In this solo Speak PR Podcast episode, founder Jim James reflects on how a historic UK girls' school rapidly pivoted to online, purpose‑driven learning during the COVID‑19 pandemic, and uses that experience as a lens to critique high‑street brands’ public‑relations responses. He walks listeners through on‑the‑ground observations of NatWest, Barclays, H&M, Marks & Spencer, Costa and Boots, noting differences in window signage, website usability, and the lack of accessibility for visually impaired users. James then ties these examples to a broader PR framework: defining a clear "so that" purpose, communicating compassionately, and addressing three stakeholder groups (internal, allies, external). He shares a personal anecdote about AI tools (WeChat’s WeRead and a Vietnamese AI reader) illustrating how even modest media outlets are adopting technology. Throughout, he urges entrepreneurs to ask why their business exists, to embed purpose into every communication channel, and to serve vulnerable customers, arguing that brands that do so will survive post‑COVID. The episode ends with a call to action for listeners to share the podcast and apply the insights to unlock value in their own businesses.
Chapters
Welcome to the Speak PR Podcast. My name is Jim James. Thank you for listening. I'm the founder of East West Public Relations, and I've been an entrepreneur for over 25 years. This podcast is made for entrepreneurs who want to get noticed for what they do. But don't have the bandwidth or the budget to hire an agency. So what I want to do on this podcast is to share with you some of the tools and the tips that I've learned that I use with big companies that you can use yourself that are free. So I wanted to talk today about school, and I've been really impressed with how the school that my daughters go to here in the UK has really managed to pivot. It's a school that's over 130 years old, originally was founded for the children of English servicemen when they went overseas to fight in, in wars like the Boer War. Can you believe it? The turn of the century. And so the school actually looks like Harry Potter's school, and in fact was Approached to be Hogwarts, but the the school owners, the Girls' Day School Trust, turned down the the opportunity to be the set for Harry Potter because they didn't want boys on the on the school grounds. Can you believe it? Anyway, so that was before it all got famous, I suppose. But the school got off to a bit of a rocky start when it came to the kids coming back from school and being at home, and there was quite a lot of. Disquiet amongst the parents on WhatsApp and on email whether the school was really doing its job properly. And it was a little bit chaotic, I think, in fairness, and everyone would accept that. But the school reached out very proactively, and now we're into, I guess, sort of week 6 and 7 of my 2 daughters being at home, and we have one in grade 5 and one in grade 7. And I've been really impressed how the Girls' Day School Trust has turned itself around. It's a non-profit group with 25 girls' schools in the UK, and they have managed in the last month to turn themselves from being, you know, a pedagogical, location-based institution into being a much more online and real-time learning facility. But I think that's, that's one part of it. What's also interested and intrigued me is that they seem to now have realized quite quickly that inspiring the children is more important than simply educating them. The curriculum for the girls is much more around choosing units of inquiry, activities that they might enjoy, and, and getting the girls to pursue those things. And I think that's really fantastic because actually this is a bit like the, the IB program, um, that my children did in, in China. And it's, it's much more around what are people interested in, what are the children interested in within a framework, and getting those children to, to start to work towards those things. So the older one today had a full day of online inspiration with some 7,000 girls from across the different schools, all logging in and watching women who are inspiring. And as I'm online first thing in the morning with Paul Dunn, who is, you know, an author and a TEDx speaker talking about Be one, give one, which is a charitable organization. I'm having my fill of motivation, and Amity, my older daughter, is having her fill of motivation. Now, one of the benefits of the children being at home and things relaxing a little bit is that we can go to make some essential purchases, and we needed to go to the high street today to get some medical some medical prescriptions. So I went to the high street, and I was quite interested to see how different shops have managed different ways of perceiving themselves during the crisis. So I took some photographs which I'll put out later, but we saw NatWest, which had a Post-it note for a heart. Um, sorry, no, we had Barclays had the Post-it note for hearts in the window, and NatWest had some quite good, uh, written branded information on the windows and so on. Costa just had some brown paper over the windows. Many shops were looking just as though they'd been abandoned, not just furloughed. Marks& Spencer's now open, advertising a sale, and also with a big rainbow hearts full height of the windows, uh, and with the doors open showing that they are open for business. I couldn't help but have a look at, um, the websites when I got home because I thought I would just see whether these brands are really, um, just being left idle on the high street or also being left idle, uh, online as well. And interestingly, the NatWest website is, is almost straight away about the coronavirus and getting us and getting the customers through it. I'm not myself a NatWest customer, but very much familial tone around it. The Barclays website was a bit slower to load, and it has a COVID page, and you can click on that, takes you through But it still asks you to go to another page to get more information. So it's like 3 pages away before you actually get the information about openings, uh, loans, financial management, and so on. None of them are mentioning the Business Bounce Back loan though. For example, the H&M website, which I couldn't help but Have a look at because the door says both we're open and we're closed at the same time on the on the building because they're open because of the air conditioning saying that they're open. They've got their doors closed, but on the A4 white piece of paper says we're closed. H&M looks like an abandoned store, and if you go online, interestingly enough, the the website didn't even pick up that my browser is in the UK. Took me to the global website. Once I'd found the UK website, I went to their website and found that it seems to be oblivious to the fact that there are, you know, millions of people right now having to stay home and avoid going out and doing social distancing. So these companies are showing us to some degree from a public relations point of view really about how much they care about their customers. Because these, these websites are really giving