The Fixer w/ Evan Boyer | Ep. 197

David and Gary sit down with Evan Boyer—founder and CEO of Leaders PR—to unpack the real value of public relations in a world full of noise. Evan shares how startups and growing companies can use PR not just to get attention, but to earn trust, shape perception, and build momentum that lasts.

This episode digs into why visibility without strategy falls flat, how to align your message with your mission, and what separates brands that just “get coverage” from those that build real credibility. If you’ve ever wondered when PR makes sense for your business—or how to actually make it work—Evan’s insights will change how you think about your story.

LINKS:

Leaders PR Website

Evan's LinkedIn

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David Baxter has been designing, building, and advising startups and businesses for over ten years. His passion, knowledge, and brutal honesty have helped dozens of companies get their start.

In Biz/Dev, David and award-winning Creative Director Gary Voigt talk about current events and how they affect the world of startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Evan: This was just a good example. I'm not paying you guys anything. I don't think. 

[00:00:04] Gary: Wait, what?

[00:00:04] Evan: So

[00:00:06] David: Wait a

minute, 

[00:00:07] Evan: do we need to end it now?

I'm sorry.

[00:00:09] David: I'm so sorry.

And then with 

[00:00:11] Evan: Oh no.

[00:00:14] David: Hi everyone. Welcome to the Biz Dev Podcast, the podcast about developing your business. I'm David Baxter, your host, joined Per Usual by Mr. Gary Voight. What's up man?

[00:00:24] Gary: Hello, how are you today?

[00:00:25] David: I cannot complain. I just got back from vacation, so life is good man. Life is good. I woke up to only 400 emails which was fun, most of them. It is amazing when you see a whole week of emails and realize how few actually matter.

[00:00:40] Gary: There's only five

[00:00:41] David: Yeah, like there's like a few that you actually have to push reply to. And that is so interesting to me. 'cause how much does email consume your brain space, right? You're checking it just in case one of those five for the week might have landed in your inbox.

It's very interesting when you get perspective on that. I knew a guy, and I'm going off the rails already. I knew a guy who has, and I might have mentioned this before, but when he goes out of town, his out of office message is, I am out of town. I am not checking my messages and I will not check my messages.

If you need to get ahold of me, when I get back, email me. Then basically he gets back in, deletes everything that came in and starts fresh, and I'm like, that is ballsy. I, 'cause I would've missed those five, right? And so I go through all the headache. For five emails that were worth anything. And in all honesty, those five emails were from people I know and would've emailed me again today Anyway,

[00:01:42] Gary: yeah.

[00:01:43] David: more importantly, we are joined by Evan Boyer, who is the founder and CEO of leaders pr.

Hello, Mr. Evan. How are you?

[00:01:51] Evan: Hey Dave. I'm doing well. How are you?

[00:01:53] David: I cannot complain. I really just can't. I'm a little tired. We, so we we flew home from New York yesterday and if anybody in this, in the, on the East coast, the entire East coast knows all of the East Coast was just a big, super nasty. And we were, it was the craziest thing. So we're flying home and our pilot says we're on the runway.

We're going to take off, but there are 20 airplanes in front of us. And we get to this turn, and now this was JFK, so it's a big airport, but we look down the line and there's just plane after plane. I've never seen such a thing. It was like they were all little kindergartners waiting to go out to the playground and there were 15 behind us.

It was the craziest thing. Anyway, that's not what we're here to talk about. Alright, Evan, you are exciting because you just recently launched your company and that is very, you are in the slog and.

[00:02:50] Evan: So much in the slog. So much in the slog. This is week number eight or nine. I'm not really sure which,

but 

[00:02:58] Gary: You're only in the

SL part of the slog. You haven't even got to o yet.

[00:03:02] David: Yeah. Yeah. He's not

[00:03:03] Evan: I'm not sure I've completed the s actually.

[00:03:06] David: So how does it feel? Okay, so for those who don't know, the slog is our little word for the time period of a new business. From the time you open to the time anyone cares. And that can be anywhere from weeks to years. We've seen people do it almost instantly, which is highly unusual, but very cool to hear about. And then most people, it's at least a year, if not more. So you're eight weeks in now you're a PR company, so it's even more interesting because your job is to get people to care like that is your

whole shtick. So no pressure. It's kinda like me having an ugly website. If while you have an ugly website, we're screwed, right?

So if you can't get people to understand and care that leader's PR exists, you're screwed. 

