About Chalestra

Chalestra is an independent company offering high quality business services, and offers them to companies of all shapes and sizes.

Our reputation is based around our ability to offer a professional service, we deliver on time, and we deliver within the agreed budget. We charge strictly by the time we spend on a project, and we don’t ask for more. We are also known for adding immense value. Our reputation is valuable to us because we recognise that ongoing business, including repeat business, is vital to our income.

Our range of customers includes all sizes of SMEs all the way up to top international banks and consultants – the consultants use us!

What Chalestra does

Chalestra makes businesses look good.

And that's important...

Looking good, for a business, brings many things. It means it quickly earns respect and gets attention. Respect means that it will be treated seriously in its endeavours. Attention means it can slash its marketing bill, or, at least, use it to better advantage.

We achieve this through communication and presentation. A business, like a person, looks good when it looks its best and talks the right talk, the two issues that Chalestra is unique in focusing on. We focus on these because they're critical in relationship building.

Of course, this has to be backed up by substance, which will be found in accounts and other business reporting. But long before anyone looks at those they will look at your business, and you will get a large degree of buy-in if it does look good. We have shown that businesses can call much higher fees when they command respect, and look and talk more professionally.

A business that has earned respect will know its customers and suppliers will take it seriously, and routes are quickly opened for a sale or a useful buy. Respect means it will have to explain itself less when it seeks debt or finance, or it can become all the more powerful for the explanation or investment.

Chalestra does not indulge in design for design's sake - there are plenty of artists that do that. Chalestra's services are practical, to the point and with ambition in mind.

Our services save our clients fortunes and put them in the position where they can multiply their investment.

Our clients include a whole range of companies from SMEs to major institutions.

People and teams, promotion

It' a tribute to our service as we watch our clients put on shows with our help and advice. We put our clients in a position where they can offer their audiences confidence, professionalism and integrity, all vital factors in successful communication. We say we make companies look good, but that's not the end of the story.

The rest of the story is about the people involved, and the teams they're in, and the achievements they make. Imagine selling a company worth £1.2bn for 1.6x it's worth - we've done it. Imagine, then, how our client's team felt, the bonuses they got, and where they are now.

This is a measure of the true worth of our service, and there is no shortage of examples from huge companies to minute ones, from business recovery to a glorious sale. As far as we know, only Chalestra works quietly in the background bringing these results for it's clients.

Business recovery

Business failure is a part of business life. Failure happens to hundreds of businesses every day, and it's only a small few that make it to recovery, despite help from other agencies. Failure happens for a myriad of reasons. Our approach is different. We are specialists in the only topic that is involved with almost every type of failure: communications.

Sometimes, business managers call us in when their business is in trouble. They call us in when they want to throw their last all into saving the business, often on the wrong side of too late. Gather that we've worked with some very stressed people. Business recovery doesn't always work: it depends on the underlying reasons. We've had our fair share of successes of providing advice that turns businesses around. Imagine the smiles and relief when success is found. We stay in touch until we know that the business is stable.

Value added

At Chalestra, we are known for the way in which we can add value, as well as the speed at which we can bring a communications project together. By any standards, we have a huge amount of experience, and can see from a distance where value can be added, and build it into our plans. We can add value easily, as a matter of course. How much value we can add is, of course another matter, but it's rare we can't do something.

It is with this foresight and experience, that the magic behind our services arises, and makes Chalestra so special and important.

Why businesses seek our advice

The motivation for using our services comes in many forms, and for many reasons. The common motive lies in how critical the issues are to a successful outcome, whether the issues are the future, cash flow, reputation, integrity, success of an expensive project, relationships or even that there are nasty bridges to cross. Our services have also be known to have a direct impact on financial performance, even though it's not related.

Where Chalestra's name comes from

It was dreamt up! And it sounded nice. But...

The City of Chalestra stood on the shores of the Lake of Chalestra of the 1st century AD. Today, Lake Pikrolimni, south of Kilkis, Northern Greece, is the ancient Lake of Chalestra.

Natron was sourced from an alkaline lake with a little spring of fresh water around the Lake of Chalestra, a thermal spa, 'rising upon the centre'. "Soda forms in it abound the rising of the Dog-star for nine days, ceases for nine days, comes to the top again and then ceases." Soda of Chalestra (nitrum chalestricum, Na-Cl-(CO3-SO4), Natron), white and pure, much like salt, still forms in that spring today.

Chalestra is the also name of a butterfly in the subfamily of butterflies called Ophiderinae, so we're told.