That Solo Life: The Solo PR Pro Podcast

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.

Bias Check: Seeking Clarity in Communication

As communicators we are always aware of making sure we are navigating our own inherent biases. The same is true as we counsel our clients. But in today’s society there is whole new layer where biases are being systematized and institutionalized. What does this mean for us as communicators? How to we navigate these tricky waters while also honoring the nuance necessary for clear communication? We discuss this weighty topic in today’s episode.

 

Read the Washington Post Op-ed referenced in today’s episode.

 

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 ever steady co-host Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hi Karen, how are you today?

Karen Swim (00:17):

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

Michelle Kane (00:19):

Hi. I'm doing well, doing well. Spring has sprung and brought all the pollen with it, so apologies for any congestion you may hear, but that's okay, .

Karen Swim (00:31):

Yeah,

Michelle Kane (00:31):

It's worth it for the beauty . So yeah, I'm doing well and I'm excited about today's topic. It's pretty juicy, so we're going to try and keep it to our usual compact nugget as our audience can listen as they go about their day, we jokingly refer to ourselves as your walking partners, so yes. As you're on your daily walk, here we go. We're going to talk about institutional bias.

Karen Swim (00:59):

Yeah.

Michelle Kane (01:00):

I said it was juicy .

Karen Swim (01:03):

That's a weighty topic. I mean, we could, this is one of those topics that I love for us to be in a room together and just have like rich discussions about it. We really want to just talk about some of the things that we're seeing and reading, and at least put it on your mind to be thinking through, and having those discussions with other solos and industry leaders and clients, and really think about what this means for the future.

Michelle Kane (01:33):

Because, at the center of it, it speaks to what is the general truth, right? What are those things we can all agree on as a society and as our society continues to be polarized, how that can be really damaging in the short and long run. And the beauty of it is, as communicators, we can have a seat at this table, and yet again, help guide our clients, people in our sphere through these conversations. I know, Karen, you had brought up, there was an article on the Washington Post about, was it a Stanford law student? I think?

Karen Swim (02:19):

Yeah, so there were two things recently that in reading through them, really drove this home to me of the impact and the potential emerging trends. So one was this Washington Post article. It was an opinion piece from a Stanford law student that talked about how the very charged, polarized political environment has infiltrated the campus. And if you go to the Washington Post, there are actually several articles about this in law schools from another columnist as well. But this particular piece was again, an opinion. And this woman talked about how people are being forced into us versus them very much like the rest of the world. But where it got really interesting for me was how she described that when if you were of a certain political party, people expected you to be an attorney. And if you said that you wanted to be a prosecutor, you were bullied for it, ostracized, as this particular group saw this as evil. And conversely, on the other side of the political party, on the other side of the aisle, if you wanted to be an attorney, it labeled you in a particular ilk. So the fact that bias could be impacting choice of profession is a very scary thing, particularly when we're talking about our justice system, because I believe that this is just a mirror of other institutions in our society. So, at the educational level, if we're creating bias and that bias is leading people to lean in a particular direction for how they would use their skillset in their careers, that's problematic because we need diversity of thought in every area. And the second thing that really brought this home was Twitter's code being released. And we knew that that was coming. They announced that they were going to open up the code and reading takes from people that read through the code.

I have not read through the code myself. So let me say that I can read code. I'm not an expert in it, but I do know how to read code. I haven't read it myself, but it really brought out and articulated the bias that's written into the code. Now, Twitter is not alone in this. We know, and we've talked about this for years, we've talked about bias and AI, we've talked about bias and algorithms. And so all of this led us to really start to think very deeply about, as communicators, we know that we already have to work to ensure that we are navigating our own inherent biases, and that we are ensuring that clients aren't operating with biases. But now we have this whole new layer where biases being systematized and institutionalized. And so what does that mean for us as communicators? How do we navigate these tricky new waters to be able to still communicate effectively to be able to articulate points, but to be nuanced so that we are not further amplifying the, the,

Michelle Kane (05:59):

the noise

Karen Swim (06:01):

the noise, the polarization. Yes. That's really taken hold.

