Welcome to…Welcome To The People

In the manner I truly intend to continue, I’ll approach this welcome in the way I want to shape an agency. With transparency and honesty. I work best that way. I’m also a shit liar.

And to be honest, I had an idea about this some time before today (sleuth’s among you will easily find out when that was), but then life - business life - happens. 

Christian Cerisola. Photography by Chris Owens

So then you wait for the perfect moment to come. And it never does. It never will. 

I left my last role with the intention of creating something that would sit between what I still think is a grey and often confusing area between PR agency and SEO agency, both battling to get to grips with the bit in between. Digital PR. I still see evidence of both sides getting in a bit of a mess with it. Enter Welcome To The People. Or so I thought. 

But on day one of not being employed anymore, back in March 2024, I hit send on that nervy first LinkedIn post. The one that hints at something exciting to come, but is also that coded plea to your network to say ‘I’m available’.

The time since has been humbling, educational and enormously gratifying. Turns out I had something to offer to quite a few. Several of those didn’t sit in that grey area though, but they knew my experience and knowledge would be helpful. 

So those early weeks and months weren’t spent chasing what I thought was my market. I hit the pause button on plans for the agency and spent time assessing the wider market, and letting it inform me of what Welcome To The People needed to be for them. It was a fascinating period. 

Brilliant PR agencies in London, in Manchester and here in my now native North East came calling, and I became a part of their toolkit to help better understand the shades of grey between SEO and PR. I was right, thankfully.

But at the same time, exceptional marketing and creative agencies from the south, in Scotland and a few places in between also knocked on my door, requiring PR and communications activation and implementation, both for their clients and for themselves. 

Some hated the AI-driven slop that failed to get to grips with their own tone of voice. Others needed strategic, c-suite intervention to help them understand either personal or organisational brand, cultural and reputational challenges.

I embraced it all, and so too will Welcome To The People. 

And I’ll continue to do it for other agencies and directly to clients. Because I want Welcome To The People to be a collaborator. An ally, not a competitor. I’ve worked with some amazing PR agencies and I want to continue to help. 

I’ve written (parts of) pitches for other agencies, I’ve helped with ideas, I’ve trained staff, I’ve delivered workshops and I’ve been a trusted sounding board and confidante to everyone from graduates just starting their communications and PR careers to CEO’s and industry leaders in their time of communications need. 

It’s been enjoyable and rewarding work, for them and for me. So why can’t I build an agency in that model? Anything now leaving Welcome To The People will be delivered to the quality levels that I’ve always expected of myself. 

I will strive to make sure anyone working with, or on behalf of, Welcome To The People enjoys that experience as much as I do. Being deadly serious about succeeding for my clients isn’t mutually exclusive from having a good time doing it. You CAN have both.    

I doubt many of you will have read this deep into this piece, but if you have, let me buy you a drink, and let’s talk. Let’s talk if you’re a business looking to communicate better with your audiences and you’re just not sure why, where or how you might do that in a more compelling and engaging way. 

Let’s talk if you’re an agency who wants to upskill your PR team, so they can more smoothly transition into understanding how their work will help their clients be more visible, both to search engines and to AI platforms. 

Let’s talk if you need to add PR and brand communications to your own agency’s marketing and communications armoury, so you can say ‘yes’ more often to those clients who trust you. Plug us in. 

One final bit of truth: When I say ‘agency’, I’m currently the only employee. I’ve used freelancers, trusted suppliers and other individuals and teams at the very top of their game when the client needs have demanded it over the last 24 months. 

I believe those desperate to tag that as something contemporary call that a ‘fractional’ agency, like the model was invented yesterday. News: People have been doing that for as long as I’ve been in communications. And that’s a long time. 

I’m not anything more than me. Not yet.

Cheers

Christian from Welcome To The People.