“No” Means “Yes I Can”

Written by Patty Rasmussen Thursday, August 04 2011

Snapshot: Sylvia Allen
Take a strong-willed, curious, and intelligent woman. Mix her with a dash of the theatrical, a talent for communicating – and saying what’s on her mind. Blend in a heart big enough to embrace two continents, and the result is Sylvia Allen, 74, founder of Allen Consulting Inc., a full-service public relations firm with more than three decades of experience, located in Holmdel, N.J.

Allen gets results, and her clients love her for it. She is a professional in media relations and PR strategies, training/coaching, events planning, and sales training and sponsorships. She is a sought-after motivational speaker not only because she knows her stuff, but also because she has fun talking about it.

But her passion for business is exceeded only by her passion for the children at Mbiriizi Primary School, in Uganda, Africa. A chance encounter eight years ago led Allen on an eye – and heart – opening journey that changed her life. She has since started her own nonprofit organization, Sylvia’s Children, and has already raised more than half a million dollars in support of the children in this African school.

Womenetics: The story goes that, in 1965, you worked for a television station in Minneapolis, producing two television shows, but when you asked the executive producer for a line credit he said, “No,” and you quit on the spot.
Sylvia Allen: Actually I asked him why I couldn’t have the line credit, and he said it was because I was a woman. I told him, “No problem, I quit.” I gave my two week notice, packed up everything, and moved to New York City.

I didn’t have a job. I didn’t have a place to stay. I had a book, New York on $5 a Day. I went looking for a place to live and found the Alma Mathews House on Perry Street for $12 a week, room and kitchen privileges. Then I went to an agency and got a job with a videotape center as a sales secretary. The guy doing the hiring told me I was way overqualified, and I told him “Yes, but I’ll be the best sales secretary you’ve ever had and you’ll promote me in six months.” And it went from there.

Womenetics: When did you start your agency, Allen Consulting?
Allen: That was in January 1979, and it has evolved. It started out that my first client was the last one that fired me. I did some straight public relations, but I was running out of money.

McGraw Hill called me asking me to come back for a “great job.” I had two little kids, so I made a deal with myself: If I didn’t get any contracts by March 31, 1979, I would be forced to take that job. On March 30, I got the contract to be the executive director for the Vail International Multi-Image Festival. I thought, “Thank God! I don’t have to take a real job.”

For a while we were an ad agency; I hated that part. At one point we had four offices and 34 employees, and that’s just beyond gruesome. I owned a printing company to complement what we were doing; that was gruesome. In September 1989 we lost a client that was $1 million in billings. I called everybody together and said, “We’ve got to replace this by the end of the year.”

And the line I heard back was, “You can do it.” I thought if I can do it, I don’t need the rest of you. I made the decision in October to close all the offices. I said, “I’ll help you get jobs.” I called the clients to let them know they could go elsewhere, but they said, “No we like you.”

I said, “Bullsh*#t! But you like the results.” In January 1990 I went back to being a one-woman operation. Now I work out of a carriage house in back of my house. I have room for six people. If I ever get to more than six people, I’ll know I’m not charging enough so I have to move my prices up. I never want to go beyond six (employees). I hate managing people.

Womenetics: What gave you the chutzpah to make such a bold move, starting your own firm?
Allen: I kept getting fired. I’ve been fired more times than anybody you’ve ever met. I didn’t get fired from AT&T or McGraw Hill so there were two people that liked me.

Seriously, I kept getting fired. The last time I felt it coming, and the president called me in to tell me he was terminating me. I told him, “I tripled sales.” He said, “You want my job, and you’re not going to get it.” I didn’t want his job, and the crazy thing was the day after they fired me they hired me, independently. They said, “We don’t like you, we just like your work.” I’m very strong willed, and I’m good at what I do. I don’t pretend to do anything other than what I do, and a lot of (my success) is intuitive. I just know it’s going to work. I did an ad campaign and it worked. I came up with ideas, and it worked.

Just leave me alone and let me do my job. At that time I was in the middle of a divorce. My kids were little. I just said, “You know what Sylvia…just start.” I didn’t have any idea what I was going to do. I didn’t have anywhere near the strength or guts I have now. Now I know there’s no job that I would ever take as an employee. If you’ve read the book The Tipping Point (Malcolm Gladwell), you know you have this bag of knowledge you can tap into.

Womenetics: Where did that confidence in your own ability come from? Was it innate or taught by your parents?
Allen: I really am grateful to my parents. I had a very strong mother, a very supportive and kind father. I was told there wasn’t anything I couldn’t be. At age 5 I said I’d like to be president. They asked, “Of what?” I said, “The United States.” Then they asked, “How do you intend to do it?” Not “Are you kidding?” This was in 1942.

The other thing is that I hate losing. I’m an inveterate game player, but I damn well better win. I had a highly competitive spirit. I also had a motto, “Assume the role, act the part, and you become it.” You can build the outside and it works its way to the inside. I’m not kidding, I’ve done thousands of seminars and speeches, but before every single one I go through the anxiety of the damned.

There’s also a wonderful book that I finally read called What Makes Sammy Run (Budd Schulberg) that describes me. If I climb Mount Kilimanjaro, I’m already looking at what’s the next highest one. I don’t need to compete with anyone else; I’m so busy competing with myself.

Womenetics: What it was like to start a PR agency from scratch?
Allen: Terrifying, but I’m not very good at being frightened for any length of time. It’s a waste of energy, and I had two little children. I didn’t know how to do then what I know how to do now. I know how to go after business now; I’m much stronger.

