Portsmouth business owner delivers workshop at region’s biggest business expo
Hope Mckellar, who runs Hope Mckellar PR – a public relations agency based in Portsmouth – revealed her top tips and explain how PR works at the Hampshire Business Show.
Her workshop, The Dark Art of PR, explained to keen business owners how PR works in simple terms, providing a practical guide for writing press releases and pitching stories that will get picked up by journalists and featured in the press.
The show, which took place on Thursday, October 14 at the Hilton at the Ageas Bowl in Southampton, showcased hundreds of businesses across the UK and is the biggest business-to-business expo in the region.
Hope said: ‘It’s my first ever business expo as a business owner, so to be delivering a workshop and to be framed as an expert in my field seems almost surreal. Just having my name and picture on the same page as Karren Brady’s is crazy to me. It’s a huge milestone in my career and it’s great to be able to show people how much PR can work.
‘A lot of people think that PR is something that is very out of reach, complicated and inaccessible, but my aim is to educate people and show them that it is actually very accessible and something they can even do themselves; they just need to know how.’
The 24-year-old set up her business in June 2020 after leaving her job as a journalist and now works with companies, individuals and charities of all sizes across Hampshire, Dorset and West Sussex.
She is a keen storyteller and started out with the aim of helping more businesses tell their stories and get the public recognition they deserve.
The Hampshire Business Show is run by Josh Mitchell, who runs Southampton-based marketing agency, Mitchell and Stones.
It was founded in 2019, but unfortunately was not able to take place last year due to Covid restrictions.
This year’s headline speakers included TV personality and successful businesswoman Baroness Karren Brady, author, entrepreneur and motivational speaker Brad Burton and managing partner at Paris Smith, Peter Taylor.
