That Solo Life: The Solo PR Pro Podcast

Let It Go

Let it go. No, we’re not going to sing that song. We are talking about all the ways solo PR pros can delegate to people and tools so we can grow our businesses and free up time in our schedules while still delivering for our clients.

 

Transcript

Michelle Kane (00:02):

Thank you for joining us for that Solo life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane, with VoiceMatters and my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hi, Karen. Here we are, another day, another episode. How are you?

Karen Swim, APR (00:20):

I am good, thank you. I, you know, it's funny for listeners who will later see the video, I feel like I am took myself back to 1970 for some reason today, like I'm wearing a headset over my head today and have this purple thing on the back of my chair, because it's freezing in my office, . And so, yeah, I'm good.

Michelle Kane (00:43):

All good. It's all good.

Karen Swim, APR (00:44):

Karen Swim, hippie. Karen Swim, coming to you from 1972, .

Michelle Kane (00:50):

I'll send in my radio request later. Oh my gosh. Well, I'm excited about our topic today because it's something that really helps us through our day today, and the theme of the day is - let it go - and no, we don't mean just run away from your desk and never come back.

 

Karen Swim, APR

Are you sure?

 

Michelle Kane

Well, it has been that kind of week so far, but I'm going to grit my teeth and get through. It's about delegation. What can we delegate? Because how else can we grow our business? You know, we only have a finite amount of time and energy, and of course we solos have a whole lot of get up and go and, ooh, let's do all the things. So how do we marry those two ideas to achieve the most success? We're just going to touch on some points of things you can do.

Karen Swim, APR (01:49):

I feel like this topic comes up quite a bit, what are the practical ways that I can relieve some of my load and gain back time so that I have the opportunity to work on the business and the opportunity to do more strategic work for my clients? And so I'm looking forward to chatting about this today and offering up some, some practical tips, some things that you can think about.

Michelle Kane (02:20):

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I mean, one of those is certainly your content creation, right? You don't need to write every single piece of everything you do there. There is low hanging fruit that you can hand off, or even dare I say ChatGPT, if it's an event release, something so simple that you could do in your sleep. Well, pop those facts in, massage it up and, you know, let it go. Or, even work with others. I know my local school district has a program called Pathways 360, where they encourage you to take on a mentee. So that's a great way to get help as well. Look around you and see what opportunities there are to mentor someone and also get a little help for yourself too.

Karen Swim, APR (03:10):

I completely agree and realizing, we should have set this up top, but as you delegate things to other people, you will have to realize that there will be a period of time where you will need to train people on what you want. So it's really important to, for example, if you're going to outsource writing, I think content creation is a fabulous thing to outsource and outsourcing it in a way that you can truly optimize it. For example, if you, for your own agency, write a blog, or maybe you're doing blog posts for clients, that is something that you personally don't have to write. But oftentimes we want to take that content and we want to get the most out of it by repurposing it. So maybe you have a byline opportunity and you want to take that byline and you wiant to pitch it again by slightly tweaking it, outsource all of that at one time. If you're chopping it up into social media posts, that's something else that you could do all at once. Make sure that you clearly communicate needs in a written brief or some type of document that the writer has on hand. Provide examples and then build in a window of time so that you could step in and help to shape the content.

Michelle Kane (04:33):

That's so key. I think especially, it's not just giving them an a deadline, but because, and especially if this is someone new that you're working with, or if it's the first time that you're doing it, because let's face it we tend to be type A control freaks in this business. What? Me? Who? And so you want to make sure that it's going in the way that you want it to go. It has the right tone, it's hitting all the right points. So I agree. Set up that check-in time as well.

Karen Swim, APR (05:03):

Yeah. And here's the big game changer. AI really has been a game changer in being able to use it for content creation, but that does not mean that you cannot still outsource that as well to someone else. Maybe you have an assistant and it's a good opportunity to really harness AI. You will also do better if you start with some clear idea because you want to treat AI like an intern where you're giving it enough information in the prompts to deliver something that's actually meaningful. The more you use AI, the better that you get at getting better results because you're giving better input. And so you have to realize that AI is a computer. So in the same way that you a Google search and you don't want to say, “Hey, find me a Mediterranean restaurant.” Where? In the entire world or in your neighborhood? You want to give it specific information because the more specific that you are, the better the answers are going to come back. And so, same thing with AI, but again, it's something that you could have an intern do, provide the information, and then you can go in and you can refine your prompts and tell it how to talk to you, what not to include. All good tips. So again, and that takes something off of your plate and gives you back time.

Michelle Kane (06:38):

Exactly. I think it's a great way to do it. I would say another thing too is even if you struggle with keeping your schedule, you could try and get an assistant to help you there, and make it a real person. We've talked about that lately, no pen names with your assistants, but, get a gatekeeper in some ways if that's an issue for you or if you struggle with creating that time for deep thinking or deep project work, especially. And, I know it's hard. It's hard to say, “No.” You want to please everyone. I get asked for meetings, and if I see that it's more than two weeks out, I start to feel bad. And I know that's, even in the moment I catch myself with that, Michelle, that's not bad. That's a good thing. But at the same time, if you need some help there, I think that's another way that you can take that load off your mind and just get a little help.

Karen Swim, APR (07:44):

Yeah. It's interesting, you know, when we first chose this topic, we were really thinking along human lines. And it's interesting, things have changed so fast that so many of these things can actually be semi-delegated to AI. So for example, when we're thinking about the writing that can be semi-delegated to AI, it definitely can cut down your time. Research is another area that you can delegate to a human being or to AI. You can have AI do research for you. Again, yes, you will have to fact check some things, and you need to make sure that you're getting back accurate information. But the better that you get at using AI, the better the information does become and ChatGPT for me, I highly recommend it and it has gotten better. And now there's GPT4, which is going to be a completely different experience for you.

It's 20 bucks a month for the premium version, not a big amount of money, and the time savings is worth it. So research. You can even use ChatGPT to write plans. So I know that that's one of those areas where as PR pros, we typically do not want to delegate fully because it requires some strategic thinking. But you can shave some time off of putting that plan together, putting together the charts, putting together the timelines by inputting information into ChatGPT. So spending some time there and then saving time and, again, maybe this is step one that you can delegate to an assistant, to a junior employee or even to a contractor. And then you can take that information and now you have something to work with that's going to save you time and you've protected, you've protected your time to be able to do that higher value work.

Michelle Kane (09:47):

Yeah. And, and I think especially, I know this is often my experience and it's because it's a lot of strategic thinking, but let's face it, these are ideas, ideas that come from our minds, and that sounded dumb, but you know what I mean, , it takes your energy. And, it doesn't matter how many plans you've done, you still sometimes sit there and look at the page and go, okay, I know I've done this a zillion times, but I want to make sure this is specific as needed to the client, and let's make sure this is the best it can be. And if you can get a little help with that, there's no shame in that. That's working smarter, not harder, which is what we should all be striving to do.

Karen Swim, APR (10:34):

And here's a big one, I think for so many people. Use a virtual assistant to manage your communications in your calendar. So this can mean somebody that checks through your emails and eliminates all the garbage and gives you maybe a summary of things that need a response that they can actually respond to on your behalf. They can set up meetings, they can manage things for you. Again, it just takes you training them on how you like to schedule meetings. Are there days that you like to block off? Or you can do that yourself by using a share calendar? Are there certain emails that you don't care if you ever see and they can just, you know, either respond to them or trash them to keep your inbox clean so you can use an assistant for those things. And, and that again, preserves your bandwidth

Because you said the key thing, Michelle, it's not always about the physical amount of time. It's really about saving our brain power, our energy levels. It is, it can be draining to sift through a full inbox and those messages don't go away. They just sit there for me, personally, and I'm sure for a lot of other people that are completely OCD, that clutter zaps energy, because it does, it's digital clutter. And it just drives me bananas. So I try to keep a clean inbox. So use a VA, that's something else that you can delegate. If you're somebody that's not comfortable with having somebody manage your schedule, I see you, I am that person because I feel like, somebody's going to put something on my calendar and then the day is going to come and I'm not going to feel like doing it. It's just stupid . It's dumb. But that is me all day long. I admit that.

Michelle Kane (12:23):

Like we said, let it go. See, I'm the polar opposite with my email. I'm not really a hoarder, but I like to know that they're there with me. A 50,000 email inbox doesn't bother me at all. I know…

Karen Swim, APR (12:40):

That just gave me anxiety. ,

Michelle Kane (12:45):

I think I've inherited my grandmother's depression era mindset. I might need that someday. I don't know.

Karen Swim, APR (12:56):

Yeah. Yeah. And my mentality is, you know what? You can find anything on the Goog . I can find it again. I don't care.

Michelle Kane (13:07):

I just had to drop that in, ‘cause I'm like, oh, I'm good. How many am I up to today? You don't want to know.

Karen Swim, APR (13:11):

And full inbox does not give me joy. Just, I'm just saying .

Michelle Kane (13:18):

Oh my goodness. But, I think because we've mentioned it several times throughout this podcast episode already, it is that training time. Because I think, I know for me that's a hindrance to making this happen many times because I think, well, I can just do it myself. Yeah, okay. That one time. But if you spend that “do it myself” time, maybe the equivalent of one to three times think, how much more time is that still going to open up for you? So this is not a quick fix necessarily. This is not just a, “Hey, could you call that person back for me?” This is an investment in your business and its growth. And I didn't slow that down because I think our listeners are five year olds. I said it because I need to tell it to myself like I'm a five year old, you know?

Karen Swim, APR (14:06):

Absolutely. And when you are mentally prepared to spend a couple of extra hours training along the way, I want you to ask yourself, will that be worth it? If you could save yourself, let's say if you could save yourself 10 hours per week, what would that mean for your business and for your life? If you had 10 extra hours in your work week, that could mean spending more time on actually focusing on how to scale your business. It could mean more time on, you know, business development, actually meeting with prospective clients and nurturing people through the pipeline. It could mean 10 hours where you could actually read some of those books that would help you to, to either, you know, just for fun or those books that you've been meaning to read that have valuable information to help you to grow as a professional.

It could mean that you have 10 hours to start that physical fitness program. I mean, that's a lot of time and it is within our reach. There is an investment of both time and a little bit of money sometimes. But it pays off. And you don't miss it either. You don't miss the investment of time or of money when you get to the other side of it and realize, oh my gosh, I should have done this years ago. It's, you know, bookkeeping is another thing. Why are you doing your books? It's just such an arduous task that you can outsource to a professional who can do your monthly books, have you ready for tax time. All of that takes a lot of weight off of your shoulders. And we're all about relieving burdens. And so you have to stop looking at the pennies in front of you and thinking, you know, “Oh my God, I don't have two extra hours today to go over this stuff.” Or “I don't have three extra hours this week to look at this and oh my gosh, I have to spend how much to do this?” because it's going to save you on the other side of it. So, first of all is shifting your thinking and understanding that you're worth it and that this stuff really has value.

Michelle Kane (16:31):

Yeah. And that is key. Think of this as a mindset exercise because our mindset is everything. And it's interesting. I've been in a couple of meetings lately where just in the course of our discussions - and I just speak from the position of I'm a solo. I spend a lot of time by myself here in the office and you work with clients and stuff, but they’re clients, you're doing their work. But when you're in some other circles and not quite sure what my point is, but it just elevates what you do in your mind. Sometimes we can discount what we do just because it comes easy to us because Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever, you know, we're just doing our thing, and you don't sometimes feel the effects of what you're doing. So, it is important to have those experiences and you have to free up your time to get there. And experiencing those mindset check-ins, I guess I call them that because it's so important and, and valuable to you as a person and as a professional and realize, oh yeah, okay, this is, this does matter. And yeah. Okay. This is good.

Karen Swim, APR (17:51):

I'll say it this way. You know, one of the best things that you can do for your business is to really fully embrace that you are a business owner. That you're not just a worker bee. And so when I hear people say, “Oh, I just go in a Canva and do my visual content, or I just do this, I just go here and I do the,” you're doing a lot, but if you were the CEO of a Fortune 100 company, would you be popping into Canda and creating your own images or would you be delegating that to someone else? So you have to really stop yourself and think, just because I can doesn't mean I have to. And the more that you embrace that role that you are a business owner, and that does not mean that sometimes you're not doing some of the things.

It's great that we know that sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do. There's the labor shortage. Sometimes you can't find people. You need to understand the parts of your business, but you're a business owner. And the more you act like it, the more that your customers treat you like that, the more that you grow up in how you price your services Yeah. And how you take control of your business and how you start to increase your confidence about what you're doing. But as long as you hold yourself down in that worker bee position, you don't realize that it's impacting other areas of your business. So I love Canva, but I have somebody else use Canva. I love all these tools, but I'm not doing all of those things because everything is not mission critical for me personally to do. And again, we PR types are such control freaks that we hate to like, you know, it's like you pride this out of my cold dead hands. We have to let go. And we have to understand that even with training, people are not going to do things exactly the way that you do it, but the way that you judge it isn't effective. Does it get the job done? Are my clients happy?

Michelle Kane (19:56):

Right. Right.

Karen Swim, APR (19:57):

Is it producing the outcome that's desired? If it is, let it go. They may not do things the same way as you do, I promise you they will not. It's okay because you didn't have to touch it. And so that's your goal is to find those things that, you know what? I didn't have to touch it. It happened, it worked. It's great. Let it go.

Michelle Kane (20:18):

Yeah. And all the more reason to have things like brand guidelines at the ready as you train the people, if they, they know the colorways and the fonts to use, and here are all the assets, it's less likely to go off the rails. So we can get our control in that.

Karen Swim, APR (20:35):

Yeah. We've talked about this before. One of the benefits of starting to delegate things in your business is that you also now start to have this documentation around your business, your process, your workflows. So in the event that you do need to take off for a period of time, and maybe you need to have another solo come in and cover for a time, maybe it's maternity leave, maybe it's paternity leave, maybe it's caregiving that is taking you away. Maybe it's a vacation. For any number of reasons, you may need to take a, a lesser role in your own business. You have documentation that makes it much easier to bring somebody alongside of you into the business. Or maybe at some point you just want to expand and you want to team up with another solo, or two or three or four or 10. You have processes. And so it makes it easier to slice and dice the work and to share with people how your business works, because you've already started this process.

Michelle Kane (21:33):

Yeah. Systems make the world go around. They're beautiful things.

Karen Swim, APR (21:38):

And by the way, that documentation is another thing that you can delegate .

Michelle Kane (21:48):

And you know, it's like anything, the more you do it, the easier it becomes. So we hope that this little pep talk to you and maybe to ourselves a little bit has been helpful. And if you do find this content valuable, please share it around with your friends and your colleagues on your own, all your socials. We would really appreciate that. And we do appreciate you giving us part of your busy day and listening to That Solo Life. And until next time, thank you for listening.

 

Sleepless in PR

One of our roles as PR practitioners is working with in-house marketing teams. Today’s episode was inspired by a recent article by Agility PR, 33 Comms Issues Keeping CMOs and Brand Managers Up at Night. Join us as we talk about their current pain points and how we can be a valued resource.

 

Read the article:

https://www.agilitypr.com/pr-news/public-relations/33-comms-issues-keeping-cmos-and-brand-managers-up-at-night/

 

Transcript

Michelle Kane (00:02):

Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane, with VoiceMatters, and my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hi, Karen. How are you today?

Karen Swim (00:20):

I'm doing so well, Michelle. How are you doing?

Michelle Kane (00:23):

I'm doing pretty well. We're dealing with the haze from the fires in Quebec. Thanks, Canada. We know you love us. So it's, a Roseanne Roseannadanna world. It's always something. So we just gotta get through it. .

Karen Swim (00:43):

Yeah. We are also under air quality alert here, Michigan. So if you're listening to us, by the time this podcast drops, we hope that your air is nice and clean and clear wherever you are. You're not under temperatures that are either they're scorching or too cold, and you're having a fabulous start of your summer. Even though it's not summer yet, everybody has sort of resigned themselves to the fact that we're here. So, yeah.

Michelle Kane (01:10):

Yeah. Please go outside and take a big breath for us, .

Karen Swim (01:14):

Yeah, please do.

Michelle Kane (01:16):

Well, speaking of nightmarish conditions, ,

Karen Swim (01:20):

Uhhuh, nice segue.

Michelle Kane (01:21):

Thank you. We decided to take on this topic today of things that make us lose sleep, things that might cause us to worry just things in the industry that may be real or manufactured in our minds. Talking about what's going on out there in the PR world and the communications world in general. I mean, we do touch on these things all the time, quite frankly, because we're here to keep you as sharp as possible. But we thought let's focus on some of our fears. .

Karen Swim (01:59):

Yeah. I love this. And this episode was inspired by a piece that Agility PR wrote, shout out to Agility. Hey, y'all. And, the title of the article, which we will link in the show notes, is 33 Issues Keeping, who's It Keeping Up Tonight? I forget

Michelle Kane (02:22):

All of Us

Karen Swim (02:25):

Keeping CMOs and Brand Managers up at night. So it was a really interesting look at, you know, several things, and I always like to know from the marketing side of the house, the pure marketing side of the house, and also from the brand side, what's troubling people, because often in our role as outsourced PR agency, the CMO is actually one of our primary contacts, and we work closely with the marketing team. So I found it really interesting and very on point to what others are seeing as well. So let's dive in.

Michelle Kane (03:08):

Yeah, absolutely. One, thing that jumped out of me was a, collection of four or five of the issues all, at least in my mind, speaking to what is sort of an attention deficit disorder that's happening out there. Yeah. many of the things keeping these CMOs up at night is, you know, optimizing the client experience, keeping customers engaged, aligning your brand with the consumer experience. And, really this just reinforced what I and many of my colleagues are experiencing, even when you're trying to either reintroduce programming that had been put on pause or that had been put online during the pandemic in-person events. And I think we're well past issues of participation in in-person events being because of fear of getting covid. But we're still all trying to put our finger on, well, how do we get everyone back? And we're coming to the realization of it's not just like turning the switch on and droves of people will return.

I have seen this literally across the board. Chambers, I have a friend who is displaying her photography, so she's having like a gallery event and its, you know, response has been underwhelming, even though before it would've been amazing. Now, I think one of the main drivers of that is really we have realigned ourselves of not running from thing to thing to thing. We, just aren't doing that to ourselves anymore, even though they might all be fantastic choices, but as a marketer, how do we reset those expectations? How do we handle that? How do we move forward while still serving our clients fun.

Karen Swim (05:03):

You know, it's also interesting that you bring that out because this article talked about, you know, being post Covid and, and you're right across industries while we are no longer in the heat of the pandemic and some of the protocols and things that prohibited us from doing things, we're still trying to figure out what normal is. And, and yeah. And everyone's trying to figure out how to do their jobs because consumer behaviors have shifted. But now the question is, well, we know that there were some shifts because of the pandemic, but we went from thing to thing to thing. You know, we went from, you know, pandemic thing to political thing to social justice thing to economic thing. And it's really hard to determine like, okay, what's the underlying issue? Because if you understand the issue, you can often then you can address it. But I'm not, I'm honestly not sure at this point. I believe that it's a combination of things. I think habits definitely change. I think our muscles are we're still learning to rebuild our muscles for socializing and gathering, and we're choosing, we're choosing fewer things, as you said, but then there's also the budgetary issues. Yeah. You know, look, everything is really expensive, and so people are being more discerning with their dollars and because they just are not going as far.

Michelle Kane (06:40):

That's true. That's true too. I, and I think it's, it's like you said, it's all of those things. And the frustrating part as a PR professional and a marketer is you feel so helpless because we are so used to nailing what the problem is and swooping in with three ideas to make it work, and Yeah. You know, I, I find that sometimes, even with, you know, a friend of mine that I help out, I'm just like, I wish I could have a hard and fast answer for you, and I don't, and that makes me feel terrible. So we're here today to tell you, don't feel terrible, because it is still, it is definitely something that is coming together now because I've never wanted to stay in downerville I'm going to flip that into, it creates opportunities for us, you know, to do things differently or, or just really re reevaluate things.

