What if this goes wrong?
What if I go broke?
What if I fail?
They’re questions that plague the thoughts of business owners, a heavy weight to bear for anyone wanting to start their dream venture.
But for Fleur Madden – a titan of business in Brisbane with a resume as long as her impressive legacy of running and selling successful companies – one of the biggest risks she could have taken was not going into business at all.
“I had worked in a PR agency for 12 months and I was also doing a little bit of freelance work for another PR agency,” she says.
“One of the agencies I was working for was meant to pay me commission for the work I brought in. And then after I brought it all in, they told me they weren’t going to pay me the commission.”
While many might cop such news on the chin, swear under their breath and move on, Madden saw an opportunity to do things better, differently and, well, bigger.
“I was 23, with absolutely no business experience. And I remember I went home and told my parents I was going to start a PR agency,” she says.
“So the business was effectively launched on the 20th of October, 2003. That’s very specific.”
Interestingly, being extremely specific appears to be one of Madden’s many business superpowers.
Madden, who is now the co-founder and CEO of women’s freelancing platform Freelancing Gems, saw a chance to change the public relations game in Brisbane. She launched Red PR (now known as The Red Republic), with the consumer market firmly in her sights.
“You have to remember, this is 20 years ago. PR was an industry that was very much in its infant stages. And especially from a consumer perspective. There were a lot of corporate PRs, government PRs, but there definitely wasn’t a big consumer agency in Brisbane.”
Red PR went on to become the leading PR agency in Brisbane – and expanded to Sydney and to the US while the GFC was in full swing during 2008. So successful was Madden that Red PR caught the eye of marketing agency behemoth McCann Australia, which acquired the business in 2016.
When Madden reflects on that wild ride, she says fear – or a lack thereof – played a huge part in her success.
“I remember when I first started the business I went and leased an office in Central Brunswick for five years,” she laughs. “I think being young, I didn’t have the fear that you would now have in terms of the responsibility you’re taking on by leasing somewhere for five years. I was just like, ‘Oh yeah, of course it’ll work.’
“I’d never had my own business. I had never run a PR agency. I’d worked in one for a year and I was a journalist. So I opened that office. I started employing some staff. We were winning every job we went in for and all the business was coming to us.”
Calculate the right risks, uncover the real gems
The lesson, Madden says, isn’t to be completely fearless. But she does implore business owners to understand when taking the plunge is not just the right option, but the best option.
“I think I understand more now what the risks are, especially when you have staff. I see it as a real responsibility, every time I take on somebody in their salaries,” she says.
“And at one stage I probably had about 35, 40 staff across the company in Brisbane, Sydney, the Gold Coast and Los Angeles. And I take that responsibility seriously. They’re providing for their families. So I do think now I probably am not as fearless as I used to be.
“I’m not risk averse. I definitely still take the plunge, but I weigh things up a lot more than I used to. And I think that’s also because after 20 years in your own businesses, I’ve seen what can go wrong. So I’m still all about fearlessness, but I guess I can take more calculated risks.”
