Pitchin' and Sippin' with Lexie Smith

Hospitality PR and Scaling a Remote PR Agency with Whitney Lee of True Story Public Relations

• Lexie Smith • Season 7 • Episode 135

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In this episode of Lexie Smith sits down with Whitney Lee, APR, CPRC, a marketing and PR expert and the founder of True Story Public Relations – an award-winning creative agency helping companies in the hospitality, travel, and tourism industries get in front of the right people with the right message. Today, True Story has grown into a fully remote agency of ten, serving clients all over the US and internationally. She was named Scarlett Magazine’s “Woman of the Year” in PR, one of the “Five Most Dynamic Women Leaders Ruling the PR Industry” in the CIO Times, and one of United Way’s 40 under 40.

Whitney provides insight into scaling her agency, staying within her niche, and the unique challenges of managing a remote workforce. She also dives into the importance of travel and how being mobile helps inspire creativity and strategy for her hospitality clients.

The episode also touches on the intricacies of hospitality PR, from building relationships in an industry where connections are key to managing complex client expectations. Whitney explains how her agency focuses on a triad approach of PR, social media, and email marketing to build a holistic marketing strategy for clients. For listeners looking to grow their own PR firms, Whitney offers valuable advice on networking within the hospitality sector and leveraging client relationships to expand business opportunities.

Here’s What You’ll Learn:

  • How Whitney Lee grew her PR agency from a small beach town in Florida to an international, award-winning firm.
  • The unique challenges and rewards of running a fully remote, all-female team of 10 in the hospitality industry.
  • The importance of maintaining flexibility while balancing the demands of a remote team in different time zones.
  • Why relationships are vital in the hospitality industry and how networking helps agencies grow.
  • The misconceptions around PR and what true media relations and earned media look like in the hospitality space.
  • Whitney’s method of finding inspiration by visiting hotels and restaurants during her travels to gather insights for her clients.
  • How Whitney has leveraged her hospitality background to secure diverse clients from luxury resorts to aquariums and sailing lines.
  • The key differences between PR, social media, and email marketing, and why having all three in sync is crucial for business growth.
  • Tips for breaking into the hospitality PR industry, especially for those without prior hospitality experience.
  • Insight into the value of offering core services like media relations, award submissions, and thought leadership in PR.


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Lexie Smith  

Whitney Lee is the founder of true story public relations, an award winning creative agency helping companies and the hospitality products and service industries thrive with a master's degree in integrated marketing communications from Florida State University and accreditation in public relations and a certification as a public relations counselor. Whitney has grown her PR agency from the small beach town of destin Florida to the international agency. It is today she was named Scarlet magazine's Woman of the Year in PR, one of the five most dynamic women leaders ruling the PR industry and one of United Ways 40. Under 40, her insights are regularly featured in well known media outlets. She's also a keynote speaker and the host of true story, the PR podcast, where she shares tangible ways to market your business and simple strategies to connect with your ideal customers through social media, email marketing and so much more. Now funny fact, maybe it's not even that funny, but Whitney and I actually first connected on Instagram, which probably shouldn't surprise me, and perhaps I date myself by saying but I still think is so wild. So I digress, Whitney, welcome, officially to the show. Where are you in the world right now? Where are we joining this recording?


Whitney Lee  

Hey, Lexie, so actually, right now, I'm coming to you from Denver, Colorado. Being in the hospitality space, we do a lot of travel to our hotel resort clients. So I'm in Denver right now.


Lexie Smith  

How are you liking Denver?


Whitney Lee  

It's chilly, which is surprising at the time of this recording for anyone who's listening. It's late May, and it's still 40 degrees outside. So I'm a southerner. I was born and raised in South Mississippi and then lived in Florida for 15 years. So this is cold to me.


Lexie Smith  

I think, I mean, that's cold in general, 40 degrees.


