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One Leg Up on Doing Public Relations The Right Way With Marisa Vallbona 4-29-24 · OneLegUpAlex Media

0:01
Here's your host, Alex Garrett here on the Alex Garrett Podcast Network. We
0:07
are slowly getting back into regular programming after spending a week about the Columbia University
0:12
disaster. And I still say, it's twelve thirty five on a Monday,
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April twenty ninth when I record this, and the President of Columbia is still
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there, and that's just where I'm going to leave that. She's not resigned
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yet. So I want to get people empty, but I want to switch
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into something very much more exciting to talk about, which is PR work.
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And I don't usually book the booker, but I figured, well, Marissa
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Valbona is very very interactive with all of her followed on linkedinn with me as
0:39
well in text message, and I said, Marissa, come on because you
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come on the show because you seem very interactive for someone behind the scenes,
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So let's put your front and center today about that. That sounds awesome,
0:49
Alex, thank you so much. I'm super happy to be here. So
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PR. I mean, I feel like anybody should be doing PR for their
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own brand, right, But how does it work? From where you say?
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What are people failing at here in twenty twenty four that can be improved
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when when putting out their brand, you know what they hide. That's the
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biggest problem that I'm seeing today is they'll get into trouble and they hide.
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They don't communicate with their key stakeholders. A lot of that has to do
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with they don't really know what to say or do, and they think that
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it's going to blow over, and they hide, and then they run to
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a publicist or a pr professional when it's too late. I mean, it's
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never too late, but what they do is they think, oh, this
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is going to blow over or nobody's going to find out, and everybody finds
1:49
out, especially in today's world of social media and digital because everybody, no
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matter what you're doing in today's world, whether you're a large company, an
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individual who thinks that you're a nobody or you're a brand, what what have
2:07
you? Right, everybody has one of these in their hand and you could
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be recorded anywhere and any time, and you can get yourself into hot water.
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Is a very much so a one party state too. Keep that in
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mind, right, exactly exactly, well, I want to not want to
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not addressing something right away, even if it's to admit fault or to just
2:39
to be transparent about what you did and expressing regret and saying I wouldn't have
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handled it that way. That right there goes a long way, and a
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PR professional can help with that. And so here you come in. Now
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you are a seasoned PR and we didn't even get there. You know.
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I'm like, people know you based on all the enemies you do, but
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maybe that there are people meeting you for the first time here on this podcast.
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So tell us a little bit about your background. We actually worked on
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the Carrico Healthcare booking. Is that your primary right now or are you floating
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a bit between different companies and pitching them? Well, I work with a
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number of different clients and so Caraco is one of my beloved clients. I
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love working with them. Carco Healthcare. They provide non emergency medical transport services,
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which is how you met them. But I do work with a number
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of other clients. Cobold Banker real Estate. They they do residential real estate
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for you know nation well actually worldwide. So they're one of our another one
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of our beloved clients, and we work with clients all over the place.
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We launched XM satellite radio before anybody knew what satellite radio was and we've worked
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with Procter and Gamble. Levi's just a number of companies. So we love
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what we do. We've worked in the surf industry, which is how I
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got into surfing, and just we we work with clients that we want to
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work with. If we don't like the client, we can't work with them
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because we can't really engage if we're not interested, and also if we don't
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feel that the individual is ethical and has a great message, because the media
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is not going to buy it. Marissa, I was so excited that you
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reach out because what you pitched me about KERC was exactly what adapting the adapting
4:42
features about. And I'm like, yes, let's get on that. So
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you mentioned Procter and Gamble. Okay, so talk about working with a very
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much established company like Proctor and Gamble legacy company versus startup? Are there challenges?
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Is it easier to do a startup or easier to do a legacy Which
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one do you find? How do you combine the two approaches if you will.
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So, sometimes it can be harder to pitch a legacy company than a
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startup, and it can be more difficult because a legacy company. The media
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can see it as been there, done that, it's too commercial, versus
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a startup is oh wow, this is shiny and new, and we're attracted
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to what's new, what is different. Especially in today's world, right the
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media loves the underdog, so it's a matter of what is different, what
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is different today? For example, once working with Procter and Gamble, what
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we did was we did this big media pitch which was super fun, and
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we took cosmetics that Procter and Gamble creates, which are fantastic, and we
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compare them to the high end brand cosmetics that are carried in departments or see
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expensive cosmetics, and we did morning show segments showing we brought a model in
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and we showed these are cosmetics that a department store carries versus cosmetics that Procter
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and Gamble has available in your local drug store. See how you can still
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create a wonderful makeover using Procter and Gamble cosmetics for a fraction of the price.
