Latest / WCHS Network Podcasts / 02/05/2025 Ask the Expert: Mastering Business Strategy & PR with Bradley Harris
Transcript
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- 0:15Speaker 2: The views and opinions expressed on this program do not
- 0:18Speaker 2: necessarily reflect the views and opinions of five eight WCCHS,
- 0:22Speaker 2: it's employees or WVRC Media.
- 0:34Speaker 3: It is twenty minutes past the hour you're listening to
- 0:37Speaker 3: ask the expert on WCHS The Boys of Charleston. I'm
- 0:39Speaker 3: Del Cooper. Thanks for tuning in one of this What
- 0:42Speaker 3: do we want? We're on a Wednesday morning, right now
- 0:44Speaker 3: here in the month of February, in the year of
- 0:46Speaker 3: twenty twenty five, and we have a brand new expert
- 0:48Speaker 3: for you this morning. Leakas the phone number out there
- 0:50Speaker 3: for you, so if you have any questions, you can
- 0:51Speaker 3: give us a call this morning at three zero four
- 0:53Speaker 3: three four two eight one three one three zero four
- 0:55Speaker 3: three four two eight one three one. You can also
- 0:57Speaker 3: text us any questions you have to three zero four
- 0:58Speaker 3: none three five five zero zero eight like to introduce
- 1:01Speaker 3: to the airwaves this morning for the first time as
- 1:03Speaker 3: an expert. It is Bradley Harris from Bradley Harris and Associate.
- 1:05Speaker 3: It's good morning. How you doing this morning?
- 1:07Speaker 4: Hey Jael, it's good to be here. How are you doing.
- 1:09Speaker 3: It's very good to have you. And I'm really looking
- 1:10Speaker 3: forward to this to this show for a couple of reasons.
- 1:13Speaker 3: I love having new experts on so I like learning
- 1:15Speaker 3: new things. And really the type of business that you
- 1:17Speaker 3: do is not something I mean, okay, So Bradley does
- 1:20Speaker 3: pr from a very professional standpoint, so we want to
- 1:23Speaker 3: talk about exactly what that means. You deal in levels
- 1:26Speaker 3: that I don't have any business needing the type of
- 1:29Speaker 3: level of but I might at some point exactly exactly,
- 1:32Speaker 3: at some point I might very well need that. And
- 1:34Speaker 3: I look at what you do and what you do professionally,
- 1:38Speaker 3: and this is something I'm really looking forward to to
- 1:40Speaker 3: learning about. So first of all, why don't we do this?
- 1:42Speaker 3: Why don't you introduce yourself? You know everybody, So I
- 1:44Speaker 3: don't know if there might be there might be people
- 1:47Speaker 3: out there that don't know who you are, so you
- 1:48Speaker 3: might want to introduce yourself a little bit to our
- 1:50Speaker 3: listening audience, and then we'll start talking about a little
- 1:52Speaker 3: bit what you do.
- 1:53Speaker 4: Sure again, Bradley Harris Bradley Harrison Associates. Great to be
- 1:57Speaker 4: here with you this morning, and I have I really
- 2:00Speaker 4: reflected on this because I knew you were going to
- 2:01Speaker 4: ask me this question. I've been in Charleston fifteen years now.
- 2:06Speaker 4: It feels like fifty five year old, but it's been
- 2:08Speaker 4: fifteen one to five. But I came to Charleston. I'm
- 2:12Speaker 4: from Raleigh County, originally down on the southern coal fields.
- 2:15Speaker 4: Came here for college at the University of Charleston, and
- 2:18Speaker 4: I can I can say unequivocally my experience at the
- 2:21Speaker 4: University of Charleston really set me up for the success
- 2:24Speaker 4: that I have today. And I say that they did
- 2:27Speaker 4: not pay me to say this. The University of Charleston,
- 2:29Speaker 4: I love you, but really truly. As part of my program,
- 2:34Speaker 4: which was public policy, and I did do a minor
- 2:36Speaker 4: in communications and public policy is basically, you know, a
- 2:40Speaker 4: lot of writing, a lot of research and navigating the
- 2:42Speaker 4: legislative process and role making and policy development. There was
- 2:47Speaker 4: a component of that that required an internship and I
- 2:51Speaker 4: had to have a six hour internship, and I was
- 2:54Speaker 4: this little oh my gosh, my One of my best friends, Cheryl,
- 2:57Speaker 4: tells the story all the time of me coming in
- 2:59Speaker 4: for an interview as an intern at nineteen. I had
- 3:01Speaker 4: my grandma had bought me a suit and it had
- 3:04Speaker 4: those little what are they called, like the little things
- 3:07Speaker 4: you have to clip on the back. I didn't even
- 3:11Speaker 4: know enough then to know to cut him. And Cheryl
- 3:13Speaker 4: was like, oh, this poor guy, like we're gonna hire
- 3:15Speaker 4: him as an intern because he's so pitiful. But that experience,
- 3:20Speaker 4: and I say that to anybody listening that you know,
- 3:22Speaker 4: maybe exploring a new career path or maybe you know
- 3:25Speaker 4: in college, internships are so important because you you get
- 3:29Speaker 4: that real life experience and you know, open doors and
- 3:33Speaker 4: you're in rooms that you know you would never be in,
- 3:35Speaker 4: and you get to hear the conversations and experience it.
- 3:37Speaker 4: And that really that was the catalyst for me, that
- 3:40Speaker 4: internship and being at the University of Charleston and the
- 3:42Speaker 4: mission of the University of Charleston is to educate each
- 3:45Speaker 4: student for a life of productive work, enlightened living, and
- 3:47Speaker 4: community involvement. The key to that was the community involvement,
- 3:50Speaker 4: and I am I'm still living that mission through my business.
- 3:54Speaker 4: It's so funny, Marty Roth, I hope you love this,
- 3:57Speaker 4: but but that really was the catalyst for me. And
- 4:00Speaker 4: from there I accepted a full time position, parlayed the
- 4:04Speaker 4: internship into a full time job after a couple of years.
- 4:07Speaker 4: Served there in the Secretary of State's office for about
- 4:09Speaker 4: four years as a senior advisor to the Secretary and
- 4:12Speaker 4: the senior staff executive assistant working on you know, managing
- 4:15Speaker 4: all the executive operations for the senior staff. Went into
- 4:19Speaker 4: the Department of Commerce. Love that experience doing marketing and
- 4:23Speaker 4: communications with the Cabinet Secretary for you know, prospects for
- 4:28Speaker 4: business attractions, so trying to attract businesses and companies to
- 4:31Speaker 4: come to West Virginia, but also business retention, so retaining
- 4:34Speaker 4: the companies we have and telling them, you know, the
- 4:36Speaker 4: good stories of why they should expand and how we
- 4:39Speaker 4: have the workforce in place. And then I spent about
- 4:42Speaker 4: six years five and a half six years with Utility,
- 4:46Speaker 4: and the utility doubled as a corporation. It was a
- 4:48Speaker 4: publicly traded utility, and I can tell you that experience
- 4:53Speaker 4: was one I could not have learned. Some of the
- 4:56Speaker 4: corporate type things that I learned so much about corporate America,
- 5:01Speaker 4: business structure, organizational structure, decision making in that role. I
- 5:05Speaker 4: probably couldn't have learned that in an NBA program, truly,
- 5:08Speaker 4: and I for years and this is my third time.
