What is Public Relations and Why do you Need It for Your Business with Lee Caraher

Hey hey, Kathryn here! I’m so glad you’re tuning in. If you’re new to the show, welcome. I’m so glad you’re here. If you’ve been around for a bit, you know I’m all about keeping it real with you. Showing you all the sides of entrepreneurship (& life). I mean it’s all connected, right? 

I shared one of my favorite Brene Brown quotes,  if you’re not in the arena getting your ass-kicked, I don’t want your feedback. Well, I want you to see me as your friend in the arena equally getting my ass-kicked but inspiring you to keep going because I get it. I’m living it too.

And that the perspectives I share on the show are real life, in the arena types of perspectives, like the one I’m going to share with you today.

But before I do, I’m celebrating the amazing live training we held on February 6th. Missed it no worries…because there is a replay available until February 11. Not sure what the heck I’m talking about…I held another free private training showing thought leaders, changemakers, coaches, and consultants how to create killer messaging in their business that not only sounds like them but sets them apart as a leading authority in their industry.

The training is money…and if there is anything a business owner should invest in, it’s their ability to articulate what they do in a unique and compelling way.

If you’re in business, you’re in the business of words! Words are what connect us and without connection, you’ll have a hard time selling let alone creating the change you want to see happen in the world.

So, if you want to catch the replay, grab the link in the show notes. Lee Caraher is the CEO of Double Forte, a national independent PR/Communications agency. An acclaimed communication strategist, Lee is known for her practical solutions to big problems and she has a reputation for building cohesive, high-producing teams who have fun together at the same time. Lee has authored two top-selling books about positive and profitable work culture.

Now let’s dive into the good stuff for today. 

So without further ado let’s welcome Andrea to the show!

00:02  Kathryn

Hey, I am super stoked to have Lee on the show today. Without further ado, I'm just going to turn it right over to you least you can share who you are, what you do and what you're all about.

00:11 Lee

Oh my gosh, yes, I like her. Thank you so much for having me on your show, I fell in love what you do, thank you. I am the founder and CEO of double forte, which is a public relations social media firm in the United States. We're independent, gay, and national in scope. And we work with a pretty wide range of companies. And, but I'm on a mission, I'm totally on a mission to help the small business solopreneurs small business owner, just get on the map wherever they are, and really take ownership of their expertise. Because too often, the big people get the recognition for expertise that as small business owners, we would not have our small business if we were not experts. So that has been a new focus for us at the company in the last couple years. And that's what we are doing. That's all. Yeah, big companies too. But my missions, my personal missions for the small business, you control, you can be someone who, who gets viewed as somebody, you know, just as much as somebody who's at a huge company with the biggest title. Oops, sorry. Yeah,

01:26 Kathryn

I know, right? It's all good. It's all good. I swear on here sometimes to have guests that swear and whatnot. Oh, thank God. All good. People. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Our listeners won't be offended. I promise you that. Um, so why why the shift then in the last couple years? Like what was it that actually sparked you to shift a small business?

