The first in an occasional series of interviews with marketing leaders from NorCal focuses on Kassy Perry, president and CEO of Perry Communications in Sacramento.

Tell us a little about Perry Communications Group?  What type of clients do you serve?
The team here at PCG is an elite group of public affiars strategists and media relations experts. We create environments within which our clients can get their job done — whether that  means increasing sales of a product, changing public opinion,creating coalitions to support or oppose legislation, altering human behavior or simply creating greater awareness of a cause or concern.  Our clients range from some of the largest corporations in the world to local entrepreneurial startups, as well as local and national nonprofit organizations, statewide ballot measures and indusry trade groups.

Perry seems to have quite a few national clients along with some locally-based ones. How do you compete against the big national and international firms?
The majority of our clients come to us as referrals from existing clients.  The quality of our work and our deep bench of expertise and experience allows us to maintain long term relationships with our clients. We are passionate about the work we do and judge our success by our clients’ success.

Many firms are reporting lower revenue expectations. Has Perry been impacted by the recent economic slowdown?
We have not seen a direct impact to date, however we are seeing a general corporate slowdown in terms of available funding for budgets and decisions to initiate new projects. As we saw the slowdown on the horizon, we streamlined our overhead expenses, and continued to work effectively. We’re always examining how we can do things better as we strive for excellence in all we do. In addition, we let attrition run its course. We haven’t replaced staff who have left due to relocation or other opportunities. We continue to think of creative, strategic solutions to help our clients’ ability to thrive in these times. Social media has played a larger role in new, creative solutions to offer clients. Many of our clients provide services that help people in need, and the current economic climate lends itself to increase the public’s receptiveness and sensitivity to assistance programs.

What does the future hold for Perry?
Perry’s future continues to look bright. The bulk of our client base has been with us from the start. We continue to nurture these relationships, present new ideas to help them, and they spread the word.  We are always looking for exciing new challenges, and we anticipate having to do more with less for many years to come!