- 5:11Speaker 3: So I.
- 5:14Speaker 4: Tried this in twenty seventeen. I was not successful. I
- 5:16Speaker 4: did find my paperwork. Tried again in twenty twenty two.
- 5:19Speaker 4: I was very frustrating in my job and I had
- 5:22Speaker 4: the support to do it then and I didn't do it.
- 5:24Speaker 4: And here I am third time. Is a charge. Absolutely,
- 5:28Speaker 4: that's right, and I am out the gate rocking it.
- 5:30Speaker 4: I'm loving it. I'm having so much fun. You know,
- 5:33Speaker 4: it's kind of funny for me. I tell this story
- 5:36Speaker 4: to people, They're like, how's business, I'm like, business is great.
- 5:39Speaker 4: I always say this business is great. And immediately I'm
- 5:42Speaker 4: having fun and I'm having fun because I'm learning so much.
- 5:45Speaker 4: I'm a learner. My dad was an educator and a principal.
- 5:48Speaker 4: I have that, you know, lifelong educator. You know, I
- 5:52Speaker 4: have to keep learning, I have to keep growing, and
- 5:55Speaker 4: so just sitting down with people, and it's not even
- 5:57Speaker 4: that I want business. I just want to learn, like
- 5:59Speaker 4: genuinely tell me what your what's your organizational structure, how
- 6:02Speaker 4: do you make a decision, what's your senior staff look like,
- 6:05Speaker 4: and what does that look like? And again, it's been
- 6:09Speaker 4: it's been about four or five months, September so whatever,
- 6:13Speaker 4: I don't even know what month were in February, about
- 6:15Speaker 4: five months and it's been It's just a lot of learning,
- 6:18Speaker 4: a lot of new things coming at me. But I
- 6:20Speaker 4: am loving it. And you know, again, meeting with so
- 6:23Speaker 4: many people and just trying to help them, and that's
- 6:27Speaker 4: that's the whole point of what I want to do,
- 6:28Speaker 4: is help them. And I'll talk about that a little
- 6:31Speaker 4: bit later in some ways that we can help. But yeah, I'm.
- 6:33Speaker 3: That's a for first of all, you're very accomplished for
- 6:38Speaker 3: being relatively young.
- 6:39Speaker 4: I'm gonna get back.
- 6:40Speaker 3: Yeah, what's that?
- 6:41Speaker 4: I was twenty one. I've never said this out loud.
- 6:43Speaker 4: I'm saying it. I was twenty one years old, full
- 6:46Speaker 4: time executive assistant to the Secretary of State of West Virginia. Right,
- 6:51Speaker 4: that's insane Thatane's helping make decisions and guide policies as
- 6:55Speaker 4: a twenty one year old. I'm like, what on earth?
- 6:58Speaker 4: And at the time, it didn't feel I didn't feel anything,
- 7:00Speaker 4: And now that I look at it, I'm like, man, Bradley,
- 7:02Speaker 4: that was pretty all.
- 7:03Speaker 3: Yeah, sometimes you don't understand your experience until you look
- 7:05Speaker 3: back on it. Yeah, that's absolutely true. And so you've
- 7:07Speaker 3: been able to engage in and to start gathering. You're
- 7:11Speaker 3: a learner, is what you and so you've been able
- 7:13Speaker 3: to gather that's information to seminate it. And we've kind
- 7:15Speaker 3: of talked around a little bit exactly what you do.
- 7:17Speaker 3: And at the beginning of the show, I was like,
- 7:19Speaker 3: I was looking at what you do. I was like, Oh,
- 7:20Speaker 3: how could I ever need this? But I was going
- 7:21Speaker 3: to follow up that up with say and as I
- 7:23Speaker 3: read through all of the different things that you do,
- 7:25Speaker 3: I mean, maybe not Dell Cooper individually as a person,
- 7:27Speaker 3: but as far as a corporation Coast Now we have
- 7:29Speaker 3: a WVRC. Media has several different levels. But I've ran
- 7:33Speaker 3: a business before. I was a small business owner for
- 7:35Speaker 3: eleven years. It was pretty successful. But I see a
- 7:37Speaker 3: lot of the things that you offer, although maybe not
- 7:40Speaker 3: at a corporate level as a really small business, but
- 7:43Speaker 3: I can see a lot of the things that you
- 7:44Speaker 3: offer and how that can help. And then when I
- 7:46Speaker 3: was doing this. It was in the early two thousands
- 7:49Speaker 3: into the twenty tens. Things have changed so much. Now
- 7:51Speaker 3: it's all about engagements and relationships and things like that.
- 7:54Speaker 3: And if you don't know what you're doing, I imagine
- 7:56Speaker 3: someone like you that's positioning yourself with a company that
- 7:59Speaker 3: maybe he has a little bit more of a mature management,
- 8:02Speaker 3: you know, some way that's been doing it. They've been
- 8:04Speaker 3: doing it great, They've been doing it great for decades. However,
- 8:06Speaker 3: maybe some of the movement that we've had in the
- 8:09Speaker 3: way society interacts with each other and things like that,
- 8:12Speaker 3: in the last decade or so, it's kind of passing
- 8:14Speaker 3: by just a little bit. You can help in a
- 8:15Speaker 3: lot of these different fashions, and so I want to
- 8:17Speaker 3: talk about that a little bit. Let's talk about what
- 8:19Speaker 3: you do. Like, what is it that folks that are
- 8:21Speaker 3: listening today Bradley Harrison associates your big passion that you
- 8:24Speaker 3: were ready to get going. What is that? What is
- 8:25Speaker 3: it you can help us with?
- 8:26Speaker 4: So I'll tell you it's been a really I am grateful.
- 8:30Speaker 4: I must start by saying I am so grateful the
- 8:32Speaker 4: outpouring of support this community, the people in the state
- 8:35Speaker 4: that have called and you know, I need your help
- 8:38Speaker 4: on this. And you know some of it is ongoing projects.
- 8:41Speaker 4: You know, folks can get on a retainer with me
- 8:43Speaker 4: and I can you know, provide support services that are
- 8:46Speaker 4: in a certain package. Some are one off projects a
- 8:48Speaker 4: few months, summer, one day projects. So it just depends.
- 8:52Speaker 3: You know.
- 8:52Speaker 4: The majority of the work that I've done thus far
- 8:54Speaker 4: has been a lot of what I want to continue
- 8:56Speaker 4: to do. I'm trying to niche in right and that's difficult.
- 9:00Speaker 4: I'm doing a little bit of everything right now. And
- 9:02Speaker 4: so you know the traditional PR which is, you know,
- 9:06Speaker 4: stakeholder engagement. And I say that a lot of folks
- 9:08Speaker 4: don't know what stakeholder engagement. It's basically relationship management. Anyone
- 9:12Speaker 4: that has stakeholder engagement is basically anyone who has a
- 9:15Speaker 4: stake in your business and decision making that impacts your business.