Whitney Lee  

It's cold. I think it's like 47 it's the middle of the day, and it's 47 degrees outside. I'm like, bundled up with a heating pad on my lap, so if


Lexie Smith  

it's below 70 so I'm from the Pacific Northwest, so grew up in cold climates. Live in Southern California. Now I'm so acclimated that if it's under 70 degrees, even in my house, I have blankets, socks, slippers, a sweater. It's absolutely pathetic, but a very real thing. So I feel you, yeah,


Whitney Lee  

it's fun. It's Colorado's so beautiful, and the people in Denver are so kind. But it is definitely a change of pace from the life I usually know you know, you


Lexie Smith  

faster, slower, um,


Whitney Lee  

I will say this, Denver is more I expected it to be more of an outdoorsy city. And I think when you get to some of the outlying areas, like golden and Boulder and places like that, it is a little more outdoorsy. But actual Denver is like, more of a concrete jungle than I expected.


Lexie Smith  

Yeah, I can see that my co founder and co host of another podcasting company, she lives in Denver, Colorado, I connected you too. That's right. Yeah, you guys have had a chance to connect, but she's in Denver, so I've had a chance to explore that city a bit more. And it is a city there's beautiful outline activities beyond downtown, but you're right, there is a legit city there,


Whitney Lee  

yeah, but it's so fun. And I love being able to, you know, my team is fully remote, so we're a team of 10 and fully female, which is pretty cool, but we're all over the map, and I love it like I haven't been in an office since I was 26 years old, and so, you know, everyone's like, Oh, you guys went remote after covid. I'm like, please, I was remote in 2013


Lexie Smith  

I think you're a trendsetter. You didn't know. Well, I


Whitney Lee  

just freedom is everything to me, and I love to travel, which makes the hospitality space a really good fit. But I love having a fully remote team, and they do too. I tell them, I'm like, I don't care where in the world you are, like, you know, we're able to do what we do from anywhere. And also, I think traveling like this really helps open our eyes to ideas for other clients, you know. So it actually, you know, not only do we know that space well? But then also getting inspiration from all these different cities, and every time, I'm such a nerd, every time I go to a new city, I do look up like all the fun bougie restaurants, but I love to pop through all the big hotels in town and sit at their bar, or hit like, bring my laptop and sit in their coffee shop and see what's happening on all these different properties, because it's just, you know, I jokingly say it's market research, but it is really market research


Lexie Smith  

expensive, right? Yeah, totally. And we're going to totally dive into multiple things you just brought up, but first, I want to give everyone a little bit of context and on this show. So I always like to rewind time and go into a bit of career cliff notes so people can can hear how you got to where you are today. Because I I've learned through I don't even know how many episodes we have at this point. This is season seven. Everyone's journey is so different. So let's look at yours. Let's take a walk down memory lane, high level, what came before today.


Whitney Lee  

So I actually did go to school for communication, which is funny. And I was having this conversation with someone the other day about like, who's actually using their degree anymore, you know, but actually I'm using my degree. So I went to undergrad at Southern Miss for communication. Grad school at Florida State for integrated marketing communication. Started the career at an independent hotel and got moved up at a big promotion to be the director of marketing for the Hilton sandeston. And so let's see. I was 25 years old, and I sat in a room all day with no windows, by myself, and I had agencies that were getting to do all the fun, cool things, and I was just the button pusher. Yes, this looks good. Okay, change this photo. Wait a minute. We have 600 rooms, not 700 like they were getting to do all the fun things. And I was honestly so bored. So I when I went in, I was there for one year, and I went in to quit, and they said, Please don't leave. You know, we'll give you a raise. What do we have to do to keep you? And I said, You can be my first client. And so that's kind of how it worked out. So I was 26 years old. I had no freaking clue what I was doing. I mean, I knew what I was doing in PR, but I didn't know what I was getting into by stepping out on my own. My parents tried to talk me out of it. I love that. They're just trying to protect me so But since then, I mean, at first, we started really locally, or it was just me. Within a few months, I had to hire a team member. After that, I hired two, I hired three, and then literally blinked my eyes, and 11 years passed. So in March was 11 years since I left the Hilton sandeston, and now, like I said, we're a team of 10. We're fully female and we're fully remote, and I really just stayed in that hospitality lane because it's what I know best. I have literally worked from fast food to fine dining. I've worked for banquets, I've worked in luxury resorts. I have all the things so that hospitality has been my life's work, and so that's that's really our main lane of you know? And when I say hospitality, people think it's just hotels, but that means restaurant groups. We've had spas. We have a sailing line based out of the Maldives, so we've done an aquarium, like, things like that. So it's like attractions, tourism, travel, kind of anything in that lane. So that that's a quick blink of the last like 15 years, right?