01:47  Lee

Um, a few things, one after the Romney you know, after the sorry, the Minneapolis killing, yes. And the outrage. I mean, it was happening anyway. But finally, my company, we've been working on racial equity DNI, all this kind of stuff for a long time. But it really, that whole episode, just got everybody on the same page. And I'm the owner, I'm the leader of this small company, myself, and I'd always wanted to do it, but you can't do it yourself. And finally, the whole company was on board. And that D and I became a big task force. We've done it now for two, we're in our third year. And it's really informed so much of what we've done. So one of the one things that came out of this was we're dedicated, you know, we will have at least two Broco bipoc clients a year, who will help those companies get out of onto launch mode, right? Yeah. And this is one way we can help that community. Another thing that happened recently was on the board of the Public Relations Council, which is the US National Association of PR firms. And one of the big efforts for the PR Council has been around the say gap, which is basically more white men get recognized as experts than any other group. And of course, that does not reflect reality of who actually is an expert, it just reflects the fact that more white men put themselves out there. Yeah, and we created a program called Close the pay gap, which was, and then we had to abandon it in 2020, because of COVID. And we turned our efforts just to young people getting jobs, but before another part of our DNA thing, which was we want to train 5000 women to be spokespeople. So, we are halfway through that goal, we have another 25 2400 people to do. And I've given us two more years to do it. So we'll take four years to do 5000 women I think, train 5000 women and in this work, you know, we we you know, it's a free workshop we give to groups of women that tries to get into like eight hours of expertise into two hours. And basically we give people how to build the tools and do the work so that they can go be an expert and be recognized as experts in their field, wherever they are. So through that work, what I found was one people wanted to hire us, which was never our goal. And so, so many people wanted to hire us I was like, Oh my gosh, we have to figure out a way to serve these people when we weren't really set up for the small engagement. So we created a program called Get on the map. And so we sell it as a you know, it's a package and we don't think we've had 10 or 12 of the game and that was never the goal. The goal was to train women to be spokespeople. Yeah. So in that work, most of that work well, all of those clients have been women based women companies. And, not that men don't need this help as entrepreneurs, but they don't need as much help as women do, to come forward and just claim that space. So once I, and I'm a woman owner, yeah. And I, you know, I'm a woman, CEO, author, you know, their blah, blah, blah, you and I just sort of read between all those things together just said, Okay, we have something to offer, we can help people that can't maybe afford our big programs, but they can afford us to help them get organized, and we can show them what to do, by themselves focus, because focus is your friend. And we can make a big difference. And that is really, once we've understood it, I understood that we could do that. We can make a big difference for these people. That's when I was like, Alright, here we go.

05:58 Kathryn

Yeah, so brilliant. I love the two sort of missions, right? The bipoc people where you're helping them as well get on the map, because we we know that, you know, murder, it's way harder. And besides, right? Men getting viewed, right women get discriminated against, but bipoc people even more so. And so I just absolutely love your mission with that, and helping these women. And I know when I read your bio about the say gap, I was like, Yes, I still want to have you on the show to chat about that. Because I do think one being able to give people the resources and tools to put themselves out there. Just to backtrack a little bit. For any of our listeners that might not know even what PR is, public lash is what it is. And you know how to even start putting yourself out there, so to speak, because there's so much out there about, you know, how to market on social media and how to sell your programs and courses and how to sell your products. But like, what is public relations?

06:55 Lee

Oh, my gosh, Katherine. So I'm in, he'll die when you I'm going to show you this. You can see it. But so I'm in a peer group here. I moved to Wisconsin, two and a half years ago, and I joined a PEO peer group. And I live in a small town and there are no PR firms here. Yeah. So my guys, Emily, a woman in my group, shocking. But they certainly we still don't understand what we did. So I wrote this article, what the heck we are, and why do I need it? I love happy to provide this to you. You can I can give you the link to this, that would be awesome. Because I was just trying to get on and it took me two and a half pages. But you know, what is br So PR is a strategic communication. Discipline. It's it's a, it's a discipline of communicating right? To be able to tell one or more compelling stories about yourself, right? To the people who you count on for your business. So if that's your if that's your employees, if that's your partners, that your clients, that's potential clients. So if you want someone else to know about you, understand you and be able to talk about you positively. That's what you need PR. Yeah. Because what we do is help you say, help you articulate what is your story? Why should you care about this person, and then we help you engage and connect with those people who matter. So that might look like media, some people just say, Oh, they're slacks or media relations. That is just one piece of what we do. So Media Relations is when you open up a newspaper, or click on a new site or look on television or hear a radio the the people who are being interviewed the people who are sourced That is, unless it's about Well, no, even when it is about the war in Ukraine right now. Yeah. That is all PR that is people who have been put forward as experts to provide commentary. And that's what we do, right? We help our clients go forward as commentary that we get to their products reviewed and all this kind of stuff. And then there's so much other things we do, right? We do you know what I articulate your values to your customers, your employees, we help you. Right now we're doing a lot of recruiting retention work, right? And just in fact, in front of me, I have like four different job descriptions that are terrible. Because they're just not relevant today. Right? So how do you tell you're even down to your job description? How do you tell a compelling story to a potential recruit? And then where do you put that posting? So anything that's going to tell your story to the people who matter to your business, that is what PR is?