So how's 

[00:03:48] Evan: Yeah. It's very meta. You're right. This is the third, maybe fourth podcast that I've been on since I launched at the beginning of August. So

I'm trying to make the rounds. Yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to make the rounds and 

[00:04:01] David: like the late 

[00:04:01] Evan: PR for myself. 

[00:04:03] David: launching a movie. Going to, are we Kimmel? Are we Fallon? Who are we? Gary? Probably the one 

[00:04:10] Gary: We're co, 

[00:04:10] David: that was really late.

[00:04:11] Gary: say we're coning on TNT after he got booted back off of. Don't get me wrong, Conan's still the best,

but yeah, not the best slot.

[00:04:20] Evan: Yeah. Yeah, it's been it's been a lot of trying to pr myself, and I was just I was actually just on a podcast about that a couple weeks ago. P it's actually called PR Yourself.

[00:04:31] David: So you are, you've been doing PR for a long time. That's, let me make that clear. This isn't something you just randomly decided to do on a whim.

So with all that experience and it's years, if you look at your history it's at least a decade. What have you learned PR and yourself that you didn't know from your 10 years?

Because it is different. Like we're in a example for us is I have built dozens of startups or worked with dozens of startups to design and build them, right? But we are launching our own. So I'm sitting on the other side of the table and I'm learning so much about that side of the table. So now you're pring yourself, you're on now on the other side of that table, how's it

feel and what are you learning? 

[00:05:11] Evan: It's really interesting having never been on this side of the table. And the one thing that I can say that has, this is gonna sound bad because I'm gonna say it surprised me, but when I really should say, oh yeah, of course

[00:05:23] David: Of course. Sure. 

[00:05:24] Evan: works. The work that I do works and it's, I'm, it's working for me.

And a lot of people will look at PR or talk about pr oh, it's a, that's a nice to have. You don't really need that. If you just have great website or great marketing or whatever the thing is, great sales, that can be enough. And PR is extra. So PR is what I know. And so that's what I started with as I'm trying to get myself out there in the world.

And the amount of response that I've had and the amount of demand that I've been able to generate, just doing what I know in the last couple months has been tremendous.

[00:06:03] David: So pretend I'm an idiot. Shut up Gary. I, let's, I know marketing to a point. I'm not a marketer by any stretch, but I understand it. I have

Christie who works for us, that is marketing. What is the difference between PR and marketing?

[00:06:18] Evan: That's a great question. We get that a lot. What I do, I think a lot of people would consider, and I would agree with them, a subset of marketing, but it has much more to do with your ability to create a story and then earn attention around that story. So rather than buy it or. Pay for knicks and knacks to help you promote yourself.

It really is based on the quality of the story that you're able to tell that gets you attention in, in media with influencers and in some cases on podcasts like we're doing now. But, I'm not.

This was just a good example. I'm not paying you guys anything. I don't think. 

[00:07:04] Gary: Wait, what?

[00:07:05] Evan: So

[00:07:06] David: Wait a

minute, 

[00:07:08] Evan: do we need to end it now?

I'm sorry.

[00:07:10] David: I'm so sorry.

And then with 

[00:07:11] Evan: Oh no.

[00:07:12] David: no.

[00:07:12] Evan: But yeah 

[00:07:13] David: no,

go ahead. Go 

[00:07:14] Evan: it's all about your ability to earn attention.

[00:07:17] David: Okay, let me explain how I understand pr

Something happens. Something notable. You have a PR firm tell as many people as possible that something happened. Is that over simplistic or is that pretty Spot on.

[00:07:32] Evan: It's a component of it.

[00:07:34] David: Okay. So what I imagine. Like the way I see it is if we hired a PR firm, which we've never done, if we hired a PR firm, like if we went live with a big new client

and they had us and we wanted to tell everybody about it, a PR firm could help with that, right?

That's as opposed to marketing, where we would put it on our website, we might put it on LinkedIn, where that's our social network doing this thing, and we would let people know, Hey, look, we had a cool new client, but PR would be saying, Hey, we're gonna try to get other people who. Media, traditional media, other things, whatever, a wider net to talk about your big event.

Is that accurate or is, am I still too.

[00:08:10] Evan: Yeah. So you're using No it's definitely a component of it and using media to be able to. Spread awareness and visibility for your story to reach people that you otherwise would not be able to reach. And they see that media also as trustworthy and credible, and they rely on media for their news and information.

So tapping into that source as a place to tell them your story is a big part of what it's about. I would also say the thing that I'll, I think a lot of people miss when they talk about PR is it's not. Entirely about promoting a thing. Some, like you said, something happens and we want to tell people about it.

