The powers of PR, pole and a business of the year award.

When Pole Junkie reached out to me (yes I did use that awful American phrase but hey, ignore that) around 18 months ago to chat to me about a rebrand, they had already made a dent in the pole apparel world. They wanted to take it up a notch which is where I came in. So when they recently won a Business of the Year award we thought why not share that news with everyone. Even the non pole community amongst us.

When we sat down to list the story of how Pole Junkie came about we realised they'd achieved a hell of a lot in less than three years. After a coffee catch up in 2014, Kirsten and Heather realised they had similar gripes when it came to buying their favourite pole brands from the US and Europe and paying the price on shipping and customs charges. With a decision to start a business and take out a £20,000 loan, and place an order with said favourite brand, they became the proud owners of Pole Junkie and started out from Kirsten's spare room. All in the space of an hour. How's that for decision making.

I suppose being math graduates they weren't short of how to work out a spreadsheet or two and in the first year of business their turnover reached £235,000 before more than doubling in the second year - although not without those scary cash flow moments that we're all aware of. Almost three years on they've grown to stock thirteen brands and have sent out more than 23,000 orders. It was inevitable they had to move out of the spare room and into a dedicated space to keep up with the demand.

So you can see why we had to share their story. We sent out a press release and were lost for words and so chuffed when newspapers from all across Scotland (and some online sites) picked up on it and wanted to interview them and print their tale of success. Yay! The BBC picked up on it and Laura Maciver from BBC Scotland came to interview them at PJ HQ. They even got over hearing their voices on the radio ;) 

Not a bad result for the first three years in business is it? Meantime we continue to work on the new season's range, and we've just shot images for their first lookbook whilst they get ready for the Christmas rush and look into developing their own range of pole apparel.

These are the type of clients I love; startups with a vision, sometimes a dream, but they make it reality and continue to do so. They don't stop working hard and they're brilliant to work with. Global domination continues...