almost sort of tacit acknowledgement there's a difference to business, but not really helping by and large customers get through it. And, and I was interested because, um, I had been on a call this morning with Paul Dunn talking about this, this program that they have in, in Singapore where companies can use this application they developed to donate money directly to great activities and causes. And Paul Dunn was asking us on the call to articulate why we get up in the morning, and we'd say things like, so I can help entrepreneurs to unlock the value in their business through communication. And he said, yeah, but Jim, but so what? You know, answer the next question. What's the so that? What are you trying to do? So then I had to go back and say, well, I'm, I'm I'm trying to help entrepreneurs and businesses to unlock value in their companies through communication so that they can help generate more income and create more jobs and create more wealth and solve problems that exist in the world, which is what these businesses, our clients, are doing and these entrepreneurs are doing. And if they solve more problems, there'll be less problems in the world and people will be healthier. And they'll be happier and we'll have less conflict. So I was interested then that when we go online and we look at what these companies are doing, and I thought, so that this company is showing me what about how it exists? So when we're looking at our own businesses, if you're looking at your business and your website and your communication, Are you answering the reason why your business is open or going to be open? And so that you can do what? Now, interestingly enough, I was talking about AI yesterday and about my wife's excitement because the Chinese app WeChat has launched one called WeRead, and it's an AI reading books. So it's a perfectly fluent Mandarin reader. And then this morning we issued as East West Public Relations a press release and it got picked up in Vietnam for one of our clients. And I watched the— I looked at the website on my mobile phone and there's an AI reader which will read to me in Vietnamese the press release as it appears in Vietnamese on this website. On my mobile phone. So having, you know, we're seeing now, although as companies we send out print, the magazines, uh, even relatively small ones, although the, um, the Tech Times in Vietnam is, is a leading technology publication, it's by no means a, a very wealthy publication. They're using AI now to engage their readers or listeners. So I was also interested that on all of the websites I visited today, not one of them had anything for the visually impaired or for the sight impaired. Okay, so I did a quick look. There are some 285 million people around the world who are visually impaired. That's 39 million are blind and 246 million have low vision. Now, 90% of those people are in developing countries, that's, that's for sure, places like India. And 65% of these people who are visually impaired and 82% who are blind are over 50. Okay, but in the UK, there are over 2 million people who are living with sight loss. So there are 2 million people in the UK who are bank customers, fashion, needing clothing, needing food, and if they were to go online, they would be lost. So I ask myself from a public relations point of view, in this era of COVID-19 where people can't physically go down like I could today with my daughters and pick up what we needed from Boots, there will be customers out there, uh, who are isolated from the information because companies— mine, maybe yours— may not be serving fully because we haven't answered Paul Dunn's question, which is, our business is existing so that we can solve this problem. So we often get tied up with public relations about how we sound, whether we've solved the crisis, whether we look good, whether we sound better than the competition. But public relations is also about meeting the needs of other people, our stakeholders. I talk about 3 different stakeholders in our Speak PR course. I talk about the internal and the allies and the external. Now, interestingly, coming back to the school, uh, I'm having letters from 3 different groups. The, the head office, which runs 25 schools, has written to me today talking about the strategy for getting the girls back to school and about the long-term vision and the financial stability of this charitable group. The school itself has written about the facilities and about cleanliness and about the availability of classes for care workers and for grade— for reception and for grade 6 girls and also for grade 12 girls. Very specific details. And in my mindset talk where I talk about COVID being compassionate, optimistic, Values-based, informative, and digital. I would say that the school is doing that really well. And then I have another letter which is from my class teacher, and, and they're reassuring me that my daughters will be in and around girls that are also safe and healthy and have been keeping up with their schoolwork, and that also no girl will be left behind. That the anxieties that parents may have about their children missing some weeks or months of schooling will be will be dealt with on a one by one. That each child will have an analysis done of their learning in the last eight weeks, and they'll build a recovery plan. So as we look at our model and Paul Dunn's question about so that this this school is plainly. Saying, you know, we have a school so that your children are cared for. We have a school so that your children will succeed in their education. And of course, that's what I pay for, and that's what I entrust them for. So as I look at my own business at East West PR, I need to start to ask that question. I'm getting out of bed to help people like you that are listening, uh, hopefully to this podcast and finding it useful and insightful. It's not, it's not just for me, right? I, I must have that purpose, which is if I do this, if I get up every day and share what I've learned and what I've seen, I'm doing it so that you can get benefits, so that you could solve a problem that otherwise was in your way, so that you can be free to unlock the value in your business or service, so that you can create whatever value it is for you, for your family, for the people around you, the community and society that sustains your business. So as we go forward, uh, I hope that this idea that we have a PR story— it's not just the external one, but it's the entire way that our company behaves towards not only our best clients but also some of the most vulnerable clients. And it's only those brands that are doing that now properly that will truly survive post-COVID. And I truly hope and pray that your company is one of those ones that will see it through. Thank you so much for listening to my thoughts today. And if you like it, please do send a message, forward this to a friend or a colleague or anyone else that you know, any other entrepreneurs or people that are seeking to get noticed. For what they do. My name is Jim James. Thank you very much. Stay healthy, stay profitable, and keep communicating.