It's also about thought leadership and having a perspective, an opinion, a reaction to things that are happening in the world. I don't want to go too deep here with with you guys' business 'cause I don't know it super intimately, but something happens in the world of, web development, website design, and you see this David, and you have a, an idea about how it might evolve or progress over time or something that you're doing within your company.

You're already ahead of the curve and you're saying we saw this coming months ago and we've gotten ahead of it in this way, and somebody might wanna talk to you about that. And it's a way to position yourself as an expert in your field. So that's a lot of what I do.

[00:09:33] David: So let me, let's break that down. And I joke with Gary that I use this podcast just as free consulting. And so we're gonna, I'll use me 'cause that's what I'm gonna do. We have, let's say for, we tried to do that, like what you just described. We tried to do that through our marketing arm, right? Christie is trying to turn me into a thought leader. It's one of the reasons why this podcast exists. Whether I am or not is totally up to whoever wants to hear that. But this is an effort to do that, right? I've been doing this a long time. Maybe I have something to say, right? So we're doing that through LinkedIn, like I mentioned, through our socials, through our podcast, through our blog posts that we do twice a week.

That, that that consolidates our knowledge and puts it out there. Practically speaking, what are you doing to do that same thing, trying to establish yourself using yourself as a leader? Does your practical look the same or is there, are there other avenues that we just can't do?

[00:10:26] Evan: So there again, there are components of it that look the same. Posting on LinkedIn, writing blogs all those sorts of things. I would consider all of those owned media. Your owning the channel on which

Your thoughts and your perspectives and your opinions. The element that I add and that I provide to my clients is earning that.

So rather than it being, Hey come see us, come to our site, or come to our LinkedIn and read what we have to say or come to our podcast even it's, I have a thought or an opinion or perspective or something's happening that's really interesting and I'm gonna tell somebody else, ideally media right about this.

And they're gonna say, I need to have that thought or opinion or perspective to share with my audience. And so you've earned that attention. From them rather than owning it and bringing it into your own channels.

[00:11:22] David: obviously they're not reading my blog, right? Let's say WRIL, which is just one of the. Media things around our area, WRAL, and that's a maybe Forbes magazine and Fortune. I know there's a million different ways of media nowadays, but

let's just say WRL 'cause they're a local one. They're never gonna read my blog, right? So where are you going? That they are reading that? They go, oh, Evan does know what he's talking about. Let's give him, let's have him help us do X. Right? Are you, do you have a specific avenue you go down? That's not your media, but they're paying attention to. Does that make sense?

[00:11:54] Evan: I think again, it's in, so the special sauce that I have, that I provide, that a lot of PR firms provide or will say that they do is developing a narrative or set of messages or story. In such a way that it becomes interesting to A-W-R-A-L or a Forbes or whoever the writer, editor, reporter broadcaster is.

So that's really what I'm paid to do, is to come up with those angles that are interesting to them. And then if you were my client, then you would, I would connect you with them. And I would say David has a really interesting perspective about X, Y, Z topic. You should hear that from him. And it might be something that you've already said on your podcast, but like you just pointed out, they're not listening to your podcast.

So it's an opportunity for you to get in front of different audiences and then through earning that attention, they're more likely to become followers of you, customers of you, because now they know who they, how, who you are after watching you show up on. For 45 seconds.

[00:13:01] David: How much of your world is. Succeeding in your clients because of your relationships. I know such and such at WRL or I know this person over at Forbes or whatever and I have a relationship and they're gonna listen to me 'cause I've been doing this for 10 plus years and they know I'm not gonna give them crap. 

That's a powerful moat that you could build is, look, I know everybody. Is that a part a component of your business to have those media relations?

[00:13:27] Evan: For sure. But I would say that a lot of people think that's where it ends. Oh, Evan knows this reporter from the Wall Street Journal or TechCrunch, or WRAL. And whether I do or not, it does help to have the connections and to know them. But whether I do or not, if I'm not telling a story worth hearing.

They're not gonna pay attention to me either way. And I've had that happen, time and time again as I'm pitching them via email, phone carrier, pigeon X, Twitter, whatever. And I've used all of those different methods, including the carrier pigeon, to get in touch with media, but they they're only gonna respond to the things that are interesting to them and most importantly, interesting to their audiences.

[00:14:14] David: So where do you. If you're coming in and a company wants to hire you, but they already have a marketing person, maybe their name's Christie, whatever. Where do you I could, you're stepping right on her toes, right? If theoretically her name was Christie. If you would be stepping right on their toes.