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So those are the types of stories that the media will go for when
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it deals with, you know, a more like consumer brand like that.
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So for Cobol Banker, you know, that's a very well established brand that
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was, you know, Coyl Banker was founded in the early nineteen hundreds.
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They have been through every real estate cycle since who knows when, right,
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they were even through that first pandemic, the Spanish flu, so they have
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been through it all the ups and downs. Well, then, I think
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you're making a great point here with the knowledge that you have to have as
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a PR person of the clients that you're dealing with now when you're training.
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I assume you're training because you do a lot of different things on your LinkedIn
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to teach others about PR. Do you find that those who want to be
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in PR stumble when they're not researching enough their client based I feel like that
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could be an issue, right, It's a huge issue, Alex. And
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what happens is, though you'll get people who come into PR through a sideways
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right They'll be let's say, a receptionist who says, oh, I'm so
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interested in PR because I was a receptionist at a major corporation and the PR
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person who would call in to speak to our CEO always seem to be so
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friendly and kind and dressed well and was always up and she or he seemed
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to really like people. Well, out of people, I think I can
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do PR, and they've totally misunderstood public relations is a profession. I mean
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most of us who are in PR, we have a journalism degree with an
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emphasis in public relations. Like I got my degree in PR from the University
8:22
of Texas at Austin with an emphasis in PR. So I learned how to
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do this job when I was in college, and I use what I learned
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in college. I use it every single day. I learned about media law,
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I learned about media relations, graphic communications, I had to learn about
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advertising. I had to learn to learn about integrated marketing communication. I mean,
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like, you learn the whole thing. You don't just fall into it
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and figure it out as you go. So that's a mistake that a lot
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of people make. But a the mistake is how they approach media relations.
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They don't read newspapers that they're going to pitch. They don't read reporters work.
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So for example, before we pitched you, we knew what it is
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that your podcast covers. So we figured out, okay, keerco is a
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great fit for you. I wouldn't be pitching you Cole Banker because Cole Banker
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doesn't fit with what you're doing right right, very true. I have a
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mistake that a lot of PR people make. The other mistake is they don't
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get to know reporters on a personal basis and they don't establish relationships. It
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makes it a lot harder to pitch if they don't establish relationships. Well,
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I love the excitement you had when I first texted you, Hey, you
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got the link out, We're already going. You were like, yeah,
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I'm gonna listen to this, So you definitely have that interactivity. Now,
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It's true what you say, because I would say my inbox is fell with
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pitches just because things decision. They've put me in the rolodex of so many
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people, I guess, and I'm honored that I'm looked at, but that
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someone's like, hey, I know that's a good fit, and you're right.
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They they don't really do their research some times, like why am I
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getting this now? Luckily I do have a lot of adaptability stories which I'm
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able in a book, which I love because it just adds to the content.
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Right now, when it comes to content, do you feel like a
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PR person is focused on how they can make their brand or their clients stand
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out through the podcast, not worried about what the podcast is that what you're
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saying basically, like they're worried about what makes them stand out, not how
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you can collaborate. Basically, that's another big problem, Alex, because it
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has to be a give and take. And one of the things that I
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talk about in my social media posts in trying to help not only clients but
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also other PR practitioners is it has to be a give and take. It's
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a real relationship. Right. So there's and this is something that I learned
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back in college. I mean I went to college in I graduated in the
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mid eighties with my degree in PR. And one of the things that we
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used to talk about back then and we still talk about, there's a love
11:18
hate relationship between the news media and PR people. Why is there a love
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hate relationship because reporters often say that we badger them to death, We're constantly
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pitching them. There's a thing that's called spray and pray, Right, so
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like we'll create a news release. I don't do this, my firm doesn't
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do this. And PR people will write a news release, they spray it
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out to the news media and they pray that something sticks. We don't do
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that we will individually tailor our pitches to the news media based on what we
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know that they tend to cover, and each reporter is different. But back
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to what you were saying on tailoring and helping the news to last longer.