09:26 Kathryn

And so why is it needed? Why does it matter so much?

09:31 Lee

So, in the end, all business is run by relationship. Yeah. Right. You have a contract, implied or written, whatever it is, you have a relationship, I have a relationship to target, because I go to Target and I like targets and I like what they do give 5% back and I have a target card and I put my number in and they tell me what it is. But all relationships cannot exist without communication. Yeah, I love that and do not commit you. You don't have a business without communication period. Yeah, period. And communication cannot be bought. Right. So in particularly in this area. And so this is different since when I started my company before Twitter started, yeah. A lot of people that's just advertising, they'll just pay for it. And the answer is no. Because yes, advertising is a version of communication. It is what you can guarantee the messages what you pay for that guarantee, you pay for that space. However, while advertising is very predictable, because you've paid for certain space at a certain time with a certain message that you crafted, it is the least influential of our tools. So the more the more you can't commit, what is the word? The more you can't guarantee it? The more influential, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

10:59 Kathryn

And I love that you bring in employees as well, because I think sometimes when people think of public relations, right, they think of media relationships, I think of paid ad spots, or they think of all these things. And public relations, too, is the relationships you have with your employees, everybody and the public. Right?

11:15 Lee

I think that the answer, you know, public relations really started as public affairs Oh, so long ago, but really who I you're depending on who you are, who are your publics, and their public is just a group of people that you need to talk to? Yes. Right. Who need to know who need to act on your behalf in order for you to succeed. If your employees aren't number one, you're screwed. So put in number one. Yeah, totally your communication? Because if you don't know what's going to happen, and they don't know what to do, your consumers and customers are never going to know what to do. And they have to buy into it, too. Yeah. Don't think about your public as the people outside of you think of your public as anyone who needs to know what you stand for what you do to make your business possible. Yeah.

12:01 Kathryn

Yeah. Do you think there's bad PR?

12:05 Lee

I think there are bad stories. Okay. I hear this, particularly, my companies headquartered in San Francisco or, you know, Silicon Valley's in our blood. And particularly with venture capital, you hear this a lot as we have a bad PR problem. There is no bad PR problem. There are business problems that get exposed in negative stories. That is not bad. PR. Right. That is a bad business. Yeah. That's a problem that needs to be solved. And PR cannot and particularly today, you mean, it may have been true? Oh, it definitely was true. You know, in the past that you could have escaped or show lack or put something forward. Eventually, it all comes out, right? It just comes out today, it comes out like the next second with social media, right? So there is no bad PR. There are bad stories. There are bad PR people there. There are slimy PR professionals, right. Yeah. But they're, that's a bad business decision to hire those people. That is not bad PR.

13:07 Kathryn

Right. And so in terms of small business, you know, when you think about PR, and you think about how quickly stories can get out, and that things eventually will come out regardless, right? And we can think of tons of stories in our history where, you know, something came out about a company that was not great in terms of maybe operations, I the one that is holding it in my head is Rachel Hollis, which happened a year ago. And she made the comment about her housekeeper and then everybody you know, eventually comes out. And that you'll see this in politics too, right? When I go to church today speaks out and you're like, where's your PR person? And why aren't they they're, you know, guiding you, but and what, well, why don't they guide you, but why are you acting this way?