Michelle Kane (06:05):

Yeah. And I think the first step is to be cognizant that it is taking hold in such a way, because especially as you said in the justice system, that's highly disturbing. I think, I hope it's not a completely lost art that we can assume a certain point of view in our work that is separate from whatever personal thoughts we may have. And I'm not talking about things that are just inherently right versus wrong. I mean, there are some things that are no, that should never be right,

Karen Swim (06:43):

, yes.

Michelle Kane (06:44):

But just in personal preferences or, do you call it purity tests of, well, if I disagree with this, you know, institution or group about this point, then I must act in this major way in every aspect of my life. I see that at the local level of, well, this organization is taking money to do this private thing, and I am now not going to go there anymore. And I'm thinking, at the cost of what you're going to damage the total economic development of a region, because of taking such a wide view, we really need to maintain nuance. And nuance has been slowly chipped away at for quite some time. I mean, I'm thinking even back to late nineties, early two thousands. And maybe even before that when I wasn't paying as much attention as I should have. And we really need to keep it front of mind and, and really be the bearers of how we need to think things through.

Karen Swim (07:51):

Yes. And you know, I love language, I write, and part of my personal writing is I like to play with language, but what's been really apparent, and you're right, the shift is not overnight. I know that we love to tie this to a certain timeframe in our political history, but this has not been an overnight switch. We have always had this ability to weaponize language. And for as far back as man has existed, I mean, what is bullying? You know, it's really, sometimes the bullying is not physical. It's really verbal bullying. And so we have this ability to do this as human beings. And if you are working in an arena that is political, obviously you're going to adopt the language of your followers to speak to them.

But I find we tend to be very aggressive these days. And so there are now these code words that will signal whether you are progressive or liberal, conservative, whether you're a Democrat or a Republican. And I think that's awful because I truly, in my heart of heart believes, and it's funny, the Stanford law school op-ed said the same thing, that, most people are not us or them on campus. They're somewhere in that middle. And I believe that that's most of the country, but many people feel bullied into staying silent or trying to navigate these tricky waters so that they're not labeled either way. For many of us if you work with a technology company, you’re B2B, you’re B2C, you don't really care what political party people are. And you're not trying to speak to politics, you're trying to speak to your target audience, which comprises both sides of the aisle. One of the easiest things that you can do, obviously, is to not use those trigger words. I find it very troubling that now we have to restrict our language because some groups have adopted this as their mantras, their code words to signal that we're one of you. And I don't know how this mob mentality has just really taken over in such a negative and toxic way. But as communicators, we can't fall prey to it. Even if we belong to one of these parties, even if we are all in on that party, we cannot let that impact the work that we do.

Michelle Kane (10:50):

A hundred percent. And, as communicators, I know for me, I am always -- from the beginning of when I started out in this profession -- always conscious of not just how words communicate, but everything you present. Everything communicates. And, it's heightened now, and to your point as well, most businesses I know, they want to serve everybody. Is your money green? Okay. Yeah.

Karen Swim (11:27):

And, not to be confused with being values based because…

Michelle Kane (11:32):

Correct.

Karen Swim (11:34):

…I advocate for companies having a very clear North Star, for having a mission and a vision that shows up in every single part of the organization and is reinforced. So this is not being values-based. We're talking about being divisive and polarizing on purpose, unless that is your mission. And there are companies that do very much have that mission, different story. But even in those instances, when you are mission driven and it's in the political arena, and you are a social justice organization, I'm always a fan of communicating with clarity and not communicating to divide. Because, and this is just my personal viewpoint and, and I'm going to just say that this is opinion, it's not fact. But I truly believe that when we communicate with clarity, and we're not communicating to divide people, that it actually is stronger for whatever we're trying to achieve. Because where change really happens is when human beings can truly communicate and discuss with one another.

