Twenty years ago, I sold my namesake agency I founded at age 27 to Edelman. At the time, many accused me of being a sellout, but the truth is I would have sold out had I not sold the agency.
I never intended to establish a shop of my own. But after a rather chilling #MeToo experience, I left the agency world and pursued freelance publicity work full-time. After a couple of years, I had a roster of clients, a business partner, and a brilliant team. JCPR grew to become a maverick, culturally connected operation.
As our growth journey accelerated, so did our fame. We were approached with quite a few offers for acquisition, including Dan and Richard Edelman. For most entrepreneurs, reaching this point is the ultimate marker of success, but I’ll be honest: Each offer made me feel trapped rather than liberated.
JCPR had a real creative pulse and distinction, and I was crucially aware that a holding company’s focus on percentage growth numbers would be a challenge for us. JCPR never needed a new business department as our work had always been magnetic enough on its own—but that also meant we had an element of overservicing, which many group agencies would veto.
So, for nearly 10 years, we said no to acquisition offers.
That is, until we reached a geographic plateau. We had clients in all the desired sectors, but noncompete restrictions meant our expansion trajectory was limited. And that’s when Edelman came back to mind.
Not only did they have the scale, but Edelman has always been independent and family-owned, with a CEO who cared passionately about the PR craft. That really resonated. I called Richard, not knowing if he even remembered our agency, but thankfully he did, and the negotiations began shortly thereafter.
The experience of selling an agency that you create, run, and love with all your heart is pretty loaded. I had the emotional benefit of my husband—a senior partner in a chartered accountancy practice who specializes in small and medium-sized business M&A—being our negotiator. He agreed, and asked us a ton of questions to ascertain if we were really ready.
The key points that I carried with me were:
- Never sell for what you think you are worth. See if the market value feels big enough, but be realistic.
- Accept that the company is no longer yours after the sale. I actually loved the thought of this—the loneliness of leadership was beginning to show, and having people smarter than me to share the responsibility was one of the most thrilling things about the sale.
- You must be clear about why you are selling: Is it for the payday, or the day after the payday? I absolutely wanted the experience after the payday. At the age of 42, I knew there was a great deal more I still wanted to achieve, and I was beyond excited (and, of course, nervous) to be in a global market.