Jonesboro, GA -- Louisiana native Jerrilynn B. Thomas went to college in Texas to study interior design. Somewhere along the way after graduation, relocation to Georgia, marriage, and motherhood her focus changed from designing interiors to helping women design their public relations strategies.

After she had her twin daughters, Autumn and Samantha, Thomas wanted to be a stay at home mother. The birth of her third daughter, Victoria, was the catalyst for her starting a business at home. With her twins starting school that same year, Thomas decided to start a business to fill up her time and contribute financially to her household. A public relations business, aptly named Mothers INC, that specialized in writing press releases publicizing the businesses of aspiring metro Atlanta mompreneurs who wanted to quit their jobs so they could afford to be a stay at home mom fit the bill. At the time, a lot of the day care centers were in the news because of child abuse and neglect. Her timely business startup and niche quickly garnered her attention from the local media.

Thomas' first wave of PR success came two weeks after she made her decision to start a business. She sent out a PSA announcing that she was available to provide free advice to working moms who wanted to start their own business so they could afford to be a stay at home mom. KISS 104.7 made the announcement every morning for two weeks. It resulted in close to 200 phone calls. Women were calling the radio station to get Thomas' phone number weeks after the PSA ran. A thank you note sent to the person in charge of PSAs resulted in an invitation to do an on air interview about how mothers could start their own home-based business. Thomas told the story of how she launched her business with only $10. Her advice to the station's audience included:

Start a business that used their current skills or interests to prevent boredom.  Search for a niche so their business would stand out from the crowd.  Don't invest a lot of money to start their business. They should only purchase what they needed to run their business and attract clients. If they didn't have a computer, they could go to a Kinkos or a friend's house to print their own stationary and initial business cards. Instead of getting a second phone line installed, they should get a ring master number from their telephone company so they would be able to identify business calls. Use PR to publicize their business and invest in advertising once they got paying clients. 

By the time Thomas got home, her voice mail box was full of messages from women who wanted to learn more about how she could help them start a business and attract clients. The PSA resulted in close to 600 phone calls within 2 months. Thomas only had to spend money for typing paper and stamps to start her business. Clients started pouring in. She used the funds to grow her business.

Thomas' success with radio led her to try her hand at getting press in the local newspapers. Thomas sent a press release to her local paper, the Clayton News Daily, about her success with the PSA and how she was helping moms start their own home-based business. The paper did a story on her. Thomas read an article about how the SBA had a women's roundtable program in which experienced businesswomen answered questions on how to run a business. It spawned the idea for her Female Entrepreneur Roundtable & Business Resource Conference. Thomas jumped in with both feet to find sponsors and sell tickets. She tested a fax service to reach the media and women who worked in offices. She and other businesswomen placed flyers all over metro Atlanta. Since it was a business event, newspapers placed it in their events section at no cost. A local morning television show even placed it on their calendar of events. Once again the radio stations announced her PSA. A local public television station invited Thomas to do an interview after reading her press release.

Word of mouth about Thomas' affordable PR services and success with getting her own business noticed started to spread. She needed a way to manage all of her clients and still have a life so she decided to package her clients into a newsletter. Every month she would have them submit press releases. Then she would typeset them into an elegant fax publication, aptly named Savvy Atlanta Female Entrepreneur. The newsletter was sent to the media and women who requested it. It was a hit. Faxing a publication became tedious for Thomas after a couple of years. She grew weary of dealing with fax errors; fax machines that were not turned on; and subscribers who were using company fax machines without permission.

Thomas legally changed her business name from Mothers INC to Savvy Atlanta Female Entrepreneur, revamped her business, and jumped onto the information highway. She taught herself how to navigate the Internet so she could learn how to use its broach reach to her advantage. Thomas discovered that a lot of women were setting up shop on the Internet. With the onslaught of women flocking to the net to set up businesses, editors were assigning reporters to write about this trend. A lot of articles and stories on network television and in national publications included web sites as resources to back up their stories.

Thomas found her niche. She launched the Women's News Bureau to show online micro-businesswomen how to become "newsmakers" so they could get their share of the national media spotlight which was being dominated by sites with deep pockets. Thomas' current services include print and online media kits, news releases, ebrochures, story opportunity research, and virtual public relations boot camp. She is developing new services and publications to assist businesswomen with their efforts to attract the attention of the media. As a micro-businesswoman, Thomas understands their unique public relations needs. The challenge of analyzing a business to determine how it should be publicized, keeps her sharp.

For more information about her services, contact 770-603-6521 or jerrilynnb@womensnewsbureau.com . Businesswomen can subscribe to PR Savvy Female Entrepreneur, Thomas' monthly enewsletter, to read about businesswomen who have received a PR makeover. A blank email should be sent to Womensnews-subscribe@egroups.com .

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