Lexie Smith  

All summarized into what two minutes done so quickly too, just for anyone listening, kind of on the business or brand side, too, I want you to have an opportunity to share kind of your core suite of services or what you're doing for these incredible clients. Yeah,


Whitney Lee  

absolutely so really, what people come to us for is PR, but what I find is that people don't really know what PR means, that that term is so broad,


Lexie Smith  

yeah, amen.


Whitney Lee  

I know, right. People say PR and and they have no idea what they're talking about.


Lexie Smith  

I always say they usually think of like Hollywood and red carpets magazines or crisis comms, Olivia Pope, and I feel like they don't really know the in between.


Whitney Lee  

Okay, now I'm gonna date myself, but most people would say like Samantha Sex in the City. Yeah, yeah. Like, all I do is go to restaurant openings and giggle and drink martinis. Um, yeah, right, I wish. But most people come to us for PR, so I always say for PR, that's media relations. So pitching for earned media also, you know, press announcements, anything of that nature, helping you get visible in the press, helping our clients win awards, to elevate their reputation, positioning someone as a thought leader, and getting them opportunities, you know, in in different ways, to to position the leader as a as a thought leader in in that industry. Um, gosh, it can be crisis communications. It can be partnerships. We do a lot of partnerships. Excuse me, we do a lot of partnerships. We help a lot of our properties come up with activations. We don't really plan events, but we are more of the brainchild of what activations are going to help get the right people on property, and then we use that as ammo to get media coverage, so people come to us for Po. R, but we also do have a social team. We do paid and organic social, and then we also have a team that handles email marketing, all the funnels, all that good stuff. And really, I feel like those, those are the the triad, right? So what we used to find is that we would do PR for somebody, and we would get them great exposure, but then their social was lame, or they had no email funnel, so we were getting them all this visibility, and then we were like, missing future opportunities because they didn't have a machine in place to continue to nurture those people. Yeah, so that's why, really, we feel like those are the triads. You know, before we start getting the word out with PR, we always make sure they have a solid social presence, they have a solid website, and they have a good email funnel, so when people do hear about them, they come back and they have somewhere to nurture them so


Lexie Smith  

smart. And I completely agree when it doesn't just end with you got press now you're famous and you made billions of dollars. It's how that integrates throughout the whole cog. We're going to actually save listeners. We're going to talk about the earned side a little bit more, and what it's like on the front lines, pitching for hospitality. But first I'm going to be a little selfish. I want to go behind the scenes, because I now have a remote team of six, and I'm super curious. As someone who's even that much further ahead, I want to pick your brain a little bit here. Let's do it, yeah, um, for me, and I don't know, I'm curious if this comes up for you, because it sounds like you do have a you're pro travel as well. My biggest challenge are the time zones. And while, yes, my team can travel anywhere the same time they need to be available. You know, when our clients need us, and that's been a really sticky pain point for me. We're working through it. I'm curious for you, what challenges have arised, if any, and growing and having a fully remote team of 10 and kind of the second part to that, how have you overcome?