- 9:19Speaker 4: So whether it's regulators, whether it's customers or your customers
- 9:23Speaker 4: or your stakeholders. So really evaluating your stakeholder engagement and
- 9:28Speaker 4: what is that that your customers need or what is
- 9:31Speaker 4: it that your regulators are looking for? So that's really
- 9:35Speaker 4: a key component again, is that relationship management. Then it's
- 9:38Speaker 4: so powerful and I just talked about this last week
- 9:41Speaker 4: with somebody. You know, you have to have good relationships
- 9:44Speaker 4: across the board with everybody because you never know when
- 9:47Speaker 4: you might need to call somebody. We're all going to
- 9:49Speaker 4: call each other at some point or another for something.
- 9:51Speaker 4: If you're in business, you're going to be calling somebody.
- 9:53Speaker 4: Somebody's going to be calling you. That's just the nature
- 9:55Speaker 4: of it. But it's been a lot I've been doing
- 9:58Speaker 4: a lot of different you know, done some event planning.
- 10:01Speaker 4: I've done some traditional consulting and advising. I've done my
- 10:05Speaker 4: traditional PR stuff. I've done some national fundraising. I'm doing
- 10:09Speaker 4: some brand positioning, brand scaling with a company that's turning
- 10:13Speaker 4: ten years old in March. So really just kind of
- 10:16Speaker 4: all across the board. Now, what I want to do
- 10:18Speaker 4: and what I am really good at, and what I
- 10:20Speaker 4: want folks to know about is business strategy, public relations,
- 10:26Speaker 4: and executive support. And we're going to go into all
- 10:29Speaker 4: those and kind of break those down. But that's really
- 10:32Speaker 4: where I am the most effective. And I have this
- 10:36Speaker 4: my mom always told me, you have this really different mind, Bradley.
- 10:39Speaker 4: You can think a lot faster than a lot of people.
- 10:40Speaker 4: It's just my mind is very different, and that's good
- 10:44Speaker 4: for a pr and a strategy guy. Right, I can
- 10:46Speaker 4: think through every angle. I can give you the best
- 10:48Speaker 4: case scenario. I can give you the worst case, best case,
- 10:51Speaker 4: this worst case. Maybe you want to retain an attorney.
- 10:55Speaker 4: I know that, right, I've been there, and so you know,
- 10:59Speaker 4: it's really good to have that focus. And you got
- 11:01Speaker 4: to play devil's advocate. And I learned this very early on.
- 11:03Speaker 4: It was my twenty one years old. I give this
- 11:06Speaker 4: advice to everybody because it was one of the best
- 11:08Speaker 4: pieces of advice that stuck with me. I'm one of
- 11:12Speaker 4: the advisors to Secretary of State, to the executive staff
- 11:16Speaker 4: in the office, and I was scared. I'm looking around.
- 11:19Speaker 4: I guess I did kind of look around, like, gosh,
- 11:21Speaker 4: I'm this young guy, this little punk from college, like
- 11:23Speaker 4: think I know everything, but I'm looking around the room.
- 11:26Speaker 4: And every time that, you know, Secretary of State would
- 11:28Speaker 4: look at me and ask me a question, I would say, yes, yes,
- 11:31Speaker 4: whatever you think, yes, yes, And I remember pulling the
- 11:35Speaker 4: Secretary pulled me to the side and said, I hired
- 11:37Speaker 4: you for a job, and I trust you, and if
- 11:39Speaker 4: I'm asking your opinion, I want you to be honest,
- 11:42Speaker 4: I don't want you to be a yes man and
- 11:44Speaker 4: walked away, and I was just like wow, Like that
- 11:47Speaker 4: moment for me was so empowering because when you're asking
- 11:51Speaker 4: my opinion, if I'm asking your opinion, I'm asking you
- 11:54Speaker 4: based on your perspective, you know, based on your family structure,
- 12:00Speaker 4: son your job, based on your financial situation. I genuinely
- 12:04Speaker 4: want your opinion right. And that's that's a lot of
- 12:07Speaker 4: the PR and when you behind the scenes and the
- 12:09Speaker 4: strategy and when you talk about stakeholder engagement and things
- 12:12Speaker 4: like that, you got to know your audience. And we
- 12:14Speaker 4: say that all the time in PR. Know your audience,
- 12:17Speaker 4: make sure you're completely aware of who it is that
- 12:19Speaker 4: you're speaking to make sure you've got that message tailored
- 12:22Speaker 4: and adjusted to that audience. But that for me was
- 12:25Speaker 4: like and I still stick with that, like never even
- 12:28Speaker 4: if someone's paying you a lot of money to do
- 12:30Speaker 4: a job, it is your job to be I'm the expert,
- 12:33Speaker 4: and it is my job to be completely transparent honest
- 12:36Speaker 4: with you.
- 12:36Speaker 3: I don't want to derail as we learn about what
- 12:38Speaker 3: you're doing. But it seems to me like that would
- 12:40Speaker 3: be very useful for someone in a business situation because
- 12:43Speaker 3: we all get blind to certain things that we're so
- 12:45Speaker 3: close to, you know, in a real tackle tactical sense
- 12:49Speaker 3: that you know, you get nose blind, you get cycline,
- 12:51Speaker 3: you know, like around your house as smells or things,
- 12:53Speaker 3: you know, but around your business it's much the same thing.
- 12:56Speaker 3: You think your personnel, your clientele is a certain clientele
- 12:58Speaker 3: because you've been doing the business for so long you
- 13:00Speaker 3: engage with certain people and things like that. There could
- 13:03Speaker 3: be a whole area out there because it's your employees
- 13:05Speaker 3: that are engaging with them, it's other people, it's downstream
- 13:08Speaker 3: somewhere that you're not even aware of, and so you
- 13:10Speaker 3: could be making decisions thinking about it's one sliver that
- 13:13Speaker 3: is all of your business, when you can come in
- 13:15Speaker 3: with data and say, look, it's all these other areas
- 13:18Speaker 3: too that you need to concern yourself with, and so
- 13:20Speaker 3: this is why you have a better strategy doing it
- 13:22Speaker 3: another way.
- 13:22Speaker 4: Gosh, you just took the words right out of my mouth. Hey,
- 13:25Speaker 4: now you skipped ahead. But that's okay, I said. You know,
- 13:28Speaker 4: you mentioned that the tactical and you get caught in
- 13:31Speaker 4: the day to day. That's what I want folks to understand.
- 13:33Speaker 4: Like a consultant's job. Again, I call myself a consultant,
- 13:37Speaker 4: and I am it's not my job to come in there,
- 13:40Speaker 4: and I don't want to be there full time. Right,
- 13:42Speaker 4: I'm not trying to take anybody's job. I'm not trying.
- 13:45Speaker 4: I'm literally trying to help you clean up something, or
- 13:47Speaker 4: grow your business, or fix the function within your business
- 13:50Speaker 4: or your company. And I say that, you know, folks
- 13:53Speaker 4: think and again, I've been in house communications in PR.
- 13:58Speaker 4: Your in house people are so busy doing day to
- 14:00Speaker 4: day operations. They are tactical in every way. They're not
- 14:04Speaker 4: necessarily that strategic big picture. That's where I come in.
- 14:08Speaker 4: And so while you do have a communications director or
- 14:11Speaker 4: a VP of marketing and comms, that is their job.
- 14:14Speaker 4: But I think too, it's so easy to get bogged
- 14:17Speaker 4: down in that day to day that you're not focused
- 14:20Speaker 4: on that strategy. And we're going to talk a lot
- 14:22Speaker 4: more about, you know, why business to struggle with strategy.