So when you set the table for not argument, but for thought and discussion, that's where you can really move the needle. And I think I've shared this story on this podcast before, and my apologies, I cannot remember what journalist wrote this, but he wrote about this whole phenomena, and he talked about when he was arguing with a cab driver in Israel and how they argued for like 30 minutes. And it was great because this was one-on-one discussion. They had different viewpoints, but at the end of the ride, they were able to shake hands and they both had learned something from the other and really come to an understanding of the other person's perspective. And each of them had, you know, changed their perspective slightly based on this discussion. But it was discussion. And so I think that if we can move away from inciting argument or simply communicating for agreement, communicating for validation, which is something very different for me.

And that's a skillset, and that's something that as a communicator, you may be called to do again, depending on the purpose of the communication and who your client is. But it's not where I believe that we should live. We should want to not necessarily validate, because you need to be clear and have your point of view and be able, again, to articulate that. But is there room for people to go, “Huh, never thought about that,” or, “Wow, that's really interesting.” Discussion creates memorable moments, right? Telling those stories in a way that people can relate to makes them remember the brand that you're actually talking about, or remember the person, the spokesperson. Those are all things that are important to our profession. And I am so afraid, and the reason that we really wanted to address this today is I think that we really need to have our eyes wide open and to begin to fight back on this thing that is taking hold in our society.

And it's getting deeper and deeper. And it just, it, it's frightening to me. It's frightening to me that one day we might see communicators who are only of one political party. Could that happen? Absolutely. It could. Because if we're educating people in a system that is being set up to create biases and to create us versus them, what does that mean for the future of every single profession on this earth? Does this mean that you now have to, will we see a future where if you have a certain set of belief systems politically, that you're going to have to seek out doctors who share that opinion because they're going to treat you differently?

Michelle Kane (15:43):

That's already happening, isn't it?

Karen Swim (15:45):

I was going to say, yep. We already have bias in our healthcare system that Yes, we do. I mean, it just, this goes on and on and on. And some of this is already happening, and we can't dismiss this as a DEI and B agenda because it's not, it's not political inclusivity. It's human beings getting back to humanity and understanding how to talk to people. Not at them.

Michelle Kane (16:14):

Right. And I think of the two pillars, purpose and intent, and I think we have to be laser focused as we craft our communications, as we discern what someone is communicating. What is their true purpose? What is their intent? Is it to be clear? Is it to be helpful? Is it to hopefully engage with a target audience? Or is it to create noise and argument, arguments and chaos. I have to bring the pop culture element into it. There was that scene with Michael Caine in Batman talking about the Joker. Some people just want to watch it all burn. And we have too much of that going on in our society. Too much of that rhetoric that is a lot of noise and it's a lot of grandstanding for personal gain. I think back to when Crossfire was still a thing and Jon Stewart was on and they wanted him to be the comedy guy, and, and he laid into both sides and said, we just want the truth. That's all we want. And yes. Are we going to have different viewpoints about what truth is? Sure. We all have different experiences, but I think if we're all cognizant that this does exist, that your experience may not be the same as someone else's, that doesn't mean that they are wrong.

Karen Swim (17:46):

Yes.

Michelle Kane (17:47):

Or that they're making it up.

Karen Swim (17:48):

Yes. Trust them. Yes. And this, to me, that bias can lead to judgment that's really unfair. And then you're writing off an entire swath of your audience that really could be valuable. And I hate to call it communicating to the middle, but really that's what it is. It's communicating to the middle. There's such beauty in that because being able to create environments and create communications that people can actually share and discuss regardless of where they fall on that spectrum is at the heart of human community. And we don't want to stay stuck in that silo, and we don't want to create silos. We want to invite people who think differently to show up, to participate, to engage, because we all are better when we're exposed to things that are a little bit different than maybe the way that we think, or even the way that we believe.

And so, I don't ever fear, I mean, it's, sometimes I'll see that, and I've been exposed to this where people are like, “How could you talk to these people?” Uh, because they're people. And because I learn something and because I see every human being as a human being, period. That's it. Do I see color? Of course I do, because I see the person. And so I see the things that this person represents, whether it's their ability or their race, their height, I see it all, but they're a human being, right? And so I operate from that perspective, and I think that we need to really take a step back and get back to the basics. But here's the great thing, once again, my public relations heroes. I am just continually proud to be in this job that is super challenging.