Whitney Lee  

Yeah, oh my gosh, this has been, well, let me say, first and foremost, leading a team is the most challenging part of this. It's not doing the work. The work is great, and finding people who know how to do the tasks is the easy part. There's so many talented people that we can give jobs to. But I think what sets it apart is like, I'm looking for someone with the right temperament, the right time management skills, and they also have to be able to handle, you know, deadlines and kind of a fast paced work environment, to me that is harder to find than somebody who's a great writer or somebody who knows how to write a pitch or whatever, you know, yeah, I would say running, managing a Team and understanding everybody's personal personalities and what motivates them, and that kind of thing. It is the most challenging part to running a business. I think that kind of goes across the board agency like not to the time zone thing is a real thing. And I tell people this when I hire them, people hear the words, this job is remote, and they think this job is freelance, and there is a total difference. So I point blank say in the interview, I know we're remote, but we have work life balance, and we are Monday through Friday, nine to five Central Time is where most of our our team lives. So we're like, we are roughly Monday through Friday, nine to five Central time. Okay, so obviously, if you're Eastern and you want to flex a little bit or whatever, you know you're Pacific, and you get started at 8am your time or whatever, we have a little bit of flexibility on that. But I used to have people that just thought they could do the work at midnight and and hang out on the beach during the day, and sometimes you can catch up late night, but it was holding the team back, you know, because, like, person A would need something from Person B, person B doesn't get to it until midnight that night. So then, then the next day, we have an edit on it, and then they don't get to it again until midnight the next night. So something that literally should take an hour literally takes four days to get it to the client. And that's just that we can't play that game. So I tell people, I'm like our if you want to be a full time w2 employee of this team you've got to commit to Monday through Friday, nine to five. If you don't, I may have opportunities to use you as a contractor, but I can never promise the amount of hours you're going to get. And also, it is totally, you know, on a case by case basis, if we get into it, and you know, you're a. Availability doesn't really align with what our clients need, like the relationship will just have to end. So I think everything got better once I did that, my work life balance got better. Our productivity and our speed and getting things to clients was so much more efficient. And also it's just amazing to be able to be like, hey, if nine to five we're on and after hours, we don't text each other about work stuff unless something is legitimately on fire, which it isn't, because we plan ahead. Um, we don't text each other about work stuff. We don't text about work in general, we use G chat and other things. So every I mean, we have numerous moms on our team. We've got, you know, all different types of lifestyles on our team, and we all need to disconnect. So Monday through Friday, nine to five, when we're on, we're on, and when we're off, we're off. You know,


Lexie Smith  

I think this is like a needed call out that I needed to hear today. But I think, you know, I hope people listening to you know, if you're not at the point of having a 10 person team, hear this loud and clear, I'm at a point of great growing pains right now. It was very, it still is very important for me to have flexibility with my own schedule. But it could not be any more true to your point of, if the rest of the team is not synced, things take longer. You know, if person A is online from eight to two and then Person B is online from 10 to five, they miss each other for three hours, and now, all of a sudden, something's not getting done for the next day. And so it's something I'm I'm personally reevaluating right now, because it's hard. It goes against how I work. I do. I like to take, you know, a yoga class in the middle of the day, and then I might, at this juncture in my life, work for an hour after my daughter goes to bed. It's just a transition for me. And I'm like, huh, I and I've wanted to allot that to my team, but to your point, it's proving challenging. So and contractors versus w2 is a very, a big one too. I have both. I have a mixture. And you can't control a contractor's hours legally. You can have them, you know, suggest them. You can have a handshake, but unless they're w2 you know, you can't say you have to be online from nine to five, and that makes a difference. So


Whitney Lee  

all does, but at the same time, like, if they can't even contractors have deadlines, right? And if they can't meet deadlines based on their lifestyle and whatnot, it's okay. It's just not a thud, yep, yep, you know, yep, um, but, and we have moms on our team too that have to, like, bounce in the middle of the day really quick. They're like, Hey, I got to pick my kid up at school every day at two. And everybody knows, like, for that 30 minutes, hey, that's why she's not responding. But then she either starts 30 minutes earlier in the day or whatever. Like, we always end up balancing it out, you know, yeah, because there's stuff you're gonna have dentist appointments you're gonna have, yeah, of course, like that. So really, though it's, it's changed the game.


Lexie Smith  

I believe it. Like I said, I'm in a growing pain right now, and we're hiring again right now, and I'm realizing the bigger the team gets, the flexibility I've always led with, is becoming a bigger obstacle. So it's re, it's, it's a wake up call for me to hear you say to that one that I've been kind of pushing down so, so thank you, yeah, thank you slash Damn it, yeah. Okay, we're gonna switch gears a little bit. I want to go so fun fact or old fact, if you've listened to this show for a long time, but when Whitney and I first connected over zoom, after Instagram, I really, really resonated to her story, because I used to be a director of PR and marketing for a Hospitality Group headquartered in Los Angeles. So I completely am drooling over your client roster. If a new agency is looking to get into hospitality. They one day dream of landing an iconic client like yours, but they weren't a prior director of you know PR for a Hospitality Group. Do you have any tips or advice on how they might be able to to to break in.


