Lynne Golodner
Lynne Golodner sees opportunity when she sees a mother looking to get back into the workforce. The Southfield resident utilized those sorts of professionals to grow her fledgling public relations business, Your People, in its early years.
"Over the years I have had a lot of part-time help," Golodner says. "It was a lot of moms who didn't want to commit to a 45-hour workweek."
Golodner was a single mother with young children when she started
Your People six years ago. The boutique communications agency focuses on helping entrepreneurs, small business owners and non-profit directors build their organizations through storytelling. Think enabling these professionals to build business relationships via press releases, social media, digital marketing and face-to-face encounters.
Golodner was a veteran journalist when she started Your People. She wrote for a variety of newspapers and other publications in Detroit, New York City and Washington, D.C.
"I didn't intend to go into public relations," Golodner says. "Journalism was changing dramatically and the economy was going down. I wanted to take my communications skills and find a way to make it lucrative."
In the early years, the work primarily fell on Golodner.
Your People became so successful that she had to bring on help. Many of her first employees were mothers getting back into the workforce looking to resume their professional lives in media but still keep the primary focus on raising their families. It was a need Golodner appreciated and knew how to turn into an opportunity.
"There is an ebb-and-flow to business work," Golodner says. "We would have a lot of business and then not a lot of business. I always knew I could pay my part-timers because they could work when I needed it."
Today
Your People has outgrown Golodner's kitchen table and has its own office. The firm employs a team of four people, and is in the process of hiring its first full-time employee this spring.
"I just hadn’t found the right candidate," Golodner says. "My goal is to find the best person who will be an asset to the company and thrive in this environment."
Golodner didn’t seek out to employ moms on a part-time basis, and she has always been willing to bring the right qualified candidate onto her team regardless of gender or family status. Employing moms just worked out that way for Golodner. She also quickly realized that moms have unique abilities that fit well into the fast-paced world of public relations and small business building where people need to wear a lot of different hats to get the job done well.
"They have that innate ability to juggle things and multi-task," Golodner says. "I think mothers are uniquely qualified to do that."
- Written by Jon Zemke