Let's face it, we have a very challenging job. We might not be rocket scientists and we might not have literal life and death at our fingertips most of the time. But our jobs are stressful, they're complex, they're needed, and we are just, we sit in a seat that brings with it so much honor, because day after day, I always think, my God, we truly have the opportunity to bring back humanity. We have this powerful gift of communication that cuts across every human experience. And I'm so proud of us who remain in this job, who do what we do, unsung most of the time. Sometimes we don't even get a thank you for the work that we do, but Michelle and I want you to know that we see you.  We are so honored to be a part of you and to be a part of this community. And we think that you're rock stars. And I think, you know, it might sound super aspirational, but…

Michelle Kane (21:07):

Go for it.

Karen Swim (21:08):

…we have the opportunity to change the world. I'm sorry, but

Michelle Kane (21:11):

Oh no, a hundred percent. And along with what you're saying, it is our privilege to help communicate the value of each and every human being. Now, I know there are some dark corners of our industry that don't, that's okay. They can do their thing. But we're lucky we get to tell people’s stories. We get to tell the stories of companies and organizations and individuals that are all trying to make this a better place.

Karen Swim (21:41):

Yes.

Michelle Kane (21:42):

Which I know - bring out the flowers and the angels singing.

Karen Swim (21:47):

We help clients to connect to their customers and helping them to make money is not just a financial transaction, it's necessary. When we take that further, we are directly responsible for building things that feed families. The work that we do keeps people employed, it keeps commerce going. All of these things are necessary. But we also get the privilege of sitting back and thinking, wow, look at how I was so essential in communicating this client's story. And sometimes those stories are so powerful. When we do customer case studies or we're sharing things on behalf of nonprofits, you know that it's work that really speaks to the heart. But even if you're a B2B-er, like me, there's still so much to celebrate about how we help companies to see the world too. We are their eyes and their ears because we are not stuck in a corporate office looking at it through just the brand perspective. We bring in that broader perspective and help them see from a larger worldview.

Michelle Kane (23:05):

A way and a view that they might not even think of because they're focused on what they do. And I say that time and time again to clients that are trying to do this kind of work that we do on their own. It's like, no, you're too close to it. This is not your lane. I don't do your job . Speaking to many of us in the middle, I think it's that we see life rolling along. Everything's fine. We don't need to speak up. Sometimes, you do. Just to say, hey, you know, can we not have this layer of crazy going on? That would be super nice. The clouds, the clouds of chaos. Could they please disperse?

Karen Swim (23:53):

Here, here! You know, I have learned to coexist with them. Like, oh, hey,

Michelle Kane (23:58):

. Oh, there you are. Have fun with that. Yes.

Karen Swim (24:03):

Well,

Michelle Kane (24:04):

We hope this has been a valuable bit of time to listen to us go on about this topic. It's an important topic and it is something we need to always be vigilant in keeping our eyes open. And we hope you too are always seeking ways to expand your world. And if you do, please do share this around. We value that if you share this and also subscribe and tell everybody about this episode. And until next time, thanks for joining us on That Solo Life.

 

Freedom, Finance, and Keeping Your Business Fit

With ongoing inflation, interest rate hikes, and the failures of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, we continue to navigate uncertain times. In this episode we talk about shoring up our communication with our clients and ways to work on your business development pipeline.

 

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. I am Michelle Kane with VoiceMatters, and I'm here with my ever steady co-host, Karen Swim of Solo PR Pro. Hi Karen. How are you today?

Karen Swim, APR (00:17):

I'm great. How are you doing?

Michelle Kane (00:19):

I'm good. Hey, you know, we're just flying along in this crazy little world, .

Karen Swim, APR (00:26):

We're rolling along, changing as we go, making it up, figuring it out.