- 14:24Speaker 4: I want to talk about that because it's very simple,
- 14:27Speaker 4: and it's simple things, but they require you know, again
- 14:30Speaker 4: a lot of time and energy and investment. But I'm
- 14:35Speaker 4: glad you said that. And a consultant, and again, that's
- 14:38Speaker 4: a consultant's job for me to come in and say
- 14:40Speaker 4: what I'm seeing is this it's just a sheer audit.
- 14:44Speaker 4: Let me sit in on your your executive staff meeting.
- 14:47Speaker 4: Let me sit in on your decision making one of
- 14:50Speaker 4: your decision making processes and kind of understand how that flows.
- 14:53Speaker 4: And then I can then optimize and say, this person
- 14:58Speaker 4: may be a problem. Right, worked in plenty of toxic
- 15:01Speaker 4: workplaces environments, right, yeah, and this person could be a
- 15:04Speaker 4: problem and identifying you know, maybe this person's better suited
- 15:08Speaker 4: for this. And I had a conversation with this person
- 15:10Speaker 4: and I think you should elevate them to this. And
- 15:12Speaker 4: so really just providing that I'm observing. I'm a third party, right,
- 15:17Speaker 4: I'm just trying to add value and help you clean
- 15:20Speaker 4: up a process or grow your business internally or externally.
- 15:23Speaker 3: One thing you said just a minute ago, you were
- 15:25Speaker 3: talking about one of the things that you'd like to
- 15:26Speaker 3: ask your clients is what their decision making process is,
- 15:29Speaker 3: like how their decisions work. And I wonder how many
- 15:33Speaker 3: times you ask somebody that and they kind of look
- 15:34Speaker 3: at you, like, like, how does our decision Because a
- 15:38Speaker 3: lot of people don't have that infrastructure, you know, It's
- 15:40Speaker 3: like whoever's joinning on the spot at the moment ends
- 15:43Speaker 3: up making the decision. Everybody kind of agrees on it,
- 15:44Speaker 3: and you move on like that. It can work, you know,
- 15:47Speaker 3: I mean it's not. I mean, if it's worked for
- 15:48Speaker 3: you to this point, I guess maybe it works. But
- 15:50Speaker 3: having an engagement strategy even when it comes to decision
- 15:53Speaker 3: making and decision making tree what happens when it's a
- 15:55Speaker 3: coin flip, you know, different things along those lines. I mean,
- 15:58Speaker 3: people need help with stuff like that. Something else. You know,
- 16:01Speaker 3: the whole problem with with the cafeteria style of being
- 16:05Speaker 3: able to watch movies like on Netflix or whatever. It
- 16:06Speaker 3: makes people freeze with indecision. They can't all these movies
- 16:09Speaker 3: look good, right, I want to choose, and so you
- 16:11Speaker 3: need people to help focus you in on the right
- 16:13Speaker 3: decision making.
- 16:14Speaker 4: Well, and I'll jump ahead a little bit and talk
- 16:16Speaker 4: about you know what, when I meet with clients, and
- 16:18Speaker 4: I've five months, I've probably met with gosh, fifty to
- 16:22Speaker 4: sixty different folks, and again there are connections that I have.
- 16:25Speaker 4: We're just catching up with each other, whatever the case
- 16:28Speaker 4: may be. What I'm finding most businesses or companies or
- 16:34Speaker 4: organizations they have the infrastructure in place that they need
- 16:37Speaker 4: to grow. They just don't have a strategy that is
- 16:41Speaker 4: in place, and they've not thought, you know. And I
- 16:43Speaker 4: say this, I just last week I met with a
- 16:45Speaker 4: local restaurant Churchy. He owned several restaurants and has a brand,
- 16:49Speaker 4: and said, you know, I'd love to grow this. I'd
- 16:52Speaker 4: love to have other locations in other parts of the region,
- 16:54Speaker 4: not even just the state. And I'd love to be this,
- 16:57Speaker 4: you know, thought leader on a national level and do
- 17:00Speaker 4: all these speaking engagements. I don't have time because I
- 17:03Speaker 4: am literally running the day to day. I am working
- 17:07Speaker 4: with the kitchen staff, I am making payroll. I am
- 17:10Speaker 4: literally trying to keep the lights on. So that's where
- 17:14Speaker 4: I come in, right, And that was the conversation was like, Okay,
- 17:17Speaker 4: what at my first question to all my clients, either
- 17:20Speaker 4: my prospect of clients that become clients or people that
- 17:23Speaker 4: are just asking questions. I literally look at them and
- 17:26Speaker 4: I wish you could see the look on their face.
- 17:28Speaker 4: Very simple. I let them go on. I let them
- 17:31Speaker 4: tell me about how long they've been in business, what
- 17:33Speaker 4: they've done, anything that's important for me to understand. And
- 17:35Speaker 4: I look at them and I say, what do you
- 17:38Speaker 4: want to do with all this? And I wish you'd
- 17:41Speaker 4: see their face. It's like this starry eyed, like gaze, like, well,
- 17:46Speaker 4: I don't know what I want to do, right? And
- 17:48Speaker 4: my question is do you want to do? You want
- 17:50Speaker 4: to scale up and sell it for millions of dollars? Cool?
- 17:53Speaker 4: I'm your guy. I'll help you do that. Do you
- 17:55Speaker 4: want to expand through four different locations? Cool? I can
- 17:59Speaker 4: help you get there. Do you want to be a
- 18:00Speaker 4: thought leader on a statewider national level? Great, I will
- 18:03Speaker 4: execute a strategy that will get you there, But you
- 18:06Speaker 4: cannot get anywhere. And I say that most businesses have
- 18:08Speaker 4: that infrastructure in place. They lack a clear, actionable strategy period.
- 18:16Speaker 4: And it sounds so easy, that's it.
- 18:18Speaker 3: No, I understand that period because people, especially if you're
- 18:21Speaker 3: in a situation where you're a business owner running a business,
- 18:23Speaker 3: or or someone who's there proactic reactive.
- 18:27Speaker 4: And reactivity versus productivity. And I'm the proactive guy. It's
- 18:30Speaker 4: like I got to be like, all right, wait a minute,
- 18:32Speaker 4: that's cool. You go run the day to day, but proactively,
- 18:34Speaker 4: if you're going to survive, you got to be looking
- 18:37Speaker 4: down the road. And it is and I loved it.
- 18:39Speaker 4: I'd love to ask the questions to my clients or
- 18:41Speaker 4: the potential clients, like what do you want to do
- 18:42Speaker 4: with this? And their their faces are shocked because again
- 18:45Speaker 4: some of them are like, well, man, I might want
- 18:47Speaker 4: to retire inn eight to ten years, so I might
- 18:49Speaker 4: need to think about a secession plan for my business
- 18:51Speaker 4: or what I.
- 18:51Speaker 3: Want to do?
- 18:52Speaker 4: Am I going to sell it? Am I going to
- 18:53Speaker 4: grow it? Am I going to have one of my
- 18:55Speaker 4: kids come in and learn how to run it? And
- 18:57Speaker 4: so it really is. I love that question because I
- 19:00Speaker 4: hit them with it and they're like, I really don't know.
