Cannon Public Relations was established in August 1999 by Sharon Cannon as a Sole Proprietorship.  Cannon Public Relations is a young, dynamic public relations consultancy located in Chattanooga, Tennessee.  The firm offers a unique blend of counseling services to area businesses and organizations.  As a public relations counselor specializing in the electronic and print media arena that provides promotional, marketing and communications ideas that favorably present the clients to the general public.  As event planners the company can plan and coordinate events such as banquets and family reunions.  As a meeting planner/facilitator she can give your work group insight into better ways of accomplishing tasks.

Ms. Cannon came to the Chattanooga Small Business Development Center for help in 1999 when she decided to start her own business. She had been doing event planning and public relations work as a volunteer for many years and wanted to start her own company. Her relationship with the SBDC began with counseling on doing a business plan and setting fees and she continues to utilize the services. She now volunteers her time and services to other SBDC clients with marketing problems.

Business Profile
Cannon Public Relations provides creative marketing and communication services to our clients.  As Professional Public Relation Counselors we are dedicated to providing our clients with positive promotional and publicity opportunities.  We constantly strive to provide our clients with the highest quality service available, utilizing the latest technological advances in the industry.

The primary client base of Cannon Public Relations is the small to medium size firm.  These businesses are more inclined to take chances and are run by the same kind of entrepreneurs that run Cannon Public Relations; therefore both parties feel more comfortable working with one another.  Our secondary clients are non-profit organizations and larger agencies willing to subcontract a portion of their business.

The Public Relations sector provides information and expertise to a variety of clients on a contract basis.  The fastest growing part of that sector is the small “boutique” consultancies that concentrate on tiny but profitable lies in the fact that the consultant selling the service is normally the one performing the work.

The Advertising sector consists of firms that prepare written copy, art graphics, audio, video and other creative work for clients, and places the finished product in the print/electronic media on a commission/fee basis.  Here again smaller agencies have advantages over larger firms.  Small firms also have lower overhead, thus are more willing to operate on a negotiated fee basis rather than the traditional commission basis.

Cannon Public Relations has positioned itself as a boutique agency utilizing negotiated fees during the first three years.  In our proposals we stress our media background and continue to maintain our network of contacts.  As we grow in size and dollar volume, we never want to lose our creativity and boutique image. In order to accomplish this we place student interns in three to five person design teams for each project, giving each valuable experience.  It is our intention to grow steadily rather than explosively which could cause us to be run by business rather than us running the business.  All major changes are planned in three-year intervals.

The primary goal of Cannon Public Relations is to be among the top ten full service advertising/public relation counselors in Chattanooga within ten years.  In order to maintain our creative edge throughout, we will concentrate on the development of profitable niches in the marketplace.  During the first two years of our existence we focused on a regional client base and took on projects that had a dollar value of $15,000 or less.  During years three through five we will seek projects in the dollar range of $150,000 or less.  Years six through eights, we will seek our national accounts in a dollar range of $250,000 or less.  Finally in years nine and ten we will take on $500,000 projects.  After our tenth year, we will seek international accounts and take on unlimited value contracts.

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