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You posted the podcast right for Karaco. You sent us the link immediately,
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and what was my reaction. I said, tell me all of your handles
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because we want to repost it. And we did, and we created an
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individual post that was applicable to your to the link to what was in your
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podcast, But we didn't do it until we listened to your entire podcast interview
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with our client. We picked out nuggets to what you were talking about in
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your podcast, and then we posted it to our clients social media channels and
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we individualized it. LinkedIn had something a little bit different than Instagram, than
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Twitter or x We we create individualized it right. But that doesn't only help
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us, it helps you because we tagged you in all of it. Because
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we wanted to go out to your listeners, we also wanted to go out
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to our audience and we want it to be interactive. That not only helps
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you, it helps us, but it creates a relationship between you and our
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client, and it also helps and actually christ reach out to me personally.
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Christian love me personally, and I love that. And sometimes if I'm honest
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as a podcaster and I want to do something really fast, I have a
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bad habit. I guess I'm circumending the PR person. But if I'm connected
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with the client, I mean, is that bad? I don't know.
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I feel like it's just natural for me to go to, you know,
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the person I interviewed first. I don't know, maybe I should change that
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approach out, but yeah, it depends on who the PR person is.
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So I work with so many reporters. I mean, but I've been doing
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this for over thirty five years. But I've connected with so many reports orders
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over the course of my career, and there are so many reporters who I
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mean now, all of my reporter friends, they always come through me or
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through the other individuals in my firm because they know that we are Johnny on
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the spot. We'll get back to them immediately. We help them, We
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go above and beyond, we'll package stories for them, we make their job
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easier. But they often tell us that not all PR firms are like that,
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They're not as responsive. They won't create social media posts for the client
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to help make the story live longer and to help tag the podcaster, the
14:39
reporter, etc. And so you'll know when you get pitched by a PR
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person. You'll know and you'll feel it in your gut by how they respond
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to you, how they arrange interviews, how they package the story. You
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know, if you say to them, for example, a TV station might
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say, what are our visuals? Depending on how the story's packaged, they
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can tell whether the PR person is going to be good or not. Well,
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now you are solid. You are a rock solid. I'm going to
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go through you more because I you know, the thing about these companies is
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sometimes I don't have a newsletter and I'm like, where's the newsletter? I
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want to see something that maybe will interest me down the road for another interview.
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I feel like that's a building block. These newsletters prove it such a
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strong building block, but some people just don't have it. And I like,
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I'm the type that when I do a podcast, I don't want that
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connection to die. However, if they don't give me material, what am
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I going to do? They can't do anything like that right exactly exactly,
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or you'll have a PR person who will send you some talking points for your
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interview. That's a very well prepared PR person, right. They're giving you
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background, they're giving you material to work with so that not only their client
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has a better interview, but you have a better interview. Now, let's
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talk about those in the podcast world who and I'm one of them, trying
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to always get a press past different things, but sometimes I fall short.
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What is the best way for someone that's in the media world, in the
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podcast world to get that access again, I mean, I feel like it's
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it's there right in front of us and some of us and we shot ourselves
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on the foot with the way we pitch it to the media out you know,
16:26
the press department, if you will. Is that is that what's going
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on? Yeah? So one of the things that happens is we have so
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many people who approach and say, I want to attend this event to cover
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it. I'm in the news media or I'm a podcaster, et cetera.
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And we've had the experience before where and this even boats for somebody in the
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media saying I'd like to get a sample of this new product that you're representing
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so that I can do a story on it. We'll send a sample and
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we're not asking for the sample back, but we never get the story.
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Or somebody will request and I've had friends in the PR travel industry who a
17:18
reporter will request a free trip or a free hotel stay again for a promise
17:23
of coverage and return, and the coverage never comes. That's one of the
17:30
main reasons that public relations professionals are very particular about the press passes or the
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samples that they grant. So what is the better way to do that is
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to say, I'm working on a story. This is my deadline. I
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specifically want to interview your CEO, or this is the story I'm working on.