- 19:02Speaker 3: And man, when you think about today, I mean even
- 19:05Speaker 3: from on a very community level, when you have all
- 19:07Speaker 3: of these businesses that were created in like the seventies
- 19:10Speaker 3: or eighties in their generational and families, and maybe they're
- 19:13Speaker 3: doing very well and maybe somebody now needs to look
- 19:16Speaker 3: at that as their retirement. You know, they have been
- 19:18Speaker 3: self employed for so long and they want to ramp
- 19:20Speaker 3: that up to sell it before they leave. It's been
- 19:21Speaker 3: this relatively small family business forever they can they can
- 19:24Speaker 3: get help to grow that business more, to get the
- 19:27Speaker 3: footprint larger, not for them to expand into infinity, but
- 19:31Speaker 3: so they can retire, so they can actually have something
- 19:34Speaker 3: that they can say, Okay, now we're going to create
- 19:35Speaker 3: get all this equity that we created over the last
- 19:37Speaker 3: few years in my business, and now my retirement eggs
- 19:40Speaker 3: a lot better. I mean, that's just one application from
- 19:42Speaker 3: somebody with a mature business, not to mention people that's
- 19:44Speaker 3: just starting out, people that's struggling. Rebranding I'm sure can
- 19:47Speaker 3: be an issue sometimes as well. I Mean there's all
- 19:50Speaker 3: kinds of areas in there where people need help in
- 19:52Speaker 3: getting to the right.
- 19:53Speaker 4: Place it is. And you know, I always tell this
- 19:56Speaker 4: is my people hear me say this, and I feel
- 19:57Speaker 4: like I keep repeating it. I'm like, this is one
- 19:59Speaker 4: of my things, so just let me have it. But
- 20:01Speaker 4: there's so much low lying fruit. I love that there's
- 20:05Speaker 4: so much low lying fruit that exists for businesses and
- 20:08Speaker 4: for organizations that sometimes you just again you're so caught
- 20:11Speaker 4: up in that reaction, you know, to something every day
- 20:15Speaker 4: because there's always something that you're not proactively thinking about
- 20:18Speaker 4: some of that low lying fruit. When I when I
- 20:20Speaker 4: say that, you know you don't have to necessarily have
- 20:24Speaker 4: a budget for certain things. There are still tactics that
- 20:27Speaker 4: you can execute. And there are still campaigns that you
- 20:30Speaker 4: can run in the community or around the state that
- 20:33Speaker 4: don't require money. Now, money is always great if you
- 20:36Speaker 4: can invest. You know, I just read this too, and
- 20:39Speaker 4: I love this. It was advertising is you know, people
- 20:43Speaker 4: hearing about how good your business is, pr is hearing
- 20:46Speaker 4: other people tell how your business great. So again kind
- 20:50Speaker 4: of you know, you can if you've got the budget
- 20:51Speaker 4: and you want to pay for great. I love when
- 20:54Speaker 4: people have a big budget, trust me, because I can
- 20:56Speaker 4: do a lot more and make a lot more impact.
- 20:58Speaker 4: But I say that on the floor upside, you don't
- 21:01Speaker 4: necessarily have to have a budget in place. There's so
- 21:03Speaker 4: much low lying fruit and things that you can be
- 21:05Speaker 4: doing and executing that help you stand out, build your
- 21:08Speaker 4: brand presence, you know, engage the community, and really make
- 21:11Speaker 4: you stand out as you know, someone who's invested in
- 21:14Speaker 4: the community and someone who gives back and has a
- 21:16Speaker 4: good reputation for you know, being active throughout the communities
- 21:19Speaker 4: that they serve. And so I always like to give
- 21:22Speaker 4: folks that option to and say, you know, you don't
- 21:23Speaker 4: necessarily it doesn't have to be you have this exuber
- 21:26Speaker 4: and budget like it can we can we can we
- 21:29Speaker 4: can ball on a budget?
- 21:30Speaker 3: Right? Let's uh, we need to take a break here
- 21:32Speaker 3: in just a second when we come back. One of
- 21:33Speaker 3: the things that you talk about in some of the
- 21:35Speaker 3: information that you gave me, and you've done this great
- 21:37Speaker 3: job in talking about what you do and how you
- 21:40Speaker 3: kind of examine what you're doing. And one of the
- 21:41Speaker 3: things that that I found very relevant to that, and
- 21:45Speaker 3: and something that I want to explore a little bit
- 21:46Speaker 3: more is there's a lot of strategies that you must
- 21:49Speaker 3: come up with that you know, that work that objectively
- 21:51Speaker 3: out of a box, this strategy will work, however for you.
- 21:54Speaker 3: What's important is there's no cookie cutter strategy that's going
- 21:56Speaker 3: to work. This might work, but it doesn't work for everyone.
- 21:59Speaker 3: So what you're jobs is to figure out what tools
- 22:01Speaker 3: are going to be for the job. You know, a
- 22:03Speaker 3: hammer works great for a nail, it's not going to
- 22:05Speaker 3: do very well for a screw r. You know, so
- 22:06Speaker 3: you need to find out what tool it is to
- 22:08Speaker 3: get the job to work. And I want to find
- 22:10Speaker 3: out a little bit more about that when we come back.
- 22:12Speaker 3: We're gonna go ahead and take a break. We're finding
- 22:13Speaker 3: out a lot from Bradley Harris from Bradley Harrison Associates.
- 22:15Speaker 3: Would love if you have any questions about what we're
- 22:17Speaker 3: talking about this morning. I know this is the first time.
- 22:19Speaker 3: Maybe you're learning as I do, but you can help
- 22:21Speaker 3: steer the conversation ask better questions than I do. You
- 22:23Speaker 3: can give us a call three zero four three four
- 22:25Speaker 3: two eight one three one three zero four three four
- 22:27Speaker 3: two eight one three one is the U is the
- 22:30Speaker 3: number you can call to get a hold of us.
- 22:32Speaker 3: We're gonna go ahead and take a break and we'll
- 22:33Speaker 3: come back and learn much more about Bradley Harris and
- 22:35Speaker 3: Associates online. It's Bradley Harris Associates dot com. That's Bradley
- 22:39Speaker 3: Harris Associates dot com. We'll find out more when we
- 22:41Speaker 3: come back. You're listening to Ask the Expert with Del Cooper.
- 22:43Speaker 3: Bradley Harrison Associates is here in studio on five Adwechs
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- 23:48Speaker 7: The start of the new year means even more seatings
- 23:51Speaker 7: at Walker Chevrolet in Nitro. Now You're not going to
- 23:54Speaker 7: find better deals on four wheel drives anywhere in the
- 23:56Speaker 7: Kenaw Valley this winter than at Walker's Chevrolet. The lotted
- 24:00Speaker 7: is stacked with inventory right now to get you ready
- 24:03Speaker 7: for that snowy West Virginia weather, from Silverado to Tahoe Blazer, Equinox,
- 24:07Speaker 7: Trail Blazer, Colorado. Man. Walker has got them all, and
- 24:11Speaker 7: you know you're gonna get the best deal possible on
- 24:13Speaker 7: those four by four, said Walker, because Genie and Ryan
- 24:15Speaker 7: built their business the old fashioned way by making friends.
- 24:18Speaker 7: There are no gimmickser games here, just honest, fair deals.
