the specifics. You might be able to tell our audience about it. You were talking about Stormzy and his partnership with McDonald's. What happened there?

Speaker B: Yeah, um, what happened there? Okay. So I wrote a post that was basically talking about Stormzy doing a partnership with McDonald's um, as soon as it went live. And um, my stance on it was that it just didn't feel authentic. The reason I didn't feel it was authentic and um, this was just a personal perspective is because I had just seen him do his men's health, um, cover, front cover and he was talking a lot about how he's got his body into shape. I think he just did a Louis Theroux around that time where he again talking about getting himself into shape and like how it's had such a positive effect and how he's eating right and working with his trainer. And I was actually like it's really interesting. You can tell that he's feeling better because it was his whole kind of journey into like from fame into where he is today. And I just thought it was ill timed. That was my main thing. I was like if you had a team that understood the talent and the culture and the way that things are showing up, you could have just pushed that back a little bit. You could have built in that storyline where he like, you know, his personal training could have popped up in the background and linked to the story of him having his like whatever the end goal was like McNuggets or what storms he met, I don't even remember but like I was just like there is a level of storytelling that could be really clever uh, and could avoid certain levels of controversy if your team are uh, in the spaces that you're showing up in. There was intentional to use an artist like Stormzy to bring in a certain audience. And again this is my exact point. Stormzy's fans are like die hard fans. They really care about uh, everything he does. He doesn't post a lot so when he does everyone's super engaged. They really care about what he does. So that will happen. But in the same time that that happened he also got called out by his fans on socials which was around his uh, I think it was like when it was like the boycott in McDonald's Palestine conversation.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker B: Which wasn't the conversation I was initially having to be honest. I was just saying it's inauthentic. His fans went deeper than that. Ah. And they went like in the whole like we're not ordering from them etc, etc. That post got picked up by a trade publication and um, um actually spurred on a lot of people to write thought pieces around why a little girl like me had an opinion of whether I had experience in the industry, uh, why I should essentially get back in my box and not comment on other people's work. And everyone's just trying to do a good job in the industry and we don't need all this hate and slander, uh, from people. These LinkedIn influencers who don't even know what they're doing a lot essentially of, of, uh, white men in positions of power decided to share their opinion, which I didn't ask for either, on trade publications. Um, and I just thought it was all quite gross. Um, and, um, also just like, again, it goes back to like. And I think it's quite interesting when these things happen because it's in this, like, LinkedIn bubble of, like, there's people are resharing. Everyone's like, oh, my God, did you see that? Right? And, like, messaging me. And I was, I was genuinely on holiday, so I really, I wasn't on LinkedIn. And I also didn't care about this conversation beyond my post. I was like, this is my thought. This is how I'd have improved it. It's not that deep. I wasn't calling out the agency. I was just saying, like, get. Get into the culture properly and then do your storytelling with more heart. That was it. Um, and I think that's actually a fair critique on something when you have potentially missed an opportunity to tell a deeper story, when you are supposed to be experts in storytelling. That's what my point of view is. And, um, um, I don't think it was me saying that they're not good at their job, which is how they took it. And I think people have fragile egos and can't take feedback. That's not really my problem. But it was, it became quite a, like, industry, uh, conversation and topic and a lot of clickbaity things where it was pulled from my LinkedIn. And, you know, lots of things happen in that era. And I just thought, like, I just thought, in what world do we pile like, five men onto one females? Like LinkedIn post? And, um, why? Also, like, it really wasn't that deep. I think, I think I would have really respected, actually, because if that was my campaign and people were like, you could have gone a bit deeper with the storytelling. And I actually wanted to go deeper. I would actually be like, the conversation would be. We had to collectively agree with the client, the direction of where we had to go with this campaign. We are in culture, by the way, and we really do care about the output that would have been my stance as an agency owner, uh, if people were calling me out for something like that. Because, A, I would have hoped that I'd already thought about it and we had and we'd pitch it and the client probably said no. Or B, I would have just been okay with hearing that I could have done a better job with a little bit more depth. And I would have been like, you know what? Next time we won't work with someone that we don't really understand, or we'll get in some experts that really, you know, make sense. You know, learning, development. We should all be willing to do that. Uh, so, yeah, that's kind of my thing around authenticity and, uh, getting into a bit of an industry storm for no reason.