13:49 Lee

Right. So a PR person, you know, that's why it's called spin right? I'll put a spin on it. That's why sometimes you are known as flex because we obfuscate the truth. You don't you know, we call it putting lipstick on a pig. It's still pig. Yeah, if you flew if you fled to Texas, I mean, if you fled to Canada, I'm sorry. You're kidding. Yeah. If you fled to Canada to escape, you know, Coronavirus in your home state of Texas. Still left your people. Right, you're still left and went someplace else? Yeah, you cannot. What am I going to say about that? There's nothing good to say about that when you're a public official. So what you need is a PR in here's where my PR people are the best ones are more console URIs than they are like talk to the media. Yeah, like let's talk about you all business. All PR should start with what your values are. What are your values of your company? And if you haven't, I just wrote an A just sent an email on this topic today. Yeah. because so many of our clients are asking how do we act in response to the Ukrainian situation? And every, every time someone asked me that, let's bring up your values. Let's bring them up. Okay, what does it tell us? It tells us, here's what you value, which then tells you how you're going to react or respond. And all of our clients have values because we make them happen. Yeah. But when people call and say, What's your value? Oh, I don't know what they are. Okay, there's no time like the present, go decide who you are and what you stand for, and what the behaviors are. And that'll tell you everything, right? So the, the, if you're in every business of any size, you could be yourself doing it as a side hustle. You need to have values of what do you stand for? Who are you? What do you stand for? What are you trying to do in the world, so that people know that'll guide everything that'll right guide how you respond to a bad response, or a bad review, that will respond that I'll guide you on how to say you're sorry, that'll guide you on how to pound on your chest, that will guide you on everything. So the any business of any size needs these things to be able to and then every communication should be reinforcing them, even if you don't say the words,

16:18 Kathryn

totally. And I love that you touch on this because I know a lot of clients came to me when the war broke out in Ukraine and was like, What do I do? Do I post? Do I not post? When Black Lives Matters? Movement started happening? What do I do? How do I get behind it? Do I not? Will I turn my audience off, and all these sorts of things. And I just recorded a pretty heartfelt podcast episode touching on this because prior to starting my own business I was an advisor for CEOs, presidents, vice presidents of corporations on communication, right. And one of the things I said is like, hiding is never the answer, like it's gonna come out at some point. And if you don't know who you are, and what you stand for, you're gonna have a really hard time navigating these things, because the outside world is going to influence you, right, they're going to influence you to do things that you might not want to do, right? Or your advisors. Besides, you might influence you and say you should do this. And you're like, Okay, I guess I should do? Well, I think that

17:14 Lee

The piece is to understand that you can never make everybody happy 100% You can no one person, no one company can make everybody happy. The key is to understand who you want to make happy, right? That is the right audience. And, uh, who you know, once you decide what your values are, and how you're gonna run your business that will articulate to you who matters to you. So in my business, we have four rules. So our company has changed models like 17 times in 20 years, probably not that many. But you know, I mean, before Twitter after Twitter, you know, all this kind of stuff. So we have four rules that have stayed the same. So the four rules are that somebody other than myself needs to be interested in the work because I'm interested in everything. I cannot run an account to save my life. But I think that you do better work when you're interested. And we just want to do our best work, I want it to be a place where people like to do the work that they're asked to do and the clients number one may be a good fit. We have to be, you know, the right expertise, the right, the right context, the right everything. And we need to be the right chemistry, because you can be a great client and a great agency and suck together because you just have different cultures, right? Three, you have to pay us for what we like to eat and for no jerks, right? I use a different word if I don't know, jerks, and the no jerks thing is really the business limiter. I mean, it's a revenue limiter and life enhancer. Yeah, because you know, people who are jerks, or are people who don't respect you. And if you're in a business with someone who doesn't respect you, you will never win. And so I decided when I started my own company, I'm never working with someone who doesn't respect me ever again. And that guides everything, right? Guided everything. So when you so by definition, when I look at the companies we have not worked with on purpose, or or not a good fit, not a good fit, not a good fit. And it tells you who matters. So when I make a decision about black lives, if I make a decision about wearing a mask, if I make a decision, and someone doesn't like it 99% of the time, I don't care about that person. It's when I offend somebody who does matter to me, that I really want to care and make sure that we were on the same page, or are we not right, do I need to apologize or did I need to say, Wow, this is important to us. You decide if it's important to you or not, we'd like to still serve you. However, if this is so important to you, we are not changing our mind on this topic. Yeah. And I have had to have that conversation twice in 20 years, because we're so clear on who matters and who doesn't in our business, because we know we can't serve everybody. We're not interested in serving everybody. And you can never make everybody happy.

