Michelle-Ann Letman’s manifested dream

Immediately after Michelle-Ann Letman was announced as one of the top three performers in the Scotiabank Vision Achiever Programme for 2024, she truly accepted the law of attraction - manifestation - as being real.

During the first day of classes for the programme on April 9, Letman — a former reporter for The Gleaner — wrote in the notebook she received, ‘I am going to be the Scotiabank Vision Achiever winner for 2024’, signed it with her name and that of her business, PR Belle, at the end of the page, speaking her victory into being.

“I applied back in February. Just one late night, I saw it come across on Instagram and I figured, let me give it a shot. I did some consultations, like asking people who I [knew were] a part of it before, to find out what the programme was like. Everyone gave me positive reviews and [said] that it really helped their business,” Letman, who was also working as manager for public relations and corporate social responsibility at Sagicor at the time of starting her company, PR Belle Media, told The Sunday Gleaner.

As a public relations practitioner and a graduate of the Caribbean School of Media and Communication (CARIMAC) at The University of the West Indies, Mona campus, the art of writing is what assisted Letman in building her career over the years and starting her career in journalism. Letman said that when she was about to leave high school, someone gave her a wake-up call which ultimately resulted in her building a career based on writing and communication.

“[When] growing up, I’ve always loved reading and writing. I’ve always loved the essence of storytelling before storytelling became a catchphrase and PR. I loved reading about people. I loved reading the newspaper and, when I started to take high school seriously in Grade 10 … someone from [The] UWI came and they spoke about CARIMAC in particular, and the opportunities at CARIMAC, and I knew I wanted to do what people in the newspaper did … and I was like, ‘That’s what I want to do’,” Letman said.

Now that she has been named among the top performers, alongside Simeca Alexander Williamson of Cradle of Life Limited and Jeanette La Caille-Delvaille of Quintessential Beauty Jamaica Limited, where they each walked away with more than $1 million in cash and prizes, she is elated.

“I feel a great sense of pride. I don’t even know if I felt happiness. It’s just pride and fulfilment, which I think is greater than the happy feeling,” Letman told The Sunday Gleaner.

The top three were selected based on their attendance, completion of modular assignments, and ‘real-life’ implementation of practical learnings during the course. Prizes included a combination of cash awards, business development grants, and marketing support packages, designed to further accelerate their business growth and were courtesy of LH Multimedia Limited, The Gleaner, Iprint, and Trend Media.

The Scotiabank Vision Achiever Programme was held for 17 weeks, with intensive training, mentorship, and business development for 25 ambitious entrepreneurs. Initially, the first call had 40 entrepreneurs who had to pitch their ideas, resulting in that list being short-listed to 25.

The participants received training in key areas such as sales, systemising business processes, marketing and financial literacy, while honing their leadership skills, before the programme climaxed on September 11, with a closing ceremony at AC Hotel Kingston, where Letman was awarded.

At the start, Letman said she was nervous when telling the panellists about her business “in that way to become a part of a programme”.

“It felt like school, to be honest, because you have different modules or different books that we had to read and, really, it was about how you took what you learnt from the workshops and the books and applied it to your business,” Letman explained.

She said becoming an entrepreneur was not a dream she had, but it was just the only way to build out the field of work she loves, which is public relations. As such, she registered her business on September 28, 2020.

“There was no light-bulb moment. It was more so a process and a journey of doing something for so long and feeling like there is a little bit more, not feeling totally satisfied and fulfilled with the grind of corporate and I don’t think any promotion or any more money or anything else would have filled that void that I was feeling. I never envisioned myself as a business owner or entrepreneur, any of that. I always, as a millennial, learnt to go to school, get a degree, and work to climb the corporate ladder,” Letman told The Sunday Gleaner.

“To be honest, I don’t even know if I truly identify [as an entrepreneur]. I know that’s the reality, but there wasn’t a point or there still has not come a point that I’m like, ‘Oh my God, I’m an entrepreneur!’ When people ask me what I do [I say], ‘I have my own business. I work for myself’, but I can’t pinpoint a time,” she said.

Letman left Sagicor in March 2023 and that, she believes, was divine intervention, for her to branch off as an entrepreneur where she could now focus only on PR Belle Media, but also her master of science degree in marketing with the University of London through an online long-distance programme.

Given that she had a corporate job upon registering PR Belle Media, she wondered if it would have worked out, and, in the end, the business became her saving grace.

“The separation was a great blessing. It came with its own blessing for my business personally and so on. In all things, I believe everything happens in perfect timing and in God’s perfect timing, even this Scotiabank programme,” Letman, who has also worked with the Jamaica Exporters Association, Courts and Guardian Life, said.

Celebrating PR Belle’s fourth anniversary yesterday, Letman is looking forward to her business growing into adolescent years and celebrating more milestones.

“I’m just hoping to build a legacy that’s known for excellence and one where my reputation is built on integrity and doing great work that I can be proud of, and, hopefully, when I have a child or children of my own, that can become their legacy as well,” she said.

ainsworth.morris@gleanerjm.com