Karen Swim (07:33):

I think reevaluate unleash your creativity. But, but here's the most important thing that has not changed. You really have to serve your audience and go to the, Solo PR Pro blog and read our blog posts from yesterday because this, this leans directly into that. You have to really give people a story and make them feel and see themselves as part of this event. You have to make it more than just, Hey, here's a writing conference. Oh, here is a media relations workshop. There has to be more to that. So it's, yeah. It's, it's in how you tell the story around those events, around those things that you're, you're trying to get people engaged around. And, and I think that this is a great opportunity to hone our storytelling skills and understand that we have to tell powerful stories in order to get people to care.

(08:34):

Then we have to clearly articulate the actions that we want them to take. Quite frankly, I'll just speak for myself. There have been so many in-person events, and sometimes the subject matter captivates me, but then I'm not really moved by the way that they're telling the story about the content. I don't, this really benefiting me, and I don't see it benefiting me in a way that makes me want to put down dollars. Right. The conferences are not cheap. And with everything having gone up, I too am watching my dollars and being, you know, very conscious about how I'm spending and the stories are not grabbing me. So, as an industry, if we're not telling stories that resonate with other PR professionals, how is that translating into the work that we do for our client audiences or for our company audiences?

Michelle Kane (09:30):

Yeah, I think you, you nailed it right there. I mean, people have to see themselves in the narrative that you're putting, in front of them that way. It's, all part of the content experience, right? It's what we preach every day. You know, establishing your know, like, and trust. You need to make sure that the person that you are trying to do business with is going to get on board at that level of, oh, yeah, you know what? That's me. I really, I really need to do this, and, and I know I'm going to get something out of it as opposed to come to my thing. You know what to do. It's, it's, it's like the, it's like the old school answering machine messages, right? Hi, here's my phone. You know what to do. Well, no, no. We really need to hone in on the whole customer experience when they engage with whatever we put out there, content initiatives, events.

Karen Swim (10:26):

Absolutely. I mean, I see a lot of dry, boring facts or, you know, it's, you know, come because this fantastic speaker. Yeah. Okay, well, that person might be famous to somebody else, but not to me. I don't even know who that is. So

Michelle Kane (10:43):

Or, you know, I can find 'em on YouTube, right. .

Karen Swim (10:45):

Yeah. Like, that's not exactly enough for me. I need, you know, and so yeah. It, it is an opportunity for us to tell stronger, more powerful stories. One of the other things that jumped out at me from this list, there are a couple things. One is that ROI was at the top of the list. Yeah. we don't even need to go into this in detail because we've talked about it ad nauseum on this podcast. There is a critical need. So I want that to really sink in today. If CMOs are up at night, because they need to show ROI simultaneously, they're worried about budgets, and of course they're worried about layoffs because all of this trickles downhill. If you cannot demonstrate roi, your budgets get cut, your budgets get cut, and then you're still forced to show ROI. You're going to have to start making harder decisions.

(11:44):

And this is happening in every industry. Right now. We're seeing marketing budgets being cut. We know that marketing budgets are always the first to get cut. They're always the first to get cut, because CEOs do not see the ROI. Now, if they saw marketing as a sales driver, and they could make that connection that this spend is actually driving in business, and rather than cutting it right now, as we're trying to drive to the bottom line, we need to increase it. Mm-Hmm. , clearly we're not doing a good enough job at demonstrating that line. And as outsourced PR people, again, if you're not comfortable with ROI please learn. There's so many resources to help you to get better at reporting metrics and showing your value. And we can no longer say, well, you know, these things take time. Well, you know, there's not always a direct line. You have to align with what your clients care about most. And today, that's money. And, and guess what? It was, it was money 10 years ago. It was money 30 years ago. Because no one wants to spend, if they're not seeing a financial benefit, they have to see the financial benefit in their decisions. And so it's up to us to make sure that we make those connections.

Michelle Kane (13:07):

Yeah. Even more importantly, because we know that their first instinct to cut is the last thing you should do, because how else are people gonna know about you? But okay, CEOs,

Karen Swim (13:22):

And, and we know that, but here's, you know, yeah. Just go back to story again, right? Yes. We know that every single marketing, PR, communications professional knows that it, it's the wrong decision to make. But are we telling the right story to the people who hold the pen? Are we, are we making it powerful enough for them? Are we articulating it clearly enough that it's not just something that we all know, it's not inside baseball knowledge, but that it's something that they now know, understand, have internalized, and are working around not making those cuts. Right. And if the answer is no, they don't get it, then we have to point those fingers back at ourself and go, okay, let's roll up our sleeves and figure out how to do a better job of demonstrating this. Because clearly we're not doing that. And, and, I mean, it's happened to me too. It's happened to all of us. And I think we have to hold ourselves accountable. Like, okay, where did I miss it? What information did I not provide and did I not tell the story in the right way?

Michelle Kane (14:33):

Yeah. And, and I mean, that's a huge point that you're making because it comes back to the, another thing that we, we keep saying is, you know, everything communicates. So you're not just storytelling for the brand or for the client. You need to be storytelling to the client as well.

Karen Swim (14:51):

Absolutely. And storytelling that plays into another thing. So here's something that really jumped out at me on this list. It said that 15% of the nightmares that they've listed in this post had increased this year. Yes. And number two on the list was aligning brand and consumer expectations. And so I found that incredibly interesting because I was just reading a piece that talked about how brands are really struggling. So consumers, you know, we went through this, you know, the pandemic and all of the things that happened, and consumers had a heightened demand for brands being corporate citizens. They wanted brands to be active in, issues in national issues. They wanted them to speak out about policies, they wanted them to speak out about social justice. The tide has turned a little bit in that we're here in the United States, and you know, I'm sure this is true in other countries because every country has had their political turmoil of late.

(16:07):

There is this turning of the tide where the divisions are so deep and where issues have become so weaponized that no matter what a brand does, they're going to make someone unhappy. Yeah. And so we've seen this with Bud Light. We've seen it with Target, we've seen it, we've just seen it across the board where, you know, even libraries, which used to be in my mind, a center of neutrality have become a lightning rod. And so it's really difficult. So, you know, you're c of a company and you want to stay true to your company mission, vision, and values. You want to stay true to your audience and be supportive of your audience. You want to be a good corporate citizen. But if you speak up about things, then you risk, like, Bud light, they said, you know, there was a quote that said they're taking a permanent 15% haircut.

(17:04):

They're, those people are gone. They're not coming back. You may as well lower your expectations to meet the new reality. So this is true of companies. And so if you're a brand, you know, they would rather stay out of this. Trust me. They would rather just stay out of this and, and let the people have their say and just keep doing their thing and serving all of their customers with, with the things that they have to offer. But the audience is not allowing that, except the audience is so polarized. Right. That were almost a no win situation. And we PR people this, this hits us squarely in our wheelhouse because Sure does. Finding that crisis management, we are exercising those muscles like never before. I mean, yep. We are ripped in the crisis muscles, muscle department. I wish my abs were as ripped as my crisis muscle

Michelle Kane (18:02):

. Oh, if only that would work. Oh my goodness. That would be wonderful. Cause

Karen Swim (18:09):

We're really having to be so sharp, and we're having to question everything, and we're having to prepare brands that even when we have done all of the right things, even when we, we are 100% on the side of Right. Someone will be mad. Someone will be mad.

Michelle Kane (18:27):

Yeah. You know, and it can be very exhausting because it, it even comes down to even social media posts of do we say anything about this? Do we say, you know, do we just wish anyone anything? And Oh my gosh. And you know, I believe that at the crux of it all, truth still matters. Truth should still be our paramount core value. And from there, you need to work with your clients or help your clients navigate. Okay. What are these hills worth dying on, so to speak? You know, it's, with, with beer, it's a different question with libraries, a completely different question. I know I've shared with Karen, I'm working with our local library now, and it's just, the onslaught is maddening. And, you know, I guess to our advantage, it's not really based in truth, but it's still a brush fire that we have to deal with's.

Karen Swim (19:27):

You know, honestly, every brand should have a matrix of the issues. Yes. And when they're going to respond. One of the things that drives me crazy are things like, happy Memorial Day. Well, you don't say Happy Memorial Day. Cause Memorial Day is honoring fallen soldiers. It's actually a very solemn Right. Very serious holiday. I get it. You know, in America, if, if there's a holiday, we're going to have a cookout. We're going to w party. Except it really isn't a party type of holiday. No. I don't care how you spend it, you know, that's fine. Like, Americans are gonna do what we're gonna do. Hey, we got a day off, we are going to celebrate it. But in the way that you communicate to your audience should be appropriate. And brands are super guilty of this. How many companies have Memorial Day sales? Why are you having a Memorial Day sale Right. On a somber Holiday. Right. And, and by the way, how hypocritical are we? Other countries look at us and they're like, we don't understand America. You guys flyflags all the time, and your military people wear hats that, that have this stuff on it. And we're not even allowed to wear uniforms in public. And we never do this except for, except for on designated holidays. Right.

(20:49):

America, the patriotic country that flies flags all the time. And our military people walk around and we're thanking everybody for their service everywhere we go, me include it. Mm-Hmm. on the holidays that actually matter. , we don't spend them doing the things that they were meant to. How many of you are going to Veterans celebrations and really honoring our military? Right. Or shopping the Veteran's Day sales on Memorial Day. We're out here saying, happy Memorial Day. Well, what's happy about a bunch of people who died for our country? So

Michelle Kane (21:20):

, I know. It's, we're, we're, we're a little special as a culture,

Karen Swim (21:28):

You know, I mean, we're out there, you know, I see companies now that have turned their logosnto the pride colors. But

Michelle Kane (21:36):

Where are you the other months of the year?

Karen Swim (21:38):

Where are you the other months of the year? Yeah. What does your company really look like? You're celebrating every month, you know, native American Month, you're celebrating AAPI month, you're celebrating Black History Month, but you're a company that has zero diversity, like none. Right. Right. And so we have to, we have to exercise sanity in terms of our communication, and we have to be authentic. Right. And if you are not doing these things, then

Michelle Kane (22:10):

Don't participate

Karen Swim (22:11):

These prompts in these months to take action rather than just join the club and turn your logo a different color it. Right. It, it's just disingenuous. It's not Okay, don't do that. We know that PR pros know these things. And so our message to PR pros is stick to giving wise counsel. Do not be afraid to stand up to clients and always provide the right advice, because we know that, you know, that these things are absolutely insane. But you have to, again, this is communication. You have to communicate this to your clients, and you have to be willing to stand behind that and tell the stories that they understand why you can't just do these things. Why you can't be copycatting what everybody else is doing. I mean, I, I'm looking at all of the stuff and I'm like, wow, this is really fascinating. Mm-Hmm. and so not aligned with who you are as a company, but okay.

Michelle Kane (23:19):

Yeah. I mean, that's the main thing, right? You want to make sure that your clients know who they are, they know their identity, they know their, their ethos, they know their why. And, just work with that. Just, you know, and, and it's okay. I mean, if you don't jump on all the bandwagons, it doesn't mean you're not supportive of those issues. Yeah. And in fact, in many ways, it makes me feel like you're less exp exploitative of it. Right. if the, the, you know, walk your talk, if you do that every day, 365 days a year, you'll be much better off. You'll be more trusted. I'm not saying that all the companies that jump on the bandwagons are disingenuous, but you, you guys know what we mean, . It's,

Karen Swim (24:08):

Yeah.

Michelle Kane (24:09):

It's just so much better if you're just authentic every day of if someone can look at your, your client's brand and say, I know, you know, most of the time they're good people. I know they try. At least I know they're trying, they're trying to do the right thing by me and by their employees. So, you know, working from that angle, I hate to call it an angle, but working from that position yes. I think will serve you best. And of course, serve your clients best.

Karen Swim (24:38):

I completely agree with you. That is such a good point. And so, yeah. You know, it's, when I read through this list of issues, and as we've talked through this today and, and we barely, you know, obviously there were 33, we could go deep on any one of these 33. Yeah. It's, you know, it reminds me why public relations always ends up on the list of most stressful jobs,

Michelle Kane (25:04):

Right.

Karen Swim (25:04):

. And we want you to know that we see you, we care for you 365 days a year. We do, we do. Whether or not we're recording that, we have your back. And we understand that it's really tough. And so we want you not to be awake at night worrying about these issues. We want you to look at these lists and we want you to just sit down, you know, take some notes, reflect on your practices, because our goal is to always learn how to manage things better. And we should all do great work. Be proud of the work that we do. Be proud of where you are today, even as you strive to grow. Tomorrow, you know, every day is a chance to do better than you did the day before, but we want you to also, at the end of a good day, we want you to just lay your head down at night and sleep and not have night terrrors or not be stressed out and, and not be, you know, popping in acids because your clients have you in such angst. This work is tough. Yeah. And it's complex, but it's also rewarding. And it can be very fun. And you should feel good about the job that you're doing and not lay awake at night. Leave that to the CMOs. If, if they want to not sleep at night and have night terrors more power to you,

Michelle Kane (26:23):

Let 'em,

Karen Swim (26:24):

My job is to try and help you not to have that experience. I'm gonna do my part. I can't control everything, but when I'm working with you, my job is let's all get a good night's sleep. .

Michelle Kane (26:36):

Yeah, no, so true. Because, you know, I know as you and I have joked off, off air, it's like, yeah, when I actually get good sleep, it's amazing how much better I feel. Oh, it's all about the sleep. Oh. And, I know how hard it is sometimes to put those thoughts down and put them away, but what I tell myself is, there is nothing I can do about X, Y, or Z in the next six to eight hours. So I'm just going to put it in a little box and I'm going to sleep.

Karen Swim (27:05):

And by the way, you are so much better equipped to handle all of these issues when you sleep at night. So

Michelle Kane (27:11):

Oh, amen.

Karen Swim (27:13):

Issues. Keep you up at night, get a good night's sleep, and you know what, you'll wake up in the morning and you will live another day to tackle them all.

Michelle Kane (27:22):

That's right. You'll be less likely to freak out on someone, which is always a good thing, .

Karen Swim (27:26):

Yeah. On those days when you haven't slept well or you're just not feeling it, just make sure to protect others around you. It's like, yeah, I'm not peopling today, .

Michelle Kane (27:41):

Exactly. Exactly. Well, we hope we've provided some inspiration or some moments where you can just nod along and go, yeah, that's, that is what we're here for. Andif you're getting value out of us, please share us around tell people to come listen to That Solo Life. And until next time, thanks for listening.

 

On Trend with Chip Griffin

AI, business development, pricing, the future of PR - all the latest trends. Oh, the things we get to talk about when we’re joined by Chip Griffin of the Small Agency Growth Alliance. Listen to this episode to get the latest scoop.

Learn more about Chip and SAGA here.

 

Transcript

Michelle Kane (00:02):

Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane of VoiceMatters, my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. And today we have a guest. We are absolutely thrilled to be joined once again by Chip Griffin of the Small Agency Growth Alliance. Hello, Chip.

Chip Griffin (00:26):

It is great to be back here. I love being with the two of you.

Michelle Kane (00:29):

Ah, likewise, likewise.

Karen Swim, APR (00:31):

We are so excited. This totally makes our week. Thank you so much for hanging out with us, .

Chip Griffin (00:36):

Thank you for having me.

Michelle Kane (00:37):

So we're talking trends today and top of mind for most people in PR and beyond is of course AI. It's, you know, it's being thrown around in the news and people either are using it or are afraid of it, are just completely ignorant of it. But it's here. And, you know, Solo PR Pros, we like to think of ourselves as savvy smarties. We're just wondering what's, what's your take of what you're seeing out there right now?

Chip Griffin (01:12):

Well, my wise guy answer that I gave to an agency owner who asked me a couple of weeks ago about it, I said, “AI, what, what's that? I haven't really heard much about this.” And he had first thought I was serious.  In any case, I mean, look, AI is absolutely top of mind for just about everybody right now. It is something that, I don't think I've had a conversation with any agency owner who hasn't brought it up. It is something that all communicators are talking about. Some are afraid of it, some are excited about it. Very few are really squarely in the middle as far as I've seen. And I think that really it's just incumbent upon folks to learn as much as they can about what new opportunities exist out there and figure out how they can implement it within their own businesses. Whether you are a solo or in-house or whatever, there's a lot of things that you can do with AI to make you more effective, more efficient. And I would be focused on that rather than on the, the scary side of it that a lot of people like to dwell on from time to time.

Michelle Kane (02:09):

Right, right. Like the recent letter of doom from hundreds of tech leaders, .

Chip Griffin (02:17):

Right. Well, and you have to keep in mind that, that a lot of time, I mean, if you have the people who are already involved in AI saying, “Hey, we need to regulate it,” usually that's because they want to protect their own stake. And you see this in many industries. The large players often call for more regulation because it keeps out upstarts and it protects their position. So I would take that with a grain of salt, personally.

Michelle Kane (02:40):

Yeah. Nice big shaker of salt.

Karen Swim, APR (02:44):

Yeah. It reminds me of every technological invention that has ever happened, how there is this fear that it's going to disrupt our way of life. And I'm not saying that the concerns around AI are not well founded. They are. So, as communicators, I agree with you, we need to use it. We need to learn it. And we also do need to be aware of the risk and the concerns around it so that we can guard against that. So one big one for me is understanding how AI can be used to spread mis information, which is a growing problem, and it has been for many years, and it continues to be something that we really have to deal with. So you really have to understand it so that you can educate your clients and so you know how to monitor their brand reputation, because you don't want false statements attributed to clients. You know, if anybody's operating without crisis plans, you need to get on top of that immediately, because these are all things that can and do happen, particularly for high profile individuals where images are being used and manipulated and they're getting better. You know, AI technology is getting better, so it can be more difficult to spot the fakes than in the past.

Chip Griffin (04:09):

But this is, I mean, it really isn't something new. It does make it easier. It does make it more polished in some cases. You know, if you take a look at what Photoshop has done now with, with its ability to use generative AI, it's, it's really, frankly, amazing as a photographer. I love what it allows me to do for my clients in a good way, but it certainly does open up other risks. But, I think we've just, that's an extension of what we've seen for a long period of time. And so, we absolutely need to be attuned to it. But at the same time, we shouldn't shy away from it and say, geez, you know, we don't really want to touch this AI thing, which I've seen some communicators say, you know, we don't, we won't use any content that's AI-generated or AI influenced or anything like that.

I think that's bonkers. I think you need to, to be in a position where you're leveraging AI effectively. And the reality is AI is going to change PR and marketing. It absolutely is. There's no way that PR and marketing five years from now looks exactly the same way that it did last year, because AI will have changed it. But that doesn't mean that's a bad thing. It just means you need to adapt. If you're putting out schlock content, yeah, AI probably is going to replace you. So don't put out schlock content, but that would be my advice even before AI .

Michelle Kane:

Exactly. Exactly.

 

 

Karen Swim, APR (05:22):

But I would also say, you know, I have just tried to be an avid learner, and so I've used it right from the beginning. And as an example, yesterday I went in and so I use it for idea generation. I've experimented with things like I've said I'm pitching this, what are the best reporters? And it spit back a list that matched my list perfectly. But there was one reporter that I hadn't thought of that actually was perfect. And so why wouldn't I use a tool that's going to help me to do my job better? So yesterday I had it write a press release for me and I gave it very specific points, like, here's some bullet points here, here's what I'm doing, write a press release regarding this.

So I gave it the information. I vetted some key points and bullet points. The press release came back and I shot it to our shared drive and I shared it with my colleague and I was like, check out what AI did – not meaning like, okay, it's time for you to edit this. Because I had not gone in and done the personalization and the edits. It was so good that she went in, she goes, “Oh, I only had one change.” And I started laughing. I go, “Yeah, I hadn't worked on that.”

