O.C. BUSINESS PLUS : HEARD ON THE BEAT / SMALL BUSINESS : PR Talent Agent Finds Work for Freelancing Colleagues

Jim Delulio, a PR veteran with nearly 20 years’ experience, began to notice that many public relations people were leaving big agencies to do freelance work.

So a year ago, he resigned as an executive at Paine & Associates in Costa Mesa and formed what he calls “the first PR talent agency.”

His James Communications now has assembled a database of 300 public relations “free agents” whom he farms out mostly to Southern California companies. Because he works out of a small Huntington Beach office and has relatively little overhead compared to a traditional brick-and-mortar PR firm, Delulio said he is able to pass along substantial savings to his customers, which include Lucent Technologies and Pink Dot, the Los Angeles-based grocery delivery service.

“You get high quality for less money working through a company like Jim’s,” said Sally Jewett, president of On The Scene Productions, a television production company in Los Angeles.

Delulio charges clients $110 to $150 per hour, about 30% less than a traditional PR firm, he said. Delulio takes about a 25% cut on each project.

The majority of the PR specialists working for Delulio do so from their own homes, giving them flexibility they could never have at an agency, he said. With the advent of the Internet and fax machine, most public relations work can now be done off-site, he said.

For Cinnia Finfer, a 38-year-old mother with another child on the way, hooking up with James Communications made a lot of sense. “While he’s out there actively prospecting for new clients, I’m working on projects,” she said. “It takes a lot of the stress off.”

The biggest challenge facing Delulio is finding qualified new free agents to add to his pool of talent. “You can never have too many good people at your fingertips to meet an array of client needs,” he said.