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This is the not only the this is the deadline, but this is
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the angle that I'm writing about. So be very specific and you're going to
18:06
have a much better chance. Good to know. Good to know because I
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mean, I'm wearing rangers because they want and I want to be quite transparent.
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I want to get to the next round or somewhere downline. I want
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to have that access. But as a smaller known person, I know that's
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not going to be easy. So it's almost David versonal life. But we'll
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get there. Right, we'll get there one day again. Maris, I
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got to ask you about PR crisis and I when you reference, you know,
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established brands. I was thinking of bud Light and what they went through
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last year. Do they wish they hired you, wish they hired you or
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what? No? Not with what they went through, Absolutely not. I
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wouldn't want to get involved in that. They made a mistake. They ignored
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their key audience. When you ignore your key audience, you're shooting yourself in
18:57
the foot. And they completely ignored that. And the mistake was their marketing
19:07
department. Because their marketing I don't think they got I don't think they I
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think the uppers fired those in the lowers instead of taking responsibility for themselves.
19:17
Is kind of how that happened. Right, Yeah, they did that and
19:21
a lot of time, and they didn't do it quickly enough. And this
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whole thing could have been avoided if the marketing department had immediately admitted that they
19:33
had made a mistake, and the mistake didn't have to be we made a
19:38
mistake by hiring Dylan Mulvainy. That didn't have to be what they did.
19:45
They could have immediately just said we made a terrible mistake by not considering our
19:53
key long term audience. We made a mistake by not not having acknowledged who
20:03
has kept this brand alive for all this time. That's really all they had
20:10
to say, and to apologize to the key audience for not having considered them.
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It didn't really have to be we are so sorry for working with Dylan
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mulvany that I don't think that anybody was really asking for that until they dug
20:29
their heels in and denied having ignored their key audience. Because they were really
20:34
caught having said derogatory comments about their key audience, and that's where it backfired
20:42
on them. So they failed. They crash and burn, and tell us,
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in your years of experience, who you've helped or who you've seen actually
20:53
become the phoenix rising out of the ashes, if you will, from a
20:56
PR crisis and they're back on the map again. Whenever I'm dealing with a
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PR crisis like that, there's a lot of confidentiality involved. Yeah, that's
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fair, that's fair, But I mean from a broader scope, anybody that
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impressed you, that rebounded from their crisis, maybe that we saw in the
21:18
news, that maybe surprise you that they were able to bounce back. You
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know, you're catching me off guard, because there are some who have.
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There are a lot who have been able to do that. And what I
21:33
can tell you about those who have been able to bounce back because the public
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has a very short memory, right, and we forget the crisis they've been
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through. We remember how they bounce back, right. What we don't forget
21:53
is when they wallow in the crisis and they never bounce back, right,
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We just think, oh, they crashed and burned. But if they handle
22:03
it right, then we never forget about the bad that they did or what
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they did wrong, which is fantastic. And so those who rise out of
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the ashes the quickest. Here are the things that they have in common.
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They immediately address the crisis. They immediately addressed their key stakeholders. And their
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key stakeholders would be the public who either buys their product or their service,
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and it's also their internal audiences, and if they're a public company, it's
22:38
their shareholders, right, So they communicate immediately, they address this is what
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happened, this is what we're doing to address the problem, this is how
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we're avoiding the problem in the future. And then they keep those audiences updated
22:56
on a regular basis. But they're speaking with one voice, so it would
23:00
either be the CEO who is speaking to everybody through their public relations professional and
23:07
they're keeping everybody updated. They're monitoring digital platforms like social media platforms, and
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they're responding to those social media platforms on a regular basis to help determine like
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where is that messaging going right and to keep those form. So they're working
23:26
that way, and they're actually working to fix the problem so that it doesn't
23:32
happen again. They're actually doing something. So take a look at what's going
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on with Boweing, right, that's a good one. That's a good example.
23:40
Yep, that's a great example. Like how comfortable do you feel getting
23:45
on an airplane right now? Not with Boweing? And I believe they still
23:48
kept the the CEO. Didn't he stay or did they step down eventually?
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I didn't even follow that a part. I haven't seen that he's stepped down.