Speaker A: Well, I mean, look, these things are, uh, you're not always going to make friends doing this. And, uh, I think there's a saying from Winston Churchill, which something along the lines of, you know, unless you're making enemies, you're not making an impact or something similar to that. I will have to look it up. But there have been instances in the past where people have tried to do something similar to what you're doing and they've been caught out. So an example that springs to mind from the PR world is Gordon, uh, Beattie. Um, a few years back he put out a post that said, at BT Communications, we don't hire blacks, gays or Catholics. We sign talented people. We don't care about their colour of their skin, sexual orientation or religion. Um, and after he posted that, he received quite a lot of criticism and in the end he resigned from BT Communications. Um, I don't know if you're aware of that case at all. I mean, go to show you have to be quite careful. And I think his response there was that he felt that, um. And I don't know Gordon at all, but I do feel that, um, the intention was good, but he hadn't taken into account a lot of the complexities of the language and the playing field in which people, you know, the kind of discrimination that they face in the workplace. It's, um, it doesn't really come from a point of empathy, which is what I felt. How do you feel about that?

Speaker B: Ah, yeah, I mean, I agree. I don't. I, I, I would say I'm generally an empathetic person. I think that, uh, my team reflects the values that I hold. And I think, like, sometimes if I'm like, on the fence about whether I should post something, I will read it out to the team and my team Are absol. The safe space is fully safe because they're absolutely like, Rachel, don't post this because, uh, would like, that could cause offense. Or like, maybe you should rephrase that. Say that this, like, everyone on my team has a point of view and I feel like for me, if you've built a communications agency and you've got as far as to posting something that wild, like, is there no one around you that feels safe enough to be like, don't do it. Or like, I wouldn't. Or take it down before it goes into a public forum? I think that's. That's the question I would have. So while the intention may be. May have been a positive one, I think as soon as you would type the words, I don't, uh, I don't do blacks or whatever this, this opening drop of that was.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker B: Is. Is where your fingers, I would hope would be like, like, maybe this isn't the way to kick this one off. But, you know, I think, I think what I would take from that is if I was him, I would be like, I really need to do some work on myself and I really need to, like, I actually need to resign and I actually commit myself to like, really going deep and understanding other people's experiences. If he's not like, signed up and working in charities or something where he just like, reconnects with like, the reality of the world, I think, think I would be doing that if I were him. Because I think as well, like, this industry is so, like, I found it. I find it like, partially frustrating because we're in these industries where we're consistently, like, having to connect with audiences and we're so far removed. Like, the more you get into the work, the further away you often are from the people you're trying to, like, have an impact with. And I feel like of all the spaces and of all the industries, I think we should be able. We should do more for us to be able to connect to the variety, the reality of the UK landscape. And I think, like, it should almost be a given, like, brands should be paying. I would. This would be my dream world. Brands should be paying for, like, you to be going out and seeing their audiences, their consumers, their whoever at, uh, their various different sites across the globe so that you can really tell the story with impact. I think it's almost wasted on doing that with the advertising. Sorry, with an advertising agency it is because all they're going to do is like, bark back a message and an insight without really listening to it. Uh, and just Be like, oh, this is how we can market it. Uh, whereas I feel like if your comms people are out in the streets that you're trying to sell to, you actually have way more opportunity to sell the story with impact. I just think, I think it's a missing ingredient.

Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I was going to ask you about, um, advice you'd give to people and I think you've kind of hit it nail on the head there. You know, empathy, listening is the way to do this properly. Um, apart from that, is there any other advice that you would give to someone who's thinking, oh, I want to

Speaker B: step into this, someone that wants to step into it,

Speaker A: don't do it now. I'm joking.

Speaker B: Hold on. Yeah. Um, I think the same has always been true of this industry. Like, to really be good at it. It's like a full time, it's a full, it's a full on experience. It isn't something you are like, I don't want this to at all come across as like toxic vibes, but I don't think it's a career where you can like, shut your laptop and it's just done. Um, like, to be good at your job, your, your eyes always have to be looking for. You have to be naturally curious, you have to be inquisitive, you have to care, you have to engage in different spaces. Like, if that is your temperament and you care about those elements of, like, they are high on your values list, this is an amazing career path for you. Um, if the opposite is true, I would say not to get into it because I think, like, especially comms and pr, like you are by the very nature a chameleon. Like, I always find it bizarre how, like every PR agency will have done a full production event, will have done loads of social media, will have done all the other things around it, and it's because, like, um, and they don't ever charge the same price as other people. They're always like, I'm so brave. You got a little bit of cash for us, we'll figure it out. We are like people pleasers by the very nature of us. But I really think that has to change because we're not putting enough value on the ability to do so many different things to a degree where you're going to connect to a consumer. I just think we need to do a full rebrand of the space, if you ask me. But you know what?

Speaker A: Yeah, well, you wouldn't be the first person to talk about that. I think there are, uh, forces at play which, including AI in the economy, but also the culture shift with, uh, buyers and consumers, where, um, people are really thinking about what's the future of the agency model and, uh, how do we go about it. But I think that's probably a topic for our next recording.

Speaker B: Love that brilliant segue.

Speaker A: Thank you so much for joining us today, Rachel. I've really enjoyed this conversation.

Speaker B: Thank you so much. I really enjoyed it as, uh, well.