Whitney Lee  

That is a challenging one, because even with my background, it was, it took me years to fully niche down, years and now, even now, like I do take on stuff, if I really see somebody that comes to us, and they're not in the hospitality, travel, tourism space, but I feel like we sincerely can help them. We'll take them on as a client, you know, but for the most part, I really like to stay in our lane. It's best for for all of like, streamlining our services, our templates, all that kind of stuff. But gosh, what's challenging about it is. That, you know, we always say everything's about relationships, but the hospitality industry is 10 times more about relationships, because it's a moving target on who's going to hire you. And most of these people you know, like, for other companies, you can go to their website and hit about and see like, oh, their director of marketing marketing is Sarah Smith. You can find Sarah on LinkedIn and send her a message or reach out to her in some way you know, or use something like rocket reach to get her email. But the person who's going to hire you for most hospitality groups cannot be found. They are like asset managers or like they work for ownership groups. And these ownership groups don't even have websites. Sometimes they're like, 15 different partners that own all these i


Lexie Smith  

That's I worked for. My company didn't have a website. Our properties did, but the parent,


Whitney Lee  

yeah, and they do that on purpose, yeah. So it is really, really challenging to get your foot in the door, I would say, honestly, like, you got to start networking like and and going to some of the hospitality based events all over the US. I definitely think that helps build relationships. But really, I think part of the reason why we've had success in the hospitality space is because people in the hospitality industry move jobs all the time, right? They go from this hotel to that hotel to this hotel all over. And so let's say that you get on with a client and you get really close with their director of sales and marketing, they bounce to another property in Hawaii, you know, keep in touch with them. There's an opportunity to so that's kind of how we started growing our roster. Was like people that we knew and loved from past accounts would take on new jobs and then they take us with them, and then they take on a new job, and they take us with them. And so it's like, you know, and even in your situation, like, if you get in good with some of these ownership groups own, like, two or 300 hotels. So if you get in good with one ownership group, then you can really grow a whole business. I wouldn't suggest having all your eggs in one basket like that, but you could make a very, very profitable business off of their properties, you know? So I wish I had a better answer for you. No, I


Lexie Smith  

think it's the perfect answer, because it's the real answer. And I, I was on a podcast episode that dropped today, today, weirdly ended up being a very podcast heavy day without me realizing it. And one of the questions that was asked of me was like, mistakes you've made, or things to avoid, and a huge mistake that I made, and I want everyone to hear this, because it's in line with what you just said, Whitney, is when I left hospitality, I was so burned out, and I was like, I'm never going back, that I just dropped everyone like, it's Hot, not in a mean way. I just, I didn't keep in touch with people. I moved locations, and except for, you know, my few, like, really great friends in house, I really on both sides, on the journalistic side, and on, you know, the ownership side, like all the people, just, I completely pivoted industries, and that's where my focus was. Well, fast forward now, eight years later, nine years later, and hitting Lexie. Well, I realized this a couple years ago. Lexi started hitting her head because, like, PR, mistake 101, you guys, you don't know where you or maybe you will, but I didn't know where I was going to be 510, years down the road, relationships are something you should really look at as equity for the long term. Are you gonna have to start over? Because even though I have tons of experience, or I did two years ago, when I had this revelation, kind of was back at square one, because I neglected the relationships, which to your point, are everything,