23:59
That's a great question, Alex. But they are in a world of
24:03
hurt and I don't see that they're handling this well at all. I'm not
24:08
seeing good messaging coming out of them. No, And in fact, more
24:12
crises start building up. And these are real lives. This isn't just like
24:15
a beer can. This is real lives at stake now, So this is
24:19
a different animal. And I think it's more infuriating when real lives are literally
24:26
endangered by a plane opening up mid air, like that's how do you ignore
24:30
that or let it build up? Exactly? And we're seeing a different Boeing
24:34
crisis every other day. There were more this weekend, and so the more
24:40
and then the wizzard blower gets killed out of you know, dies out of
24:42
nowhere. It's very strange. It's going on over yes, getting worse and
24:47
worse, and the worst thing that they can do is not speak up about
24:51
it and not address the issue. I see you've written a few books and
24:55
whatnot. Tell us about you? Are you as an author right about all
25:00
this? Do you like writing about pr or what. I haven't written books.
25:03
I've been featured in books, featured in books. Okay, yeah,
25:07
yeah, I've been featured in a few books. I haven't written the books.
25:11
I have been featured in a book about leadership. I have been featured
25:18
in a book on ethics. I've been featured in a textbook. I've been
25:22
featured in a book called Alpha Dogs, How your small business can become a
25:26
Leader of the Pack, which you know, I'm so honored because I was
25:33
approached to be featured in those books and it's just been a tremendous honor.
25:40
Two of us I want to written by my PR colleagues, and you know
25:45
that it has just been a great honor. Real quick, though, I
25:49
want to give you a story. You knew you were made for PR at
25:53
twelve. Tell us that before we wrap up for today. Yeah. So
25:59
I'm originally from Houston, and that's where I'm living right now, although I
26:02
spent a lot of time in southern California, where I lived for about thirty
26:06
five years. But back to my childhood in Houston, it gets super hot
26:11
and humid here. And one summer I was hanging out with my sister and
26:17
our friends. I was twelve years old, and it was burning up hot
26:22
in the heat of the summer. We were bored, We're just hanging around,
26:26
and we decided we were going to see if we could fry an egg
26:30
on the sidewalk, and so we did, and the egg actually fried.
26:36
I don't remember how long it took, it didn't take that long. So
26:40
we decided we were going to call the news rooms and pitch it as a
26:42
weather story, and the news actually came out and I was voted to be
26:48
the one to get on the news and I did and I absolutely loved it,
26:53
and I thought, OK, hey, that's it. I want to
26:56
be a news anchor. So that was my original plan was to be a
27:00
news anchor, and then that eventually turned to PR because my junior year in
27:06
college, I couldn't get you know, the classes were so packed for being
27:10
a news anchor that all my journalism classes transferred over to PR, which is
27:15
what I got into my first class. I absolutely fell in love with PR
27:19
and I have never regretted it since I love, love, love what I
27:23
do. This is the best job ever. So that's how I ended up
27:27
doing what I'm doing. But yeah, I decided at age twelve, do
27:33
you still wish that you had done TV work and whatnot? Or do you
27:38
love this role better than that would have been? Well, every once in
27:42
a blue moon, I get to do TV interviews. So when we were
27:47
launching XM satellite radio back in two thousand and one, the executives with XM,
27:53
because it was a smaller company back then, they didn't speak Spanish and
27:57
I'm fluent in Spanis, so I got to do some of the TV work
28:03
in Spanish, which was fun, and I got to translate some of the
28:06
interviews so I would go on TV sometimes. There have been times when I've
28:11
done TV interviews, so I've gotten to mix what I'm doing now with some
28:18
TV and that's been fun, and then now doing interviews that I do like
28:25
on my social media platforms. It's basically the same thing. But here's the
28:29
great thing about it, Alex is with media, the way that it's become
28:34
right with the anchor's positions being a little bit tenuous, right, they're not
28:41
very secure. I'm in a much better position. Also, I feel like
28:47
you wouldn't be as biased as someone we see on the TV. But that's
28:49
a discussion for another day. You know. Speaking of PR crisis and what
28:52
we're talking about, Dan Rather was back on CBS yesterday. No one really
28:56
talked about that. I thought that was fascinating. Yeah, he was back
29:00
on CBS as being interviewed on Face the Nation now talk about a PR crisis.