Michelle Kane (00:33):

Hey, that's, the beauty of being a PR pro. And you know, every day we wake up to the news, we peek our eyes out from under the covers and think. “What's happening out there?” And today we're going to talk about the financial world. Ooh, but as we are recording this, on the date we're recording this, the Fed is considering whether or not to pop up those interest rates again. Yay. But you know, as I'm sure all of our listeners know, we've had some bank failures and there has comes along with that some angst. I think we still kind of have a trauma from 2008 sticking in our bones and it's just bringing back some of those feelings of “ooph…”

Karen Swim, APR (01:17):

Well, yeah. For those of us who are around and remember that, but even if you weren't yet in business or were not yet operating, or maybe you were still in school back then and you're new to the working world. There are some things that we can learn from the recent bank failures. First of all, I think one thing that we can learn from a communication standpoint is what not to do. And I think that because we counsel clients, maybe many of you had some clients with ties to those banks, so it's really important. And then I had clients that didn't have ties, but for all clients, I said the same thing, it's better to control the message before the message controls you.

Michelle Kane (02:17):

Always.

Karen Swim, APR (02:18):

So, something this widespread, we talk about, we have this decision grid about when to weigh in on issues of the day. But something like this is definitely a place where I think it does not hurt at all to communicate it to key stakeholders, even if you're not affected by saying, “Hey, this recent news is very troubling and unsettling. We want you to know that we are not impacted by the SVP Bank failure nor by First Republic.” If you're not impacted, it's good to say that because this type of challenge is something that hits just everyone. It's going to, you know, employees are going to wonder, “Oh my God, do we have money in these banks? Is it going to affect payroll?” Your investors want to know that you've got a handle on this, your potential investors, your customers want to know that you are fine and that you're not going to be making moves out of frenzy and in response to this, but that you're okay.

Michelle Kane (03:27):

Yeah.

Karen Swim, APR (03:28):

And if you are affected, communicate with a plan about what you plan to do.

Michelle Kane (03:33):

Right. I mean, that's basic PR 101. It's take control of the messaging. And I give kudos, of course, I wasn't privy to what local companies were saying but I know the banks in our region did a wonderful job - the very next morning, making statements of we're, we're good, we're solvent. That was different because X, Y, Z, you can rest assured… They just did the right thing.

Karen Swim, APR (04:01):

I think it also brings up the question - I had providers that I utilize that were impacted. And I immediately got messages that what I utilized them for would not be affected. But it really, that's good. You know, there's just been a lot of uncertainty and this financial part adds to it because I had to question - I did not know prior to this where all of my clients banked, where their money was parked. And it brings up a point like, here's one more stress test that we need to follow. And it's not so much even knowing where they bank, but having some failsafe to protect your income.  So I know some people that were personally impacted by delays in payments because of these bank failures. Could you absorb a delay in payment?  For how long could you absorb that delay? Do you have anything in your contract that is a protection? Do you have conversations with your clients about the realities of life? And are you documenting those in your contract? Because again, it brings up one more issue that we have to make sure that we guard against. And I'm all for making sure that you build a cushion that can carry you through any crisis. Whether it is several clients cutting off contracts at once, client organizations failing, bank failures, whatever it is, you not being able to work, have a cushion. And no judgment on you today if you do not have that. Because so many small businesses in America are operating on very, very thin margins. So there's no judgment. But I am saying that for all of us, we need to stockpile even more.

And if that means thinking about, “Hmm, are there creative ways that I can build revenue? What can I do to extend that may not even be client work? Or where do I need to adjust my strategy for new clients? Should I be raising my rates?” You really need to start thinking about that in stockpiling, because it's not going to get better out here, , and we're in a climate where it's not going to get better for the general public. And I wanted to correct that because for solos, and it's interesting that I just saw a Forbes piece that we'll be talking about in the future that talks about PR being a recession-proof business. I want to encourage every single public relations professional out there that we have the ability to thrive in these times.