Womenetics: Did you have a specialty in terms of which clients you represented?
Allen: At first I was nondiscriminating but it’s evolved to where I’m very discriminating. For example, I have a very good events manager and a very good PR director; so I’m going to go after work that’s events and straight PR. I’m a good salesperson, especially sponsorship sales, so I do a lot of that. I also get a lot of people who come to me with “ideas.”

I stop them right there. Unless they’ve got something formulated, a sponsor isn’t interested. I blow those people off. I have to be able to sell something with my heart and soul because my Sylvia’s Children is the thing that’s important. What is that Winston Churchill said? “You make a living by what you get. You make a life by what you give.”

Womenetics: For those not involved in sales, what does “selling sponsorships” or “sponsorship sales” mean?
Allen: For example in 1996 when the Olympics took place in Atlanta you had companies like Southern Bell or AT&T sponsor stuff. I’m the person that puts the Southern Bell with the Olympics or AT&T with the Olympics. I’m the middle person, and I teach people how to be the middle person so that both sides come out ahead.

Womenetics: Looking back, is there anything significant you would have done differently when starting your business?
Allen: I would have started sooner. I began it when I was 41 years old. Then I would have stayed more focused instead of trying new ideas constantly. Now I have a laser focus.

Womenetics: Are your children involved in your business?
Allen: Oh my God no! My daughter is a head designer for Soho Apparel in New York, and my son is a vice president with Merrill Lynch. They’re both doing well in what they want to do.

Womenetics: Switching gears, tell me about your first trip to Uganda. How did it come about?
Allen: In 2003, I taught a class in philanthropy and fundraising at New York University called “How to Ask for Money,” and a man named David Krentel took my class. He was with World Vision. By the third week he said he loved my style and said he wanted to invite me to go to Africa.

I did get goose bumps because in the early 1990s I got a master of arts in culture and policy and was required to study African culture and the AIDS crisis. When he invited me to Africa it took me by surprise.

I said, “Yes,” because I knew there was a reason. What I began to see devastated me, and on the very last day of my tour, a man who had been in every audience came up to me, handed me a plaque and said, “God loves you. The children want you to be their grandmother.”

My first reaction, and to this day I wish I had a rewind button, was to ask, “And how many are there?” By the look on his face I knew I said the wrong thing. I apologized. In sales you have something called TYG, trust your gut. This guy was for real.

I asked him for his name, asked him to tell me about the children. I told him that he had my word that I would be grandmother to the children. I didn’t want to work through World Vision so I came back to the United States and said, “I’m forming a nonprofit called Africa’s Children.”

But one of my employees said, “Capitalize on your name. Make it Sylvia’s Children.” That’s what I did. I incorporated in the state of New Jersey, filed my own 501(c) 3, and got to work.

The minute I filed I asked myself, “Now what do I do?” But I’m a PR person so I got to work, cranking it out. We needed a website, so we got that, www.sylviaschildren.org.

The first year we raised $3,500; the next year $14,000; the next $25,000. Last year I raised $114,000.

Womenetics: And the money goes directly to the children in the schools or in the village?
Allen: In the schools. What I’m trying to do is build is a model of what I’m going to call “Africa, Entrepreneurship and Independence.” We have a chicken farm now; we still need to get 400 more chickens so I can give eggs to the kids. That will give them one egg a week. But we can sell the others at the market.

I have a cornfield so we can sell corn flour. We’ve built a building with 40 sewing machines so we can teach the children a trade and have a sewing business. There are a lot of schools around the area that need uniforms; we’ll see if we can beat the price they’re already paying.

I’m going to build a health clinic that will serve the school and the community. As soon as I can get solar power then I can start plans for a computer lab. Once they get that, I can open up the world for these children. Right now, they know a 10-mile radius; they know their village.

Womenetics: Are all the children orphans?
Allen: Twenty-five percent of the children are orphans. We have 1,020 children now; 175 of them live on campus. We have a boy’s dorm and a girl’s dorm. The other children live with a guardian or have a parent or parents. We have a full-time nurse, 40 teachers, a kitchen staff, and guards, always, morning and night. We have a library and a well.

Womenetics: The idea is for the school to be self-sustainable?
Allen: Right. And I’m not a Greg Mortensen (author of Three Cups of Tea). My approach is vertical. You don’t build something and walk away. Our goal is to make it self-sustainable by 2012, then take the model and apply it in another village. That’s where my brain is going all the time – how can I make this work? What else can I do for them?

Womenetics: How does your work in Africa with Sylvia’s Children impact your day-to-day life here?
Allen: My head is here, my heart is there. And, this is where the money is. I’m not to the point, I have a certain dollar amount in mind, where I can kill Allen Consulting and devote full time to Sylvia’s Children. I’m not there yet.

Womenetics: How do you relax?
Allen: I’m not good at it. My mother kept saying, “You should relax,” and I’d say, “OK, I did that.” For me to sit and relax is gruesome. I am an avid reader, but I’m even obsessive about that. I love the theater. But I have fun doing what I do.

Womenetics: That seems to be a common theme with successful people, being passionate about what you do.
Allen: You have to be, otherwise you’re going to be mediocre, and mediocrity is not an option. I always say, “Why can’t I be better?” I’m always anticipating what will happen next, especially for Sylvia’s Children. For example, I want to develop a water catchment system for the rainy season. The nice thing is that because I’m “old,” in the African culture I’m listened to. I can get away with saying what I want done.

Patty Rasmussen is an Atlanta-based freelance writer. She spent 12 years covering the Atlanta Braves for ChopTalk Magazine and has written for Major League Baseball publications, Georgia Trend magazine, WebMD, and Blue Ridge Country.