- 24:21Speaker 7: And if you've got an old car you want to
- 24:23Speaker 7: get rid of. Walker is still buying cars too. All
- 24:25Speaker 7: makes and models are welcome, and you're gonna get paid
- 24:28Speaker 7: top dollar for it, even if you plan to buy
- 24:30Speaker 7: somewhere else. But don't wait until those winterr weather advisories
- 24:33Speaker 7: go up and you're stuck.
- 24:34Speaker 3: In the house.
- 24:35Speaker 7: Get that new four wheel drive truck or suv today
- 24:37Speaker 7: at Walker Chevrolet in the shadow of the Interstate Bridge,
- 24:41Speaker 7: just off a Nitro exit of I sixty four. Walker Chevrolet,
- 24:44Speaker 7: making friends, one deal at a time.
- 25:00Speaker 3: You're listening to ask the expert. Have you seen hs
- 25:03Speaker 3: the Voice of Charleston. Thanks so much for tuning in
- 25:05Speaker 3: on this Wednesday morning and studio with me this morning.
- 25:08Speaker 3: It is Bradley Harris from Bradley Harris and Associates. More
- 25:11Speaker 3: information online, It's Bradley Harris Associates dot com. That's Bradley
- 25:14Speaker 3: Harris Associates dot com. If you have any questions that
- 25:17Speaker 3: you want to send in via email after the program today,
- 25:19Speaker 3: you're more welcome to do that. It's a really easy
- 25:20Speaker 3: email address. It's Bradley at Bradley Harris Associates.
- 25:23Speaker 4: And for the record, Dell, I do have associates. I
- 25:26Speaker 4: get that question all the time. Do you even have associates?
- 25:30Speaker 4: Do you have associates? Yes, I have loss of associates,
- 25:33Speaker 4: and so when you call me, just know that my
- 25:37Speaker 4: associates are reflective of my very large rolodex and there
- 25:41Speaker 4: are people who subcontract with me and I do have associates.
- 25:44Speaker 4: Let me clear that up for everybody. I do. So,
- 25:46Speaker 4: thank you very much for those who've asked me. I
- 25:48Speaker 4: appreciate that question.
- 25:49Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like Benny and the Jets. The Jets are around, Yeah, right.
- 25:51Speaker 4: There, Jets are associates. Don't worry about it.
- 25:54Speaker 3: We're talking this morning about different aspects of a public
- 25:58Speaker 3: relation strategy and consulting. This is the first time we've
- 26:00Speaker 3: had this show on the air here on Ask the Expert.
- 26:03Speaker 3: I'm learning a lot as we're going along. If you're
- 26:05Speaker 3: learning as well and you want to find out more,
- 26:06Speaker 3: you're welcome gives a call this morning three zero four
- 26:08Speaker 3: three four two eight one three one three four two
- 26:09Speaker 3: eight one three one. You can text over a question
- 26:11Speaker 3: you have as well, if you would like three zero
- 26:13Speaker 3: four non three five five zero zero eight three zero
- 26:15Speaker 3: four non three five five zeros or eighth. We're kind
- 26:18Speaker 3: of talking about, uh, we're weaving in u talking about
- 26:22Speaker 3: the business that Bradley does from public relations and strategy
- 26:25Speaker 3: from a broad perspective, and then at the same kind
- 26:27Speaker 3: of kind of dialing into some of his individual insights
- 26:30Speaker 3: into different things. And we were talking about helping clients
- 26:33Speaker 3: to define their goals where they want to go. They
- 26:35Speaker 3: have all of this knowledge from their business. You know
- 26:37Speaker 3: that you could ask them any little tiny thing about
- 26:39Speaker 3: their business and they're like an encyclopedia of that. But
- 26:41Speaker 3: you ask them a simple question like, Okay, you know
- 26:44Speaker 3: all this, so what now what's the algebra where the
- 26:48Speaker 3: next equation equals What what is it that we're going
- 26:50Speaker 3: to go for here? And that's what you help people
- 26:52Speaker 3: come up with and decide. And I love the fact
- 26:54Speaker 3: that that you know your tools and you have all
- 26:56Speaker 3: of these tools available to you. But is your job
- 26:59Speaker 3: to figure out what tools are want to help help
- 27:00Speaker 3: folks in their situations? How does that work? How do
- 27:02Speaker 3: you help people come up with their strategy?
- 27:05Speaker 4: So I think it's you know again, it's back to
- 27:08Speaker 4: that question of what do you want to do with this?
- 27:10Speaker 4: And so at that point, once I understand, I've got
- 27:12Speaker 4: to know and if you're gonna this is and I'm
- 27:15Speaker 4: a stickler on this, if you tell me this is
- 27:17Speaker 4: where you want to go, we're going to have to
- 27:19Speaker 4: stick to it because we've got to develop the strategy
- 27:22Speaker 4: and the plan, whether it be a one year, a
- 27:23Speaker 4: three year, a five year, we've got to know. I've
- 27:27Speaker 4: got to know to develop that strategy and that plan
- 27:30Speaker 4: so that we can start there. So we want to
- 27:33Speaker 4: define what is that vision? What do you see? What
- 27:35Speaker 4: are your goals? What do you want to do? So
- 27:37Speaker 4: again I'm a big posted note on the wall guy.
- 27:41Speaker 4: I love to brainstorm and bring my clients in and
- 27:44Speaker 4: like talk through what is it that you want to do?
- 27:47Speaker 4: So once we define that vision, then we build the strategy.
- 27:49Speaker 4: And again there are so many moving parts, you know.
- 27:52Speaker 4: People think I always say, you've got to have a
- 27:56Speaker 4: strategy in place. If you're not your period, you're not growing,
- 27:59Speaker 4: were not growing. If you do not have a strategy
- 28:01Speaker 4: for your business period, you cannot tell me that you are.
- 28:05Speaker 4: But you build that strategy, right, So it's the plan,
- 28:08Speaker 4: it's the steps, it's the outline of how you're going
- 28:11Speaker 4: to get there, and it's going to require a lot
- 28:13Speaker 4: of work, you know. And I always say that. I think,
- 28:15Speaker 4: for example, I'll give this example. I am president of
- 28:18Speaker 4: a large foundation here in West Virginia, and a few
- 28:21Speaker 4: years ago we paid a lot of money for a
- 28:24Speaker 4: consultant to come in and do a strategic plan for
- 28:27Speaker 4: the next three years. And we had goals and we
- 28:30Speaker 4: had visions, and we applied it all and we built
- 28:32Speaker 4: a strategy out. Guess what, Nobody executed the plan. Of course,
- 28:37Speaker 4: So I became president recently and I walked in and
- 28:40Speaker 4: they're like, you know this, All the staff's there, and
- 28:42Speaker 4: the president of the universities there and says to me,
- 28:45Speaker 4: we know you're going to be a president role for
- 28:47Speaker 4: two years. What do you want? What do you want
- 28:48Speaker 4: your legacy to be what do you want to do? Like,
- 28:51Speaker 4: without missing a beat, I said, I want my legacy
- 28:55Speaker 4: to be dusting off that strategic plan and putting it
- 28:59Speaker 4: into action. Simple, that's it. And now we are executing
- 29:04Speaker 4: that and we're adjusting along the way. And that's the
- 29:07Speaker 4: other thing I like to point out to people. You execute,
- 29:09Speaker 4: you create the plan. There are situations that are going
- 29:12Speaker 4: to come up. Whether it be a financial shortfall, you
- 29:16Speaker 4: could have budget cuts, that's okay, adjust the plan. Don't
- 29:19Speaker 4: let it take you down, right like, just adjust it.