20:14 Kathryn

Yeah, such a great message. For sure. When you're and for small businesses to again, we go back to the whole social media world, right? It's like we see canceled culture is a real thing. And people are scared to show up as themselves, or to stand in their values sometimes, because they're worried about what everybody's gonna say.

20:33 Lee

And we also know that when you do stand for your values, more people will be attracted to you. They will be detracted for you because in general, right, the trolls are trolls, because they get nothing better going on. Yeah. And they are flooding the zone with crap. Because they get notes, all I got is time on their hands. Yeah. So when you stand for something and you stick with it, you actually attract people. So if you can't, I really don't like that idea of the term cancel. Yeah, because it's more about being in alignment. Like, I don't go to certain restaurants, because they support issues that hurt my family. So I have one, one son, who is gay, and another son who has developmental disorders. And so if an organization is aligned against those two things, I will not give them my money, it means I'm not getting a good chicken sandwich. Apparently, it means I'm not getting some good crafting materials, whatever it is, but that is not me canceling them. That is me being aligned with knowing what I care about and not giving one cent to something that doesn't reinforce what I think is important. Yeah, I don't think it's canceled as much as if you understand what you stand for. And you understand where you're putting your money, which is only going to increase that it's not going to decrease, then you align on that. Right. So the crap that is called canceled culture actually started on the people on the very far right side in this country, at least, of the political spectrum in banning books over 200 years ago. Yeah, right. Why are you so afraid of an idea? Where do I go? Just don't read it. Just don't pick it up and read it. Fine. Okay.

22:19  Kathryn

Totally. Totally.

22:21 Lee

You know, the canceling is not it's me being aligned, right. Yeah. Yeah. And I think there's a difference between choosing what you stand for, and what you don't stand for, and then choosing maybe in silence, or, or maybe in a protest and a movement that you're not going to stand for that day. But we all get to choose what we all get value. And we have to choose as businesses, no business today has really taken the role. I mean, the government used to have this role as moral compass, and no longer has that role. And more and more businesses are being turned to to be the moral compass. Which is not, I think it's not misplaced. It's a different place. Because its economy is what runs everything, right? When you think about how much money is going into politics, while Where's it coming from, you know, we could talk about that forever. However, you know, I think about Dick's Sporting Goods. So in this country in the United States, if I don't know if you have Dick's in Canada, but Dick's Sporting Goods, Cabela's, you know, all these sporting goods, well, in the gun crisis coming out of, you know, it it gun violence is a crisis in this country. I mean, it's a whole nother podcast. Yeah, whatever. In the wake of I think it was Sandy, the kids in the kindergarten getting, you know, so many kids in the kindergarten get killed, they decided they were not going to carry guns anymore. And which, you know, hunting, I live in Wisconsin hunting is a big deal, right? I'm where I am. They were not going to kill shotguns anymore. They were not going to carry pistols anymore. They were not going to do that. And I got a lot of backlash for it. And that backlash was from the people who were never going to go to Dick's before. And they figured out you know what, this is what we stand for. I can't go along with this anymore. And in all of their numbers are up. They have more customers, they have more sales, they have more rewards, they have more everything. So their business has improved on the bottom line, because they stood up for what they believed in, no matter what happened in the public opinion.

24:33  Kathryn

Yeah, yeah. And I think again, like, you know, I hear so often that, you know, businesses say that, you know, they sacrifice parts of who they are sometimes because they're trying to appease, don't do it, the masses and it's and it's Saturday. Yeah, it's because you get

24:48 Lee

deluded because when is that point that you don't make a compromise? Yeah. And there is no, I would say that there is no multiple and compromise. Yeah, you're not building value in your entity, even if you're just one person, if you're compromising all the time? Yeah, you're not. Yeah, it's the lowest common denominator. And there's no money there.