Whitney Lee  

oh my gosh. And you know what? Like I now I mainly work on new business. I work on new business systems, hiring and firing things like that. I have a director of ops who I love, and she really spearheads the communication with clients and things like that. So it's given me a lot of time to work on new business. And I used to tell myself that, like, new business was like, you know, reaching out to people and reaching cold calling and reaching out to new people and finding new management groups to look up and blah, blah, blah. And finally, I realized the most beneficial thing I could do was literally spend an hour or two a week on LinkedIn, looking through my own connections and and just pinging people I hadn't talked to in a long time and being like, Hey, how are you? We should have a 15 minute coffee catch up. Yeah, you know. And then just connecting with them and saying. Like, you know, and learning where they're at now and what they're doing, not trying to sell them anything, period. I'm not like, Hey, do you want to hire me? It's just like, hey, where are you now? Oh my gosh. How did that get there? Reconnect, ask about their kids or whatever is going on. That alone drove so much new business. I had a friend that left a very high profile job with a very big corporate company, and she went out on her own, and she's like, I'm having trouble getting clients. And I was like, Girl, the people you know just don't know what you're doing right now. I guarantee if you pull this, Hey, have a 15 minute virtual coffee with me. You're going to have 10 clients overnight. Yeah, people can't reach out to you if they don't know what you're doing now, so and sometimes they won't be the one to hire you, but then they're like, oh my gosh, you should meet Sarah. Sarah blah blah, blah. It's


Lexie Smith  

like the butterfly effect. I mean, I have interns now who are getting to editor levels at key publications, which is also like, when did that happen? What? And you just never, I think, like the big soapbox here, if you guys, for you guys listening is relationships are everything, and you probably have a lot more sitting in in your pool than you realize. It could be someone from high school. It could be someone from your first job. Do exactly what beneath just said, and look at your own connections on LinkedIn, rather than just fishing for new or Instagram or whatever platform you're on. I do, I do think LinkedIn is the most useful. But, yeah, they're


Whitney Lee  

going B to B again. LinkedIn is where it's at. So and again. Don't try to sell them anything. Just reach out, reconnect and let them know what you're doing. Now, you know, naturally, first thing is like, what are you up to? Ask them, and then they're they're gonna say the same to you. What are you up to? Yeah, yep, 100%


Lexie Smith  

now, okay, last little thing I do want to hit on for those in the hospitality space who might already have hospitality clients for earned media coverage. Okay, we're recording this in May of 2024, this might not be dropping till mid to late summer, but just to give you guys a little bit of of time context, what strategies or tactics are you and your team finding most effective for landing earned media in the hospitality sector right now?


Whitney Lee  

I mean, Experience is everything. We can send them beautiful photos and videos and all that kind of stuff, but getting them on property is by far. It's the hardest thing to do, but it's also the most beneficial thing to do. And it's not going to guarantee you media coverage, obviously, but like, getting them in person on the property is always kind of our first thing, and then also just looking at, you know, what's trending right now? I'd say for a resort, because I'm like, thinking about our restaurant clients and our resort clients. But like, fun, unique food is really going a long way. Like even in the travel world, food is such a big part of the travel world that we're really trying to elevate and, like, think of new, crazy things that can garner attention. I have an example. So we have a Restaurant Group on 30 A, which is a high a scenic highway in Northwest Florida. 38 for anybody who knows out there is like a little beach. Little beach town. So this, this restaurant, part of this restaurant group, but this one specific restaurant is having their 75th anniversary. They are the original restaurant on 30 a and we're like, we are going to get them in Southern Living or garden and gun, like, whatever it takes. Like, this anniversary is a big deal, and we played up the history side, but then we were like, We need something new. And so their tagline is always deep fried love. Deep fried love since 1949 and so we came up with this deep fried love po boy that literally is a monster po boy with every single item in that restaurant that you can deep fry, pickles, fish, shrimp, hush puppies, like, name it all. And we made this gargantuan po boy, and we got people to try it. And naturally, like, not only was it a big social media hit, we had influencers come check it out. It helped us have something so we're not just pitching history, we're pitching something new and viral. You know, an alien. It exactly, one size, exactly. And once it was starting to go viral on social, it made it such an easier pitch to be like, it's already gotten millions of views on social media, then that immediately elevated the pitch. So sometimes we hold off on pumping up stuff on social because we don't want to shoot ourselves in the foot of like media people see that and they're like, well, that's old news. I saw that on social media a month ago. So but sometimes, if you time it correctly, it's like, that's the the social proof you need to put in that pitch and to impress them. You know,


Lexie Smith  

so good. So we're gonna go back to Denver for the last little part here, and we're gonna go with Whitney along to one of the hotels downtown. She's sitting at the bar at this new hotel that'll probably sign her as a client, duh. And what are you sipping? Because we talked a lot about pitching. So what is your favorite beverage? Like you set up there. See how I did that.