So I can see there's some tension there, you're bringing something to the table that theoretically she can't or doesn't or whatever. And now, I'm not saying Christie doesn't, 'cause she's amazing, but I'm just like,

how do you let them do their job and then you do your job? 

Because they wanna build a story, they wanna build a brand, they wanna make me interesting, for instance. No, but then you're like, but I'm gonna do it differently right now. It's, you know what I'm saying? Like I could see that getting tense.

[00:15:01] Evan: Yeah, it, I think the bad relationships are like that, and I've been in plenty of situations like that where it's, there's friction there and it's don't get in my way. I'm gonna do this thing my way, but the best ones actually work differently. And I think it's a situation usually where the marketing person.

Okay. I know the boundaries that I'm gonna play in. I'm gonna set up this podcast, I'm gonna write blogs. I'm gonna do all the things that help us grow our business through our own channels. And then we also need a little bit of Evan's, special sauce

To add on top of that. And I think where that works best also is if you have some, cohesion around what are the central stories of the organization? What are the things that you know that you do best? What are your leaders passions, perspectives, opinions and how can we take those things and use them to benefit our own media, our paid media, if you're doing that, if you're buying ads and things like that.

If you're if you're buying social ads, for example, and then my part is more around earned.

[00:16:09] David: So that brings up a good question. At what point does a company. Yeah. You mentioned that they think of you later, but when should a company bring PR in? Do I need to be buying ads? Do I need, 'cause that's a certain, that's a threshold, right? Ads are

not cheap. Buying ads is not cheap. They can be cheaper, but if you're buying, again, I was at the airport and there's always this one finance dude who buys the airport ads while you're standing there waiting for your bags.

He's been there for a decade or more. You all

know him. If you're from this area, you've seen those things. That's, those are not cheap. And he's been doing 'em forever. They're like six to $8,000 a month. I've looked into them that, and we quickly ran away from them. However, they're expensive and he's been doing them for years and years. So do you have to be of a size where, hey, you need some Google ads, you need to have at least a thousand dollars a month of Google stuff. I'm making a number up, whatever it is, but is there a threshold before PR is useful? 'cause you can now bring together all these sources or you're like, Hey, you're brand new, we can help there too.

Like where do you become effective?

[00:17:10] Evan: I like working with the brand new, and that's where I've started to build my business over the last couple months especially, is I have a lot of bootstrap founders, probably three or four in my stable right now who are not paying for any advertising, but they have a very interesting story to tell.

They're asking me to shape that in such a way that it becomes interesting so that they can earn media attention. And I think over the course of my career, one of the things that I would argue is pr, especially for young companies like that, could be one of the most cost effective things that you can do.

If you can do it right, if you can do it well because you're not having to go and spend six, 8,000 bucks for. An ad that people see once and then run away from, it's if I can get your, origin, story shaped and then told by media in such a way that you can then repurpose it also for social media on your own channels and then be able to use that as, a marker of credibility that, hey, WRAL.

Thought I was interesting enough to speak with me, try to learn about me, my backstory, my business, all those sorts of things that carries a certain amount of weight. I think one of the places too, where it gets really interesting is. How AI search is working now. 'cause there's a lot of data about how third party credibility and earned media are really important in AI search.

And if you don't have those things moving forward, it becomes, it's gonna be, become harder to gain the awareness and the visibility that, you might have been able to do 5, 10, 15 years ago through SEO.

[00:18:58] David: I just heard a podcast on. That they call it a EO answering engine optimization.

I was like, alright man, cool. 

[00:19:08] Evan: there are,

[00:19:09] David: like, there's several terms, they haven't coalesced around a term,

but the one I like, he, this guy was saying a EO was his favorite because the other one I think is something like chat. And they were like, this is that said, or it was chat engine optimization, whatever. I can't

remember. But he was like, that seemed too narrow. 'cause this is gonna be much bigger when all things are done and they're answering engines, they might be chat, that might be other things, but their job is now to answer rather than search.

And anyway, I thought that was very interesting. And it's here's terms that are coming. Oh, these are new, but they're gonna be the new SEO eventually.

[00:19:42] Evan: Yeah, and you're right, we have not coalesced around a term. I've been using GEO for generative. 

[00:19:49] David: Generative engine No. 

[00:19:51] Evan: Eh, I don't know. The jury's still out.

[00:19:54] David: Yeah I, it will be a term.