25:12 Kathryn

Yeah. So in terms of values, like as a small business owner, is that the first thing that you recommend people do is like come up with what their values are? And then to the question. The other follow up question I have with that is, as businesses and personal brands evolve, and grow, so too, are their values, because I think that's another thing I hear often is like, well, I put out this story, and I used to stand for this thing. And now I've evolved and I've grown and I've changed, and I'm a personal brand. Now what like, how do I share that without being called out for changing? No,

25:43 Lee

I think that a reasonable person, yeah, will expect people to evolve over time. And so we at level 40, we look at our values, you know, if we haven't done it in a four year cycle we make ourselves doing, and they don't change that much. Because it needs to reflect on me, I may not have the same team, right? Yeah. And they may express things a little differently because the world has changed and all kinds of stuff. So we look at our values. I mean, you don't want to be willy nilly flapping like a fish on, you know, on the deck, with your values, you need to decide and they're serious. And, and the most important thing about values is articulating the behaviors that demonstrate the value. And that's where the differences are because, you know, I think excellence is a terrible value. Like, you can't say, to whom, like that's so subjective, right? values that have a, so one of our values is we call them, we are a team, which means to us, we don't let anybody hang. Yeah, no one gets hung out to dry. We cover each other's asses, excuse me, again, we never send emails by ourselves, we always send emails and copy our teams so that we're never alone. That is what that means. So I have the behaviors attached to we are a team, so that it's very clear, because a team could have individual stars like a basketball team, could it? Well, we don't mean, that's not how we operate. But once you decide what your business is, why is that your business? Who are you going to serve? And if you can, and then how are you going to serve them? That is where your values

27:25 Kathryn

are. Yeah, brilliant. And I love the behaviors behind the values, right? Because like you said, excellence, customer service integrity, like they're all they get, they're very broad. And what does that actually mean? And integrity? One person might mean something completely different, right? Yes, yeah,

27:43 Lee

We did this, we helped the client with that. Well, we have integrity. I'm like, Well, let me show you a million times we did not have integrity. In public relations. You lied about this. You obfuscated that this is not integrity. Yeah. Well, we didn't lie to our people, our staff, they No, no, you're asking them to live for you, then. No, that's not integrity. Well, how about let's not lie. Yeah, that's a value that you can say, Did you or didn't you? Right, you need to eliminate as much interpretation out of your values as possible. Because if you, if there's wiggle room in your value, then you get nothing.

28:21 Kathryn

Yeah, and then, and then it's subjective to the people to write and then more people are making their own interpretation about it. No grading in that way. So

28:32 Lee

every time you hear it, sorry, but if you're an individual, you're a solopreneur. And then you add one person, every time it's not, you know, you have to take everything that's in your brain about how you operate and make sure that that other person does it. And then you go to four people, and then you get to 10 people, it's exponential, every time you add a person, you have to reinforce all that stuff. So if you do it now, do it now as a solopreneur. That will just pave the way for your growth. Growth doesn't happen in solopreneurs. I mean, so many solopreneurs there's so many people who do onesie twosie businesses in PR, and they never, they don't understand why they don't get bigger, they don't get bigger, because they don't share what they stand for. They don't share, they do the work. So they add a person, the contractor, whatever, and they're never happy. They're never happy because a person doesn't understand what the expectations are. Because the person didn't you know, the owner didn't take the time. Take the time now so that you could share it, right? Because you can only grow if you have a flywheel around the things that that that are your culture, that are your behaviors that we know what you stand for, and how you do things.

29:33 Kathryn

Yeah, totally. Is there anything else you would tell to the small business solopreneur about PR that maybe we haven't covered today?

