Published: Monday, 16th November, 2009 5:25pm

Sales beats the downturn

by Alan Bunce

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LOSING big contracts could have meant meltdown for Chris Hewitt's PR business.

Big clients for his firm, Berkeley PR in Three Mile Cross, paying healthy retainers cancelled their contracts as the recession took hold - but he was already in search of smaller clients.

In the early days of the recession Chris had set up a sales and marketing team to find new business and in the last four months he has picked up eight contracts, his best period since he launched the company in 1988.

He said: "We have won more clients in the last four months than I can remember. We are still profitable, just fractionally lower than last year.

"We won eight new clients in those four months and that is £300,000 worth of contracts we can say we have won and which are hopefully ongoing, not just one-offs."

Berkeley PR specialises in technology firms while its younger sister business, Ascent, deals in small start ups of all kinds.

Although the amount of business is lower, the volume of clients is higher with no single client accounting for more than 5% of the firm's income. Business has also been aided by online publishing outlets which have opened new doors for niche publicity markets.

Chris sees optimism in the small business marketplace and he is optimistic himself about coming out of recession.

He said: "This is the third I have been through now so I am getting the hang of them. Every one of them is different and I learn a new trick each time. We had our best years when we came out of recession because I learned things I didn't know before."