[00:19:56] Gary: I have a question that kind of leads into what you were saying about working with startups and it just, an idea I thought of was a lot of PR in my mind also lends itself to like reputation management and reputation growth. Not just brand management and

But like you were saying, the story behind that brand or the people behind that brand and. I'm starting to think that if you're working with startups and crafting that narrative from the beginning, it's probably a big value for them to have going forward later on with the social media channels and stuff like that afterwards. 'cause they already have this like hook, this like interesting little established I identity that you're creating for, do

[00:20:34] Evan: It's a really great do

[00:20:35] Gary: reputation management and stuff like that?

[00:20:37] Evan: Yes, absolutely. And it's a big part of it and I think that kind of gets pushed to the side when you talk about PR and you start going down the road that David and I just went down, which is how does it work with marketing? And we talk a lot about earned media, right?

But also building your reputation and your story in such a way that you know something. Bad happens, or you have an issue or a crisis, that you're able to manage that effectively and maintain trust with your stakeholders. So not everybody just jumps ship or says, oh yeah, that's a crappy brand.

I don't wanna work with them anymore. That they understand a little bit more about you. That they feel like they have a connection and are willing to, to stick with you longer if something doesn't go exactly the way that you plan.

[00:21:22] Gary: Yeah, ratings and reviews. Now, they could be a double-edged sword. one person is upset with you, it seems like it could be pretty detrimental if they're hitting the right channels with that.

[00:21:32] Evan: Yeah. Yeah, that's a strategy too.

[00:21:34] David: We have a five oh Google, and we ask our clients, oh, hey, we did a good job. Would you like to give it to us? And I'm always scared they're gonna be like 4.5 and that alone would drop us below our perfect five. That sounds so silly, but my wife, the perfect example of on Airbnb, she won't look at you as an Airbnb unless I think you're 4.8 and higher. Which is almost perfect. And that's what's so funny, like when you go to an Airbnb, they'll have a thing on the fridge. It says three means you wanna set our house on fire. Four means everything was crappy, five means it was adequate. It's wait,

When did that become the standard? But 'cause those have so much power and I find it so interesting. I did, I find that whole rating thing's very interesting. Gary said something that reminded me. I Did you ever see that show Scandal? I was on a, B, C for years.

[00:22:35] Evan: Kerry Washington.

[00:22:36] David: Yes.

And she was the founder of a PR firm

and she was their fixer. Specifically the president's fixer for whatever reason.

And and that was just so interesting 'cause that it's like the PR firm is like the fixer, oh, I did something bad, it's about to come out.

I need you to spin it. I need you to change the narrative of whatever bad thing happened to make it not as bad. Is that all PR firms, do they all do that, or is that a specific kind? Hey, I'm the fixer type rather than the I'm just the other stuff, because I could get skeezy real quick and I'm guessing that's a line some people draw.

[00:23:12] Evan: Yeah I think most PR firms will tell you that they do that that, that's within their wheelhouse. I can tell you that's actually not true. And you need a specialized crisis and issues management firm. If you're really dealing with a situation like that, you want that sort of expertise in your corner.

[00:23:32] David: Which is so strange. I know certain companies, once you get to a certain size. Bad things happen even if they're not true. You have, that's just a part of your reality. You're gonna get sued and someone's gonna say something bad about you when you are a certain size of a company. It

just, it's gonna happen. And I, I get that, but there's also the stories of, you really did do something bad and I need you to make sure it doesn't look as bad. And that, that's where the fixer comes in.

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[00:24:31] David: So go back 10 years. What made you want to get into PR to begin with?

[00:24:36] Evan: So I always like to write. And I wrote a lot when I was younger and I had a still have a mentor who was a career journalist, investigative journalist, lives in Durham. Wrote for a number of different PA papers and did freelance forever.

And I remember it was probably 16, 17, and I asked him one day how much do you make in a year? And the answer was not a lot. And I said, oh, I'm not sure if I wanna do that and go to God knows where. Louisiana, or somewhere out in the Midwest where nobody lives and do reporting and make not very much money.

So what can I do to keep this skill sharp and do something that I enjoy doing? Without my career path being that, so I was introduced to communications and PR where I can write in a more corporate setting. I like the variety of agency, so I picked up on that pretty early on when I was in school and I have my degree from NC State and public relations and communication, and that was one of the things that was.

Kinda shown to me was you can be in an agency where you work on a number of different clients, and I was like, oh, this is almost like being a journalist and being able to report on different stories or follow different beats. If I have a tech client and a healthcare client and a real estate client, I can explore those different areas of business.