Michelle Kane (06:45):

Karen Swim, APR (06:46):

Obviously we did not send that version to the client, but it just goes to show that it was good. It was actually good, and it's because I've gotten better at asking it to do things. So I've noticed from my early efforts that the content that it generates has gotten much more refined because I've learned how to really work with it. Why wouldn't I as a PR pro spend my time using my brain for my clients and really adding value, spending more time on the strategic work, spending more time on the deep focus work. A press release is table stakes. I mean, I don't understand why people are fighting this so hard or making it seem like it's this horrible, terrible thing if AI assisted you. Yes. I use AI in my work. It streamlines a lot of tasks. It's capable of doing a lot of things and helping me to grab time back that can be used for higher value activities. So, I think people just, you know, there's like these camps setting up like you're less of a PR pro if you use it. And I think that's just wrong.

Michelle Kane (07:57):

I'm seeing it too. I'm seeing different articles and it makes perfect sense, you know, to stay sharp. Those of us who learn how to use AI well in our work are the ones who are going to keep up and or stay ahead of the curve. If you totally table it, what's the point? I was heartened, I belong to the Philadelphia PR Association and we had a session last week with three profs from Temple, and they are helping their students do that very thing, you know, learn how to use this. They aren't -- you know, sadly, I've seen some from the English departments going, “Oh my gosh, make a go away. Like, okay, I get that to a point. But it was really heartening to see them both embrace it and truly study what does this mean for our profession moving forward? So, it's exciting too because why not try and save time? And I don't know about both of you, but many times there is that deeper strategic thinking that you sometimes don't have the opportunity to get to because you're in okay, we need this, we need that, we need this mode. This could solve for that for sure.

Chip Griffin (09:18):

Well, and that's the thing. If I'm a solo or a small agency, I'm really excited about AI because it's a force multiplier for me. It is giving me resources that I would've had to pay a lot for and probably couldn't have afforded earlier. I describe AI in mid-2023 is basically like having an intern most of the time. It does a pretty decent job at what you ask it to do. Sometimes it really knocks your socks off and you're like, “Wow, that's great.” And occasionally it's just awful.  And, you've got to start over. But that's, I mean, that's what having an intern is. And you know, Karen, you described having to learn how to use it. It's the same thing if you have an intern, you have to figure out how to give them instructions correctly to get what you want.

Same thing with AI. You've got to learn how to give the instructions. The benefit is the AI doesn't go away after a few months. Right? And so you'll be able to continue to, and on top of that, the intern also continues to improve in that period of time. Someone said to me that, that right now AI is the worst it will ever be. Which is I think a great way of thinking about it. Despite all of the flaws that Chat GPT has and some of the image generators have, it's only going to get better. It's not going to get worse from here. So to me, that's incredibly exciting and you just have to figure out how can you take advantage of that for the work that you are doing on behalf of your clients.

Michelle Kane (10:33):

Exactly.

Karen Swim, APR (10:33):

I really agree. I mean, and also funny, it's always funny to me that people are up in arms. AI is not new . It's not just really, we've been using AI for quite a few years. I hate to break it to you, but we really have. It's just, I think, come to the mainstream's attention at this point that we have artificial intelligence and there are some uses that are now becoming more popularized, but it's not new like it's been around.

Chip Griffin (11:07):

Well, yeah. And part of it is that AI is one of those terms that gets thrown around loosely and has been for many years. I mean, the number of companies that in the last decade have claimed that they used AI for this or that, and I knew how they were doing things behind the scenes, I'd be like, yeah, that's not really AI. And frankly, a lot of what's being called AI today I think you can debate whether it is truly AI and it's certainly not general artificial intelligence, which is something that you know, is what people historically have thought of as AI. You know, someone that's completely a robot that's completely autonomous goes out and acts just like a human. We are, as far as I know, miles away from that still.  And so, but you're right, we have been using this, I mean, how long ago was it that Google Voice added automated transcription? That was a long time ago. That was at a decade ago that they started doing it, and it was pretty awful when it started. I mean, I remember laughing at some of the transcriptions. I would get a voicemail, so I'd be like, yeah, I don't think I have that kind of relationship with my brother. I'm pretty sure . So , I mean, it did had some really bizarre stuff. And, and even today, you know, if you look at Siri, some of the stuff that that happens that you, some of the responses you get, they're awful. They're just awful. But we've been using that for years. And so it's, it's just something that, that's going to continue to get better. We need to, to not overestimate what it can do for us today, because it can't just go out and write from scratch perfectly every time.

So if we're expecting that that's a mistake, and I see some communicators who are building that into their plans, like, “I don't have to hire a writer because I can just use AI to do this.” Well, yeah, that might work occasionally, but what's going to happen when you count on it and you didn't book enough time and you didn't book a resource to be able to do it, now you got into trouble. So you need to be thoughtful about how you use some of these technologies and tools that are still very much in their early stages. I mean, Chat GPT is often unavailable when you go to try to use it. And it's been getting better. I see that message a lot less often now than I did a couple of months ago, but still sometimes it's not right there. And so if you're leaning on it for something that is urgent, I would think twice about that.

Karen Swim, APR (13:14):

Right. Or you could just pay the 20 bucks a month and always have access.

Chip Griffin (13:19):

I still get the message even with the paid with the pro level.

Karen Swim, APR (13:22):

Oh, I haven't been seeing it at all since the paid, so, interesting.

Chip Griffin (13:26):

Yeah. It depends on the time of day in my experience. If it's peak east coast time, you know, late morning, that's when I tend to see it the most. But I tend to use it more in the evenings anyway, since I tend to be on calls almost all day, so

Karen Swim, APR (13:40):

Yeah. , well, we've, we've covered AI. What other trends are you seeing Chip?

Chip Griffin (13:47):

Well, I think, from a business development standpoint, anybody who is out there trying to work with clients, I think most people are seeing some degree of a slowdown in the pipeline. Not necessarily in the number of prospects are in the pipeline or even the types of projects that are there. But the, the, the length of time it takes to close a deal seems to be increasing for many agencies, many solos. That's not, it's not across the board. And I always warn people, you've got to be careful because a lot of these things are very sector specific. If you're doing work in the tech space, yeah. A lot of those folks have slowed down. Some of those have cut back on the business that they're doing with outside agencies and contractors because they're trying to be more careful. If they're laying off staff, chances are they're going to cut back on their agencies too. But that does create opportunities. And so you need to be looking for those as well, because if a company has laid off a lot of internal staff, they still have PR and marketing needs. Yeah. They might be able to turn to you on the outside to help them with that in the interim.

Karen Swim, APR (14:43):

I 100% agree. I mean, there has been this weird, because the economy has, you know, been so all over the place and companies were doing layoffs, but in reality, those layoffs were not cutting to the bone. They were cutting excess because they staffed up artificially for the pandemic. So yeah. It was really a correction. And so I didn't get too up in arms about that. But investors are also driving some of the reductions as they're requiring you know, the free money era is kind of over for now because of the, you know, the interest rates and inflation and all that's going on. That money's not falling like it was before. And so they are forcing companies that, you know, once they didn't care if you were in the red, but now it's all about, you know, being in the black, which means that they have to cut back.

Chip Griffin (15:46):

Yeah. And, and the reality is, a lot of these tech staff cuts right now have very little to do with the actual economic situation. Most of them are as, as you say, because they staffed up too quickly. Some of it is because they did the dumb things the tech companies like to do, like just hiring staff so that their competitors can't have them. And so, I mean, there have been numerous stories that I've seen of large tech companies having groups of people that sit around doing nothing. Yes. Because they were simply hired so that they wouldn't go work for the competition.

Karen Swim, APR (16:14):

100%.

Chip Griffin (16:16):

That's wildly stupid

Karen Swim, APR (16:18):

. It's, which is why, you know, tech workers often had three jobs going at the same time.

Chip Griffin (16:28):

Right. Why not ? I mean, yeah, yeah. I'm not being asked to do anything. I might as well double dip or triple dip. Yeah.

Karen Swim, APR (16:33):

Yeah. And then they were like, oh, got laid off from my second job. So now I only have two. I mean, how, and you know what? I 100% admire the hustle as long as they weren't breaking their employment contracts. Right. If you can do your job for three people and have added this. You know, most people these days have more than one gig anyway. You know, you have a gig and a side gig or a business and a side business. So I, maybe that's the way of the future.

Chip Griffin (17:04):

Yeah. I mean, and, and it's certainly something I'm a big believer in. I don't, I don't think I've ever had or haven't had a single source of income since I had hair with glasses . So that was, that was decades ago. .

Karen Swim, APR (17:17):

I would definitely, you know, it's, it's back to that older adage. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. I'm a big believer in that, to have multiple channels of income always. Because you can't rely on one source and if your job is your one source, as we know, you have very little control over what happens with that job.

Chip Griffin (17:37):

Well, I think also, creative ambitious people, variety is a good thing too. I mean, for me, that's a big piece of it. I mean, yes, it's, it's nice to have diversification, but a lot of it is just, it gives me different things to focus on at, at different points in the day or week. And so I enjoy that. And I know a lot of other people who are the same way. They just want something else to, to interest them and, and pursue and they don't have to worry about one thing 24 7.

Karen Swim, APR (18:00):

Yeah, that's very true. Yeah. I think a lot of PR people are like that too. Oh my God. I think we would go insane if it was just PR .

Chip Griffin (18:10):

Well, and I think that's the other trend that we probably can touch on here, which is that PR is becoming much less traditional. There are very few folks who practice PR today that can practice it the same way they did 15 or 20 years ago. You really need to have a much broader skillset set. And I think AI is certainly going to accelerate that need because there's going to be a demand from clients for you to do more than simply basic media relations. So, when I'm talking with an agency that does simply media relations, they've got to have a real strong differentiator to be able to make a solid go of that in 2023. It's just, you really need to have a much broader skillset in order to be able to work with clients effectively.

Karen Swim, APR (18:57):

Oh, I completely agree with you. That media landscape is not your friend right now. It is ugly out there. It doesn't mean that you can't get opportunities. But again, this is not new. I can remember saying this, you know, five years ago, like, do not lean on one lever in your public relations practice. Now that does not mean that there are people that cannot focus and specialize. You absolutely can do that. People have done that with great success where they are honed in on a specialty, and that's what they do. They don't do me media relations at all. They, they have a specialty. We have some pros that they only do media relations. That's all they do. They don't do anything else. Doesn't mean that they're doing it the same way that they were doing it 20 years ago, but that's their specialty. That's their area of expertise.

But for those that are a little more general and have a robust practice, you need to utilize all of the things that are in our tool bag. And I think for every single person, no matter what your area of specialty is, you really need to be a strategist. Yes. I'm very surprised how many people lean on the tactical and there's no strategy and they're not aligned with the business goals that is not going to fly. Right. Going forward. You may have been able to skate by on the tactical for a period of time. I truly believe those days are over. And that you are going to have to get very comfortable with speaking the language of the business. And you have to be very confident in presenting metrics and aligning with goals that matter, not yes, the goals that matter to you as a PR person, but the goals that matter to your clients, to their business. You have to be comfortable talking about how you're supporting the bottom line. If you're not comfortable with that, you're going to not be chosen or you're not going to keep jobs with those large enterprise companies because they care. They do care about their bottom line and they care about drawing the line from PR to revenue. And, and I know I, I've heard people say this, well, you can't. Yes, you can. You can measure your efforts.

Chip Griffin (21:09):

Well, yeah. But also, measure, report your results to clients. Don't report your efforts. Because that's, I mean, I see these reports that are being delivered to clients where it's like, “We pitched X number of reporters,” Who cares? I don't care how many people you pitched or how many emails you sent out. What did you generate from that? Right? Now I'm okay with you saying, we pitched 50 reporters and got no bites. If you're saying, look, we need to look in a different direction, I think that's helpful. But if you're doing it simply to say, Hey, we tried really hard. Yes. Okay. I mean, there's not a participation medal here in the kind of work that we do.

Michelle Kane (21:45):

No, no.

Karen Swim, APR (21:47):

I agree. I mean, recently we had to share with a client that a particular piece of news was just not interesting to the media. And so then in that case, you do need to summarize what the response was, what you were hearing. And then better than that, we suggested a new strategic plan because this was something that they had been doing. And we said, don't do that anymore. It doesn't work. No one cares.

Chip Griffin (22:12):

And you should do that because if you're just an order taker and are executing bad orders, it's going to be reflecting on you. They don't sit there and say, “Oh, I gave dumb instructions.” They say, “My agency, my solo was just awful.”

Michelle Kane (22:24):

Yes.

Chip Griffin (22:25):

Even though they were just following your instructions. So if you get bad instructions, bad guidance, bad requests, push back, tell them it's not a good idea.

Michelle Kane (22:32):

Yeah. and that speaks back to the need to focus on strategy. It's like, why are you doing this, this, why, what is your goal? I think those are the first questions you always need to be thinking of and always need to be asking.

Chip Griffin (22:52):

And AI helps you to do that to come full circle in our conversation.

Michelle Kane (22:56):

I was just going to say , what if we had some kind of online mechanism to help us ?

Karen Swim, APR (23:04):

So anything else that you're seeing out there, Chip, that we should be aware of? Because you deal with agencies and enterprise and you are the man in the know.

Chip Griffin (23:14):

I think the other thing, and, I'm not sure whether it's a trend that something that's been going on for a long period of time, but I think because of some of the economic conditions, particularly inflation is getting worse, is the inability of folks to correctly price their services. And that is something that I think is going to become an acute problem, given that costs are rising so substantially for most of us in the work that we're doing in the lives that we lead. And if you're not pricing correctly, that's a problem. What I hear people say is, “Well, geez, but this client will never pay more than this, or they've always paid this, or this is what we charge in our old agency.” None of that matters. It matters how much it costs you to deliver services today. And if you're not pricing based off of what it actually costs you to deliver the services, then you're going to have a problem. And it doesn't matter whether the client's willing or unwilling to pay that amount. It's, the reality is you got to charge more than it costs, otherwise you fail.

Karen Swim, APR (24:12):

I love that advice. And I would encourage our solos. I've said this before and I think we did, we added it in a recent blog post, but pricing is not just about the cost of the services or your cost per hour. Pricing is also a marketing strategy. And it plays into how prospective clients see you. We all know that, there's definitely science behind this, and it's science that's used by everyone that sets prices. Your prices are too high, way too high, then it's going to turn your market off. Your prices are too low, it's going to cause them to think of you as a budget option, and it's going to diminish the value that they see that they get from you. And so you really have to find that place where your prices are high enough that they communicate that you are offering a quality, thoughtful service and not solo, that they think of you as just a replaceable freelancer. You're just another cog. And unfortunately, I still do see so many solos price or services so low that they're, they're doing things for rates that I wouldn't, there's, I would not take a phone call for some of the rates that you charge a client per month. It's not enough money. So consider that and, and what happens, you end up having these clients that don't want to pay you the meager amounts of money that you're charging them. They require you to overservice them for that tiny amount of money. They're the worst clients in the world. You want to price yourself higher. And I will tell you that the more money that you earn in your career, it not only helps people to see you differently, it helps you to see yourself differently. It's hard to think of yourself as a value professional. If you're charging a client a thousand dollars a month and it really should be 10, it's very, you start to see yourself, you shrink your own value down to that thousand dollars level and not at that $10,000 level.

So do yourself a favor and start to get confident to raise your rates and you can raise them on new clients because as you get more new clients, you can then go and sift away the bottom feeders. But we, nobody needs that in their life. Don't do that. You know, don't price yourself so low that people don't see the talent that you have. And then you start to believe that in your head too, and you start to become what you're charging and that's not okay when the price is too low.

Michelle Kane (26:56):

Couldn't agree more.

Chip Griffin (26:58):

I'm so glad that you described pricing as a positioning tool because it absolutely is. And I think people underestimate that and the message that you send to the marketplace about the value of what you're delivering. I will say that I do what I preach is what I call floor to ceiling pricing. And I do think that before you start looking at how you're using pricing or positioning or how you get into value pricing or charge premiums, you need to know your floor. And I think that that too many solos and small agencies have no idea what it truly costs them to deliver and what that minimum price is that they need to charge in order to make what they're looking to make. And I do think you need to know that floor first, then absolutely. Go find that ceiling by trying these different things and, and trying different positioning and char try value pricing and those kinds of things. But don't come into those things until you know what it actually costs you to deliver. Otherwise, you may be putting yourself in an even worse position.

Karen Swim, APR (27:56):

Yeah. I mean, we have minimum budget amounts. We have minimum budgets for ongoing clients. We also do projects, we fit in projects every quarter. We have a certain amount and we have minimum project pricing, period. Because we know that anything below that, we can't really be effective. And there, it's written down. So it's not something that we have to guess at every single time. Like, oh, what should that be? No, we have a minimum. And if somebody comes in and they're below our minimum, then we can say that like, I'm sorry, this is below our minimum. If you have more budget, here's what we could do for you.

Michelle Kane (28:30):

Right, exactly. And keeping in mind, too, there's room for scaling within your floor to ceiling concept.

Chip Griffin (28:38):

Absolutely,

Michelle Kane (28:38):

You can still be effective, but just having that transparency with the prospect or the client, just so they know.

Karen Swim, APR (28:49):

Yeah. And I would say, hang out in circles, hang out with people that are where you want to be. There's something truly transformative in that. I can remember, for me, I was early on in my PR career and I was at a Solo PR Pro summit and they had people close their eyes and raise their hands at their rate per hour. Shiny new girl that I was, was blown away by how many people were raising their hand at charging $400 an hour. To me back then that was like, “Oh my God, really?” But it was eye opening. And so yeah, being in a space with people that were charging those amounts and had been doing it and were doing well helped me to elevate my thinking and understand what the possibilities were, because I honestly didn't know. Since then, I've been in rooms with people in different industries. You know, I was with somebody recently that had a 10 million project and it wasn't 10 million for 10 years . And all he did was strategy.

Michelle Kane (29:58):

Dreamy

Karen Swim, APR (29:58):

And I'm like, I’m a strategist too. I'm actually really good at strategy . So, again, being in rooms with people that are doing exactly what you're capable of, you have a brain, you know how to think, you know how to use it. And seeing what others are willing to pay for that really does help you to start to get outside of your own box. And it starts to erase the limitations that we sometimes place on ourselves. And so I would advise you to do that. Stop hanging out with people that are charging $50 an hour. And start going into those spaces where people are charging more, getting more learning what they're doing and hearing that and adopting that for yourself.

Chip Griffin (30:39):

And I know plenty of solos who charge less than $50 an hour, which is crazy in 2023. I mean, these are people with decades of experience. It makes no sense to me. You need to know how to understand your own worth. You need to be realistic about it because otherwise you will continue to sell yourself short and good clients are willing to pay more than you think they are. The bad clients are the ones who want to nickel and dime you

Michelle Kane (31:06):

And micromanage you, just to top it all off and I would say even practitioners who maybe it's at the tail end of their career and it's just for fun, or to keep them busy, but, please don't undercut your prices because that hurts the whole profession. So get that money that you deserve and it, you know, it lifts all of us to where we really should be.

Chip Griffin (31:32):

Amen.

Karen Swim, APR (31:33):

And that sounds like a good note to,

Michelle Kane (31:35):

It does

Karen Swim, APR (31:36):

end on that. We should use AI, charge higher prices, think better of yourself and you'll do better work for your clients. But before we go, and Michelle's going to take us out, I just want to remind everybody, we recently reached a huge milestone of recording over 200 episodes of this program.

Michelle Kane (31:59):

Whoo!

