The Art of Creating a Successful Business in a Small Cornish Town

Helen Gilchrist is at the top of her game. At the impressive age of 23 she worked as a freelance journalist in central London, working for Time Out magazine and the Guardian amongst many other publications.

At 26 she contemplated moving from London, to develop a magazine based in the small seaside town of Penryn. It would be centred on the Cornish lifestyle, including surfing, skating and the arts.

She launched Stranger Magazine in September 2004 at 27 and successfully produced 16 issues, “We had at one point over 400 distribution outlets across the country, so you could buy it at Glasgow airport,” she said.

At 28 she created the brand Stranger Collective a successful copywriting company that would work with international, national and local companies, creating a distinctive relationship and reputation in the media business.

A bumpy road to success

In 2007, the magazine stopped producing issues, just before the recession hit “As we were publishing the magazine we were doing festival websites for ITunes and all sorts of stuff was going on and time was so limited that it was impossible to take time out and think strategically about what to do. Having had a break we then decided to keep it online, and actually, once we started having a break, then the global economic crisis started kicking in and coinciding with a downturn in the magazine and publishing market,” she said.

“It seemed quite fortunate really that we’d quit while we were ahead. It wasn’t ever like it was going to finish for good, but it just wasn’t really viable to be publishing an independent magazine, on a bi-monthly basis at that time. It was also quite hard based in Cornwall doing it, trying to compete on a national market as the four of us in an office in Cornwall trying to take on the vices of this world,” she explained.

As the main team that worked on the magazine altered, the increasing demand for Stranger Collective signalled considerable changes made to the company. “We carried on doing the magazine online but without the core team of full time members of staff. It has slowed down from what it was when we were publishing the magazine, because the demand for Stranger Collective has increased massively,” Helen explained.

As Stranger Collective was launched a successful copywriting business and undoubtedly Helen’s greatest successful project, along with her team, produced websites and marketing and communication services for international corporations for example; Coca-Cola, ITunes, the NHS, NME and Future Publishing.

Stranger Collective is also greatly involved in defining local projects in Cornwall, as creative designers and writers of The Port Eliot Festival website and writers of the University College of Falmouth and Dartington’s prospectuses; they have become an integral reputation in the media publishing business in the small county of Cornwall.

Helen’s involvement in the local community outside of the Stranger Collective brand is admirable, “I’m very involved in the community - I'm a board member at the Royal Cornwall Polytechnic Society (aka 'The Poly') and we’re working hard to help build it up to its former glory (in the late 1800s) as a nationally and internationally respected society,” she explained.

A big part of Stranger Magazine’s brand management was showcasing new talent in the arts. As Helen says, the company has worked with international artists at the top of their game.

Most recognisably “We had leading artists from California and Australia contribute to the magazine, people who I’m very proud to say that I worked with and we managed to get them to contribute to Stranger and predominantly because they loved the publication, there was no money in it,” she said.

“For the cover of Issue 6 we managed to get Andy Davis, who is one of the most prolific artists in California at the moment, to let us use one of his images and he didn’t even charge us for that. We also have Geoff McFectridge on the cover of Issue 8 and he did all the credits for Spike Jonze’s film Where the Wild Things Are and is incredibly well known, obviously more so now,” she added.

Building relationships and contacts have been easy, because of the high reputation of the magazine. At 34-years-old Helen Gilchrist with next-to-none experience set up a successful business, created a hugely successful copywriting company and has built over the past three years, a strong foundation of contacts, locally, nationally and internationally.

In 2011, Stranger Collective has surprisingly, despite the recession, been more in demand by international corporations. “I'm pleased to say that business has been going really well and we're busier than ever. Our turnover has doubled in the past financial year,” Helen explained.

New business relationships have been forged with multi-billion dollar companies, “We've got some great new customers in the past year. The biggest is Coca-Cola - we're editing a new online 'magazine' for them, www.livepositivelycollective.com it’s an inspiring platform that draws together some of the most pioneering work being done by individuals and organisations across the globe in the areas of recycling, climate, water, community and music/arts related to these themes,” she explained.

“It's a huge job as we update it every day and we're also managing the translation of each story into five different languages,” she added.

But with new additions to the team it is an attainable goal. “I have a new full-time Creative Producer, Kirsty Wood, who helps manage projects. It's not a writing role but she does help edit work that comes in from our freelance writers. We're also thinking about taking on another full-time writer, but need to think about that a bit more. There are three freelance writers who work with us most weeks, then another seven or so who we work really regularly with,” she explained. The new and exciting partnerships also include “Watergate Bay - the Hotel, Fifteen (Jamie Oliver's restaurant) and Beach Retreats (their self-catering holiday property agency).”

“We're editing a new quarterly customer magazine for Beach Retreats called SEASCAPE, with interesting features on; lifestyle, culture, food, design, property and environmental issues, also Origin Coffee - a Cornish company who are really on the up nationally. We've just done a brand book for them,” she said.

As the Collective brand becomes more and more interweaved in different projects, the magazine is still put on the back burner for now, as the focus is on developing and growing the Stranger Collective brand.

“Although the majority of our work is online, we love print and are still planning on doing another magazine, although a very different business model from the old magazine - probably only once a year, a much smaller print run and no advertising,” she said.

“It'd be more a way of promoting what we do now – so probably only available online and we'd also send them to a very targeted mailing list. The main problem is finding the time to do it! Our first priority is doing a new website for Stranger, which we're working on now and hope to have live by September. So far, we have been very fortunate that the recession hasn't really affected us (touchwood) - but obviously we always have to be prepared for things slowing down,” she said.

Tips for setting up a business

As the recession is hitting small businesses the hardest, setting up a business is a pretty risky chance. But Helen’s advice is to take the chance, if it’s a good solid business idea.

“I would absolutely encourage other people to start up small businesses – yes it is a risk but if you don't try you'll never have the chance to make it work.

Essential Guide:

 “Keep overheads down, and try to be as flexible as possible. Our business model works because it's very scalable - we only have 2 full-time members of staff and then a great team of freelancers who work with us on different projects. So we have good capacity when it's really busy, but if it's quiet we do not have to pay ten people's wages without decent income,” she said.

“Also, create a strong identity for the business (not just visual, but in everything you do - your values, culture etc) and it will draw people to you. We're very fortunate in that the magazine really helped us do that, e.g. The Coca-Cola job came through someone who was a big fan of the magazine,” she added.

Previous experience needed?

“Being a freelance journalist before definitely helped - I'd always been self-employed so had experience of running accounts etc. But at the same time, there was a huge amount I didn't know (e.g. marketing, distribution, sponsorship and advertising, human resources and managing a team etc) that I had to work out as I went along!

“The more training you can get the better - but don't be put off if you have a great idea and not much experience. Look at Innocent Smoothies – they started out as just a bunch of friends who were passionate about fruit! But obviously the more people you can talk to and get advice from the better,” she said.

Visit Stranger Collective: www.stranger-mag.com