Debbie Smith, a consultant for The Comms Crowd, explains why Sam Howard should win the Leader of the Year category of the Guardian Small Business Showcase competition:
Sam Howard founded The Comms Crowd in 2012 to cater for tech start-ups with big ambitions but budgets too small to be entertained by a traditional PR agency.
What makes Sam a stand-out leader is her understanding of what motivates fellow PR professionals and her informal, collaborative approach, whereby she shares both the business’s successes and challenges with her colleagues. It’s enabled her to build an effective, flexible team from a group of freelancers, provide clients with affordable expertise and grow a successful business, which was recently shortlisted for an award alongside the UK’s leading PR agencies.
Most people freelance because they dislike formal leadership – both being led and leading teams themselves – and want to focus on delivering hands-on client work. Sam understands this and after identifying each person’s skills, puts together the most appropriate team for each client, then empowers us to deliver the agreed campaign.
We do work we enjoy and collaborate without traditional reporting structures, long meetings or endless directives – short emails, Skype calls, Dropbox and the Cloud are all we need to keep on track. All ideas are welcome if they contribute to client satisfaction.
Sam is quick to congratulate work well done and gently but firmly chase outstanding actions, with client needs always coming first. Our reputation is based on delivery, which she manages smoothly across the team. She also understands that we chose freelancing to fit with other interests, so spending time doing other things is encouraged and we work it into our schedules.
All entries which meet the competition criteria are published and our judging panel select a shortlist of the top three for each category. Winners are announced at an awards ceremony in summer 2016.