Karen Swim, APR (32:01):

We're working on ourselves, , and we want to reach more people because there aren't a lot of PR focused podcasts that have been around for as long as we have. And we've been really consistent and we feel like we're just getting started. We're having the time of our life. We get to talk with great smart thinkers like Chip. So please, please, please, before you exit with us today, hit the subscribe button, follow our channel, subscribe to us, follow us on your favorite podcast app. We always have the podcast also on our website at soloprpro.com. You just hit the back slash button for the podcast. You can listen there, but please subscribe and share, share, share, share. We want you to tell all of your other colleagues about it and even the people that aren't in PR Yeah. Can gain something from the episodes. Because we talk about a lot of business topics that apply outside of our industry. So do us that favor and thank you for staying with us, but please share, please, like stay tuned. More to come more chip to come .

Michelle Kane (33:07):

Yes, absolutely. And I'll even issue a challenge if you found one good nugget in today's episode, thanks to Chip in this great conversation, use that, share that, hashtag us #solopr. That would be wonderful. Be good for you, good for us, good for everybody. But we also want to thank Chip Griffin for spending all of this time with us. He is with these small Agency Growth Alliance. Please check them out. What's the best  URL for that, Chip?

 

Chip Griffin

smallagencygrowth.com.

 

Michelle Kane

Boom. We thank you so much for spending this time with us and until next time, thanks for joining us on That Solo Life.

Make it Make Sense: How to Level Up Your Client Service Game

Do you make it easy for clients to do business with you? Are your systems designed to communicate with ease? It all comes down to good customer service. There are times when that can be the thing that leads a prospect or client to choose you or the competition.

 

Transcript

Michelle Kane (00:17):

Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves like me, Michelle Kane, with VoiceMatters, and my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hi Karen, how are you today?

Karen Swim (00:33):

I'm doing fantastic, Michelle. How are you?

Michelle Kane (00:35):

I'm well, I am well, oddly perky. Must be the coffee kicking in .

Karen Swim (00:42):

I'm oddly perky too. And I think that that is, because sometimes chaos forces you to roll with the punches. Oh, true. And you just are like going to roll with it. It's fine. I'm fine.

Michelle Kane (00:52):

Keep swimming. We'll get through .

Karen Swim (00:56):

Absolutely.

Michelle Kane (00:57):

Well, I am, I'm excited about the topic today. We're going to talk about, how do I phrase it? The way we work, right? How do we communicate with each other? How do we communicate with vendors? And I'm, and we're talking about from the viewpoint of we are solos, but we are of course also small businesses and how that impacts, you know, how you accomplish your goals at work, how you get things done. You know, are you a project management person? Are you, you know, always on Slack, that kind of thing. Just our, just going to talk about some best practices. Oh, and maybe some pet peeves too. Who knows

Karen Swim (01:34):

. Yeah. Because small business is obviously quite important in the larger, you know Yeah. Ecosystem of getting things done and work and hiring people. But you have small businesses that truly look like small businesses because they lack a certain level. I don't even want to say sophistication, because that's the wrong word. Right. But they're missing components that you'll get from a bigger business. And as solos, we want to always make sure that we are, although small, that we're mighty. And that we are delivering service levels that are equivalent to our larger counterparts. And that we're not missing key, key things that we can be doing that can make us stand apart. Because you can be small and look totally small, and when you look totally small in the wrong ways, because you know, there's a difference between having a boutique or a micro agency where you get a higher level of personalized touch.

Things are not, you know, as templated where, you know, they're getting a level of quality and they're getting senior level help that they might not get. And then being small and looking small as in like you're an amateur. Right. And that, you know, and so I know that within our community, it's one of the reasons why our solo PR community in particular pushes back hard against the term freelance pr. Right. And I believe that it's because for so many freelance at one point in history did connotate someone who wasn't truly running a business, but was just kind of taking a gig here or there. And it felt like one level above hobbyist. I will say, and I, dear solos, I love you, but freelance no longer has that negative association. But I completely understand, you know, the distinction as well. And I never re refer to myself as a freelance PR person, but I'm also not offended if, if that's how somebody wants to categorize me, as long as they, you know, are treating me like an agency and paying me like, you know, they're supposed to and not pay me. Like, you know, I'm,

Michelle Kane (03:52):

Yeah. Just don't have this money

Karen Swim (03:53):

Experience and job. Yeah. Like, oh, I just need to buy a Starbucks today. Isn't that cute? And I don't really care. . Yeah.

Michelle Kane (04:00):

Yes. . Yeah. And,  I think a lot of it has to do with communication between yourself Yes. And vendors between yourself and your clients. Just, you know, how that happens, what the expectations are. And you know, a lot of us who have worked either in-house or, you know, been employed by someone first, it's like, yeah, I call it office bootcamp, right. Because I came up, I spent my summers working in the accounts payable department at one company. So, it's like osmosis. You take it all in. Not that you say, well, this is how I'm going to work forever. But, you know, and then eventually working for an agency, you just take in like, oh, when someone asks you to do something, you let them know, okay, this is a timetable. It's like, yes. Common courtesy. Yes. Or, you know, you get to observe different systems and just then really mold that into your, the way that you work. Especially as most of our clients are probably not fellow business owners like us, for the most part. They're, these are people who own or work in companies. So it really helps to have that and if you haven't, that's fine, but just be open to following their lead, really.

Karen Swim (05:22):

Yes, I agree. And you hit on something that I've noticed, and you and I have chatted about this of course, as solos, we also not only are small business owners, but we love supporting small business owners.  And that's a good feeling when you have more of a direct connection to the person that's producing the product or service. I find that very gratifying. And it makes me feel good that I'm contributing to the economy in a meaningful way, that you actually are supporting someone else's livelihood. And I love to do that. However, I've also, like all of you, had my share of frustrations with small businesses that are not matching even the basic service levels and communication is way high on the list for me. And so, as solos, we have to make sure that we are not making people feel like they're losing by having a smaller agency.

Just because you don't have five offices across the globe and, you know, 10,000 people does not mean that clients should be left in the dark about, you know, what you're doing, how you're doing it. If they ask you a question, you know, it shouldn't linger you. You need to, you need to establish on a regular basis, you know how you're communicating. And if a client asks you to report something in a way, or to respond to something in a way or on a channel that really is very different from your workflow, it doesn't mean that you have to do everything that they say the way that they say do it. But you need to have a conversation about that.

Michelle Kane (07:04):

Yeah. And it's, it's all part of the, the expectation management. Yeah. Especially at the outset and, you know, setting those parameters. And, you know, even in the day-to-day communications, I mean, to me, Slack is a wonderful thing because to me, you know, being a…

Karen Swim (07:22):

An email.

Michelle Kane (07:23):

Yes. And being a certain age, I like to have something documented. So, if a client prefers to do business completely via text, that's crazy making for me. Because I have to look down at something. Yes, I have a desktop text, you know, thing. But still I can't, not that I print out emails anymore, but when I did, it's like, I can't print this text out. This is crazy. Well now I don't, I can't go back to that anyway.

Karen Swim (07:51):

It's not in a threaded nice threaded conversation that you can find, please. And there are things that definitely be do not belong in email that don't, you know, do not need that level of documentation. Quick questions, you know, quick, Hey, correct.

Michelle Kane (08:03):

Right.

Karen Swim (08:04):

This published, I don't really need that in my email. Right. But you know, I think it also comes down to being a small business and doing your part to make it easy to engage with you.

Michelle Kane (08:17):

Oh, a hundred percent.

Karen Swim (08:19):

Here's some tensions. Payments is one. This is, this could be a source of tension,

Michelle Kane (08:26):

Maybe…

Karen Swim (08:27):

You need to make it easy for people to pay you. And I understand that sometimes clients have owner systems that are completely out of their control. If you have enterprise clients and you know that oftentimes there's, I'm going to say almost always there could be an onboarding process because they use somebody that manages their independent contractors. Just be aware that's their program. It's not going to change for you. Don't fight it. Don't make it hard for them to engage you because you don't understand their system. Sometimes there's going to be, you know, not only a contract, but there's going to be a master service agreement and then purchase orders. And sometimes those purchase orders have to be done monthly. Sometimes they can be for the extent of the agreement, it just depends on how their budgeting works. And so you need to be prepared that sometimes on the client end there are just things that you cannot rail against because they don't have any other alternative to offer you.

But you shouldn't take it as a personal affront that they're asking you to do these administrative things. And it's burdensome for a small business because again, yes, we are small businesses, but on some things we have to be able to play in the same way that larger companies do. There are other policies that definitely, like there are things in contracts that definitely you should challenge sometimes. And, and that again, yeah, these are conversations that we have. I've been onboarded by clients where I had to go through a whole onboarding system. I had to have a background check. Everybody on my team had to have a background check. We had to go through their security clearance system, we can only access through their system. So it did mean downloading another tool, logging into something else doing this. We had to have a company email.

We were fine to email from our emails, but we still had to have this company email to access other things. So you roll with it and you make it easy for your client to do business. You don't put up these barricades like, I'm small, you're asking me to do too much. Or no, you can't pay me digitally. And if you do, it's an extra charge or you're, you know, you have to think about these things as you're setting rates for your clients and ensure that you are including the full cost of doing business outside of those costs that are expenses. So we're not talking about expenses, but you do need to make sure that your contracts specify expenses such as press release distribution are a separate line item. They'll be pre-approved before they're billed back to you.

But yeah, those are not part of the retainer, so, some people, I mean, I just had this with a vendor that I'm working with. I do not write checks. I do not have cash. And half the time I'm not around when the service is performed, please give me a way to pay you digitally. And then I have a record of it, by the way, I do want a record because otherwise am I just giving you cash? And then I've got to keep a record of I paid you on this date in like a paper notebook. Like that's, that's not making it easy for me to do business. And by the way, there are competitors that will have better communication, give me the same exact service for the same exact price. And I can pay them digitally with no problems, no questions asked, and, you know, get a better level of personal service. So as solos, we have to be careful that we're not creating these unnecessary hurdles for our prospective clients.

Michelle Kane (12:09):

Right. I mean, I consider part of customer service is to make it easy for you to pay me - what a beautiful thing. But in other things too, and everything communicates - everything we do. Not to make us too paranoid, or looking over our shoulder, but you know, the tone in your emails, the way and how often you might communicate or not communicate. Everything we do communicates something. And that doesn't mean that the receiver of that communication realizes that at the time, but it builds. So, you know, as a business owner, my goal is always to provide the best experience possible knowing that we're all human. And my guess is if we have our own solo shop, we're probably pretty hard on ourselves. And I mean, I've had times where I've gone to clients and said, oh my goodness I cannot believe that. So sorry, you know, flogging myself. And thankfully I'd like to think probably because of building up that subconscious goodwill through good communication, they've been like, oh, what that? Oh no, it's fine. And I think, oh, ,

Karen Swim (13:14):

Yes.

Michelle Kane (13:15):

And then I wonder, yes. Oh, okay, good. So, it's just something to keep in mind as we operate, and I think it also does us all a good service as we do build our businesses. If we do carry out just our communications in a way that, that makes the profession look good, right? Because we, especially in PR, we are always fighting that battle on some level, you know, fighting against the flack connotation or the superficial, you just throw parties, we're always was fighting against that. So any way that you can elevate the way that you do business with other people, and that can be clients and vendors alike is a positive.

Karen Swim (13:59):

Absolutely. And I will tell you, a friend of mine, one of my best friends shared one of his businesses is real estate and he was sharing, I know his mortgage broker or the person that he was using as his mortgage broker. And now that person was great and was able to get deals done and understood like how to work with investors and creative financing and how to work with self-employed people and how to work with people that have multiple LLCs. Just amazing. So it's not that he was very smart, you know, very responsive, his team was great. The service was great. There was nothing wrong with it. But then he had to work with this other guy and this guy made it easier for him to do business. So rather than having to go to this other guy and have to check in before every offer was made, and then have him do a whole new approval letter. The new mortgage guy has a portal, and the minute you're approved, you and your client have access to the portal. You can go in and you can run the calculator based on the house what you are planning to offer. It includes taxes and all the fees so that you can see your mortgage payment and everything prior to even generating. And then you can generate offer letters for as long as you need to until you are under contract. All streamlined and automated. And so my friend loves that. He and the client are empowered to keep moving at his fast pace and not having to take that extra step. And so I say that because sometimes as a solo PR pro, you may be competing against someone who has the same level of skillset that you do. It's not that you are not smart enough to do the work.

It's not that you're not likable, it's not that they have something that's off-putting that makes them not want to do business with you. It may just be that that other candidate is making it easier for them to do business with them in some way. And so I think that, for me, when my friend said that it did make me stop and yeah, really kind of think through my whole process and my systems and make sure that I'm not making it harder to engage me or to work with me on a day-to-day basis. What ways can I streamline things for my clients? How can I automate things so that they don't have to ask for it? How can I empower them with information and be proactive about it instead of being reactionaries? Are there any, you know, are there points that I'm missing? And I think that for all of us, it's worth having that checkpoint because we don't want to lose out because we're smart enough to do the work, but we're just not efficient enough to close the deal.

Michelle Kane (16:57):

Right, right. And that is so true. And sometimes that is the only differentiator. So, we encourage you, just do a little gut check, take a look at the way you're doing work because honestly, look, we're so involved in doing our work and sometimes we don't pull back and say, huh, is that the best way to do that? Is there a way that I can streamline processes, not just for my clients, but hey, it helps yourself too. So it's

Karen Swim (17:23):

No kidding,

Michelle Kane (17:24):

It's a win-win. So we hope we've been an encourager to you today and until next time, thanks for listening to That Solo Life.

 

Media Madness

With media outlets shuttering and reporter beats expanding, getting our clients’ stories told continues to be a challenge. The good news is PR pros are resilient, creative, and smart. In this episode we talk about all the ways to navigate this wave of media madness with success!

 

Transcript:

Michelle Kane (00:02):

Thank you for joining us for an episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves like me. I'm Michelle Kane, my company is VoiceMatters, and I'm here as always with the wonderful Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. How are you?

Karen Swim, APR (00:19):

I am doing great, Michelle. How are you?

Michelle Kane (00:21):

I'm well, I'm well, thanks. And I'm kind of excited about our topic today. Oh, what the heck. I love all our topics, but we're just going to focus on media madness. You know, it's been really kind of a bummer lately. All of these outlets shuttering, BuzzFeed, Vice, Fox, no, Vox is still happening.

Karen Swim, APR (00:40):

Vox is still there…

Michelle Kane (00:42):

Let's not put that out there. .

Karen Swim, APR (00:44):

But hey do rely on donations. They do great work by the way.

Michelle Kane (00:47):

They do, they do. I think it was Vulture and it's, I mean, not only is it sad when good outlets are just closing down due to finances, but it kind of makes our job as PR pros more of a challenge, especially if you are working in sectors that would pitch often to those outlets or just rely on them, and as news consumers for covering areas of our world that really need that kind of coverage. So we just want to chat today about “Hey, how's it going with your pitching?” And how can we best adapt to this in service of our clients? So fun .

Karen Swim, APR (01:37):

Yeah. And we don't want to trot out the same, like, don't only push the lever of earned media. It's really about the landscape is pretty ugly right now.  And in some sectors, it's slow. It's not that you're not going to get coverage, but things take a lot longer than they used to. And part of that is due to the changes that have happened in the media landscape. People not having always one assigned beat. They're covering multiple beats or publications using a lot of freelancers, and so they don't have people on staff. And then people just being bombarded, probably a little burned out, and a little scared also because they have many attacks against their income sources. You know, freelancers have had to go with the California fallout and that cut their income because they could only work so many stories before they were considered to be employees. I mean, there's just been a lot in media over the past several years. Now there's the AI thing, and I will say that it's not just about outlets and journalists. What I'm seeing, and I'm sure that you all are seeing this too, is that there are fewer and fewer quality stories.

Michelle Kane (03:03):

Mm-hmm. . Yes.

Karen Swim, APR (03:03):

So really to just general topics. I'm not talking about covering politics or the economy. Those reporters have a beat, and the publications that do that work still do it very well. And you get high quality stories. The long form reads are still great stories. You know, The Atlantic, they always do a nice job with their long form stories. I'm talking about those day-to-day news stories. I'm finding that the quality is so shallow and it's just, it's like, okay, why did you even bother to write this? It's almost like they're just filling, you know,

Michelle Kane (03:44):

Filling unsold ad space.

Karen Swim, APR (03:46):

Say it. Yeah. It's, it's not great. Yeah.

Michelle Kane (03:49):

And yeah.

Karen Swim, APR (03:51):

And so when it comes to clients, in terms of finding quality places to tell those stories it may have shifted. I think one thing is that we have to remember that even if your expertise is not in internal communications, that there is a place for the PR pro to ensure that those stories are not only being told externally. Think about the stories that you can help your clients to tell internally. Which is vitally important in these times as companies are dealing with reductions in force. They're dealing with talent recruitment. They're dealing with policies that may be shifting. They may have some employee discontent, the Great Resignation, all of the things that are happening at work, internal stories are part of how we can truly help to impact our clients' businesses. And them being able to leverage that and to strengthen their employer brand is, is as important as driving revenue to the bottom line with those external stories.

Michelle Kane (05:06):

Yeah, that's so true. And you know, I know many companies, especially larger corporations, are very good at their internal comms, and they know how to fold it, you know, to weave it throughout and, and they realize the importance of their internal audience and how they can both strengthen the external view of the company, but also to create that community within. I think that's incredibly important. And  of course then sometimes those communications can be used on both sides. We've talked about this a lot, right? Does your website have a newsroom? Do you tell your stories in other ways? There are all kinds of creative ways to tell a story about maybe an employee that also talks about you - operate all these things that can affect those deciding to do business with you or to raise your profile.

Karen Swim, APR (06:05):

I think one of the things that I'm actually enjoying a lot more of lately also is realizing that companies that have strong internal comms teams, because in big companies, you know, they slice and dice those roles very specifically. They are approaching it with a complete insider's view. We bring that external view again, you know, one of the values of solos. And so sometimes we bring things that are creative in different ways that they may not have thought of because they're seeing it from within the company viewpoint, and they're seeing it from that lens, and we see it from a broader lens. And so working with internal teams gets them in excited and energized about things too. So yeah, in our work, we've been working across more departments and bringing them into some of our external things and then supporting their internal things as well.

And it's really brought out a different element. And it's great to see the executives excited about having their team supported, but it's also great to see how excited people get to work with someone new and to do things a little bit differently because they're getting this different perspective. And of course, it's fun for us because we get to work with more people in a company and we get to go deeper in our value proposition. So, you know, don't forget that that's another way to tell the stories is to Right. Enroll more people to collaborate with you from the internal teams and think outside of the box. It doesn't always have to be PR and marketing. It can be the customer success team. It can be, you know, um, specific to a persona. For example, if one of the personas, targets, people work with it, someone to develop it and tell stories and think of different ways you can do it. Think about owned media, podcasts, you know, branded podcasts for companies that you can help them to staff guests. You can even, and I did not realize how easy this was. So I will raise my hand and say I learned something through a friend who created her own streaming show that's on Roku. So I subscribed. I did not know it was so easy to just do your own production.

Michelle Kane (08:33):

That’s so cool.

Karen Swim, APR (08:34):

You can set up a streaming show for your client. If you have a client that loves video and, and maybe is doing YouTube and they want to do more and they want to take them to a different level, level look into streaming.

Michelle Kane (08:47):

That's phenomenal. And I love what you said about working across departments because it's the best of all worlds, right? Because it's true. We come in and there are things we don't know. So, we can pick up on story ideas of topics that come up that they might just blow off or think, oh, well no one cares about that, but wait, certain audiences do. And then working across all these different departments, they're the ones that know the the depth of what they do and they will bring to light wonderful topics and things that, that can be expanded on and brought to light.

Karen Swim, APR (09:28):

Absolutely. Absolutely. It does. Again, working across departments gives you richer content to work with externally too, and it helps to keep you aligned and you do, you learn more about the company when you tap into more than one source of information, it really does help us to be much more effective at our jobs and we can pick up on things that are exciting externally that people take for granted. I love that there's always a surprise. There's always something. It could be a bit of information, it could be, you know, a personal story and you're like, wait, that the media would love this and Right. Really? .

