The Accidental Publicist Who Built an Agency Around Being Useful

The first problem R Public Relations solved was not a client's. It belonged to Emily Reynolds. She had two children under five and a public-relations job whose schedule did not agree with the geometry of family life. So she went freelance. There was no ceremonial unveiling, no pitch deck titled The Future of Earned Media. There was promotional writing, networking, a collection of clients and, eventually, too much work for one person.

This is how an agency can begin when nobody is trying to begin an agency. Reynolds calls herself an accidental entrepreneur. The phrase sounds modest, but it explains the company better than a mission statement does. RPR was built to be useful before it was built to be scalable. Assistants arrived because the workload required them. New cities followed the relationships. The service menu expanded from publicity into content, social media, events, reputation work and crisis communications because clients rarely experience those problems one at a time.

Today the firm is headquartered in Nashville and works nationally, with a portfolio that runs from barbecue and boutique hotels to a disability nonprofit, a gluten-free bakery and an education organization devoted to exponential technology. The connective tissue is not the industry. It is the familiar predicament of a good business that cannot make strangers understand why it matters.

The second customer

A publicist appears to have one customer: the company paying the invoice. Reynolds argues that there are two. The other is the reporter, editor or producer whose attention cannot be purchased as part of the retainer. Treat the media like a delivery chute and the pitch is likely to be treated like junk mail. Treat a journalist as a person with a beat, an audience and a limited Tuesday afternoon, and the work changes.

“Generally speaking, though, we see more success with targeted pitching.”Emily Reynolds Bergh

RPR still writes press releases. They are useful for embargoed announcements, openings and product launches, where facts need a tidy home. But a release is a container, not a reason to care. The more important work comes before distribution: locating the surprising detail, matching it to the right outlet and deciding whether the story belongs in a trade publication, a local television segment, a gift guide or a journalist's existing editorial calendar.

That last step is unusually revealing. The firm's campaign reports do not only collect placements and coverage metrics. They also note which pitches got traction and which did not. The failure is not hidden in a spreadsheet attic; it becomes material for the next editorial calendar. Reynolds' advice when a pitch falls flat is practical: reconsider the subject line, check the target list, follow up thoughtfully and, if necessary, change the angle entirely.

What ten thousand dollars bought

PR pricing is normally discussed in the foggy language of “custom solutions.” Public marketplace data gives this story some edges. RPR lists a minimum project size of $5,000 and an average hourly range of $200 to $300. Among reviewed projects, the most common total is $10,000 to $49,999. That is a serious purchase for a small business, and still modest beside a large integrated agency.

One Nashville restaurant group described spending $10,000 after comparing small and large local agencies. RPR wrote releases, arranged media events and visits by influencers and advertisers, helped with statements, and joined branding conversations. The reported result was three television appearances and several write-ups. The client did not buy three guaranteed television slots. It bought a team that understood the restaurants, knew the local field and kept presenting usable reasons to pay attention.

Another client, a fitness studio new to San Antonio, reported spending $15,000 to $20,000 over eight months. The original assignment was media exposure. Three months in, the studio added social management. That is a useful example of what changes a buyer's mind: not a grand rebrand, but early proof that the working relationship is responsive enough to trust with adjacent work.

A restaurant instinct

Reynolds learned the craft around restaurants, including work connected to chef Jason Dady in San Antonio, then agency roles in Austin and San Diego. Food and hospitality remain RPR's natural habitat. These are businesses where reputation arrives through a peculiar mixture of appetite, service, place, novelty and somebody else's photograph. A hotel opening is not merely an address. A barbecue pitmaster is not merely a product. Each contains characters and rituals that an editor can turn into a story.

That instinct travels. For two Nashville salon openings in a crowded market, the firm paired event ideas with media and influencer turnout. For Sweet Diplomacy, a gluten-free bakery, it pursued national coverage inside the client's target industry. For Singularity University, the work shifted from openings to online reputation: articles, interviews, podcasts, press releases and accurate positive developments that could improve the institution's search presence. Same underlying machinery, different reason for using it.

RPR's public portfolio includes Puttshack, Peg Leg Porker, InterContinental Hotels, Formless Beauty and United Disabilities Services. Its own favorite campaign may be the oddest: a replica of the cottage from the film The Holiday, created by designer Lucy Small of State and Season. The firm calls it its most viral campaign. Of course it traveled. It was a house already carrying a movie's emotional luggage.

The offer beneath the offer

Competitors can write a release, assemble a media list and manage Instagram. Freelancers can be cheaper. Large agencies can bring deeper specialist benches. RPR sits between them: more functions than a lone publicist, less distance than a sprawling network. Client reviews repeatedly return to responsiveness, cultural fit and the sensation that the agency has joined the client's side of the table.

This is a business model built on judgment and labor. There is no software margin hiding underneath. The agency sells scopes and retainers, assigning people to discover the story, make the introductions, produce the material and keep the campaign moving. Its advantage weakens if the close-contact promise becomes hard to maintain. It also depends on a client having something true and useful to say.

The most copyable part of RPR is therefore not its reporter list. It is the loop: choose a business outcome, find the detail that makes it human, match that detail to a particular audience, make a concrete ask and study the response. If the first idea fails, save the evidence. A bad pitch that teaches you nothing is waste. A bad pitch that changes the next one is research.

In 2026, Reynolds was named a Nashville Titan 100 honoree, one more piece of visibility for a person whose business is arranging it for others. But the firm's origin remains more instructive than the award. A schedule failed first. Freelancing made life possible. Relationships made freelancing busy. The busy work became a company. The company still works best when it remembers the lesson contained in that sequence: begin with the actual problem in front of the person.