Lexie Smith
Hey guys, I’m Lexie Smith, a mom, multi-hyphenate entrepreneur, and the founder and CEO of THEPRBAR inc. coaching platform and agency. In my career, I’ve had the privilege of guiding countless brands, ingenious publicists, eager students, and ambitious entrepreneurs on their PR journeys. I’ve danced with the Giants and nurtured startups, directed in-house PR departments, lent my expertise to boards, and spread knowledge across universities nationwide. Throughout all of this, I’ve seen our industry change and evolve while simultaneously proving that some timeless fundamentals remain unshaken. This show takes you behind the scenes of the world of media, marketing, and PR, aiming to teach you all the new tips, tricks and how the best and brightest are achieving success overseas. Now it’s time to grow. Welcome to the show.
Lexie Smith
Today is a very big day for me. I'm recording this on March 4 2024, about 13 minutes after officially making the announcement of my agency rebrand, live. That is right, I completely rebranded my PR agency. Now let me take a step back for like, I don't even know you had what Lexie? Like Cool, good for you. Let me give you some context, because I also think there's some learnings to be had. So I launched my first brand, THEPRBAR inc. in 2019 2020. Okay, and it was, it still is, by the way, it still very much exists and is thriving an online education and coaching brand, right. So when you work with me in THEPRBAR, you are learning how to do PR or grow your business with PR. THEPRBAR inc. is also the primary sponsor of this podcast, pitching and sipping, Pitchin’ and Sippin’ very in alignment with THEPRBAR branch. Well, what happened around 2022 is demand slash life called for me to expand THEPRBAR inc. I had existing and past clients who really were ready to grow with me and wanted me to offer done for you agency services. Long story long, I was able to make the decision that I was going to go for it. I hired my very first full time employee shout out to Meghen Peck. And I never really needed to brand the agency arm differently. Because I already launched it with annual retainer clients, which I am not. I mean, it's a blessing and a lot of people don't get that privilege. So I pretty much just took off ink and tacked on agency, and at that time decided it was just going to be a sub brand. Okay, I was going to split it. We had THEPRBAR inc. for coaching, we have THEPRBAR agency for done with you. And then let it be. And business has been great. We've grown the team. We're a small but mighty team of six now. But something happened over the past six months that made it very, very clear for me that it was time to address the agency arm and finally give it its own identity. And it's very in my head about it. And so what I ended up doing is I decided to hire actually a past coaching client of mine who came to me to learn or improve her PR skill set, who is an absolutely genius branding expert. Okay, she's a former VP of branding at Disney. She is just the most amazing human being as well. She's become such a close friend. Her name is Hilary Hartling. I could not recommend her any more highly. And basically what happened I hired her. She sat on a zoom call with me for I think it was three hours. And I just word vomited. Okay, I brain-dumped everything about what I wanted the agency to be, and why it was different than THEPRBAR inc. I I tried to articulate, you know, what are the types of clients we serve? What makes us different? How is this different? How are we different? Where are we going from here and attached it on her to take that rambling this three hours of ramblings and somehow see if there was a branding side. And she freaking nailed it. She was able to take again three hours of my we'll just call it A Beautiful Mind spewing out her and find what is now the new identity of THEPRBAR agency. So the PR agency is called GROWTH MODE, GROWTH MODE PR and Communications Agency. Okay. We are an agency for brands in growth mode. We are obsessed with your business and putting your brand on the map and we leverage our clients top line stories for bottom line results. I'm so freaking excited. So what she did was she delivered this first draft of a brand book to me. And for me it was like oh my god, this is it. It had taglines it had brand tenants. It had keywords, it had colors it had everything that was lighting me up. Step two was team buy in because I'm not doing this thing alone. This isn't just me anymore. THEPRBAR inc. is me. But this wasn't me. I had a team. So I brought it to my team for step two, which was team buy in and I asked for their feedback and I hope they were honest with me but they loved it. Okay, they were on board. So we were able to shift a few things. It took a few Oh, maybe a line here, or let's adjust the, you know, ideal client a little bit in this way. But over about two week period, we were able to get a really zipped up brand book that my team and I were super, super proud of. So the next step was to go to my clients already in retainer and get buy in from them. Because to me, it's a partnership. So if I were to present this brand to my clients, and they hated it, I probably would have gone back to the drawing board. Okay, because, again, anyone we work with at my agency is a partner and a long term partner, and I want them to be proud about the agency on record representing them. So I went to the clients on board, who have been longtime clients, and I said, Hey, this is why we're doing what we're doing. We had you in mind, and we think this is going to be such a benefit for all parties. But what do you think? Like, are you on board? Like we want to hear from you. And the good news is, they were all really, really excited. Okay, so step three, client buy in? Okay, so once we had all the Biden's we had my buy in, we had my team's buying, we had my clients buy on, buy in, then we went into asset development strategy, and how are we going to launch this thing? So that involves building a website that involves thinking through our strategies on social media that involved making sure we had, you know, proposal asset templates in place? Like when were we going to launch this thing? How are we going to launch this thing? How are we going to talk about it? Okay, so we started doing all those little things. The week prior to today, last week, we went and we updated all of our partners that were not client. So