Michelle Kane (10:12):

Exactly. And you're just like, yeah, . And then of course you hope the person's willing to share and all that good stuff. But yeah, it's, it's really exciting and energizing when that does happen. I know I'm in the discovery phase with the client now, and it's just been wonderful to hear their insights and things that, you know, even if I thought long and hard would never have come to my mind. Yeah. Just because I don't serve in their role. I don't know everything.

Karen Swim, APR (10:41):

I know it's one of the joys of our job, right? I think that when we're actually doing the work, we're all in our happy place. Like it's just, we get to do the coolest things. Being a communicator is one of the best jobs on the planet.

Michelle Kane (10:53):

It is. It is. You're part teacher, you're part psychologist, , part therapist, part town crier, part, grammar nerd ,

Karen Swim, APR (11:04):

Definitely all of the things

Michelle Kane (11:06):

Rolled into one ,

Karen Swim, APR (11:08):

All of the things .

Michelle Kane (11:10):

So, so yeah. You know, we - even though the landscape is ever-changing - we don't ever want you to feel frustrated or demoralized. If anything, and I think it's also part of the DNA of the role that we serve. It's like, okay, that's not going to get me down. How else can we do this?

Karen Swim, APR (11:33):

Because the media landscape is going to continue to shift. And one of the underlying themes to all of this is money. Media shifted away from subscription models with the internet and everything was free and accessible, and they switched to advertising models. And advertising dollars have kind of dried up. There's, everyone's not advertising anymore. And then a lot of people took the initiative to create their own media companies. So you had more and more outlets that were out there competing for attention, for eyeballs. And now people are trying to go back to subscription models. So you see things like sets where there's certain stories you can read for free, but then you have to subscribe to get everything right. You know,

That's a great source to also tap into for stories. But I just think that because the models are all over the place, like how many people are you really going to get to subscribe to just individual stories rather than an entire outlet that's filled with a variety of stories? Yeah. I, it could work for individual creators to have enough interest to sustain them, which is, I think is fabulous. And I'm always here for writers taking charge of their income and, and having ways to be directly paid by their audiences, because I think that's an important avenue. But as a media business model on its own, it's probably not for way to go.

Michelle Kane (13:11):

No, I don't think so. You probably think of something like a Substack, which many writers are setting up, but as far as trying to get our client stories out, it doesn't quite align. Doesn't quite line up. So yeah. I wish there was an easy answer to it.

Karen Swim, APR (13:32):

Yeah, there's not. There's digging and searching for reporters that are a fit regardless of where they write, you know? Searching for people that will best tell your client's story and tell a rich story. Trades are just the lifeblood, I think, for so many of us because they deliver. They may not all be tier one outlets, but they really deliver on the promise. You can find your audience with trades, and you can get quality stories, you can get byline opportunities. They're still doing the work.

Michelle Kane (14:08):

Yeah.

Karen Swim, APR (14:08):

And it's harder to get into tier one unless you have hard news. And so when you're dealing with clients, most clients don't have hard news all the time. They just don't. So you have to work with what you have to work with. Media relations is still very viable. It's not dead, folks. Right. It's still doable, but it is important to start to be creative and think outside of that box and expand a little bit, even if it's expanding in the types of opportunities that you seek and the type of outlets that you pitch. If you've never added podcast in, you might want to add podcast into the rotation. If you've never thought about your client putting their expertise into a book, um, or Oh yeah. They don't have any own media channels of their own, you know, start to think about those things as well.

Michelle Kane (15:00):

Yeah.

Karen Swim, APR (15:01):

That’s another one. Add different ways of thought leadership into the, into the mix.

Michelle Kane (15:06):

Agree, agree. And like with anything, manage those expectations. That's those teachable moments because we all still have those clients that are saying, get me on the Today Show. Yeah. . Yeah. Which we have to just, you know, calmly say, well now what exactly are you expecting to accomplish ?

Karen Swim, APR (15:28):

And I mean, sometimes success can also, you know, we have a client and we just did a campaign and we delivered way above and beyond what was

Michelle Kane (15:43):

Of course you did.

Karen Swim, APR (15:44):

And then we started freaking out, like, oh my God, we hope that they don't expect this every month. Because it's not going to happen every single month like this where it's just explosive coverage and, you know, so it's funny how we do that. We kill it and then we're like, oh my God, we killed it. Are they going to expect every month? Because I’d die if we have to do this every single month.

Michelle Kane (16:07):

It's just not feasible. You don't want to fire hose an audience either. So Yeah.

Karen Swim, APR (16:15):

Not pitch, don't anything. Way more stories than we were supposed to be. No more pitching. No pitching.

Michelle Kane (16:23):

I'm all pitched out. And, you know, honestly, that's where other items like a podcast or thought leadership articles, that's where it can fall nicely into that mix so that you are not,

Karen Swim, APR (16:38):

You have to mix in the, the longer term opportunities. Although these ways, everything seems to be a longer term opportunities, but

Michelle Kane (16:45):

Yeah. Right.

Karen Swim, APR (16:46):

You want to get the shorter term things, but you want to focus on the long game too, and things like podcasts, you pitch them, you're not always going to get immediate responses. You will not always be able to book guests within the week or the month. Some shows have seasons, and they may already be booked up for the season and be booking well into their next season, which could be later this year. It could be 2024. We all know the long lead publications and then just in general, you know, so it's good  to have a mix of opportunities that could hit at different times because agree, our goal is steady Eddie, rolling thunder. You know, we want to keep building, building, building.

Michelle Kane (17:29):

I love these names. Keep going. . No, it's true. It's true. And, uh, as I couch them, you know, these opportunities to talk about yourself, you know, as a business, you want them to be valid and, and to be in a variety of places, it's always going to serve you well.

Karen Swim, APR (17:50):

Yeah. And I mean, I'd love to hear from Solo PR Pros who are doing anything in the metaverse because it's been declared dead by many media outlets, but I have definitely seen some success stories from people who are doing really creative things there. So, I realize that even Mark Zuckerberg has now stopped talking about the metaverse, we're not hearing anything about it. I believe that they pulled jobs away from that sector. But if you're doing something there and you're doing it for your clients, we'd love to hear about it, because that's a topic that we've not addressed here.

Michelle Kane (18:28):

That is true. Yeah. We would love to hear your stories and honestly, we want to hear your experiences in general. How are you finding things? Please let us know. It's soloprpro.com because we would love to take all of your input and talk about this again. It's going to be an ever-changing topic that we can come back to from time to time. But if you found this time valuable, which we hope you did, we thank you for spending it with us, please do share this episode around. And until next time, thanks for listening to That Solo Life.

 

The Future of Work

What’s the latest in one of our favorite topics, the future of work? Within corporate America, we are seeing a shift toward calling employees back into the office either on a full-time or hybrid basis. And then there’s the workforce itself. Some people like working remotely or on a hybrid basis. And what about the work itself? Are there opportunities for solo PR pros? You bet. Listen and get inspired.

 

Transcript

The Future of Work
That Solo Life Episode #199

Michelle Kane (00:02):

Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane of VoiceMatters, and my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hi, Karen. It's another episode, another week.

Karen Swim, APR (00:20):

Yes. Hello Michelle. How are you doing this week?

Michelle Kane (00:24):

I'm well, I'm well as, as you're listening to this it is May of 2023 and things are popping all of a sudden. It's,

Karen Swim, APR (00:34):

Yes.

Michelle Kane (00:34):

I think with the, I don't know, event season’s coming, clients are just kind of shaking off the winter doldrums, and it's, it's not a bad place to be at the moment. How about you?

Karen Swim, APR (00:47):

Same. Lots of activities and lots of invitations, business and personal, but it's really, you know, it's an interesting time because we are still in this major period of change. And, you know, the economy is crazy, right? Like the numbers don't match the mood. Like, it's weird that inflation's declining, but when you look at those numbers, you're like, but really, is it?

Michelle Kane (01:21):

Yeah. I love that you said that.

Karen Swim, APR (01:24):

Yeah. Isn't really, because things still seem awfully high to me. And the Fed keeps raising interest rates and, and although there's a lot of activity, it also still feels very sluggish. Like things are just slow moving.

Michelle Kane (01:41):

Yes. Yeah. And it's so weird. It is weird. And we could probably do a whole episode on that, because I'm thinking too, there are the numbers, there's the reality out there, and then there's, like you said, the mood, and it's like, is the mood coming from what we're hearing of everything being bad, bad, bad. It's like, well, it's watchful. It may be bad, it may not be great. And I think once we get this whole debt ceiling, blah, blah, behind us, a lot of us will exhale.

Karen Swim, APR (02:08):

It's like a global mismatch in every area of life, you know, like this. But it's not really warm.

Michelle Kane (02:15):

We're all like, weird socks, ,

Karen Swim, APR (02:19):

But the ground is still dry, like , I don't know. Like, things are happening and they're not producing the results that we're accustomed to. So it's just almost like living in two dimensions.

Michelle Kane (02:34):

Speaking of, yeah.

Karen Swim, APR (02:35):

dimensions.

Michelle Kane (02:37):

So, we wanted to touch on the future of work. We discuss that term about in many of our episodes, but just thinking about, you know, with people being called back to their offices and employers, some employers not really aligning with the realities out there of how people function best in a company. And also, of course, seeing as we are solos, how do we fit into all of that, and how can some of what is happening really work to our advantage? Just a small topic, no big deal, but

Karen Swim, APR (03:21):

it is. Yeah. And future work is one of my favorite things to, yeah. Out in the world. I, I love this topic. Every aspect of it as it applies to corporations that applies to employees and also to solos. This is just one of the things that I love to talk about. And so the future of work landscape is, it's interesting because we have so many structural shifts in the way that we think about work and what constitutes work in the way that days are structured, in the way that jobs are structured, in the way that, you know, in the location, the physical location of where work gets done. And so we have this, of course, this divide with work that can technically be done from anywhere, and then work that really is location dependent. So for example, you can't at this point have, you know, doctors doing everything remotely.

Although there's a subset of services that can be delivered virtually or outside of a physician's office or a hospital. You have concierge doctors that are bringing clinics to you. You have a direct primary care that is that same model where rather than you going to a location, but you still need hospitals, you still need ERs, you need places where people can go. We're seeing lots of things go to e-commerce, but then people still need some places where they can physically touch or try on things. And so it's just a really interesting time. But as we talk about some companies pulling back on their work from home policies and forcing a return to office, some forcing a full-on return to office, others going with sort of hybrid policies, it's easy to think, well, everything's changing for the traditional work landscape and not realize that solos have a huge role in the future of work.

And so, yeah, one of the things we wanted to talk about today are the opportunities. Yes, there is so much data to support that when companies outsource and leverage people like us, Solo PR, small agencies, they actually have a competitive and a financial advantage. We are hugely important to those companies that truly are intentionally integrating people like us into their workforce plans. We are that resource that allows companies to hire for things that are not in their core competencies. So they get the efficiency of having a workforce that's wholly focused on things that are the most important to them operating. But then they get to leverage an outside expert for the things that they don't, that's not core to what they do. It's not central to their mission. And they get the advantage of bringing in a person or a team, if you're a team that knows the business that they're in, has that expertise, can jump in, ramp up quickly, and just do the work that is definitely needed as we move forward into the future.

And, you know, we see things like AI and people waging war against AI. It is a mistake to think that you can replace all humans with AI, right? It is not a mistake to believe that AI is forcing us to think about how we use people more efficiently. I think that's the real message of AI is that, not that it replaces people, but how can we make the most of human beings and what we have to offer? So for example, yes, you can use AI in your writing and you can use it for ideation and for draft creation and for finding sources. But you need the human creativity, the human intellect and experience to fact check, to verify, to add humanity, to copy. Otherwise, it'll be just dry and boring. Even when AI is trained to do your brand voice, you still need a human, right?

So I think that as we lean into that theme of optimizing human resources, solos are a huge part of that. Yeah. And we should, we should sell that as part of what we do, but we also need to, to recognize that there are many employers who seek to be employers of choice. And part of being an employer of choice is leveraging the independent workforce. So there's space for us. And, I guess I say that because sometimes it can feel like we're on the outside of all of that, right? And we're cool with it. Like, you know, we're cool being the hippie kids over here doing our own thing, making our own way. But we actually do have a role in the traditional landscape that does not require us going back to corporate America, sitting in a cubicle and being told who the work that have to do and for a fixed set of hours. We really are part of that bigger work ecosystem.

Michelle Kane (09:03):

Oh, completely. Completely. And you know, I love what you're saying with optimizing efficiencies, especially when, you know, companies are really still having difficulty hiring. Now, the dark side, the Darth Vader in me feels that that could be because you aren't paying people and maybe experiment with your wages and see what happens. But I know that's not everyone. But if you are short staffed, or need to add people in your core competencies, then my goodness, why wouldn't you avail yourselves of the gifts that a solo professional can bring you for your marketing, your public relations?

That's really one of my main pillars - I tell clients and prospects all the time, You may be frustrated trying to do this on your own. Well, first of all, I'll gently remind you, it's not your profession . And secondly, you already have a job, you already have plenty to fill your days with. So yeah don't feel bad about not being able to hit your marketing goals. That's why you bring in someone like a solo or a small shop. They can act as your defacto department. And, that way also, I mean, let's just cut to the bare bones of it. You're not paying overhead for a solo. You don't have to worry about insuring a solo or providing a solo with paid vacation or all those things, or worrying about those slow periods. You know, we work out our agreements with you. So we are really, I don't want to say we're, you know, a stealth weapon, but in some circles, it maybe it just hasn't crossed the minds of a lot of companies that “Oh yeah, you know what, that could work.” And it can work without imposing a threat to your current employee base. Just say, “No, they're here to help with X, Y, Z,” and it should lift everyone up.

Karen Swim, APR (11:11):

And I think the younger, the new generation workforce could care less. They're used to, they have a side hustle, they could care less. They're not threatened. It's interesting that even as we are fully seeing this future of work and this new landscape, and I think there's a lot more changes ahead, there are still many companies that treat hiring independent contractors like an embarrassment. They won't talk about it, they won't talk about their policies, they don't embrace it openly. They do it and it's fine and it works, but they don't go on record about it. And I think that that will shift in in the future. Corporate America is like a big old train and it just takes a long time to switch directions. But it's really weird to me, in this day and age, it's like, why are you embarrassed about that? That's just so random.

Michelle Kane (12:21):

That's crazy. That's wild. It's like why? It shows that you're smart.

Karen Swim, APR (12:26):

And probably for for public relations, less so for our sector, because hiring outside agencies has been something that has been done for decades, and there's no embarrassment about it. It's really the norm. Even when you have internal PR people, or an internal team, you still need outside agency help. So in our sector, we don't see that embarrassment, but, you know, I deal with this larger future of work landscape. And when you're talking about other types of contractors, companies don't want to talk about it. I promise you, they do not want to go on record and talk about any of it. And I hope that that changes. Because the more the companies are willing to step up and talk about the value that they get from hiring experts, and you're hiring people like you're scoping out work and you're hiring people to do it, and you're paying them.

It's just such a beautiful, simple proposition. You don't have all those extras, and as you said, Michelle, they're not having to take care of our needs. We're businesses, we're businesses who take care of ourselves. But I also want to note to any companies that are listening to us, the reality is, is that please don't believe that hiring an independent or small agency means that it's going to be cheap. You're not getting a bargain in terms of rates. What you are getting is that you're saving a lot of time and money because you don't have to train them. You don't have to teach them how to do their job. And you're getting the value of not only their expertise within the sector that you're hiring them for, but you're also getting something that companies are losing. And that's institutional knowledge.

Michelle Kane (14:17):

So true.

Karen Swim, APR (14:18):

We've had the Great Resignation. So many people have come and gone. Every time somebody leaves your company, they take a little bit of the secret sauce with them. It's gone. Unless you have set up infrastructure to capture that information you remember working and all of the little, and, and even now when we work, we have shortcuts. We have hacks, we have things that we know, we have things that we know about clients that we've worked with a long time. So we possess that institutional knowledge. When you lose that, it's almost like starting over every time your workforce turns over. And that's happening a lot. And I do not believe that that trend is necessarily going to change in the short term, because you have a younger generation. As I said to my sister-in-law yesterday, they're comfortable meandering for a long time.

They’re in their thirties and long ago, that was an age where you really were kind of settled into your career. But the newer generation of workers, they're quite comfortable not having the things that we valued when we were coming up in our careers. And they're perfectly happy to go and take any job and they could care less. They don't care about owning a house. They just, a lot of the things that, again, were important to my generation are not important to them. And so you're going to still see turnover because they're not going to stick around for five or seven years. And so they're going to come in and they're going to learn those things and they're going to hopefully add some value while they're there and they're going to add some practices and they're going to leave and that's going to walk out of the door with them.

But as solos, we bring not only the value of, especially when we have those long-term relationships. So we bring the value of not only preserving some institutional knowledge for your company, but we work with lots of companies. And so we have the benefit of being able to bring all of the best practices that we've been exposed to, to any individual clients. This does not mean that we're giving away trade secrets, it's just that we've seen ways that things work better. So we incorporate all of those things into our work. We learn from our clients, too. We see something, a process is being done well, and we adapt that, and then we're able to be more efficient for the next client. And so, you know, that's valuable and it's a value that internal teams don't have because they're working in a singular company. They only know how things are done in their company, in their industry, and that's it.

Michelle Kane (17:06):

Yeah. And, I'll reverse that too. You know, as our own businesses we're exposed to people and experiences that they may not be exposed to. So, you know, case in point, just looking for opportunities where a client might be able to shine, whether that's events thought leadership, anything, we bring that back to them. Not only do we do that, but with our longer term clients, we're going to know, we're going to be able to do those initial gut checks of what's a good fit for someone. If you're approached about a program or something and you just think, mm, no, but here's what they would like, can we make that happen? And take that back to them. It's truly so much to your benefit if you're out there listening. If you do have a need within your organization and it's something where you're either having a difficult time hiring or you're just not really sure how to solve for x in that given situation to reach out to a solo. What's the worst that could happen? We say goodbye after a couple of weeks? Okay. And that's how we learn.

Karen Swim, APR (18:14):

Another value of, honestly, I mean I I adhere to this practice in, in my own business as well, is that it's a professional contract. It's a business to business contract. You are not, I'm not stuck with someone for life. If I bring somebody on for a scope of work and it's not the best fit, then we part ways, you know? They get paid for the work that they did, and you move on. And so that is another benefit, is that you're not making this decision to be married to this contractor for the rest of your time in business. It really can be, it's a great way to trial people. Sometimes there's such a great chemistry between contractors and clients that there have been solos that do go back into the corporate world for something that really moves them. So it's a great way to have a bench of talent by working with independents as well. Not every independent wants to remain independent for the rest of their life. People can move in and out of independence. And so sometimes your next best employee may actually be an independent.

Michelle Kane (19:24):

Right. So true. It's so true. So, you know, we hope this has enlightened you or made you think in new and different ways, which is always fun. And, you know, let us know. Let us know what you're thinking. Check us out solo pr pro.com. We, we definitely want to hear your feedback. So please, please, please provide it. If this was of value to you, please do share it around. And until next time, thank you so much for listening to That Solo Life.

Putting the ”PR” in Professionalism

Are you weary of people calling themselves PR professionals who seem to be storytelling their careers? The few who talk a good game, leaving a trail of disgruntled clients? In this episode we talk about ways PR practitioners – from those new to the profession to seasoned pros – can represent our profession well.

 

Transcript:

Michelle Kane (00:02):

Thank you for joining us for another episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves, people like me, Michelle Kane, with VoiceMatters, and my wonderful co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hi Karen, how are you today?