29:04
That was I'm amazed they let him back on the network after all that.
29:11
Wow. Okay, I got to go back and look that one up.
29:14
So when that happened, I know that the and that happens too.
29:17
Networks do face PR crisis, don't don't they? Yeah, they do,
29:22
absolutely absolutely, I mean you help, they have really faced a lot of
29:29
PR crises, the way they handle things, the fallout, the loss of
29:36
trust, especially today. I mean back in the day they were unbiased,
29:41
and now it's really become a big problem. Do you feel like social media
29:47
everybody's worrying about their image but they don't know how to maintain it. Is
29:51
that the crisis we're facing right now. That's a huge problem, Alex And
29:56
uh, they worry about it way too much. And the individuals who do
30:03
best on social media, the individuals and the companies that do best, are
30:10
the ones who are most authentic. And I know that we overplay the word
30:15
authentic, but follow me for just a moment. Sure, if you're just
30:19
yourself, people will relate to you better. Right, So a huge lesson
30:29
that I learned, and it took me, I guess, decades to learn
30:33
this. But I used to be a major perfectionist. And I was that
30:40
way because I come from a family of overachievers, like major overachievers. My
30:45
dad was a world renowned physician, my mother a PhD. Super super smart
30:49
parents, and they expected everything to be just so, and so I grew
30:56
up with that and I expected perfect from myself, and I thought, if
31:02
I'm not perfect, I won't be accepted by others. And I learned,
31:08
you know, people don't relate to that. Nobody wants to be friends with
31:12
miss perfect. Nobody can relate to that. And I don't know exactly what
31:18
happened, And you know what, I really think that what happened was I
31:22
started surfing, and surfing is hard, like it's really hard, messing up
31:27
all the time and wiping out. And I realized, you know what,
31:32
I love the sport and it's kicking my rear end and I'm not perfect.
31:38
And I started posting a lot of videos and posting them anyway, even though
31:45
they weren't perfect, and people related to them. And I realized that you
31:52
don't have to be perfect when you're posting on social media. Just get it
31:56
out there, talk about what's going on, and you don't have to look
32:00
perfect. You don't have to be perfect. People like it better when you're
32:04
just yourself and they can relate to you better, and you get better results,
32:12
you get better interaction, and that I find works best even with clients,
32:17
it works best with individuals. I even find that when videos are overproduced,
32:24
they don't engage as well as those that are not as well, that
32:30
they're not like perfectly produced. Yeah, I leave a couple of jump cuts
32:35
in there, right, something like that. Yeah, exactly, exactly.
32:37
Yeah, I like that too. You know, it's funny we're talking about
32:40
this on zoom and I thought the pandemic was perfect for everybody just to be
32:44
themselves. I mean, we're looking at your living room right now. We
32:49
had someone on BBC with the kid rolling in the stroller. I mean there
32:52
were a lot of different moments that showed, Okay, we are just human
32:54
beings. You know. CNN Jake Tapper might be at home, he's home
33:00
like everybody else, Like they're all human beings. And I feel like that
33:04
level of the playing field and that kind of regard didn't it Well, it
33:07
does. It levels the playing field, but it also lets people know this
33:12
is a real human being, Like this is not a fake background. You
33:15
can tell because when I move around, you know, it's this is a
33:20
real background. This is my living room. Right, I'm inviting you to
33:24
get to know who I am as an individual. That picture, that picture
33:29
right there, that's a picture of a wave. You know, it's a
33:32
wave at sunset. I surround myself with surfing pictures, and you know,
33:38
this is who I am. But the thing that came out during the pandemic,
33:44
I did a lot of research on Zoom because clients, instead of being
33:50
invited into newsrooms to do their interviews, they had to do their interviews via
33:55
Zoom. So I started I started researching what looks best on Zoom interviews,
34:01
and I learned that when people are on Zoom and they have fake backgrounds,
34:07
people don't trust them as much. And they don't because they want to know
34:12
who are you as an individual, Like I don't really care that your background
34:17
is not as attractive or perfect, but I want to know, Like,
34:22
I want to get to know you as a person. I'll trust you more
34:24
if I do, right, I want to know what are you about?