So I want you to just keep that message in your head. If you need to write it on post-it notes and post it around your office, do that. Because it's easy to fall into the trap of feeling like we're just like everybody else. We're not going to be laid off. You need to get ahead though of how your clients are thinking. Because this creates an environment of anxiety. Clients are nervous, organizations are nervous. They're looking at their balance sheets. The Fed is nervous because do they let inflation just continue to like be at a level that is higher? Because traditionally inflation sits at around 2% and do they want it to go to 4%? That's going to make people super nervous, or do they want to raise interest rates to kind of put a tap on it? Then if they raise the interest rates, banks are further impacted because of their investments. Which is what happened to these banks. Their investments were impacted by the high interest rate. So they had less money and they have less money in reserve. So it's like you're choosing between two evils and they can't solve both things at one time.

Michelle Kane (08:21):

Well, and I think the thing that we need to focus on, like you said, it's definitely bringing uncertainty as an unwanted guest to the table, which I don't know if this is going to make us feel any better, but it's certainly one thing I learned as I had to create this business, was even if you're employed by someone - that direct deposit, it feels certain but it's not certain.

Karen Swim, APR (08:55):

Absolutely. We live with uncertainty without even acknowledging it because there are certain risks that we've just accepted as normal, so we don't see them as a risk. But, you know, we want to give you, and we're not financial advisors. You need to talk to your financial advisors. .

So this is not, you know, I think we're supposed to disclose that or, you know, make that clear so that we don't get in trouble. We're not financial advisors, but we're business people that are sharing some strategies. So here are some immediate things that you can do as you're doing your pulse checks with your clients. Do not be afraid to ask, “Hey, we're in a really crazy, chaotic time economically. How are you feeling about that? And what strategies are you all doing to make sure that you can weather this?” Think about how you can help them to hit their goals. Because again, you want to be a problem solver. And so avoiding the conversation can mean that you get hit with surprises later on. Addressing this with your clients brings things to the forefront. And if they're thinking about cutting back, you can help them. You can guide them.

Michelle Kane (10:13):

There's something important you said in that, and since the pandemic, it's likely that you're kind of in this mode because hopefully you've been counseling your clients through this. Because, that was a major drop off of “Oh my gosh, we're all paralyzed.” And okay, well how did you guide them through that? You should have hopefully kept that conversation going, of “How are things? How can we better address, how can we change our tactics? Do we need to pivot in any direction?” So please don't, don't think, oh my gosh, I have to have a big conversation.

Karen Swim, APR (10:52):

Yeah. It's not a, it's a big - I'm a female, so I'm using the term girl. I identify as girl - it's a big girl conversation that you, we all should be having, right? You need to have these conversations. Sometimes we shy away from talking about money with our clients, and sometimes we're afraid to have the big conversations because we're afraid of the answers. But let me tell you something, it is so much better to be empowered with information. So these conversations can yield clues about the certainty of your contract. And those are things that you want to address early on. Another tip is if a client says, “Well, you know, we're thinking about, or we're planning on bringing PR in-house…” Respond with, “That's great, client! That's fantastic. We've seen the best results when there are resources internally that can focus on these things with the support of an agency to do that. What were you thinking in terms of how that would look?” Guide them, make some suggestions? A lot of times I've seen people be in the situation and simply throw down the flag and go into, you know, they’re outlaws. So their mind immediately is like, okay, well we have three months. We have 60 days, we have 30 days, and then they're looking for more business. But you didn't even try to pivot this conversation and influence it by holding onto at least some of the business. Your budget may get cut, but wouldn't you rather have a budget that's cut where you stood up for yourself and maybe your scope for doing the same work? Your budget is cut because the scope is lower, is a lot better than losing the entire revenue. And so again, it's all about these conversations that we have to get comfortable having and not just be so quick to react. So if you're already thinking about these things and addressing them proactively, then you're not in reactionary mode where you're like - and, let me tell you, it is not fun to lose a client even when it has nothing to do with your work. They're not unhappy. It's painful. There's a little bit of like, you know, you're,

Michelle Kane (13:18):

Oh, of course there is.

Karen Swim, APR (13:19):

You need to mourn a little bit. Yeah. So we want you to not ever be in that position. Yeah. But to always be operating from a place of strength because you're prepared.