Karen Swim, APR (00:19):

Hey, Michelle. I'm doing great. Solidarity to the writers who of this recording are on strike. We stand with writers, hang in there WGA, we hope that you get what you need and deserve. And if I were in California, I would be out there with you on the picket line.

Michelle Kane (00:42):

I fully agree. Fully agree. I hope that the WGA gets everything they are asking for because they are the backbone of all of the projects on which they serve.

Karen Swim, APR (00:54):

Yes.

Michelle Kane (00:55):

You know, if you like watching things where words come out of people's mouths, , you need to thank the writers.

Karen Swim, APR (01:02):

Absolutely. And that's kind of a funny segue. I mean, serious topic, but yeah. Writing, storytelling. Hmm. And PR peeps who might be storytelling their careers just a tad too much.

Michelle Kane (01:20):

Just a little bit. Yes. We're going to to carefully edge into these waters. I'm sure we, you'll soon be nodding listeners, these people that come into your path, these self-declared am I going to say the word, the G word, gurus, the people that come across as very flashy, but you soon find out there's precious little substance, however they present themselves as seasoned PR professionals. And, you know, it just really, it doesn't do any of us any good. It's not a service to us. In fact, it's a disservice of the hard work that truly seasoned professionals put in. And you know, I say this a lot and I think just as technology grows, and I'm not even talking about AI, I'm talking about the Canvas of the world, the people who, “I have a MAC, I'm a designer.” That whole mindset of you can do anything. Well, yes, but to a point. To a point. Even though, we're not licensed, we're not doctors. We don't get to call ourselves “Dr. PR professional,” there's still a lot of training and experience that goes into doing what we do well.

Karen Swim, APR (02:41):

There should be yeah. And I mean, while we have the APR credential and some people do have a degree in comms, the access point to practice the profession, like so many these days is, is very low. You could just set up shop and call yourself a digital PR person. I came up in PR from a very non-traditional way. And the reason that I pursued my APR is because I wanted to have that foundation. I wanted to have the language, I wanted to have the breadth of information to be able to really practice as a professional. So this discussion today is not saying that you have to go the traditional way in order to be a professional, but what we are imploring people to do is to strive to be a professional.

Please do not be out there, as Michelle said, calling yourself an expert, calling yourself a professional, calling yourself professional when you can't even write a PR plan. There are just some things going into running your own business that you really should know how to do. And you should know how to do some of the things well. You don't have to know how to do everything. You don't have to be perfect at everything. If social media is not your jam, that's okay. You can partner with people to walk you through that. But if you do not know how to research, plan, implement, evaluate, notice how I used RPIE. Please learn. Please learn. I beg of you to go learn. This came out of previous discussions because I think it's very frustrating when people who take this profession so seriously and do consider ourselves to be professionals, when we see questions coming from other people, or we see content being produced by other people that we know is not at the level of professionalism it can be very, very frustrating. And people get very angry about that and they feel as though it diminishes the entire profession by bad actors.

Michelle Kane (05:17):

Indeed, indeed. And like you said, there is a huge difference between aligning with or putting people on your team to fill certain roles at a professional level. That's not what we're talking about. I spent some time as an account executive at an ad agency, and really that's been my model ever since. You are the person, you are the hub, you build the strategy, you work with all of the players to make things happen. And of course, you know, I'm also a writer, so I wear that hat as well, which comes in handy. But I noticed as time has gone on and, thank goodness for the internet, it's made it easy for us to set up solo shops. But I've seen a lot of people setting up shop and I would just say to myself this is why you need an account executive. This is why you need someone like us who creates the strategy, who oversees it all? Who orchestrates it? Who knows what is good and what isn't? Who knows the difference between good design and bad design? I mean, and I am eternally grateful actually to the agency where I started - you look back, it was a good thing at the time, but as you look back, you realize, oh my goodness. In fact, I was chatting with an ex-coworker, gosh, a few years back, she had moved on to a different position and she was waiting for approval for an ad. And you know, that's something we did. So she thought, well, I'm just going to approve it. And she got her hand slapped because that wasn't the right channel. And she said, well, there was a deadline. I knew it was right. .

Karen Swim, APR (07:04):

Yeah.

Michelle Kane (07:05):

You know, but all that, to bring it back to our topic of, you need someone, when you're working with clients, who has that experience, who just knows how to guide a client through something and isn't just throwing it together haphazardly because you know that's not going to last long, that that's not going to serve them well for the long run, certainly isn't going to leave a trail of happy clients. And those unhappy clients are going to say, “Ugh, PR, I worked with someone, it was terrible.

Karen Swim, APR (07:44):

Well, I think another thing that really is a personal pet peeve of mine is that you have people calling themselves either PR professionals or that they practice PR and to them that strictly equates to media relations. But then they're not even good at media relations. These are the people that spam the universe hoping for something to stick. They don't have a strategy, they're not aligned with the client's overall goals. There's nothing but tactics. And yeah, any monkey can put together a bunch of emails and you know what, even a broken clock is right twice a day. So it's frustrating because then you have clients and, maybe you're getting media for them may not be quality media. Maybe you are able to land tier one coverage, but it's just about that.

And that's all you do. You have one trick in your tool bag and that's it. And then when the client is not happy, because you don't have the skillset to be able to be more nuanced in how you practice, and you're not able to really deliver a higher value strategy, you're going to turn through your clients very quickly. And then these are the people that come to true pros and say, “Ugh, we don't believe in PR.” Well, they don't believe in PR because they've never seen it practice before. And that's because we have these people that are playing at the profession and it's time to stop playing. Right. And again, not to make anyone feel bad about maybe being newer to the profession or maybe learning, but it's an encouragement to please learn. And does not mean that you have to, you know, learn like a textbook worth of things before you can start.

Maybe you start it, maybe there are some things you know, but please up your game level up because you really do, you know, you're lowering the bar for all of us. And that's not okay. It impacts our ability to earn a living. It impacts our ability to do our job well because we, as PR professionals, part of our job is to protect our publics. That's not just our clients. And you have to know that responsibility. In order to protect it and if you're not bothering to learn what this job really entails, that's not a good look. It's almost like, would you go and order a custom cake from a bakery where the person knew how to spot great cakes and maybe knew how to draw, but didn't know how to bake and they're learning on the job. And so sometimes it's good because like, oh look, they hit on something that work, but sometimes it's not and they don't really know what to do, but they're figuring it out as they go along. You are a business. You have a responsibility to come into this game with some skillset, some level of skillset, please.

Michelle Kane (11:03):

Right, right. And, just to build on that of, you know, don't feel bad. I mean, if you're just starting out, then those are the services that you offer, where your comfort zone is with an eye on growth. You know what you do really well. Focus on that until you do other things better. I mean, we're always learning - all of us, or at least we should be. And just talking to those of us who might have come to a client who's coming off of a bad experience, have a discussion about that. Say, oh, well, okay, what happened there? Oh, okay. And that can, you know, again, we're always talking about educating our clients. That can be an instructive moment of, well, so no, here's what you can expect working with me or working with us. You know, we will make sure that x, y, z happens. You know, just help them to get beyond that perception of that bad experience.

Karen Swim, APR (12:06):

Oh my gosh, absolutely. I think, you know, to be honest with you, I've had a few clients like that. We've had two recently that we really just dug deep. Rather than running away when they say, “Oh yeah, we had a bad experience with PR, we're not afraid to ask the questions because we're trying to make a decision if we want to work with this particular client. Because sometimes it's not the agency, sometimes it's the client. Right. So don't be afraid of just digging deeper for your own satisfaction to know, like, okay, is there something like, as you said, that I can learn from this situation. Is this someone that really could be a great client? Or are these red flags? I mean, but you don't know until you dig and you ask, right. And you ask for examples and then you talk through it. And I have found that with reasonable adults and professionals, sometimes you can work through things and you have a greater understanding. And sometimes the way somebody else practice is not the way that you practice. And that same misunderstanding would not have happened. And so it could be a good fit for you.

Michelle Kane (13:23):

Correct. Yeah.

Karen Swim, APR (13:24):

Again, the people that do not have the expertise that are just, you know, get a client, lose a client, no big deal. They just, they're churning quickly. This is not what any of us want to be representative of PR it, I know of an agency still standing, their whole M.O. for many, many, many years has been to bring clients in, spend a lot of time on discovery, not really deliver anything of value have junior people on the account, and then by the time they're out of discovery and supposed to be delivering results, they get fired and they just move on to the next client. So they just purposely turn through and are making their money by holding onto people through a false period of discovery and not really delivering results. This is so completely unethical. But I would always also say, check your ethics if you're selling something that you do not know how to do. Because you should know how to do what clients are paying you to do. Let's just be clear about that , it's fine to have a really narrow engagement. Last week on our program, we had a wonderful guest, Katie Boos, who is a seasoned PR pro with an agency, but she found through practicing her profession, that she really loved events and she really loved the, you know, getting speakers.

And so she leaned into that slice of thought leadership hard. And that's what she does. She has a very narrow specific focus in her PR practice and she delivers on it. She's good at it. She continues to learn and to grow and to deliver what clients expect from her. So it's fine to not be a generalist. It's fine not to have all the skillsets. Maybe there is a slice of PR that you actually are good at. As Michelle said, focus on that slice. And if you want to build your skills, there's ways to do that through hands-on learning by working with other pros. You know, be honest and say, “Hey, is there an assignment that I could work on with you that I'm trying to build my skills in X?” Right. And I don't have that skillset, but I'm willing to learn if you're willing to teach, and I can pitch in and help on the account, but being open and honest with other professionals is really important too, because if you're in professional circles or groups and forums and you're asking 101 questions, you are going to create people that have zero desire to help you and will have no respect for you as a professional.

You see through that straight away and you just think, huh, okay, what are we doing here? And it's frustrating and it can be demoralizing, but, you know, try not to let it . And I love what you said about, you know, niching down if that's, and that is the beauty. As we often talk about being a solo shop. Even if you, even if you're a micro agency or something larger than a one person business, you get to create the business that you want, which is a wonderful thing. But, you know, at the same time, yeah, we have to tolerate some people that just pop out there and, and suddenly and, and you know, you see it everywhere, right? You see it in job listings where someone's looking for a marketing coordinator and lists all these things with horrible pay and you realize that's really a director position and that person needs a team and good luck with that. Those are also potentially, well, depending, obviously if the pays not very good, you're not going to pop in. But sometimes those are fun to just play with and say, Hey, would do you want to hire consultants?

Karen Swim, APR (17:38):

And I think that the existence of many of those want the world at low prices kind of originated with people doing things that really weren't qualified to do. And didn't know to charge the right value.  Because it’s not really what they do. And I mean, PR is not the only profession where people are overselling themselves. Marketing, you know, is rife with social media. It's why you have people out here thinking, oh, well if you're Gen Z I'll just hire you to do my social media because you're a digital native. But does that person understand how to align your social media strategy with your company goals, by the way? Yeah. They know what strategy or do they know the tactics because the tactics are important, but who's going to guide your strategy?

Michelle Kane (18:30):

Right. Do they know, do they know what brand voice is ?

Karen Swim, APR (18:35):

Probably not. Have you talked to some of these people? Do they know personas? Do they know how to do message maps? All of these things that professionals will tell you. Do they know how to ride a crisis plan around social media to protect you? Is there an escalation plan should something happen? These are all things that professionals recommend and it's not overkill. We recommend and we do these things because we understand the depth and breadth of our jobs and we know that it's more than being task monkeys. Which none of us are. And I'm sure , I believe with all my heart that most of our listeners are not. And so this again, is not an indictment for anyone starting. It's not being the, you know, mean PR girls that are like, “Ugh, you suck and you should get out of this job.” It is an encouragement for all of us to uplift the profession. By really living up to what it really means to be a PR pro. It's already hard enough to fight against clients who are out here calling press releases articles, and it's like nails on a chalkboard for me. Yeah. I get that. That's a little thing. But we all have those little things that drive us over the edge. Like yeah, that's not an article. It's a news release. And in some cases, you're right, girl, that's not even an article that is a marketing brochure. And I cannot put this on a site.

Michelle Kane (20:10):

We can repurpose our content in appropriate ways, but we shouldn't just take the copy and put it everywhere.

Karen Swim, APR (20:18):

The media does not want your product brochure.

Michelle Kane (20:22):

No.

Karen Swim, APR (20:23):

But it's not on the wire.

Michelle Kane (20:25):

Exactly. No, no, no, it's not. And actually in the back of my mind, I'm already thinking, okay, who's the listener looking to buy the domain name task monkeys.com ?

Karen Swim, APR (20:36):

It might be me. I don’t know. We'll see.

But I mean, we're joking, but we are. Yeah. And you know, Michelle and I hope that we are always a source of encouragement and information, and this is something we wanted to address because it is being discussed among PR professionals and it is something that bothers us too, because we work too hard in what we are building. You listeners, you're part of the, we work too hard, we strive too hard to get where we are in our careers. Many of you did put in time in traditional PR roles and came out of agencies in leadership positions. Some were client side, some went to school and you know,  your major is in comms, others are APRs and you're proud of this job. And I believe that that is something that we all share. We're proud to do this job. We love this profession and solos. We really have to make sure that we are continuing to set a high standard and not lower ourselves to these people that are really n not a credit to our profession, but we continue to raise the bar so that we're setting a standard for the next generation coming up behind us.

Michelle Kane (22:03):

Yeah, I agree. And I think especially as solos and or self-employed micro agency leaders, because what credibility do we have beyond our track record and the perception of our profession? Because it's not like we don't produce widgets that we can say, look, my product is beautiful. See how nice it is. No, our service is our product. So it's so important.

Karen Swim, APR (22:32):

100%. And I know the younger generation is, they're more comfortable with fluidity. They will get a job and they will leave a job in a heartbeat. Like zero emotion about it. Like Yeah, I'm not doing that. But you cannot bring that same attitude into running your own business because at some point you're going to run out a runway. Yeah. I mean you could drop around, you could practice in different countries, but there's something very satisfying about having a reputation that says you deliver results. It's personally rewarding because you're connected. You're the person that's producing the service, and you get to see the outcomes of that service. And building a reputation based on results and meeting the expectations that you set, that's what's going to give you longevity. That is what is going to allow you to scale your business. That is the thing that you can tap into.

You can tap into that bank of trust. And that does become more important because it's expensive and exhausting to keep hopping around and churning through clients. It's not the way, I promise you, at some point in your lives, you will get a bit older and you will see that that takes a toll because you're constantly having to expend the energy and there's a price tag to continually onboarding new people. Yeah. It gets old. It's not as fun as it sounds and you think, you know, you can't keep treat treating your clients as though they're dispensable. And this environment today should maybe help you to take note of that, that they are not dispensable, they are valuable. People do move to other companies. They do remember. And your leads may one day dry up. Because you're not who you said that you were.

Michelle Kane (24:36):

Yeah. It's so true. So true. Well, we hope that you've gotten value out of this today. We hope that every week, but especially today, I, you know, I'm sure many of you were nodding your heads rolling, your eyes giggling along with us, but we are so grateful for you and the time that you give to us. And we are equally grateful if you share this around, if you know someone who's going through this and if this might help, just give them some encouragement. We would love to be a part of that. And until next time, thanks for joining us on That Solo Life.

 

Everything Everywhere All at Once: Social Media in 2023

The current state of the social media landscape is anything but stable. Twitter continues to devolve. TikTok is going strong, but will its use be banned in the United States? It’s a challenge to keep up with the changes in current channels and evaluate new options. In this episode, we discuss this uncertainty and how you can keep your focus on using the right channels at the right time for your clients.

 

Transcript

Michelle Kane:

Thank you for joining us for an episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves. People like me, Michelle Kane, with VoiceMatters, and my ever-steady co-host, Karen Swim, of Solo PR Pro. Hi, Karen. How are you today?

Karen Swim:

Hello. I am good. We got a little peek of sunshine this morning, and it was way overdue since we had lingering winter weather here in Michigan. I feel pretty good, because the sunshine definitely recharges me.

Michelle Kane:

It's so true. You don't realize until you haven't had it for a few days and you think, "Ugh, come on, sunshine." Yes, yes, definitely. We had a little taste of summer, but now we're back to actual spring. I don't know. It was sunny up until probably an hour ago.

Karen Swim:

Yeah.

Michelle Kane:

I've been kind of refusing, I'm like, "I'm not wearing a jacket. I don't care if I'm cold. I'm past that."

Karen Swim:

I've been stuck in winter clothes because I couldn't take it anymore, and I was freezing. It hasn't just been lack of sun, it's actually been ... it's just been winter here. Everybody's still in their winter gear, which kind of stinks considering it's the ...

Michelle Kane:

It does.

Karen Swim:

... end of April. Hopefully.

Michelle Kane:

Well, as the Great Purple One said, Sometimes It Snows in April. Sometimes, as we're going to talk about today, sometimes changes in social media and our landscape can also make you a bit bonkers. We're good. It's not just Twitter and the whole mess over there. It's, where are people spending their time now, and what components have changed? How does that impact how you find your audience?

It almost feels like the beginning of social media where I think, not that we've become complacent, but for a while, we kind of knew, all right, that's that, that's that, we know where to find everything. Suddenly, they moved our cheese all over the place.

Karen Swim:

Yeah.

Michelle Kane:

We'll just touch on that today, and talk about our experiences, and please do hit us up at SoloPRPro.com and share your experiences, because we really want to hear about it.

Karen Swim:

It's interesting. I saw yesterday someone talk about a reporter was discussing that Twitter in particular became part of our habits. It's pretty much ingrained. We, for the past decade, we would go to Twitter and we would use it for real time news and were accustomed to PR professionals developing relationships or maintaining relationships with journalists there, we would source queries there.

We would see what people were up to. It was built into our daily habits, much like Facebook was the place where we just learned to go to keep up with family and friends. Now there's so many revenge Twitter sites.

Michelle Kane:

I love that, revenge Twitter sites.

Karen Swim:

People are dispersed. Now, even [inaudible 00:03:26] has notes. People are communicating over there around posts that are authored, which is sort of a new old version of what the blog post used to be. The blog post would be the community gathering place. Everybody would go and comment on blogs every day. Then you have these algorithms that have changed everywhere. You've got ...

Michelle Kane:

Completely.

Karen Swim:

... Google changing, you've got even YouTube changing. YouTube is another social media site, and their ad revenue has dropped to 6.7 billion in the first quarter of this year. With their 2.6% year-over-year decline, people are really wondering, okay, creators, but then also enterprises. We have clients, we all have clients that have YouTube channels, and we've all been told for such a long period of time that it's a great way to have your own thought leadership platform and share information with your audience.

Well, if ad revenue is dropping and algorithms are changing, and TikTok shorts are becoming more popular than YouTube, we're faced with a lot of questions about where in the hack do we spend our time, and where do we tell our clients to spend their time?

Michelle Kane:

So true, so true. It also brings back the notion, or should I say, it's a core principle, always own your real estate, always have a website, always try to be building your email list, because then these questions aren't as potent. There's definitely a space for social to amplify your message. Yeah. There are a lot of question marks of where are your audiences spending your time? From the professional development side, where are our colleagues and our contacts spending their time? How can they be found?

We'll throw into the mix of, I don't think it's imminent, but the status of TikTok. Is it going to stick around? We don't know. There are a lot of questions. Another core best practice has always been don't try to be on all the social things all at once. You'll just make yourself crazy. You'll not only dilute your energy, you'll dilute your effectiveness. It's best thing to do is to just take some time, remind yourself who is the audience for your client, and just look around and see. Okay, where are these people spending their most time? Take it from there.

Then the nice thing about social and the digital world is you have that liberty to be nimble.

Karen Swim:

I agree.

Michelle Kane:

It's not like you're building this massive website with message boards and you're going to launch it. It's just, okay, well this doesn't seem to be working. You certainly want to give it enough time to work. We all know, these delicate balances. Give it enough time to work, but if it doesn't seem to be gaining traction, then move on.

