Natalie Luke, founder and MD of Aduro Communications on the PRmoment podcast
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Natalie started her career at Shine in 2003 before launching Aduro in 2012. 

Aduro has a turnover of £1m and employs 10 people. It specialises in consumer focused public relations work.

[00:00:54] Why Natalie describes Aduro as the “Ronseal of PR”.

[00:02:56] Why Natalie believes it is possible to isolate the impact of PR in a consumer market where there are numerous promotional channels. 

[00:03:52] How working with entrepreneurs showed Natalie that if she could demonstrate the impact of PR on the entrepreneurs’ businesses, their businesses would grow and they would spend more on PR. 

[00:05:59] How Aduro has developed a model where it believes it can confidently point to its sales impact.

[00:07:08] Why internally there is a need for PR to be able to define its cost per acquisition.

[00:08:21] Why clients should own their evaluation and measurement insight, rather than farming the whole thing out to agencies.

[00:09:15] How Aduro, as a consumer agency, is asking questions of clients’ evaluation methods that the clients haven't been asked before. 

[00:11:55] Why Natalie never, never set out to establish her own agency.

[00:12:21] Why launching Aduro threw up an opportunity for creating flexible working and a genuine balance for Natalie.

[00:13:04] Why Rachel Bell has a stake in Aduro.

[00:13:41] Why Natalie started Aduro whilst living in Shropshire.

[00:15:15] Why Natalie regards Aduro's growth as the "tortoise to some people's hare" but the slow and steady approach has worked for her. 

[00:15:19] Why setting up Aduro has enabled Natalie to "grow a business around having two children". 

[00:16:07] Why Natalie going on maternity leave early on in Aduro's "life" has meant that not everything in the business needs to flow through her. 

[00:16:34] What was it about having Rachel Bell as a mentor that helped Natalie grow the business?

[00:17:24] How having a mentor has helped Natalie with things like the importance of business planning, networking, structure and having a five-year plan.

[00:17:43] Why Natalie believes having a financial director has been one of the most important things in the progression of Aduro.

[00:19:34] Why Natalie wouldn't have launched Aduro without Rachel Bell. 

[00:21:01] What flexible working means – because it's become quite a broad term. 

[00:23:28] What are the drawbacks of flexible working?

[00:25:25] Can you achieve as good a result for the client if the team is working flexibly? 

[00:27:54] How does an agency begin the process of making flexible working work? 

[00:28:00] Why, for flexible working to work in a firm, you need some of the key senior people in the business to work flexibly. 

[00:28:42] Does Natalie believe PR still has a long working hours problem? 

[00:29:12] Why Natalie believes that it's now unacceptable for PR firms to have a long hours culture. 

[00:29:44] Why, from a timesheet perspective, agencies should be resourced at approximately 60-70% of employees time, anything more than that is not realistic and will result in staff working overtime.

[00:31:41] Why PR firms need to get better at saying no to clients. 

[00:33:03] Why overservicing has decreased as the standard of PR work has increased.

[00:33:59] Whether PR has a mental health issue greater than other elements of society. 

[00:36:21] Why Aduro has resigned from a number of accounts.

[00:36:55] The importance of a genuinely positive client relationship where you can grow together.

[00:40:06] Why does Natalie think there are co