Dominique Ellis - Edition 3
Dominique Ellis is a public relations coordinator for small businesses in New Orleans. She promotes the great work of businesses, whose owners are often times too busy doing the work themselves. You can check out her work here: http://www.dominiqueellispr.com/
Most surprising failure: When my business partnership failed. It was really difficult for me to admit to myself that it wasn’t working. It’s hard - you don’t want something you’ve put so much time and effort into to go south so it’s easy to pretend it isn’t happening for a while, which only makes things worse. In the end, the old adage about not knowing someone until you’ve lived/partnered with them rang true. What I thought was a mutually supportive and beneficial situation turned out to be the opposite. I sat down, gave myself a day-long pity party, then started making moves to extricate myself. Since I’ve been back out on my own I’ve never been better. Best decision I ever made.
Most hard fought win: Truthfully, my most hard fought win was convincing what was at the time my full time employer to let me go contract so I could start taking on other clients. Once I worked up the nerve to say I could do this job, be happier and save them money it was a bit easier. It still took weeks of negotiation with the CEO. I learned a lot in that process. Namely, to always wait at least 4 hours before responding to emails from whomever you are negotiating with for a contract. Emotions can get out of hand occasionally, especially if you disagree on the value of your services. Read it, think about it, then leave the room. Turn off your phone and do something else. Then, later when you’re more likely to respond with a level head, start counter negotiations. These days this isn’t an issue for me but at the time it was a good lesson I had to learn the hard way. In the end, I was pretty proud of myself.
Favorite book in the past 12 months: When you work for yourself, time is money. So I find it hard lately to set aside time to dive into any long novels. Of the recent books I’ve dived into I really loved Rick Bragg’s My Southern Journey. It’s a collection of all his essays for Southern Living Magazine and a few others and is easy to read and just a true delight. I’ve also started All The Single Ladies: Unmarried Women & the Rise of the Independent Nation by Rebecca Traister and it’s mind blowing.
How do you define success for your current job: Oy, this is a hard one. Honestly I hit a point in the last year where I realized I didn’t want to grow a mini empire and hire a bunch of people to help me grow the company. For the time being I value the flexibility my job and current work load allows me. Since I can work from anywhere I can take more trips and expand contacts and clients in new places. It’s been great thus far.
Where do you find news and new information: Because it’s part of my job I’m on social media all the time, so I get a lot of info from there to be honest. Instagram is the best for discovering new publications, creatives and brands in my line of work. Other than that I troll the magazines often and listen to a ton of NPR.