Karen Swim:

It's interesting, because I used to do a lot of social media strategy and management when it first came on the scene, and for many years after that. I, last year, made the decision that I was out. Recently, someone approached me and I'm like, "No, thank you." I've gotten asked to do, and I'm like, "No. I'm done with social media." My advice back then was the same, prioritize. Don't try to be on all the channels. We had our fewer channels back then too.

Michelle Kane:

Right.

Karen Swim:

I think one of the magic words that you said for me is don't neglect building your own email list.

Michelle Kane:

Right.

Karen Swim:

That's still so key and a great way to stay in touch with your audience. I think for B2B or B2C companies, it doesn't matter. It's so important to have one reliable channel where people can get up to date, accurate information. This morning, my sister was going to try this restaurant that's been around and one that I'm familiar with, and she went to the website to check their hours. Big mistake. These days when it comes to the food industry in particular, or even stores, I usually just call.

Michelle Kane:

Yeah.

Karen Swim:

Websites are not being maintained, which sometimes it's because they have a one-off, maybe they don't have staffing for that day. Yes, those are their normal hours, but that day, they can't be open their normal hours. She got there and they were not going to be open for an hour later. I said, "Didn't you check the hours beforehand?" She goes, "Well, the website said." Well, the website is usually the last place that I look for hours these days.

Michelle Kane:

Right.

Karen Swim:

I'll go on Instagram or one of the social media channels to see what they said on that day. I realize it's a day by day. Then I'll call just to verify.

Michelle Kane:

Yeah, that's a good point. Google business listings can be reliable. I like that Google indicates the last time hours were updated, because it lets you know.

Karen Swim:

Right.

Michelle Kane:

Oh, okay.

Karen Swim:

Absolutely.

Michelle Kane:

Yeah, you're right. It's shifting.

Karen Swim:

Your hours are fluctuating, or in this case, the reason that they were opening later is because they were preparing for an event. If you have those kind of one-offs or there's some fluctuation, you still need to make sure that that information is easily accessible to your audience. Not everybody is a food business. Not everybody even has brick and mortar offices anymore. In technology, which is the industry that I specialize in, almost no one has an office.

Michelle Kane:

Right.

Karen Swim:

They're all remote. You still need to make sure that there's one channel that you are posting on frequently, so that people know like, "Oh, let me go check their X."

Michelle Kane:

Right.

Karen Swim:

I vote for website. I always vote for website, because it's the one thing that no one else has control over, but you. As Michelle said, it's your real estate, it's your domain. Y,ou should always at least have your website updated all the time at all times, with all of the latest information, with all of the happenings, because that's the one place that people will like, "Okay, let's check the website, let's head there and see what's going on." Then pick a social channel. Today, for me, and for most of my clients, it's really LinkedIn and a newsletter.

Michelle Kane:

Yeah.

Karen Swim:

Of course, their website.

Michelle Kane:

LinkedIn, I've seen a huge uptick in requests of me to subscribe to people's newsletters on LinkedIn. Hey, that could work for you as well. At least it's a place where depending what your type of business is, like minded people will be congregating. The people that you might be doing business with or for are hanging out. We all know this. We all know the social platforms have different purposes. If you're trying to get something out to the public, it's different ways, it's Facebook.

Yeah, gosh. Even I still work in social media. I still manage pages. It's not as fun as it used to me, but I keep telling some of my clients that get frustrated, I say, "Hey, you're going to get so tired of your content, because the 80/20 rule with the way the algorithm is, does it really pay off?" Sure, I'll share other people's things really as a way of networking online, but if you're trying to get your message out consistently, I had someone ask, it's a brick and mortar retail establishment. No one's calling. The call to action is the little phone icon and the phone number.

I have to say, I'm like, "Well, they're probably not going to." We do it as a point of reference to slowly subliminally plant that maybe on the 12th time they see it, if they're ready for your service, that's another factor, then maybe they'll call. At least I want it there at their fingertips, because as we all know, the less clicks, the better. We don't like to have to dig down rabbit holes to do business with somebody.

Karen Swim:

I think for communicators that do still manage social media, one key skillset that I have heard clients asking for, and just lots of ... I can't find the word. What are the people that we do business with? Organizations. The one skill that I see organizations continuously seeking out are people that are experienced in social media ads, particularly LinkedIn ads. If that's not a skillset that you're particularly good at, but you offer social media, I would advise trying to beef up your skillset in that area, because people do want that. I also believe that it's really important these days to also think granular.

Michelle Kane:

Yes.

Karen Swim:

I watch Reddit for one of my clients, and it's a gold mine of engagement, because people are talking about my client there in a positive way. It also gives us an opportunity to watch anything that is not quite accurate information. It helps us with our messaging. It helps us to see what questions are being asked. Some audiences are gathering in smaller, more intimate places. They're not necessarily on Twitter, particularly, again, if you're dealing with the general public.

Michelle Kane:

Right.

Karen Swim:

When I say general public, it could be consumers, it can be employees. If you're in the workforce space, then part of your market might be people that work at the companies that you work with. I think it's important to not ignore those niche spaces that are more intimate, which can be very appealing for a lot of people these days. It feels quieter, more manageable, and so many people are not on the big channels.

Michelle Kane:

Right.

Karen Swim:

If any of us stop for a second and think about your friends that are not in this business, they're not in communications, they're not in marketing, how many of them have a Twitter account?

Michelle Kane:

Right, or even a Facebook account?

Karen Swim:

Facebook.

Michelle Kane:

I see that both with my peers, and also I would say millennials, even Gen Z, they're just not there. Which is important to keep in mind, because even as you do a lot of work in those channels, which is valid, keep in mind that people are spending their time in other spaces, which we can evolve into a whole other conversation about how you should be using all sorts of different mediums. Today's all about how social media is a popcorn machine with the door open. Everything's just all over the place.

Karen Swim:

I love that. It's true. If I see more than one network pop up, at this point, I'm like, okay ...

Michelle Kane:

Stop.

Karen Swim:

... Pick it up. In the immediate changeover of Twitter, I did establish accounts on Post and Mastodon and some of the other places, but I just have decided personally for my own personal use that I'm like, "You know what? I don't care about any of it." To be honest with you, I do try to use LinkedIn kind of occasionally, and then of course, Instagram, because I have my dog's account, and her account is way more active than mine.

Michelle Kane:

Thank God for our pets.

Karen Swim:

Yeah.

Michelle Kane:

It's true.

Karen Swim:

I think that it's so complex for us communicators because there's just so many choices, and it's really divided our audience into so many pieces because they're not hanging out in one place anymore. Think about the media landscape too. The same thing happened, but now we're kind of seeing that shift happening. I think we're going to end up with fewer media channels because they can't make money.

Michelle Kane:

Right.

Karen Swim:

The theme of media and social media these days is the lack of ad revenue.

Michelle Kane:

Right.

Karen Swim:

That is really the theme. They're both struggling with getting people to advertise, and without advertising dollars, you don't have money.

Michelle Kane:

Right. You think about the dilution of the audiences, with more channels comes less eyeballs across the board. Yeah. That's going to affect all of that. It's just important to keep all of this in mind as we serve our clients. As best you can, just take your time and see where other similar clients maybe are spending their time. Just keep evaluating, which I think all of us do. We all do this, but we just thought we'd talk about this today because sometimes you're like, "Another channel?"

Karen Swim:

Yeah. The podcast is therapy for us sometimes.

Michelle Kane:

Oh, that's right.

Karen Swim:

Feeling the overwhelm of social media dilution and algorithms, algorithm mean too much.

Michelle Kane:

Yes, exactly. We hope you've gotten value out of this today. We know we have. I feel better. I don't know about you, Karen, but ...

Karen Swim:

I feel a lot better.

Michelle Kane:

If you did get something out it, please share it around. I'm sure there are many more of us out there going, "What?" We do value the time that you give us and that you spend with us every week. Until next time, thanks for joining us on That Solo Life.

Staying in Your Lane with Katy Boos

you want to listen to this episode, where we talk with Katy Boos, CEO and Founder of Remix Communications. Katy founded Remix Communications because she’s passionate about creating impactful thought leadership programs for her clients. Brainstorming compelling topics and narratives, Katy helps bring ideas to life on stage at top industry events and in written content for clients such as Adobe, Meta, Stitch Fix and several successful start-ups and growth companies.

 

Get in touch with Katy Boos online:

LinkedIn

Instagram: @remix_comms

Twitter: @kgboos

 

Transcript

Michelle Kane (00:02):

Thank you for joining another episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves. And we're so excited today because we have a guest. We love guest days. Today we have Katie Bus. Katie is the CEO and Founder of Remix Communications. She founded Remix Communications because she's passionate about creating impactful thought leadership programs for her clients. That includes brainstorming compelling topics and narratives. Katie helps bring ideas to life on stage, at top, industry events, and in written content for clients such as Adobe Meta Stitch Fix, not too shabby, and several successful startups and growth companies. Before Remix, Katie co-founded a successful Silicon Valley marketing and PR firm earlier. She managed PR programs at Apple for media and entertainment, mobile products and QuickTime. Katie lives in Los Angeles, and she was selected for the advisory committee of South by Southwest. Served as a TEDx speaker, curator and coach volunteers. When do you have time to volunteer at all? Seated in a barn horse rescue, which is awesome, and has been a board member for the Peninsula Humane Society and the Working Wonders Children's Museum. And with all of that, we are so grateful to welcome you today to That Solo Life. Katie? Yes.

Katy Boos (01:29):

Oh, thank you ladies. . I'm so excited to be here.

Michelle Kane (01:34):

This is incredible. Yes. So we'll start off, I mean, just tell us a little bit about your client work and, and really where you specialize, because the title of this episode is Stay in Your Lane. And, and we mean that in the most positive of ways because that's the way you can be most impactful. Right?

Katy Boos (01:52):

Yeah, I love that. I love Stay in Your Lane. I have this sort of traditional PR background as you mentioned, Michelle, in your nice intro. And, you know, after years and years of doing PR programs, traditional media relations, that sort of thing, I really found this love for thought leadership and speaking programs and really helping executives get out there and get their messages out there. Sowhen I had the chance to spin off from my last agency and specialize, I really wanted that focus of thought leadership. And so that's been the focus for Remix Communications. We are definitely niche. There's not a lot of us out there who do exactly what we do, but it's worked out really well. I, I think it's something that, you know, it gives us that real specialty. People know what we do and they can come to us foryou know, for those services.

Michelle Kane (02:55):

Definitely. Definitely. And you know, we're, we're still in post pandemic world, right? Even though Covid is still around. But I know a lot of us in our event planning, we've had challenges of attendance and things like that. What, are the some of the biggest trends you are seeing happening with events and conferences these days?

Katy Boos (03:15):

You know, it's, it's changing, right? Kind of as you said, we, you know, everything was gang busters 2019, 2020. The brakes went on big time and clients were trying to figure out what should we do. Virtual events obviously became a huge deal. I will say a lot of us sort of got tired of them. We don't all want to sit in our chair watching events. So when things sort of started to come back slowly, 2021, 2022, we started to see this nice uptick. I'm coming off a month of being at a couple different eventsin person. And I will tell you, I think a huge thing right now is that people are so excited to be around each other. There's just such energy and enthusiasm, the connections that you make in person, there's nothing like it. You know, it's sort of like you need to be there.

(04:15):

Yes, you can get some of the content online. Definitely that's great if you can't travel, you knowabroad, for example, for Web Summit or whatever. But being there in person, it's those chance meetups if you're waiting for coffee or, you know, one of the writers that we work with regularly sat next to me at an event in Seattle, and we happened to be the two people who, who weren't on our phones at that moment. And we struck up a conversation and I realized, this one's a really talented writer, and now we've worked together. I think it's going on six years. So it's that kind of thing where it's just you know, that networking. So I would say in-person events, definitely that's a huge trend. People wanna be there. I will also say, and maybe this is a result of us being locked down and being on Zoom so much, but sessions are shorter.

(05:11):

Typically. They need to be livelier. They need to have, do not show up with a bunch of PowerPoint bullets and think outside the box as far as like the presentation. And by shorter, by the way, you might still have an hour slot, but it could be 30 minutes of your session, 30 minutes of a Q&A. And that's something I'm really seeing, you know, just getting back from, you know, a pretty major event where people are just lined up with questions. They want to talk to the speaker. So it's great to deliver information, but it's really great to interact with the audience as well. That was and

Karen Swim, APR (05:49):

You just answered a question that I had of what are the expectations now? Cause you talk about this excitement of events and you just answered that Yeah. And as you described that, you know, the change, the shift in kind of what the audience is expecting from the content. Are you finding that organizers are looking for something different or very specific now that we're in this era of having been exposed to virtual events and, and the, and those still being, you know, an option mm-hmm. , is there something specific that they look for now that they didn't prior to the pandemic?

Katy Boos (06:29):

It's a good question. I think this would be true before the pandemic, but maybe more so just that, that content needs to be super engaging. You know, more use of video. Again, more Q&A, more just visual presentations than anything. I'll also say, if you can have a provocative topic andfocus for your session, all the better. Can you be a little bitoff what everyone else is saying, you know like if it, this is imaginary, but like, if somebody stood up right now and said, chat GPT is not useful, you know, we're, we're all seeing it's pretty useful in, in some regards. So would that be interesting enough? Yeah. I mean, maybe that's something people want to listen to, so it's kind of taking that opposing view. And then I would also say, you know, bringing in partners, that's something we do a ton of. We will partner our client with other companies who maybe aren't our client, but we think they've got a good message to make this amazing session and delivered on a silver platter to the organizer. So really, you know, thinking about what would be most engaging for the audience. And again, all of those things were true before the pandemic, but now I think it's even more true. Shorter attention spans. We want good content.

Michelle Kane (08:01):

Yeah. And I think too, people are more selective with how they spend their time. Some intentionally, some I think without really realizing it, because our rhythms have changed, our, our priorities have changed. A lot of us are, you know, now that things are back up and running, it's everyone's busieryou know, in in a way that it's not just busy work, but they're, they're busy, they're working in their businesses and they really mm-hmm. , it has to be something special to take that time away. But I, I also love that you brought up the serendipity of those chance meetings. I, you know, it's, it's funny, even in my day-to-day, so often, some of the best conversations and the best Intel happens in the parking lot conversations, .

Katy Boos (08:45):

Oh my gosh, yes. It's so true. It's so true. I just, you know, I was just, I had a client speaking at South by Southwest, and after the session I went up and was talking to two of the audience members. Guess what, they're both new business prospects right now. I mean, that was not my intent. It was . It was just, Hey, what did you think of the workshop? What did you think of this session? And obviously they're there and I can say, oh, and by the way, I, I placed this, I, you know, yeah, I did this workshop . So it was sort of like the best proof in the pudding right there. So it was great. Oh,

Michelle Kane (09:22):

That's incredible. I love it.

Karen Swim, APR (09:25):

Tell us, you know, you, you are, you really function in the executive thought leadership lane and you love it there, you live there. Tell us about some of the best practices that our audience can adapt to get their speakers booked for engagements.

Katy Boos (09:49):

Yeah, I think the number one thing is understand that event that you are targeting intimately. Go to the website, look at past agendas, who spoke there before. Are you proposing a product manager and they only have C level speakers, you know, don't do that. So , I think that's, that's number one. And that's, you know, as all of us, you know, under the umbrella of PR practitioners, that's what we should be doing anyway, right? If you're pitching the New York Times, you want to know that you're going to the right reporter and you have something that they would be interested in, something they maybe have covered or covered around that area. It's no different with speaking. You need to have something that's valuable to the conference organizer. I think a mistake that a lot of people makeand maybe all of us when we first started in our careers, is we go online and we fill out the apply to speak form. And, you know, that's not to say, you know, we still do that. Absolutely. But if you're just kind of plugging in information without really tailoring it, without really understanding the event, that's a miss. And you will, nine times out of 10 not get chosen. You may luck out and, and get to a smaller event. But I think that's number one is really understanding the event, the topics, level of speakersthat sort of thing. So I, I think that's probably the, the first place to start.

Michelle Kane (11:30):

Excellent. And then on the other side of it, how do you best prepare your clients for these engagements?

Katy Boos (11:38):

Yeah, we like to load them up with, here's the event, here's everything you need to know. We give them, you know, even here's where you check in. For some major events, we'll let them know about, other complimentary sessions they might want to attend. We get them, you know, Hey, you gotta get your hotel cause it's gonna sell out, you know, in this area. So it's really all of those logistical details that kind of gets into the tactics, but making sure they're all teed up. It hands on making sure that they have a chance to do kind of a tech run through. And that can be, honestly, that can be 15 minutes before the session. Sometimes you can't get in the room until then, but just making sure that they have a backup. Do they have their laptop? Do they have a thumb drive?

(12:31):

Do they have the presentation with a conference organizer? All of that. And then, you know, sort of backing up a step at a higher level, some of our clients want speaker training and we do offer that. That's something that can be as simple as, Hey, I just want to run this by someone and do a brush up for an hour. Great, we can do that. It could be we want to practice on stage, we want to plan the blocking. I want to know that when I make this point, I'm at this point in the stage and what hand gesture should I use when that sort of thing. So it could really vary, but I do, I think speaker training can be super valuable to people. And then, you know, just beyond that, making sure that people understand the event they're going to. Andyou know, again, what's the focus? Who will be in the audience that's super important. What's the demographics of this event? And speak to them, make sure it's you know, if it's an audience of students, don't talk about, oh, you're a, y mid-career change, you know, midlife career change, you, you would be missing the mark. So just understanding that I think is important. Making sure speakers understand that.

Karen Swim, APR (13:52):

I love that. Yeah, that's great advice too in about the speaker training because I think so many people can benefit from that. Even if you speak and you're a great speaker, it never, that coaching and then blocking is really useful, particularly if it's, you know, a keynote or, you know, if it's going to be like a workshop in a room, you're probably okay with not doing the blocking because the room is not going to vary that much from what you might be accustomed to. But I I love that. That's great advice. A lot of our solos may be working withexecutives that are fantastic speakers. They're engaging, they've got a great topic, they have all of the things that would make them wow an audience, but they don't have a book. They don't work for a company that maybe everybody knows. How do we get those speakers booked?

Katy Boos (14:48):

Yeah, it comes down to really being scrappy and we're no different. You know, I will be the first to say, if I go to an event and say, have I have a VP at Adobe who wants to get on stage, what do you think? That's a lot easier than, you know, I have this startup over here in this sort of niche area. And it's much harder. That's when wefor example, right now we're pairing a CEO of a growth company. We're trying to get him at a very, very top event. It's probably the number one event for his space. We're pairing him with a woman who is an expert in this field, and she's nationally known and she's willing to do it. So we went out, we, spoke with her and of course the event's like, Ooh, hey, wow, yeah, we'd love to have her.

(15:46):

And I'm like, and it's a package deal. , you know, it's, it's a twofer here, but you know, you just, you just kinda have to get scrappy and Yeah. You know, and put people together. And that's, and that's where, you know, again, like looking at other companies that might be complimentary, maybe you put together a killer panel you know and also, you know, I think sometimes people get too narrowly focused on my company is, you know, an AI, whatever, right? And they're like, we, our topic needs to be AI. What if your topic is, you are the first unicorn in this space. How did you get your funding? How did you grow? How did you make a career change? Why did you start this business? You know, there's so many ways to get in there. And that's what we love to do is like when we first get a client, we will meet with them.

(16:42):

We have what we call story mining sessions. So we're talking with them, we're like trying to get out what's the really interesting angle here? It's great you have this like AI product, that's awesome, but what's the other, what are the other things that will make you stand out, make you unique and make you of interest to an event? So I think that's really important. So just, yeah, those things. Who can you partner with? Can you put together a really compelling panel? All of it goes back to, let's tee this up for the conference organizers. Let's put it on a silver platter and go, here you go.