maybe, for example, we have a few different SEO or digital advertising agencies that we work with, and we collaborate with with some of our clients, we went to them, we let them know, right? We told them, This is how it's going to impact you, basically, all it means is that we have a new email address and a new look. But you know, business as usual, otherwise, so we told all of them. Today, I went and I updated existing long term leads in my pipeline, it's something that we'll be doing throughout the day. So if I've been in conversations with you for a while, you know, as one thing for the agency, I'm now letting you know, hey, this is who we are now. And this is where we're headed. So those were kind of the order of operations. Again, I'm recording this on March 4. So this just happened. So I'll have to do a recap. Maybe in a few weeks to kind of tell you lessons learned, I'm just going to manifest that today's going brilliantly. And then everyone's going to be super excited, just like we are, I wanted to share kind of a few more things thats different about this brand. So first, what makes us different when you're going to do a rebrand beyond the mission beyond the vision, which we have all of those really clearly defined, which I'm so freaking excited about. And I feel like it's really breathe life back into my my business and my team's business. But we also had to figure out what makes us different. Why us, right. And there were three primary things that we're leading with. First, as you know, because of the tenants attached to the GROWTH MODE brand, likeTHEPRBAR agency, and the fact that I am a coach as well, and I have this podcast is that we are ahead of the curve. We're a brand that's really committed to staying ahead of the curve and always learning. So we're proactive, we're persistent, and we're strategic. we immerse ourselves in our clients, industry and company never leaving leaving a stone unturned. Okay, so our education and the fact that we're always learning and we're always striving to do better is something that I'm really proud of. Second, our Leverage 7 PR Methodology. Okay. So honestly, over the past 13 years, this has been something that I have developed when I launched the PR Inc. I call it the seven relations of PR, while part of the branding process for GROWTH MODE was also figuring out how do we now put a brand to this methodology that we use to find growth for our clients. And that is what we call the Leverage 7 Methodology. So it's our proprietary it's our proprietary PR framework and core methodology that leverages seven core relations as the roadmap for identifying and implementing an effective PR and communications campaign to help grow businesses. It is proven cross industry as displayed by our diverse roster of clients. So that was another big shift. I felt a lot of pressure to industry niche over the past couple of years. Like are you serving tech? Are you serving CPG? Like what,
Lexie Smith
what do you guys do? And the reality is, what we do and how we do it works. For anyone, okay, that's why we have, we have clients in telecom, that are thriving just as much as our nonprofit in the entertainment sector that are thriving just as much as CPG. So the beautiful thing about our agency, one thing that makes us different is this methodology, and that it just freaking works, as long as you are a brand that is ready to truly insert what we call growth mode. Okay. Next, the integrated partnerships. So when we take on a client, we truly see it as a partnership, we're in it with you not only becoming an extension of your in house team, but creating synergy between all of your PR and marketing efforts for maximum impact. So if you recall, I told you last week, I messaged all partners, because one of the roles that we have taken on for a lot of our clients is almost not almost is literally a project management role of all their agencies. So yes, we do all the PR and comms, but we also manage how their SEO and how their digital advertising integrates cross board. Because we truly believe that all these efforts, all these omni channel efforts seem to talk to one another. So whether it means we're working with the Director of Sales internally and accompany you know, three agencies and the CEO, that's fine, we're here to help it make it work all together, what we do is going to be integrated through all those brand tentacles, right? So again, our education and how ahead of the curve we are in how immersive we get into our clients business and world, our core Leverage 7 PR methodology, and the way we we take on and we execute integrated partnerships. So all this to say, Guys, I'm freaking pumped. I'm so excited. There's no change to this podcast. There's just a change to one of my brands and my businesses and what it's going to look like going forward. If you want to check out the website, you absolutely can you go to growthmodeagency.com. We're also on Instagram, and LinkedIn on Instagram. Our handle is growth mode agency. On LinkedIn, we're growth mode, PR and communications agency etc. Honestly, just go to my LinkedIn that's a great place to to find everything. My LinkedIn is Lexie Smith. So anyways, I just wanted to record a quick mini so today, this is a huge, huge milestone. I'm feeling pumped. You know, if you have something to say about it, let me know if you don't have something to say. Don't let me know kind of kidding. Not kidding. Just kidding. I don't know. If you are going through something similar. Congratulations. It's a big freakin deal. If you guys are looking for a mirror, even if, you know, let me let me take a minute and talk about that for a second. Because as someone who deals with and helps my clients with brand messaging and positioning, I could easily have let my ego get in the way and not let me hired someone like Hillary, because I'm supposed to know how to do this. But it is really freaking hard to stand in the mirror and see your own brand super clearly. It was the biggest gift hiring her and having her brain outside you know, unbiased perspective come in and help. So huge fan of Hillary, huge fan of coaching huge fan of consultants, guys I’m on a high today life high, business high Okay. And I just want to say thank you. If you have any questions, let me know. Otherwise, I'll come I'll come back in a couple of months and let you guys know how it's going. Okay, until next time on the pigeon and sipping podcast.