Michelle Kane (13:29):

And, I think by having that conversation, if a client's considering going completely in house, even by reminding them of the value that you bring, that knowledge will stay with them and you'll still be maintaining that relationship because I would say nine times out of 10, they will find they need you to some extent. Yeah. ideally, but, it is like a mourning because business is relationship nowhere more than in our profession. Because you become a member of their team, you become your client's champion, so that's something to both value and it doesn't feel so great when it ends.

Karen Swim, APR (14:19):

Yeah. It doesn't, even for the best of reasons and let's face it, we have had many of us over the years, maybe some of you recently have had clients to cancel your contract and make up reasons that they did so because they're uncomfortable saying it's a financial issue. But we know it is. We know the signs are always there. And this is the thing that I say to people about layoffs. They really don't come out of nowhere. You just have to know how to look for those bread crumbs and spot them. And here's the funniest thing. We see the breadcrumbs, we ignore them because it's easier to just not look at them.

Michelle Kane (15:03):

Reality.

Karen Swim, APR (15:04):

Yes. I don't want to know. I don't want to know. I'm going to work today. We do that with clients too. We see the signs. We're smart, we see them. But we'd rather not pay attention to them because we don't want to deal with it. And that's human nature. But you've got to fight against that. And look at it so that you are not caught off guard.

Michelle Kane (15:28):

Right. And it also brings us back to the drumbeat of always, always, always be in business development mode. Always. And you know, it's funny, people ask me, does belonging to this, did it ever get your business? And you know, okay, first of all, I don't usually lead that way because that's too transactional to me. But, it could be a super slow burn. It could take 10 years, but eventually you get to know the right people and the timing is right. So when we say always be in business development mode, it doesn't mean you're, you know, in…what's the word I'm looking for?

Karen Swim, APR (16:12):

That you're closing a client every like 10 days, but

Michelle Kane (16:16):

Right, right. And you're not like, like scattered like, oh my gosh!

Karen Swim, APR (16:18):

This means that you need to always have a full pipeline.

Michelle Kane (16:21):

Yeah. Yeah.

Karen Swim, APR (16:22):

Many years ago, my then and now client, MBO Partners just imparted such wisdom on that by encouraging solo business owners to have a full pipeline because a full pipeline meant that you had choice.

Michelle Kane (16:40):

Oh, I love that.

 

Karen Swim, APR (16:41):

You started your business because you wanted choice. You wanted freedom. You wanted the freedom to choose how you work, who you work with. The way that you protect that freedom is by ensuring that your pipeline is always full. You should never, ever, ever put yourself in a position where a loss puts you in frenzy mode. Like, oh my God, now you're rushing around and you're checking LinkedIn and you're doing all these things. If you do a little every day, and if you're always keeping yourself open for clients, if you're always checking in with your network, if you're always marketing your services, then you should have people in various stages of your pipeline all the time. And to your point, Michelle, one of my most favorite past clients is somebody that it took a year. One year. And here's the funny thing, three companies later

Michelle Kane (17:37):

,

Karen Swim, APR (17:38):

Three companies later to land an account. But you want to know what? Not only was that an amazing account, but after they were acquired, they have been - and not just one person from that company, all the entire team that we work with, all the executives have been a continual source of referrals for us.

Michelle Kane (17:57):

See?

Karen Swim, APR (17:58):

Unprompted just, they are the most beautiful client ever. So don't be afraid of spending time to cultivate relationship over a period of time. Because as you said, sometimes it takes a while.

Michelle Kane (18:11):

Oh yeah.

Karen Swim, APR (18:12):

But that doesn't mean it's over.

Michelle Kane (18:14):

No, no. And there is a beauty in what you just said too. You may think, “Ooh, if I could just work with that person or that company.” Sometimes it's who they know. So take the time to get to know people, even if it's justto touch base or congratulate them on something all the way up to, you know, Hey, let's grab a cup of coffee sometime, I'd love to learn more about what you're into. That definitely helps. So all these little touch points, and I know it can feel overwhelming. Trust. Some days I sit here and I'm like, oh my gosh, .

