Meet Woman in Business Florence Quinn

Meet Florence Quinn, President – Quinn PR – This Week’s Woman in Business

Tell us about your business (what product or service you provide and who your target audience is).

Quinn is a lifestyle public relations firm. We develop creative strategies that build the reputations, tell the stories, and grow the businesses of lifestyle brands around the world.

With offices in New York and Miami and affiliates worldwide, we serve wonderful clients, including Waldorf Astoria, Guerlain, W South Beach, Ritz Carlton Residences Miami Beach, Great Wolf, Del Frisco’s and Naturopathica.

Please tell us what being a business owner means to you and why you became an entrepreneur in the first place?

I like the freedom to create that comes with owning a business. Running and growing a firm requires passion, discipline and hard work as well as the ability to keep going when things get tough.

What or who has been your greatest influence in business and why?

My coach Grace Andrews. I couldn’t have grown the firm without the coaching and therapy she has provided to me and the staff. Sometimes I tell her things I have done or am thinking just so she’ll give me one of her “are you kidding” lectures. When she does I shift.

What would you say is your greatest professional accomplishment to date?

Transforming Quinn into a lifestyle brand. We repositioned the firm and created a new logo, website, blog and social media platforms. Then we designed the Penthouse, our NYC work home that Gotham Magazine named “one of the swankiest offices in New York.”

What’s the best advice you have received in business that you wish to pass on to our readers?

When I first became a supervisor I had no training and I stunk at it. I was impatient and abrasive. I shared my struggle with someone who was a very good manager who told me her philosophy on management: “They don’t work for me; I work for them.” That has always stuck with me.

What has been the most effective marketing initiatives or programs you have used to promote your business?

Producing great work and results is the most important thing. Rebranding the firm as a lifestyle firm was a biggie. Opening an office in Miami, a sexy, creative international city, is another.

What one thing have you learned as a small business owner that has served you well over the years?

Get help — from your staff, industry colleagues and consultants.

Are there any resources or tools you’d like to share with other small business owners that have helped you run your business?

Really for me it has been people, both inside and outside Quinn, who have helped me enormously.

Do you have any new projects coming up? If so, please tell us about it.

We have just started to look for new space in Miami since we have outgrown our South Beach office. We will be designing a cool new Miami work home.

What do you do for fun/relaxation?

I help at my son’s school plays — painting and building sets before the shows start them working backstage during performances.

What is Number One Business Goal you plan to accomplish over the next year?

I want to build out our content offerings while expanding our distribution channels. I also want to expand our ability to provide PR-driven sales.

You want to write a book on — Stanley the Squirrel. When my son was young I made up a long-running bedtime story around a squirrel named Stanley. Each night I would tell him the next chapter. When it started Stanley lived by a swift-flowing brook, on the edge of the woods, at the end of a long back yard, behind a red house in the Berkshires.
Is there anything else you’d like to share with our readers?

Be yourself and don’t be afraid to be vulnerable.