34:29
If you have a bookshelf in your you know, in the background, what's
34:31
on your bookshelf? Right, that's amazing. Right. When I was in
34:37
the pandemic, I kind of had it angled where you could see my bookshelf
34:42
from my house. Now I'm basically doing it from my studio, So that's
34:45
why it's kind of like my background instead of the radio stations I work at
34:50
for, you know, just because I don't want the station because it not
34:53
part of the radio station, you know what I mean. But I kind
34:55
of like this little background here. It's kind of cool. Yeah, different,
35:00
Yeah, I like it. I'm not used to putting my own brand
35:04
like that on my background, but I think it worked anyway. The break
35:09
us down what the slides were that I had seen. I believe it was
35:14
like three or four different things that you would very I wouldn't say delicately,
35:21
but very How would I say it? You were very in depth with pr
35:27
dues and don'ts pretty much. I believe I saw and whatnot? Can you
35:30
break that down? And you remember posting that? I think it was like
35:32
a week ago or so so. But do's and don'ts in what because there
35:37
I've posted a few dues and don'ts, But do's and don'ts in what situation?
35:43
My text messages hang on one second because I know it. I reference
35:45
these things in my messages because it's just easier to remember them. You know
35:51
absolutely, So we were talking about just regular PR, but there was something
36:00
in there. And I'm going to go to your LinkedIn for Rista Elbona.
36:02
By the way, people can follow you there, right, absolutely, yes,
36:07
they can follow me on LinkedIn. They can follow me on Facebook,
36:13
on Instagram and on Instagram. I am m Valbona and that's vias In Victor
36:20
ll b as In Boyo Na. I believe it was these different things with
36:27
accelerating your business through PR. And I'm always talking about one leg up,
36:32
having one leg up in your business, and I feel like accelerating it.
36:36
That's what caught my eye, like, oh my god, we can actually
36:37
talk about this because the whole point of one leg up is to say,
36:42
hey, here are CEOs, here are people that have accomplished things in their
36:45
field. How do they get there? Well, then you come in with
36:47
the PR site. How do you make it get there by accelerating? Right,
36:51
That's kind of where I was coming out with that. Oh yeah,
36:53
and it's get the word out there. And our tagline is get note,
37:00
get noticed. And you're not going to get noticed and you're not going to
37:05
have a leg up unless people know who you are and what you're doing.
37:09
I don't care if you're an individual, a service, a business. You
37:15
have to get the word out. How are you going to get the word
37:19
out. You can get the word out through a news release, through social
37:22
media, through owned content or earned content, and you don't even have to
37:30
advertise. Advertising does work, but earned media is an easier and an inexpensive
37:37
way to do it. So the difference would be that earned media is you're
37:42
earning the right to be in the news media, right, And you earn
37:45
the right to be there because you have a story to tell or you have
37:52
something interesting to say that a reporter, a producer, or an editor says,
38:00
that's a great story. Our readers, our viewers or listeners, they're
38:05
going to want to know about this. A podcaster is going to say that,
38:08
right, So you earn the right to be there. So right now,
38:12
Alex, I'm earning the right to be on your podcast. This is
38:15
earned media exposure. Right. That's really the holy grail. And the reason
38:21
it's the holy grail is because it's a third party endorsement. Right. I
38:27
could take out an ad and say I'm the greatest pr person in the world,
38:31
but nobody's going to believe that because I'm saying it about myself. But
38:36
if I'm on your podcast and you're saying I like what you're saying on LinkedIn
38:40
and people should follow you and you give great advice, I can't buy that
38:45
grade of an endorsement. That's a third party endorsement. So that's a huge
38:52
do right for any individual company or service you want that earned media. The
39:00
other thing is owned media. Owned media is on my own social media channels.
39:08
Once you give me the link to this podcast, you better believe that
39:13
I'm going to repost this to all of my channels. That's my owned media.
39:16
I own that. I'm going to put it everywhere. I'm going to
39:21
put it on a blog post, I'm going to put it all over the
39:24
place, right, that's my owned media channels. The other piece of the
39:28
owned media channels is creating content of your own and getting it out there so
39:32
that you get known using Search engine optimization SEO. Yes, yeah, that's
39:42
huge, huge, huge, huge, and getting that out there right,
39:46
getting your key messaging out there and making sure that your key messaging is on
39:52
target. Understanding your target market, right. A lot of people think that
40:00
other target market, but they really don't. They might know a lot of
40:05
their target market, but they might have missed some of their target market.