Karen Swim, APR (18:56):

Here’s where social media can also be a beautiful thing. I don't believe that posting on LinkedIn doesn't have a return. It does. Even if you don't do it a lot, I'm not a big LinkedIn person, but I just had an opportunity come up because of posts that I put on LinkedIn. When I felt like posting, I just did. I am the worst social media person ever. I'm just going to admit that I'm horrible because it just, I don't like it anymore. .

Michelle Kane (19:33):

Well, I think a lot of us feel that way. It's work. And I realize, when I look at my accounts personally, I don't post that much because ugh, I do it all day.

Karen Swim, APR (19:46):

It’s just not fun.

Michelle Kane (19:54):

Well, we all go through phases, right? But then there's other ways that you cultivate your relationships.

Karen Swim, APR (19:59):

This doesn't mean that you have to, like, I'm not a fan of wasted time. I am not that girl. I'm not the girl who's going to do a whole bunch of in-person coffee dates. I'm not the person who's going to go to every networking meeting. I'm not doing that. That's just not my personality, not my style, doesn't line up with how I manage my time. However, there are things that you can do that may seem a little more passive, but that actually can produce, and that is putting content out there. Writing bylined articles for your target audience. I cannot say this enough. PR people, we love to write for PR publications. Stretch yourself and write for where your clients read.

Michelle Kane (20:40):

Yeah. So true. So true. Be the answer to the problem your clients have.

Karen Swim, APR (20:50):

Yes.

Michelle Kane (20:50):

Be there, be that resource already. And when they are ready to take action, you hopefully will be top of mind because you've positioned yourself to be top of mind.

Karen Swim, APR (21:03):

Yeah. If you're going to talk PR, don't make an inside baseball.

Michelle Kane (21:07):

Right.

Karen Swim, APR (21:08):

Nothing wrong with that, by the way, if PR people are your target audience. And by the way, it's good to talk about these issues with other PR people, but in terms of your marketing, you want to be mindful that you are talking PR to your target audience. Who do you have as a client? Can you talk PR in their language? Can you tell them things that they may not know that will be helpful to them? Because people really do pay attention. And I know that we all think that we're this one little person and the big old sea of all of this information and all of these articles and all of these reels and videos and YouTube channels and podcasts. But you still matter. You do. And what you have to say has value, and it doesn't have to be so mind-blowingly different.

Don’t put these obstacles in front of you. You're, and I know some of you are sitting there like, well, everybody talks about that. And are people listening to everybody? Somebody's listening to everybody.

Michelle Kane (22:11):

. Yeah.

Karen Swim, APR (22:12):

We don't need everybody to listen to you. You just need to say it in a way that resonates with a few people.

Michelle Kane (22:18):

Right. And those are the people that are going to want to work with you.

Karen Swim, APR (22:23):

Because you said it in a way that resonated with them. I don't know where we get this idea that only one person can do something. You know, how many brands of toilet paper are there when you go to the grocery store?

Michelle Kane (22:35):

Right.

Karen Swim, APR (22:36):

We're all there for a reason.

Michelle Kane (22:40):

This is true. Or even, why does anyone write songs anymore? If there are only so many notes in a scale? We could do this all day. We could, but, at the end of it, be strategic. And we said this before on here, treat yourself as a client, hire yourself.

Karen Swim, APR (22:58):

Love it.

Michelle Kane (22:59):

And I think you will, we know you're smart, we know you're savvy. We know you can weather anything because hey, we're all still here. We've been through things and we're still here. So if anything, take that with you and we hope we've inspired you today. If we have, please subscribe so you don't miss a thing. Share it around with your friends and colleagues. I mean, there's content you can share. That was, that was pretty shameless, wasn't it? But that's okay. ,

Karen Swim, APR (23:26):

When we share this and we love to hear from you. So add your thoughts to it, say “They talked about this, here's my advice.” Disagree with us, because that'll be awesome. We learn from that too. But the key point is please share our stuff,

Michelle Kane (23:45):

In case we weren't subtle enough. But, well, we thank you for spending this time with us. We know everyone's time is so valuable these days. And until next time, thanks for listening to That Solo Life.