Whitney Lee  

Yes, I was like, Where are we going with this? What's funny is, I've been a listener of the podcast for a while. So I always love the portion where you ask people what they're they're sipping. Um, okay, well, first of all, depending on the time of day, I love a coffee. I'm all about that life. If it's hot outside, obviously I'm going colder. But if we're talking cocktails, I'm actually kind of all over the map, like I love like a dirty kettle one martini, super dirty blue cheese stuffed olives. If they don't have the stuffed olives, we're moving on to something else. I love a spicy Marg. And I'm actually super into Mezcal right now, because this trip I recently did to Arizona just got me on this huge Mezcal kick. But I love a spicy drink. I love a Mezcal drink. Um, I love like a Oaxacan old fashioned, which is like an old fashioned, but with mezcal, um, all


Lexie Smith  

the liquors. I love it. We have a vodka, we have a tequila, we have a whiskey. Oh,


Whitney Lee  

yeah, if it's cold outside, I love like a big bold glass of red wine.


Lexie Smith  

You don't discriminate my kind of girl. No, I'm


Whitney Lee  

all over the map. I was, I'm serious, I was all I am all over the map. But I will say this, if my my go to if I go somewhere and I don't know what to order, my go to drink is a French 75 Do you know what that is? I do?


Lexie Smith  

I've heard it's, oh, I wish I My memory was better than it is. It's been brought up once on the show. I can't recall who, but one time. So I do know what it is, because I always Google a drink when I first hear it,


Whitney Lee  

yes. So it is gin lemon, yeah. Jen, so now we've moved on to Jen, um, gin lemon, simple syrup. They shake that, strain it into a glass, and then they top it with bubbly. Okay, so it's basically like a fizzy lemon drink. That's like, it's not so sweet, like a lemon drop, but it's just, like, really refreshing. And it has to be like Hendrix Jen or Ford's. It can't be something super piney. So


Lexie Smith  

I'm still waiting for the day where I get a liquor sponsor for this show, or non liquor I'm done for coffee too. Just kidding. Oh my gosh.


Whitney Lee  

So there you go. That's the gamut of Whitney. It's like, depending on my mood and what's happening in life, and what season it is, and all those


Lexie Smith  

things, time of day, what I'm eating, what's the temperature, what am I wearing, where am I what am I looking at? I'm the same exact way. So


Whitney Lee  

that's totally all over the map. I love it,


Lexie Smith  

okay? And the very last thing I want to ask is where people can connect with you, and I want to make sure they also hear about your podcast again. So tell us your podcast name, and then where they can go to connect with you on all the things, really, because you you know, from being your client to just saying your epic on the show, where do they


Whitney Lee  

go? Yeah, okay, so the podcast, if you want to listen to listen to my podcast, it's called True story, the PR podcast. So that's anywhere you can find podcasts. And we do a mixture. We do interviews and solo, talking about all things, what it's like to work in PR, working in a remote team, agency, life, hospitality, all the stuff. So that's the podcast. And then if you want to connect well, if you want to find true story, the actual agency, true story, pr.co.co, and then, of course, true stories on all the different social platforms as well. And if you want to connect with me personally, the best way to do that is either through Instagram. It's the Whitney Lee, so T H E, Whitney Lee, or also on LinkedIn, so you can find me Whitney Lee on LinkedIn, perfect.


Lexie Smith  

And you guys, we will put it in the show notes. Your call to action today, in addition to the 5 million things you just learned, is to reach out to Whitney in some way, tell her that you heard her on this show, and thank her for all the knowledge she shared, and I want to thank you for all the knowledge you shared. So you guys, that's it for today, until next time on the pitching and sipping podcast. You.


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Lexie Smith

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