29:41 Lee

I would say you know, you have your own business for a reason. Right? You have to decide you have something awesome to offer to the world. Share it. Don't just share it in your business share it because share it with the media, right so decide decide, okay, what am I expert at? I'm expert at retail. For me, I'm an expert. Here, we're helping a person right now. One of our clients, we're helping this, this person started business to help menopausal women with clothing and fitness gear. Wow. Because their bodies change, right? All this kind of stuff. Well, you know, I mean, okay, so you know, what about menopause? You, you know, but these things you know about retail, you know about clothing and bias. All right, you're an expert on these things. So if someone's going to talk about them in the media, which they are all the time, off of your point of view up, if you you build your business, if you get known as an expert in your field, people will be attracted to you, when people Google menopausal clothes or menopausal fitness, you will show up, because you're out there, talking about it to the media, in the media, it could be bloggers, could be podcasters could be, you know, reporters could be columnist, you know, figure out who's talking about your topic, and then introduce yourself and say, This is what I do. Here's what I can, here's what you if you need, if you need information about first story on menopausal women who are trying to get fit and have different bodies, I'm your girl, I can give you all this data and all this information. While Ah, right, just go do it. And I would say particularly for the women listening to you, you know, the imposter syndrome is real. Yeah. And what just say it out loud, I don't know when no one's gonna listen to me, and then put it in a drawer and then go be listened to

31:36 Kathryn

totally. And in terms of PR and going and reaching out to the media. I know, one of the biggest questions I get asked is, like, is paid PR. Okay, versus like, what to expect? Should I be paying for PR? Or should I not be paying for PR, or should I be doing both?

31:51 Lee

You mean, to an agency or to the placement to the placement to the ad placement? Yeah, I think well, you know, the reason there are agencies is because it's a lot of work. Yeah. It is a lot of work. I'm not sure it's rocket science, it's a lot of common sense. People with ears are so smart. And like that, really, it's really common sense. But also, it's you know, more than 20 years doing this, so I have a lot of experience in it. To pay an agency is smart, if you don't have the time, and you have the roof and you have the resources, right? I wouldn't pay some you know, if you have a small budget, expect small results. So it's better to do it yourself than to spend 1000 2000 $4,000 a month, because you're not going to get the results you want to do paid placement. Right. That is, again, the more unpredictable, the higher the influence, the more predictable, the less the influence. So a paid placement, where you sort of have to do a store, you do a paid sponsorship is probably the least has the most influence of all those things, because you have to meet their editorial. You have to meet that outlets, editorial requirements. Yeah. But don't expect it to have as much sway. Yeah, as you know, medium mentioned.

33:19 Kathryn

Right. Okay. Yeah. And I think, again, with all the things out there with blogs, and podcasts and all those sorts of options, yeah, to get out there and put yourself in front of other people's audiences and share your story.

33:31 Lee

And I would say, you know, one thing you could do you being a pod, man, I'm a podcaster, as well. And there are lots of podcasts, right? The thing about podcasting is we're looking, we're all looking for good. Emphasis on the word good. Guests, and I'm just gonna put myself as a good guest, because yeah, your show and you were discerning whatever, you know, go serve us there's a service called pod chaser.com. Go to pod chaser, just search for your topic, see who's doing podcasts? Well, and go listen to them. Go make sure that you want to be on that podcast, and he has something to say that, you know, be of value to that person's audience. But we're looking for good guests. Yeah. You know, it's probably the I love podcasting. Because it's so efficient, right? It's a conversation. Now, just, you know, for those of you who don't know, it's, obviously it's a conversation with you, then you do, you put it up in your systems, and it goes out into the world in the audio form. And then there's a page that's dedicated to this episode. Either me, or my company will be in the URL. And then I've already provided Kathryn with the links where people can find my stuff. And I'm going to give you another link with this. What the heck is PR? And you know, so you have that stuff, right? And then there's a page dedicated to me off of your website. So what better endorsement than being on someone else's podcast. They've just dedicated a page of their work to you. Right, totally. And then when people Google you, you will show up if you Google my name. The first 10 pages are probably my two books, my company and some articles I'm in. And then the next 300 pages, all the podcasts I've been on in the last 10 years to talk about my topics and to talk about my books, because it's every time I'm podcast about and this is not about my books, but every time I'm on a podcast, but my books, oh, my god, the sales go up. It's shocking. Yeah. Yeah. So I would say if you don't know where to start, podcasting is a great place to start if you are a good guest. And to be a good guest, that means being able to be prepared to know who you're talking to, to ask questions of your host to say, Who are you, you know, make sure I'm of service to you. It's not about me, it's about being of service to my hosts, audience, and then to have something complete, you know, have a point of view. Yeah.

