How I Got Here: Mentor and PR pro Clarissa Harris on finding purpose in her work
IMAGE VIA @CHCHATS/INSTAGRAM
WORDS BY KAYA MARTIN
“You’d be surprised how far you’ll get when your main motivation is to see other people do well.”
Have you ever stalked someone on LinkedIn and wondered how on earth they managed to land that wildly impressive job? While the internet and social media might have us believe that our ideal job is a mere pipe dream, the individuals who have these jobs were, believe it or not, in the same position once, fantasising over someone else’s seemingly unattainable job.
But behind the awe-inspiring titles and the fancy work events lies a heck of a lot of hard work. So what lessons have been learnt and what skills have proved invaluable in getting them from daydreaming about success to actually being at the top of their industry?
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Welcome to How I Got Here, where we talk to women who are killing it in their respective fields about how they landed their awe-inspiring jobs, exploring the peaks and pits, the failures and the wins, and most importantly the knowledge, advice and practical tips they’ve gleaned along the way.
This week we speak to PR professional and mentor, Clarissa Harris. As co-founder of the boutique communications agency True Tribe, she’s worked with over 300 brands in her career, ranging from fashion to tourism. In 2020, she started Chchats – a personal brand and private consulting agency that spurred her to be shortlisted for the B&T 30 Under 30 Entrepreneur Finalist.
Obsessed with communications since high school, Clarissa tells us about the relentless pestering, long hours and dedication it took to branch out on her own. Here’s what she learned along the way.
What do you do and what’s your official job title?
I’m the Managing Director at True Tribe, a boutique creative communications agency based in Melbourne. We work with clients as large as Lululemon and as local as Proud Mary Coffee. I also work as a mentor through my private consulting practice Chchats.
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Take us back to when you were first starting out. Did you study to get into your chosen field, or did you start out with an internship/entry-level role and climb the ladder? Tell us the story.
I nerded out on English and literature at school. When a friend suggested I look into PR as a career, my mind went straight to Samantha Jones from Sex and The City and I thought her job seemed pretty damn great. I knew I had to get first-hand experience if I was going to give up my dream of pursuing law, so I reached out to a heap of agencies and got an email back from Thrive offering me an internship during my school holidays. I was immediately smitten with the idea of crafting stories for brands. Once the end of high school came around, I had a pretty clear idea of where I wanted to go and applied for a Bachelor of Comms at RMIT.
Throughout uni, I worked two to three jobs while juggling an internship in between. I sampled the field at ad agencies, not-for-profits, a start-up and in-house before landing my first freelance role as a PR coordinator for an author. That gig initially started as a small-scale media relations campaign but blew up gaining an abundance of press nationally and overseas. It became the precursor that would set my standard for future campaigns to come. I later scored a part-time role in the comms team at a law firm but found myself craving more outside the corporate arena. And so, like most students in their final year, I applied for a handful of grad roles before being offered an AE role at Dentsu Aegis.
Meanwhile, outside of work, my husband Tim and I created a blog documenting all the things that were happening in our neighbourhood. I would work these gnarly long days at the agency, get home and stay up all night reviewing interviews, sub-editing copy or writing blog entries. Not long after, we had local businesses asking us to create similar content for them.
After a little less than a year and a half of juggling the blog and full-time agency work, Tim and I went out on our own and launched True Tribe. As they say, the rest is history.
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What challenges/hurdles have you faced getting to where you are now? Can you tell us about one in particular?
Although it’s been three years since, the feelings of March 2020 still ring in my bones. That particular time was forecasting bad business for everyone. Melbourne’s lockdowns limited much of our business operations. We couldn’t host events, produce shoots or even meet with our team. I had heaps of friends and people in my extended network in the same position asking to pick my brain on how to pivot their businesses or start up new ones. We’d have lengthy calls or Zooms discussing everything from building websites to applying for grants.
So along with raising my then six-month-old son Zephyr and managing a company where every week felt like a series of stops and starts as we tried to navigate restrictions, I took a plunge and launched my private consultancy practice, Chchats, offering one-on-one mentoring to brands needing assistance. While the pandemic stopped work as we knew it, it also forced me to create a dream online business that saw me make it as a 2021 B&T 30 Under 30 Entrepreneur Finalist.
While initially, I wasn’t sure how it would play out, three years on, I’m glad to look back and say with confidence that I supported my family, team and over 300 brands through one of the toughest times in our careers.
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What do you want people to know about your industry/your role?
There’s probably two things that stick out here for me. The first one is that should you choose a career in marketing, remember that your education doesn’t stop at uni. Always be learning. I know for a fact that the strategies and tools we use with our clients won’t be the same in 12 months time. Marketing is forever evolving and we have to be prepared for that.
The second point is that running your own business can be the most freeing and rewarding experience, but it also isn’t for everyone. Behind the parabolic mask, is a whole lot of hard work that doesn’t always pay off. You have to be willing to accept that and be able to pick yourself up and move on.
What’s the best part about your role?
The freedom to clock on and off when I want to. When you love your job it doesn’t feel like such a circuit breaker. I have the freedom of flexibility and no job in the world can offer that, unless you create it. Tim and I chat about work all the time, but it doesn’t feel like we are chatting about work. It feels like we are brainstorming personal goals, ways to see others succeed and how we can stay creative in the way we approach our family and business tango.
At the end of the day, success comes from design, and behind every design is a purpose. When you design your business, or intimate relationships, or even your calendar, you need to ask what purpose you have in mind. If you start at that point you’ll find you have a reason to sign-in to your emails in the morning, make space for purposeful conversations with loved ones and even lock in that holiday window every six months.
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What would surprise people about your role?
As a Managing Director, I feel like it’s important to know you don’t need to be the best at something, but you should at least have a general understanding of your team’s ins and outs. Having started the business as a side hustle, I was forced into becoming somewhat a jack of all trades. I’m not afraid to do the work when it needs to be done, whether that be putting together a media kit, jumping into InDesign, styling a shoot – you name it. That comes with the territory whenever you run a boutique business.
What skills have served you well in your industry?
You’d be surprised how far you’ll get when your main motivation is to see other people do well. I honestly feel like I’m nursing someone’s baby when they’re trusting us with their business. As a small business owner, you’re able to see eye to eye and what’s at stake when things do or don’t go so smoothly.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to be in a role like yours one day?
Don’t overlook the small jobs. You’re going to learn more from tackling micro problems than chasing a large-scale project that you’re not equipped for. In this world, in this role, every opportunity presents new challenges and it’s never the same as the last one.
What about a practical tip?
Have peers and have mentors. There’s no shame in finding your path with others around you. While I’ve had mentors in the past, it’s only just recently that I’ve made an effort to place like-minded peers around me. Having someone to chat with who knows your world and who is open to doing 6am online yoga class doesn’t make you feel so alone when tackling work dilemmas.
Read the rest of the How I Got Here series here.
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