Startup 2 Balance builds communication

The company’s goal is to provide assistance for businesses that don’t have the necessary personnel to do human resources or public relations work, or those that simply don’t have the time or experience.

The balance in 2 Balance refers to helping companies teach their employees to better communicate.

“A business can’t succeed if it doesn’t have balance between its human capital and its communications,” owner Sheri Hawkins said. “We work with clients to help them find balance, through outsourcing some of the needs that they have.” Hawkins, the chief of staff at Noble & Associates for four years, and fellow Noble employee Kate Renfrow formed 2 Balance in September to meet what Hawkins said was an obvious need companies had for help with communication, both between employees and with the public.

“Companies might need help with a human resources component, a safety component, a marketing component, a public relations component, but it all revolves around communications,” Hawkins said. “So we brought in these senior executives that specialized in these different categories.”

Those “senior executives” are Renfrow, Noble’s former communications director; Jann Holland, a marketing veteran with 18 years of industry experience; Jennifer Riley, public relations specialist who has worked for Tyson Foods as well as Noble; Amy Carroll, owner of Cookies by Design; and Amy Squibb, formerly of Corbett Law Firm.

Hawkins is no stranger to the industry, either; she previously owned The HR Department, an executive outsourcing company.

The six recently finished a remodeling project at their new offices, 1355 E. Bradford Parkway; they hosted an open house event June 15 to celebrate.

Their formula seems to be working so far; the company now has what Hawkins referred to as a “full client list,” which includes Regional Ready Mix, Upside Down Creative Group and The Marlin Co.

Upside Down Creative Group President Jeff Jenkins said 2 Balance helps his group with creative marketing.

“We’re creative, artistically, with what we do in performance,” said Jenkins, who is the front man of Upside Down’s The Skinny Improv. “But what they do in publicity and creating a brand and propelling us to another level is just as creative. We make a good product, but if nobody hears about the product, we’re not going to be able to grow it.”

Marlin President Michael Stelzer said that while Marlin promotes clients for a living, 2 Balance will help his company do something it hasn’t been as successful at: promoting itself.

“We’re looking for opportunities to create a little more public relations for our firm,” said Stelzer, whose company is part of The Marlin Network. “We’ve undergone tremendous growth in the past year – we’ve doubled in size – and we’ve started to realize that we’re really bad in promoting ourselves. Part of their work is promoting us to prospective clients, but it’s also promoting our brand to prospective employees.”

Aside from the assistance 2 Balance helps its clients achieve, Hawkins said there’s also much-needed balance for the company’s six employees. All six needed to find a place to work that used their skills and still allowed them the flexibility to balance their work and home lives.

“Amy Carroll wanted to stretch her mind a little more and be involved with more than just cookies, and she’s able to do that with us,” Hawkins said. “She has a small child with another on the way, and she can work from home if she needs to.”

It’s all part of what Hawkins calls the company’s “little social experiment:” an effort to keep women with valuable communications experience near Springfield.

“We have a group of women here that I was really afraid the community was going to lose, due to the fact that they couldn’t find time for their families and do things they wanted and bring balance to their lives,” Hawkins said. “What we’ve allowed them to do is have other interests, time with their families.”