35:57 Kathryn

Yeah, totally. There's so many options out there that there's so many options, oh, my goodness, to not necessarily have to do and if you don't feel comfortable talking and doing the audio stuff. You can write blogs or you can write blogs.

36:10 Lee

I have a good friend, Karen Catlin. She better allies, better allies. And she wrote she retired. He didn't retire. But she finished her career at Adobe After 20 years and decided she was going to help women stay in tech, because it's one of the hardest people going women to go into tech and they don't stay. And there's about allyship for women, and then you know, with the George Floyd thing, it has changed to be Alisha for everybody. Yeah, she started her whole business on Twitter. Interested in wanting to talk? Yeah, she's like, Oh, now she talks all the time. Yeah. But she started her whole business on Twitter around ally ship. And she just started doing li li li le and all of a sudden she had 20,000 followers. And all of a sudden she had a book because it was all the stuff that she was talking about our Twitter campaign, you know, not even a campaign to sort of Twitter, you know, yeah. What her amplification and now she, you know, now she talks all the time. She's on lots of podcasts. And she's sold, you know, she's self published. And it's been a great second great career for her because she got her voice out on Twitter, because she understood how Twitter works, right? So you have to understand the difference, there's lots of different ways to go. If you only have, if you don't have a lot of time, focus on one, just focus on one and get it going and then focus on another you cannot do everything. If you don't have people doing the stuff for you. You can't do everything. No, totally. I mean, I'm an author, and I still can't get to my own Twitter. So yeah,

37:38 Kathryn

totally, totally. Yeah. And I think again, it's just starting with those values, getting to know your value is what you stand for. And aligned with you

37:46 Lee

right? With you. So sometimes the best way to think about it is I mean, so for people asking for double, you know, oh, we can't serve you but let me find someone who can I find someone who's like us? Who you know, who's in your world, who's known in your world, sometimes it's just being known among your competition. Totally. You know, your peers, like just now join a group, join a peer group, get it mastermind, get people around you, so that they can be advocates for you too. If you only did that. That's useful. Totally.

38:20 Kathryn

I love it. I love it. So where can people find you if they want to get a hold of you connect with you?

38:26 Lee

Yeah, I'm really easy to find. So it's double my company website is double hyphen forte.com. Do you BLE hyphen F or t.com on Twitter, I'm at li care her on Instagram at the care her on LinkedIn at Lea care. Li care her wherever I go. And then my website leaker her has my books and stuff like that. But everything goes back to level 40. So if we can help you even to just to talk to think about how to do it. Or if we could serve you in a small way that would get you off the ground. We also have some resources there that you can just download and what the heck is PR and why to do it. You don't kind of stuff. What to do that you can just download yourself. And we could also listen to our podcast, everything speaks because it's all about this stuff too.

39:19 Kathryn

Brilliant. Brilliant. Well, it's been such a pleasure having you on the show. I can't wait for our listeners to listen to this one. And we'll link up all the links in the show notes for everybody. So they're easily accessible there for you to just click on those if you want to connect with Lee, and talk all things PR. Awesome. 

39:35 Lee

Thank you so much for having me. Thank you

Now on Episode #44 – I’m heading back to a solo episode to answer a question I’ve been getting a lot lately from women interested in my Elevate Business Accelerator and that is….How does it really work to build a successful online business? Because I’ve tried a lot of things and I am still not where I want to be. And there is so many conflicting messages saying you need to do this or that but give it to me straight cause I want to know.