- 29:22Speaker 4: Or you could have an influx of financial you know,
- 29:26Speaker 4: we can up the budget on you know, a spin
- 29:28Speaker 4: for something that we're doing. But I think that that's
- 29:31Speaker 4: a really important thing that people. You have to you
- 29:34Speaker 4: have to execute the plan. Again, we had a plane
- 29:37Speaker 4: covered in dust. You have to execute it. But then
- 29:39Speaker 4: you have to adjust it because things are going to
- 29:41Speaker 4: happen and things are going to make changes. There's going
- 29:43Speaker 4: to be, you know, adjustments along the way. You know,
- 29:46Speaker 4: right now we're shifting away from some things that we
- 29:50Speaker 4: were doing in corporate America. That's no longer a thing.
- 29:52Speaker 2: Now.
- 29:52Speaker 4: You'll see those trends come up every few years so
- 29:55Speaker 4: busily stategy something right, it has to move. And again,
- 29:58Speaker 4: I like what you said, and I I pride myself
- 30:00Speaker 4: that's part of my language that I use, you know,
- 30:03Speaker 4: on my website and externally to people that I talk to.
- 30:06Speaker 4: Nothing I do is cookie cutter. I had a meeting
- 30:08Speaker 4: with the head of a local TV station a few
- 30:10Speaker 4: weeks ago. I sat down. I don't want to I'm
- 30:13Speaker 4: no offense to anybody. I love to talk and whatever.
- 30:15Speaker 4: But like I'm a businessman, right, I want, I'm gonna
- 30:18Speaker 4: come in. Here's what I've got, here's my budget, Here's
- 30:20Speaker 4: what my client needs, here's what my client wants. I
- 30:23Speaker 4: don't want to do digital ads. I don't want to
- 30:25Speaker 4: do traditional television commercials. I want I don't slap the
- 30:29Speaker 4: logo of my client on some generic branded partnership. I
- 30:32Speaker 4: want you to create a custom program or a custom campaign,
- 30:36Speaker 4: something new, because I like my clients to stand out,
- 30:39Speaker 4: and they do, and so I love and then I
- 30:41Speaker 4: love nothing more because you know, I'm quiet, I'm behind
- 30:43Speaker 4: the scenes guy. I'm like I've always been like the
- 30:45Speaker 4: power behind the power, like I pull the curtain, and
- 30:47Speaker 4: I love that role. I always want to be there,
- 30:49Speaker 4: and so I love when people see something they're like, man,
- 30:51Speaker 4: you know so and so which is a client of mine.
- 30:53Speaker 4: They're really, you know, killing it here and doing this
- 30:55Speaker 4: and doing that. I'm like, exactly because I nothing that
- 30:59Speaker 4: I do will ever be cookie cutter, and I want
- 31:00Speaker 4: everything to be customized. And you know, I think that's
- 31:04Speaker 4: that's really important. Again, it's all situational. Everybody's situation, every clients,
- 31:09Speaker 4: or every business or every persons situation or their goals
- 31:12Speaker 4: are all going to be different. So it's important that
- 31:14Speaker 4: that strategy match their situation and is not a cookie
- 31:18Speaker 4: cutter apply across the board to any client.
- 31:21Speaker 3: I'm already looking forward to doing another show with you
- 31:23Speaker 3: because I feel like there's so much because there's different
- 31:25Speaker 3: aspects about your business I want to ask you about.
- 31:27Speaker 3: I want to learn what you do first of all,
- 31:28Speaker 3: and then I'm so fascinated by the strategies that you
- 31:31Speaker 3: take the place to apply. You know, what's what broad
- 31:33Speaker 3: knowledge about you know, consulting and public relations, and then
- 31:36Speaker 3: exactly how you put your spin on it, because there's
- 31:38Speaker 3: in this area of course that gives you different tools
- 31:41Speaker 3: that you have to deploy. But also you're you're a
- 31:43Speaker 3: unique guy and you've you in the way that you
- 31:45Speaker 3: envision these things I think is very exciting. One thing
- 31:48Speaker 3: I wanted to ask about. I don't want to get
- 31:49Speaker 3: too far off the rails on this, but in the
- 31:51Speaker 3: modern age that we have, could this type of service
- 31:54Speaker 3: also not necessarily have to be for corporations or large businesses,
- 31:58Speaker 3: but for individuals it is.
- 32:00Speaker 4: And the definition of public relations, which is again that's
- 32:03Speaker 4: what people know me for, that's what I'm really good at.
- 32:06Speaker 4: I also I love strategy. I'm a strategy guy, which
- 32:09Speaker 4: a lot of PR is strategy. But you know the
- 32:12Speaker 4: definition of PR is you know, managing and adjusting public
- 32:16Speaker 4: perception for a brand, an individual, or an organization.
- 32:20Speaker 3: Imagine like an athlete that's retiring and transition to being
- 32:24Speaker 3: a speaker. And I do that.
- 32:27Speaker 4: And I work with elected officials and politicians and advise
- 32:31Speaker 4: them and coach them on everything from optics to the
- 32:34Speaker 4: way they dress. I do that's part of it. No
- 32:38Speaker 4: advice you need to buy better shoes. No, you are
- 32:41Speaker 4: literally running for this office.
- 32:43Speaker 3: You need to. There are people famously that's been running office.
- 32:48Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't want talk about it. My shoes. I'm
- 32:50Speaker 4: a shoe guy.
- 32:51Speaker 3: Have a fantastic.
- 32:52Speaker 4: I have fancy shoes. I'm a fancy shoe guy. And
- 32:54Speaker 4: when I see those, let's move forward.
- 32:58Speaker 3: Understand we're coming from Okay, So along those same lines
- 33:03Speaker 3: people that are you know, there's some people like in
- 33:05Speaker 3: this gig economy and everything else anymore, they want to
- 33:08Speaker 3: create themselves as the brand. Not that they're a former
- 33:11Speaker 3: athlete or anything else. They're just looking. They're on social
- 33:13Speaker 3: media and they have a thing and suddenly they have
- 33:16Speaker 3: a sunglass company that's reaching out to them, was like, hey,
- 33:18Speaker 3: can you do these sunglass things for us or whatever
- 33:20Speaker 3: it might be? And they want to build that into
- 33:21Speaker 3: something else. I don't know where that could go. I
- 33:23Speaker 3: don't know how popular somebody is. But if that's somebody
- 33:25Speaker 3: that really thinks that they can create whatever they're doing
- 33:28Speaker 3: into a brand of makeup tutorials or whatever it might be,
- 33:31Speaker 3: is that even something they can call Bradley Harrison want
- 33:33Speaker 3: to pay Hey, how can I turn into the next whoever?
- 33:35Speaker 3: It might be? Huge influencer online?
- 33:37Speaker 4: It is. And actually one of the things that I'm
- 33:38Speaker 4: working with one of my clients on now is some
- 33:41Speaker 4: branded brand collaborations and branded partnership. And I say that
- 33:46Speaker 4: is like, you know, we can contact you know, they're
- 33:49Speaker 4: representing this niche audience, but they want to do a
- 33:53Speaker 4: product so we can collaborate with a brand and yes,
- 33:57Speaker 4: So short answer is yes, And I actually am working
- 33:59Speaker 4: on a deal right now with a client for a
- 34:02Speaker 4: branded partnership and a collaboration. It's exciting space I love.