Karen Swim, APR (17:17):

I love that you talked about clients and their tunnel vision. I'm sure that got a, a nod of agreement from everyone in our audience because my goodness, sometimes it's so hard to get them outside of their head and, and enable them to see the bigger picture, which is why they have us, right? Because we're creative and we're thinking more broadly. So thank you for reassuring all of us that we're not the only one that, you know, deals with this issue. It is universal in our field of getting clients to see the color that we see instead of just seeing in black and white. And I feel like I have these conversations daily sometimes from the mundane to the extremely frustrating

Michelle Kane (18:06):

,

Karen Swim, APR (18:07):

Which describes my morning

Katy Boos (18:09):

. Oh, no,

Michelle Kane (18:12):

No, but it's, it's so true. It's in those story mining moments, right? The things that they think are boring and you think, whoa, wait. Yeah, that's a possibility. So true. What I do it all the time every day. Well, yes, exactly. .

Karen Swim, APR (18:26):

Yeah.

Katy Boos (18:27):

It's funny, you know, one of our clientswho I won't name, but we, when we first started working with them, the feedback we were getting from conference organizers was, okay, they spoke last year or two years ago, five years ago, and all they did was get on stage and do a sales pitch. And I was like, I can assure you that will not happen. That is not what we're doing. And as a matter of fact, my guidance to clients is, I would say you get one mention, so you can be like, oh, you know, and in, in this case, this is how we would at, our company handle this issue. You get one mention, and then really, I feel like the value is your name, your affiliation, you're being splashed all over their promotions, you know? And it's that credibility that you get beyond that.

(19:17):

And this is why we love content too. Take advantage of the fact that you are speaking at these events. Do a blog post about it, do social posts about it, you know, just milk it for all it's worth because, you know, it's great if you have those people in the room, but sometimes, sometimes it's 50 people, you know, and is it worth it for you to travel, do this presentation, prep, all of the work that goes into it to reach 50 people? Maybe if they're your absolute targets, but how can you go beyond that? And that's what we're always looking at. We want to reach 5,000 people. And so that's where content comes in, the complimentary side of things.

Karen Swim, APR (20:04):

I love that. Yeah. And so people may be wondering, like, why, why are you guys subtitling this or titling this staying in your lane with Katie Boos ? Well, there's a reason for that and it's becauseKatie, it's something that you said when we first talked to you and it resonated with Michelle and myself, and I'm sure it'll resonate with our audience because it's about finding what you're really, really good at and doubling down on it. So tell us about your lane and how you found it and why you're staying in it, .

Katy Boos (20:42):

Yeah, it's so funny because I think as PR practitioners, we are always asked to do so much, right? If you think about the role of a PR person is so broad, which honestly is why I love it. If I had to do the same thing every day, you know, day in and day out, I would not be a happy person. So I love the variety of clients, I love the variety of work. However, if you really want to be a specialist, you know, having that niche is a great way to go. And that's, that's sort of where it was just one of those light bulb moments, maybe, I don't know, 10 or 12 years ago. And it was like, you know, I really love working with events and I love working with event organizers. AndI love coming up with ideas and sessions and getting people on stage and, and it just snowballed from there.

(21:34):

It's sort of like one of those things, like if you find something you're good at, it just kind of keeps going, right? Because there's success in that. And that's, sort of where we were withthe thought leadership space. So media relations I have always liked, but I haven't loved. And so that's where I was like, you know what, there are people who love that and that's why we love to partner with people who love to do that, you know? And it's also why, you know, flip side, it's really interesting. We were brought in by a pretty major PR agency to do their speaking program for their clients. And they were like, yes, we can do this, but we love having people who live and breathe it day in and day out. And so it's just that wonderful sort of marriage of let's all focus on the things that we love, we're good at, we're specialists. And I do think that's a trend in PR right? People are are like, and, and business in general. People are nicheing down. And I think that's, it's interesting. And, and I think we can all be more successful doing that. So I'll stay in my lane. I won't get into media relations, but , I'm happy to partner with people who love that .

Michelle Kane (22:51):

And, and I think that's how so many of our solos find success, right? We partner with each other, we're always looking to collaborate and it just helps everyone.

Katy Boos (23:02):

Yeah.

Karen Swim, APR (23:02):

Yeah, it does for sure.

Katy Boos (23:04):

A collaboration's the best.

Karen Swim, APR (23:06):

This is so good. Katie and I, you know, as I said to you at the top of this, I am sure that we are going to have you on again, have you in front of our audience because you are an expert and you know, I may just have you on the channel to talk about your volunteer work at one point because its so interesting. And we have, you know, I am an animal lover and we have so many animal lovers in our group that would love to hear about what you do there too. Thank you so much for hanging out with Michelle and I today. We

Michelle Kane (23:41):

Absolutely. Yeah. What's the best way to reach you, Katie? Website or LinkedIn or

Katy Boos (23:50):

Linkedin is great or feel free to email me too, katie at Remix communications.com. Excellent. Either way or our website Remix Communications.

Michelle Kane (24:00):

Fantastic. Well, everyone who's listening today, we, well, we don't hope we know you've got something out of this today, but we're grateful for your time with us. And until next time, thanks for listening on That Solo Life.

It’s Time to Pollinate Your Pipeline to Get Business Blooming

Spring is in full bloom, thanks to the pollination by bees, butterflies, and birds. It’s a reminder that as solos we need to be in pollination mode all year long. Listen to today’s episode for tips and inspiration to grow your business development.

 

Transcript

Michelle Kane (00:02):

Thank you for joining us for this episode of That Solo Life, the podcast for PR pros and marketers who work for themselves like me, Michelle Kane, with VoiceMatters and my ever-steady co-host Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hi, Karen. How are you today?

Karen Swim, APR (00:17):

Hey, Michelle. I'm, I'm doing a lot better than you. I know that you are an allergy sufferer and spring comes with the reality of allergy season. So,

Michelle Kane (00:28):

Exactly. It's been a, an agonizingly beautiful season here in southeastern Pennsylvania. So that actually informed our topic today.

Karen Swim, APR (00:39):

It did.

Michelle Kane (00:40):

We're going to talk about how to pollinate your leads. Let's use pollen. Well, we know pollen does good, even though it does get all up in our sinus cavity. So apologies for how I sound today. I sounded worse three days ago, so there's that. But yeah, we're just going to keep it a little light today and just kind of give you, give you a pep talk of how to keep that business pipeline fluid, which we all need to do, no matter how things are out there.

Karen Swim, APR (01:06):

And, and also it's a spring thing. It, it actually was a topic that was kind of rolling around in my head. ‘Cause I get to talk to so many small business people and so many solo PR pros and I have noticed this trend. And so as always, we want to help you to have the business that you want. And again, you know, I, I always preface that because I, when I first started my business, there were a lot of people out there that were, you know posting pictures on Twitter. We didn't have , I'm embarrassed to say this, but we didn't have Instagram yet, let alone TikTok . And yes, I'm that old, but people would post up pictures of like, these fancy cars and mansions and it just didn't speak to me. Yeah. And it, it was their measure of success.

(02:00):

And that's fine if that's your measure of success, but it wasn't for me. I wanted something different. I was looking, I was going into business for myself for completely different reasons. And so I always like to preface that because whatever your why is, and, and however big or small you want your business to be for everybody, there's a way to do that and, and have a healthy business. And that's kind of what we're aiming for, for people not to struggle. This year we've seen a lot of economic tumult. We've seen a lot of companies doing layoffs. There's a lot of fear, uncertainty and doubt. The famous fud, and I'm , I'm watching a lot of our small business and solo PRs fall into discouragement. Right. And so we want to talk about, and, and the reason pollinate is such a, a good theme is because here's what some people do, and people that are in traditional jobs do this too.

(03:03):

You, you're, you're working, working, working, head down, and then you lose an account. Or if you're in traditional employment, you lose a job, then all of a sudden you're on LinkedIn like a crazy person, you know, running after job leads or you're running after leads for your business. Pollinating is something that happens before the blooms come; pollinating is critical. And so we want to talk about the things that you really should be doing before the season starts where you will need the business. And so this is why we always talk about business development being an ongoing activity.

Michelle Kane (03:40):

Right. Right. And I think a key way to do that, and I challenge myself to do this as much as anyone else, you know, speaking of LinkedIn, pop in every day, you know, offer, offer just a little nugget of advice. You know, seek to be a helper because then when people are looking for help, they're going to think of you. And if you want to expand that into some content marketing for your business, by all means, please do.

Karen Swim, APR (04:07):

Yeah. You know, there are these habit builders out there. There's yeah. Dig. There's, there's a lot of habit builders. Build a habit of being the face of your business every day. I, I mean, I find that, you know, these consistent habits really do pay off. So for me, I will tell you and, and lean into what you're good at. So for me, I am a relationship person. I genuinely love people. I mean, I genuinely do, even though I'm kind of an introverted extrovert, I care about people and I build these really long-term relationships. And so my superpower is maintaining connections. So I am always, you know, talking to the people that I've worked with. Even when clients go away, I keep in touch. We, you know, we set up like check-ins, like quarterly, monthly, sometimes a little less frequently, but I'm always checking in and not for business, just for relationship building. I stay connected through social media, you know, I'll call somebody or text somebody. I will, you know, I just maintain friendships and I maintain contact with all of my former clients. And so that just continues to pay off. For example, this year I have already gotten three leads from a C E O that I used to work with.

Michelle Kane (05:37):

I love that. I love that.

Karen Swim, APR (05:39):

This is not the first that he's ever referred business to us.

Michelle Kane (05:42):

Right

Karen Swim, APR (05:43):

And it's because I maintain those relationships. Yeah. And here's the funny thing about that former client, I've also gotten leads from three other members of his executive team or his former executive team, and the company was purchased by somebody else. But we've maintained those relationships, we've maintained contact, and so they continue to refer business my way. So don't underestimate the power of adding relationship building into your routine activities, if that's your, if that's your superpower too

Michelle Kane (06:15):

Now. And honestly, that, that is my main why, you know, business is relationship. Yeah. I, it's, it's on my, my website. It's, it's how I present. And it's so true. I mean, I love connecting people that can help each other even if I'm not involved. And I love that you schedule these touch base moments because I also kind of stink at that. Yeah. But I, I too, I love to stay in touch and not, not just because, you know, and it's, it's certainly not for a a, you know, a, ooh, I might get something out of this, but it's just because, hey, you know, we, we did, we went through something together. We built something together that was great. You know, why wouldn't you stay in touch? Because if,y ou're in business, especially in this business, I think it, it is in our ethos to be helpful. And, you know, I think that it's just a natural occurrence that you would want to remain in close contact with these people. And it makes such perfect sense. I love that. I'm gonna take that up. Scheduling things.

Karen Swim, APR (07:15):

Yeah. I mean, and you know, so I, I will open up my playbook and tell you some of the things that I do because it's natural to me. During the course of business, I always tell clients that we know that business comes and goes, but relationships are forever. So from

Michelle Kane (07:32):

Exactly

Karen Swim, APR (07:33):

Day one I'm always doing business, but also caring for the human beings. And so I am asking questions, I'm listening, I am responding to things. I'm supporting them in their career goals. I'm supporting them when personal things come up. If somebody is going through a challenge at work, like they're going through this challenging time, I might send flowers or I may send a card just to say, Hey, you okay? I do, you know, mental health check-ins, you know, that are outside of work. So I might text their cell and go, just check in on you today. I know that things are a little rough right now, and it's just about being a human being. And I know that some of us have come up in the era where business is like super professional and it's not very human, but I know that that's not our solos. I know that all of us get pretty close to our clients. So I'm saying, you know, lean into that and, and maybe you're not, you know, going on vacations with them or having dinner with them, but always tend to the humanity of your clients because that is definitely a way to pollinate future business. But even more importantly than that, it makes your work more satisfying when you are genuinely bringing your whole human self to the business.

Michelle Kane (08:51):

I agree. I agree. Because, you know, we are, we are our client's trusted resources. And, and it is a two-way street. I mean, I love, every year I try to send a little something to my financial client because it's tax season, and I know they never leave their, their desks. I feel so bad, especially since their new location is far removed from their beloved convenience store where they used to coffee up all the time. But it's just, you know, little touch doesn't have to be anything grand. You know, it could just be a little note, you know, if, if one of their family members has accomplished something. It's, it really humanizes the relationship, which I think is key. And you know what, that goes also for pollinating leads. If you see a prospect out there that's achieved something, whether personal or a professional, send a note. I mean, there used to be a chiropractor in my area that used to send me notes as a student, and it was just sunshine notes. And you know, as a kid you think, oh, isn't this neat, this person who is called doctor is thinking of me? And then of course it is, as an adult, you realize what they were really up to. They were trying to generate leads, but it's okay.

Karen Swim, APR (10:03):

And I mean, another way to pollinate is to spread your marketing seats. Yeah. I find that we solos are terrible at marketing our businesses. I want to believe that this younger generation is not following the poor example set in the past. Because you are not being selfish. You are not being it's not obnoxious to talk about what you do. Why wouldn't you? And, but here's the thing, and I I just want to remind you, you must stay top of mind with everyone. You have to, because life is busy. People are bombarded with information, and you think that people know what you do, and they will forget that you do it if you're not constantly reminding them. So there's so many ways to do this in ways that might feel comfortable to you. But I don't hate the sales process. I don't hate selling because selling is simply uncovering needs and offering solutions to people who are looking for it.

(11:09):

It's not a dirty thing. So talk about what you do. And you could do that, you know, as simple as, you know, commenting on something that's happening in your target audience's industry, posting on LinkedIn and sharing tips out there. You know, you see people sharing tips about, you know, here's how you do this. Now, I will say that I find it more valuable to speak to business and my client's industries than to speak to PR people. Not that I don't love PR people. We do that here on this podcast. So we have a place for that and we have a blog. But when it comes to marketing my business, I'm not really marketing to other PR people. I'm marketing to the clients that will hire me. If your target audience is PR professionals, and obviously, yes, you should absolutely serve content that's going to attract that audience, but just, you know, think about that because sometimes I see PR people sharing things, you know, on press releases and how to do this and how to do that, which is great. But if those aren't the people that are hiring you, you're really not speaking to your audience and their business challenges.

Michelle Kane (12:27):

Right. That's very true. Yeah. I mean, if, if, if your business model is that you are trying to work with fellow PR people as a coach or something, that's Yeah, that's fine. But yeah, you definitely want to be demonstrating your talents, you know, within the pool of, of those you want to do business with. I think that's absolutely true. I mean, there's definitely room for tool sharpening moments amongst ourselves, but you really want to be active in the circles, you know, where hopefully one day you can generate some business from people.

Karen Swim, APR (12:59):

And I mean, don't be afraid to ask that is so many times you leave stuff on the table because you don't ask for the business, ask if you know somebody, Hey, are you working with anybody at Love to Chat? Yeah. And if we are, of course we, we don't do that in pr. We are respectful if there's an agency in place, whether we know them or not. So we don't want to steal business, but there's a lot of people out there that could use PR support and they don't have somebody. Speaking of PR people too, even if there's an internal PR person, get to know those internal people because I just, there's a statistic that I will look up for you all, but I just went to an event where they were sharing that the companies that are able to 20 times their revenue, when they looked at the characteristics that are common across these companies, one of the things is that they use independent contractors.

(14:00):

We know that we are a superpower for companies. And so even if a company has an internal team, especially these days, those teams need to be laser focused on very specific types of initiatives. And so having an outside agency brings in a more global perspective. Because if you're inside of an agency, you're focused on the company's messaging, you're, you're, your perspective is a little bit different. You're not working with, you know, 10 other companies. You haven't seeing the inside of other businesses, you've only seen your company and you're focused on that, and you see it from that lens that an outside agency can focus on a different set of outlets. We deal with a wider set of reporters, and so you can even carve out responsibilities. Like I've had engagements where the internal team handle tier one and we handle trades or the internal team handled you know, one facet of media relations. And we did thought leadership for the executive. So you can, you know, slice and dice it, but don't be afraid that Oh, they have an internal team that they won't need outside support.

Michelle Kane (15:13):

No, that's totally true. I mean, I, I've had situations where, you know, the internal team handles strategy and I'm, I'm on the team as a copywriter, happy to be there. It's, it's nice not to have to lead. Sometimes ,

Karen Swim, APR (15:28):

It is nice not to have to lead. And sometimes it's nice, like in the times where we've done trades and the internal team has handled tier one, I've been more than happy because it's, I mean, media relations is work, period, but it's like, yeah, good luck with that Wall Street Journal. ,

Michelle Kane (15:50):

You take that.

Karen Swim, APR (15:51):

Yes, that's

Michelle Kane (15:51):

Fine.

Karen Swim, APR (15:52):

Happy to let you have that. You go for it. And our team has killed it. And I mean, and not to say that we haven't supported them on some of the tier one stuff too, but again, you can stay in your lane and you can add value just because of your perspective and then what you bring to the table of having this expertise across often more than one industry, and definitely across companies. So you have, you have different ideas and a a different perspective to bring to the table.

Michelle Kane (16:20):

Yeah. And, you know, building new relationships along the way.

Karen Swim, APR (16:25):

Yeah. And I, you know, here's another way that you can pollinate, you can run webinars And market it to prospects. They're, you know, companies are always going to be grateful to learn something that's going to move their business forward. So take a step back and think about what problems are happening in the industries that I serve, and how can my expertise help these companies? And so with that knowledge, you can sit, sit down and craft things. Now, if you're not like the webinar type of person, that's okay. Maybe you want to do, maybe you want to do in-person workshops. I've known people that have been really successful at that target companies and offer an in-person workshop. I just had a client yesterday have a need for wanting to train on empathetic communications. So, you know, ask and see what the needs are in the communities that you serve, and put something together. You can also do an email course. If you are somebody that rocks your email newsletter, use it to actually serve up content and invite people to subscribe for practical and actionable tips and insights. People will do that. I mean, I know that sometimes we have subscription fatigue, but people still read, they still learn from reading. They still appreciate that. So if that's what you do, use it.

Michelle Kane (17:49):

Yeah, that's true. That's true. And even if you also repurpose some of this content into blog posts and content for your website, Google loves that. And then you have the advantage of the serendipity of the Google search results.

Karen Swim, APR (18:03):

And I mean, if you're a video person, rock a video rock a reel rock, rock a short, I mean, yeah. There are just so many ways to do it. I, I think the key is though, making sure that you are not down so far on accounts that you're in panic mode. Right. Because that's just a terrible place to sell from. And I say that from years of experience of actually being in a sales function. I managed sales teams, and I would tell my team members this because it never, ever, ever, ever failed to be the truth. When they were down, they were not effective. Right. Because your mind is not in a calm place where you are really looking and you're being strategic and you're being creative. You're panicked, you're freaking out about your income.

Michelle Kane (18:54):

Right.

Karen Swim, APR (18:55):

And if you know, even if that's you today, I would say do what you have to do to bring in enough income to get you, you know, solid again, where you can start to be more proactive. And so there is no shame in offering services on Upwork if that's what you gotta do. There is no shame in taking a slice of your business. You know, if you are a copywriter, go hire yourself out as a copywriter just to get your income levels back up. And you know, don't forget to tap into your current clients for referrals or more work, because Right. Sometimes clients forget the breadth of services that you offer.

Michelle Kane (19:41):

Yeah, it's true. It's true. So even though it is, it is difficult to calm your mind and the fear in those moments. Yeah. Even if you just do it for an hour, try it and, and, and do it chunk by chunk. And we know that you are talented and we know that you will get there. Well, we thank you for joining us for this little pollination moment. And we do value your time. We value, if you find this meaningful to you, please share it around. We want to get the word out to as many people as possible so everyone can grow the business that they love in a way that they want to work. So thanks again for joining us for That Solo Life.