Selling her home to pay for a new business idea is radical, but Jules Brooke didn't think twice.
"I knew this platform was the exact solution that small businesses were searching for. You only live once, and I had to do it," Brooke says.
![Jules Brooke sold her Victorian home to create her venture, Handle Your Own PR.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170723160444im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/x/d/z/s/i/image.related.articleLeadwide.620x349.gxdzv5.png/1500419851184.jpg)
Her platform, Handle Your Own PR, equips small business owners with the resources to handle their own PR. It's a concept Brooke has been teaching SMEs in workshops and podcasts since 2009.
But she saw an opportunity to take the service a step further by empowering SMEs to handle the entire process on one platform. She partnered with an IT expert, sold her Victorian home and the pair poured $100,000 into the platform build, which launched a few weeks ago.
![Jules Brooke wants small businesses to be able to handle their own public relations.](http://web.archive.org./web/20170723160444im_/https://www.fairfaxstatic.com.au/content/dam/images/g/x/d/z/s/j/image.related.articleLeadNarrow.300x0.gxdzv5.png/1500419851184.jpg)
"I know this is what small business owners are crying out for, because I'm teaching small businesses how to avoid agency costs and handle their own PR in workshops every day.
"It's a pity that these smaller clients had no way to get their message out to the media. Sometimes they had a great product or service with the potential to be the next Bonds or Uber, but sadly they faded away because they lacked the funds to pay for an agency."
Brooke's platform enables users to access and curate their own media lists and assists in writing and distributing media releases, to key media contacts and follow up. Subscriptions start at $29 a month. Most PR agencies charge a monthly retainer starting at $3000 per month, however some say the industry is moving towards project fees instead of retainers.
HYOPR's media database contains more than 8500 media contacts in 80 editorial categories across television, digital media, magazines, blogs, radio and more. The platform has 200 subscribers.
Full media access
Unlike mainstream media release distribution services, users also get access to full media contact details, which are updated quarterly. Journalists can opt out of the list at any stage. Brooke hopes to expand into Britain the next year. Â
"The PR industry has been very much holding this information close to their chests and will always say it's all about relationships, but the truth is most don't even pick up the phone and follow up anyway, and it's pretty hard to build a relationship over email."
Brooke stumbled into PR after forging a career as a graphic designer. "I literally taught myself, building an agency that employed students and stay at home mums in the beginning."
She denies that the platform will cannabilise the PR industry, saying the platform is more suited to start-ups and micro business owners unable to afford their own publicist.
My web guy called me because he thought we'd been hacked.
Roger O'Toole
"A lot of PRs use the media distribution services, but these services don't reveal where the press release has gone. Our platform helps PRs avoid the scattergun approach."
Melbourne Headache Centre director Roger O'Toole says his business gained seven months' worth of patient inquiries in two weeks with one press release on the platform.
"From there it snowballed – it went into the printed edition of the Herald Sun, I was then interviewed on 3AW and featured on all the evening editions of TV news (every channel aside from SBS). The moment the online piece went live, I noticed a bump in inquiries, and just hours after we went live on the evening news we received an inquiry every minute on our website for the next two to three hours. My web guy called me because he thought we'd been hacked!"
Practitioners urge caution
Not surprisingly, not all PR practitioners are sold. PR is increasingly important as the media landscape diversifies, but is far more complex than just writing a media release, Sydney PR expert Catriona Pollard says.
"We rarely send out press releases, preferring to work up a pitch and send it to one journalist as an exclusive."
Fellow Sydney PR practitioner Nicole Reaney also says that sending out press releases isn't an inherently successful method of gaining media exposure.
According to Reaney, SMEs are essentially putting themselves and their business into the public domain for potential scrutiny. One wrong move and you can damage your reputation and burn important media and public relationships, the founder of InsideOut PR says.
"Public relations is more about managing relationships. And just because you've got the jet and the handbook doesn't mean you can fly the plane and get to your destination."
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