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Golden Word staff members in front of its registered motto, from left: Catherann Sweeney, Victoria Concepcion, Jean Luther, Melina DeNunzio, Ashley Mills and Jenna Weston. (Photo courtesy of Golden Word)
An 8-year-old Richmond-based public relations agency has partnered with a leading international marketing and communications group.
Golden Word, an eight-person agency founded by Elisabeth Edelman, was acquired earlier this year by 5th Business, a sales and marketing group based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, with offices in Phoenix and Adelaide, Australia.
Edelman said the acquisition closed in the first quarter of this year. Terms of the deal, announced Wednesday, were not disclosed.
Edelman will remain with the agency in a business development role, and Golden Word will retain its name and current team, which now includes managing director Jennifer Salo, who leads the agency for 5th Business. Salo is also a director of 5th Business’ other companies: Clever Samurai, a marketing strategy and communications firm; and 360 Leads, a sales lead generation company.
Elisabeth Edelman
Edelman said she had thought about joining another firm and began testing the waters last year. She worked with New York-based mergers and acquisitions consultancy Merge, which connected her with 5th Business and its CEO Stuart Lewis. Edelman also worked with local firm Earley Business Legal.
“We’ve grown over time and I realized we could use additional resources. It was really about supporting the additional growth, making sure we’re giving our clients and our employees as many opportunities as possible,” Edelman said.
“One of the things that attracted me to them was that they had a very strong mentality of, ‘We want you to keep doing what you’re doing, we don’t want to change it, we just want to support you and make it as strong as possible and give you the resources and the additional vision that could help the company grow further,’” she said.
Lewis, who founded 5th Business in 1997, said Golden Word was a natural fit for the group, which was in a growth phase and currently finalizing another acquisition, he said. Lewis launched 360 Leads in 2013 and Clever Samurai the following year.
Stuart Lewis
“We have a PR and social media capability that we have been delivering for many years, so we know how to manage that business and how to deliver good value to our clients,” Lewis said. “And there has been no client crossover, so we are able to offer Golden Word’s existing clients a number of services that the group can provide where relevant.”
While Golden Word focused on public relations, social media and content marketing, its alignment with 5th Business gives it access to Clever Samurai’s marketing and creative strategy and 360 Leads’ B2B lead generation. And vice versa, Edelman said.
“We’re adding elements that they were missing and we can now offer our clients additional services in marketing strategy, digital marketing and design that we didn’t have access to before,” she said. “Golden Word will remain focused on PR and social media, but we will then be able to draw on the other talent from our sister agencies to support our clients and make it easy for them to do their marketing work.”
After working for local PR agency Hodges Partnership and menswear brand Ledbury, Edelman, a UR alumna, launched Golden Word as a one-woman shop in 2016 with Ledbury as a client.
The company has also worked with Hardywood Park Craft Brewery and Blade and Bow Bourbon, and current clients include Shades of Light, Duke’s Mayo and Garden & Gun Magazine. Edelman said the latter is a particular source of pride for her.
“I think it says a lot when the media asks you to represent them,” she said.
Edelman with team members at last year’s RVA 25 ceremony. (BizSense File)
Last year, Golden Word was named to BizSense’s RVA 25 list of the region’s fastest-growing companies, with an average annual growth of 87% over the previous three years. The company also registered a trademark with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office for its motto: “Speak like a human.”
After establishing Golden Word as a brand, Edelman said she was pleased that 5th Business wanted to see it continue.
“It’s a dream to find someone who says, ‘I want to keep the name, I want to keep doing what you’re doing, I want to keep the whole team, we love your customers.’ It’s very flattering,” she said. “I’ve put a lot of time and energy into this, I’m open to change, but I’m also very proud of what we’ve accomplished, so it’s really nice to have someone come in and say, ‘I just want to continue in that spirit.’”
Lewis and Salo said their goal for Golden Word is to grow it by adding new customers and offering additional services to existing customers. Lewis declined to share Golden Word’s annual revenue, but said the company has added new customers since the acquisition.
Salo is based in Toronto, but she said she travels to Richmond every quarter and stays in touch with the team through calls and virtual meetings. She said Golden Word will look for clients that fit its current portfolio, which includes furniture, interior design and foodservice businesses such as wineries, breweries and restaurants.
Jennifer Salo
“Our goal is to find customers that we want to help by offering them a diverse set of services, now that we have access to them, and build relationships with them in the hopes that they will become our customers,” Salo said. “We might even go so far as to set up lead generation activities and have some of the 360 Lead division members start reaching out to potential customers.”
While Edelman will remain at Golden Word, she said the deal will allow her to step back from running the company and pursue a longtime interest in writing and becoming a published author.
“I’m going to pursue creative passions that I haven’t been able to pursue,” she said. “I’ve always wanted to be a writer. I wrote a couple of books a long time ago that never got published, and it’s always been a passion, one of those things where I’m like, ‘OK, I’ll do it someday.’ After a while, I think, ‘If not now, then when?’”
Golden Word is based at 711 N. Alliston St., where it has been based since 2019. The firm previously shared a building with interior design firm Flourish Spaces in the Jackson Ward area.
The deal follows another acquisition this year involving local PR firms. In January, Big Spoon acquired The Apple Cart Co., a 10-year-old consultancy that also specializes in the food and restaurant industries.