40:09
So really honing in and paying attention to your target market and targeting them through
40:16
SEO, whether it's on your website, your blog, post, your social
40:22
media right and making sure that you're tagging every photo that you post is tagged
40:30
properly, and a lot of people miss that, so making sure that that's
40:35
done too right. Well, you know, it's just it's interesting to talk
40:38
about this because I'm more I'm very grateful that you join me because you've got
40:43
the season experience, and anybody that comes on my show, I'm just grateful
40:46
they're here with me to talk because I still feel like the little guy in
40:50
the corner trying to branch out. So by having you on, it's a
40:52
huge, it's a great collaboration. As I said earlier, I love that
40:59
telling your story. Now, everybody in my sphere is always like you should
41:01
do this, you should do that because of your story. You roll playing
41:05
around one leg, and I'm just I'm very I don't want to be defined
41:09
by that. So let's talk about people with disabilities real quick. How do
41:13
people with disabilities tell their story but not let them be defined by you,
41:16
you know what I mean, Like, how do they tell it? Yeah,
41:19
in a way that it's more like, oh, you're a story,
41:22
not what an inspiration type of thing. Like I think disabled community is getting
41:27
tired of becoming inspo porn if you will, right, So we would,
41:30
we would. We just want to be So how do I just tell my
41:31
story of roll playing around the city and not be uh defined by that?
41:37
I guess you'd say, because everybody has a story. That's something that I
41:45
often talk about is that everybody has a story, and it's not when you're
41:52
telling your story, Alex, You're not going around saying I'm the guy with
42:00
one leg You're right, So you're not being defined by that. You're being
42:06
defined by what am I doing with this? That's what you're being defined by,
42:13
am I right? Exactly? Like having the one leg up was was
42:16
my literal thing because if you could tell I'm doing a crutch stand in the
42:20
middle of Manhattan, you know, touring, and that's kind of my thing,
42:23
is the one leg up in the air. And I said, hey,
42:27
that transcends a lot of things. Let me work on this brand a
42:30
bit more. So you're branding it not as I'm going to be known as
42:36
the guy with one leg. No, I'm going to be known as the
42:38
guy who took what I've been dealt and I've turned it into something amazing.
42:45
So that's what I'm known as. I'm known as the guy who transcended and
42:51
made something amazing happen with my life. That's what I'm known as that.
42:58
Here's what it is is that perception transcends reality and that's what you need to
43:04
go with, right, So you're taking something that happened and you're making it
43:10
something amazing. That's the way to do it. Well, I guys,
43:19
I love when colleagues see that too, and that makes me feel really good
43:23
at the radio station. So just got to work on that a little more.
43:28
But Maricha, he thought about doing a Ted Talk not yet, not
43:32
yet, But I don't even know where to begin with that. I feel
43:37
like it's all the whole process, is it not. I have a colleague
43:40
who is an expert at it, and I want to connect you to because
43:45
I know that you would be an amazing Ted Talk speaker and he could get
43:53
you that lightning fast well to day what we didn't even get into your faith.
43:58
But I want to bring on for another app episode about your faith in
44:00
your PR work and how you combine the two. If you don't mind,
44:04
I would love that because I have to tell you my faith is unshakable and
44:13
it had My company is faith based, and you know, my clients don't
44:20
know that unless they ask, and most of the people who work with me
44:23
don't know that unless they ask. But I do sorry for lit on the
44:30
off the cover of that if you were trying to or whatnot. But no,
44:32
that's fine. I mean, they don't know it just because they haven't
44:36
asked, and it's not something I push on anybody. But if it weren't
44:39
for my faith, I wouldn't be where I am today. Well, I
44:44
wouldn't be a lot, I have to tell you. On that note,
44:46
we got to definitely have your bring you back on for more of that story
44:51
and more about the PR world, because I feel like twenty twenty four there's
44:55
just a lot going on at once. So love to have back on soon
45:00
enough when all the craziness dies down, right, Yeah, I love that.
45:01
That'd be great.