- 34:08Speaker 4: And it's connecting, you know. That's that's the root of
- 34:10Speaker 4: who I am. And it's like I just did an
- 34:12Speaker 4: interview with Joe Justice a couple of weeks ago and
- 34:15Speaker 4: he said, you know what's your superpower and I said,
- 34:17Speaker 4: it's connecting people. That's my superpower. Is connecting the dots
- 34:21Speaker 4: and the right people to the right places at the
- 34:23Speaker 4: right time and finding the back doors to get in
- 34:26Speaker 4: and have the conversation with the decision maker. And that's
- 34:28Speaker 4: where I really shine and I feel like I can
- 34:31Speaker 4: be an asset to folks. Is really utilizing, you know,
- 34:34Speaker 4: navigating relationships and connections that folks need.
- 34:37Speaker 3: Just a couple of minutes left, I don't want to
- 34:38Speaker 3: get too far down a trail here that we won't
- 34:40Speaker 3: we all able to wrap up. And I'm really looking
- 34:42Speaker 3: forward to to doing follow up shows on this because
- 34:44Speaker 3: I think that it's a great topic and something that
- 34:46Speaker 3: there's a lot of room to explore. But one of
- 34:48Speaker 3: the quotes that you had in the information that you
- 34:49Speaker 3: sent me in and I thought that was really uh
- 34:51Speaker 3: relevant and really stood out to me. It's if you're
- 34:53Speaker 3: not controlling your narrative, someone else is. And I think
- 34:55Speaker 3: that that's almost the genesis of what it is that
- 34:58Speaker 3: you do. I mean, because that is absolutely true. If
- 35:01Speaker 3: if you don't have if you're not ahead of whatever
- 35:04Speaker 3: is going on people behind the scenes, even if they
- 35:06Speaker 3: don't have malicious intent, if they just don't understand, you
- 35:09Speaker 3: can have a narrative that gets out of control for
- 35:11Speaker 3: somebody that just made a simple mistake. Sometimes and depending
- 35:15Speaker 3: on where you are and how you're engaging, that could
- 35:17Speaker 3: be very critical to a brand.
- 35:18Speaker 4: Again, I'll say it, if you're not telling your own stories,
- 35:22Speaker 4: someone else will, period. And I think it's important especially again,
- 35:27Speaker 4: I'll tie all this in together. You know, we are
- 35:29Speaker 4: in twenty twenty five, We are in a virtual world.
- 35:31Speaker 4: We're in a digital world, right. So I read a
- 35:35Speaker 4: book by Bob Iger, he's the head of Disney, and
- 35:38Speaker 4: he says very simply, and I give this advice to
- 35:41Speaker 4: other people because I think it's it's powerful. Innovate or die.
- 35:44Speaker 4: And if you don't innovate and you don't diversify your offerings,
- 35:48Speaker 4: and you don't diversify your the way that you do business,
- 35:52Speaker 4: you're going to die. You're going to close. But back
- 35:55Speaker 4: to the storytelling piece, you know. I say that to
- 35:57Speaker 4: say you have to control that narrative. And it's simple,
- 36:01Speaker 4: you know, you don't have to people overthink that. And
- 36:03Speaker 4: I'm a trifecta guy. I didn't get to talk about
- 36:06Speaker 4: my trifecte a lot, but I'm a trifecta guy. Three points, right,
- 36:09Speaker 4: I don't need more than three. Anything past three, I'm overwhelmed.
- 36:14Speaker 4: You don't care. I don't care. Just give me three.
- 36:17Speaker 4: Boom boom boom. What are the three key points? Do
- 36:20Speaker 4: you do X y Z? What are the three goals?
- 36:22Speaker 4: Let's focus on just three, like, we don't need it.
- 36:25Speaker 4: Let's start there. We can grow. But what are those
- 36:28Speaker 4: boom boom boom. It's the same thing with storytelling. Develop
- 36:31Speaker 4: that message and get your three key points? What are
- 36:34Speaker 4: you know? Boom boom boom, get it out, you know.
- 36:36Speaker 4: And so I'm a trifecta guy, and so I say
- 36:39Speaker 4: that to say, you know, develop your story, develop your message,
- 36:44Speaker 4: control your narrative, and tell your story. But then don't
- 36:47Speaker 4: veer from the message. That's where people go wrong. You know,
- 36:51Speaker 4: you can't you can't get in the weeds with people.
- 36:54Speaker 4: You know, I know social media and everybody's a keyboard
- 36:57Speaker 4: warrior now, and so it's like you can't get in
- 37:00Speaker 4: to that negativity and that cycle of like, you know
- 37:02Speaker 4: your product, you know your business, you know yourself as
- 37:05Speaker 4: the owner or as the CEO or the president, and
- 37:08Speaker 4: so really important that you know, you just stick to
- 37:11Speaker 4: that message and don't hear from it.
- 37:13Speaker 3: Yeah, there's there's so much wisdom that's in that, and
- 37:15Speaker 3: I'm looking forward that we can suppore this down the
- 37:18Speaker 3: road a little bit more. Bradley Harris has been with
- 37:20Speaker 3: us this morning. We just have a few seconds left,
- 37:21Speaker 3: so I want to make sure we get our information
- 37:23Speaker 3: out to you. Bradley Harrison Associates. You can find out
- 37:25Speaker 3: more information online. It's Bradley Harris Associates dot com. Bradley
- 37:27Speaker 3: Harris Associates dot com, located here in Charleston. Of course,
- 37:30Speaker 3: you can also contact Radley via email Bradley at Bradley
- 37:33Speaker 3: Harris Associates dot com for all of your needs. When
- 37:35Speaker 3: it comes to public relations strategy, we didn't even get
- 37:38Speaker 3: into like some of your.
- 37:39Speaker 4: I want to talk about the executives.
- 37:41Speaker 3: That's executives. That was the next thing I was going
- 37:43Speaker 3: to come out. We got to do this again. But
- 37:45Speaker 3: that's some really interesting things that we're going to get into. Bradley.
- 37:48Speaker 3: It's been a real pleasure. I hope you come back.
- 37:50Speaker 3: I hope we talk about this a little bit more.
- 37:51Speaker 4: Thank you for having me. I'm honored to be the
- 37:53Speaker 4: expert in the space.
- 37:54Speaker 3: I like having you here as the expert in the space.
- 37:56Speaker 3: That's Bradley Harris from Bradley Harrison Associates again. When line
- 37:58Speaker 3: Bradley Harris Associates dot com. Bradley at Bradley Harris Associates
- 38:02Speaker 3: dot com is the email address. We'll have this podcast
- 38:04Speaker 3: up at WHS network dot com Plash podcast within about
- 38:07Speaker 3: an hour or so. If you've caught a portion of it,
- 38:09Speaker 3: if you want to check out on the entire thing.
- 38:11Speaker 3: So thanks so much for tuning in today, Bradley, thank
- 38:13Speaker 3: you so much for coming in. Really appreciate you coming in.
- 38:14Speaker 3: HEK I'll be back. Have a great day, everyone, you're
- 38:17Speaker 3: listening to five a w c HS, The Voice of Charleston.
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