And so that's the path that I followed. But I've worked in agency my whole career all different sizes and was most recently at a global firm. But I think it, it all began for me with just a passion for writing and storytelling and and being able to to work with people and hear and understand their stories.

[00:26:23] Gary: What made you take the leap from a global agency to your own thing?

[00:26:28] Evan: A couple different things, but I think it's a really loaded question, Gary, a couple different things. I think, not to get too deep in the weeds on Fleischman Hillard, which is where I was at, but they're owned by a holding company called Omnicom. And Omnicom right now is going through a merger with they're the second largest ad agency holding company in the world.

And they're merging with number four right now. And so that's creating a lot of change in the. In the industry and within the firm. So it was definitely a piece of that factored into the decision. But then just, I've always been this pretty independent person and interested in doing things my own way.

And I felt like now was a really good opportunity to try that out. And it's been equally, I think liberating and terrifying to not have somebody. Telling me what to do and knowing that it's all on me to to bring in the bacon at the end of the day. But I have, I feel like I have really good experience through all of my, the different agencies that I've worked at, clients that I've worked for.

I think I just gained just enough confidence to be able to say, okay, I can do this for myself.

[00:27:43] Gary: I actually had a similar situation. I worked for giant media company in like their marketing and advertising. Design part or whatever. And yeah, that media, the industry just kept changing and kept changing. And similar to you, I had enough of a reputation with clients and enough confidence to go on my own and just try to give it a, try as much as I can.

So I was freelance for a while and then David beat me down into submission. But yeah.

[00:28:14] David: That's right.

[00:28:15] Evan: I am sorry about that.

[00:28:16] David: He's really regretting that decision

four years later. 

[00:28:21] Evan: Yeah, he hasn't smiled the whole time. It just looks really down in the dumps here. 

About that, David.

[00:28:27] David: He's too happy. Clearly we must change things. How so you say, okay, you're you leave from the big company, you're two months in. Obviously you don't regret it yet, but. How has sitting on this side of the table running your own business in the slog, how has the re reality measured up to your expectations before you, right before you jumped off?

You know what I'm saying? You had a

dream in mind. You had a, this is how it's gonna work. How are those real? How's reality for you?

[00:29:02] Evan: I'm not sure if I'm allowed to say this, but as I was jumping, I had a client lined up a small one and probably about a week after I jumped we cut the cord was. A bad fit from the start. And so I'm sitting there after being out on my own for a week and I had nothing. So this is the very end of July.

And I'm thinking, okay I've planned for this. I'm anticipating there being a period of me having to maybe dip into savings or do whatever to to be able to build my business. And then probably three weeks later I got a client that was. For half of my time, probably my corporate salary replacement for, and since then I have added seven other clients.

So in every way it has exceeded my expectations. I was not anticipating being in a position where I would be looking for contract help. I was not anticipating being in a position where I was thinking about potentially hiring full-time. and then. The response to the work that I've delivered in the short time from the clients that I've had has been really incredible.

I had a really excellent meeting with with a group that I've been with for maybe a little over a month or maybe almost two. With their CMO or she's basically saying, I, we feel very fortunate to have found you in this way. We were working with a large agency before and now we have you as a freelance contractor, and imagine if the large agency had been able to deliver this kind of work.

Hearing things like that from people who matter or is very validating.

[00:30:42] Gary: man. That's awesome.

[00:30:43] Evan: Thanks so much. 

[00:30:44] David: so you're talking about contractors and stuff like that. What is your plan for growth? I've said my story several times where I thought, 'cause I was a horrible business person, I thought that the only way to grow was to work your people.

I had two, two developers and a project manager at the time. I had this thought and my thought was you had to work them like three people. And then you get to the enough where you hire the third person and then you work with those three, like four, and that's how you grow. Again, bad business don't do that, but the way I eventually solved that, at least in the short term, was contractors to, Hey, we have a short term project bringing a contractor. It's three months of work, it's not a year, whatever. And that helped us grow quite a bit for a while. And now we're almost coming back full circle. Now we're only internal again. Are. What is your plan for growth? Do you see yourself a using some contractor love or just shouldering it until you can hire someone and shouldering it until you can hire?

What's your thoughts?

[00:31:45] Evan: Yeah, I've learned through, I said week eight or week nine, I've learned through a few, probably a hundred hour weeks at this point that shouldering it is not the way to go. Although I am having to do like my fair share of that right now, so I. It's a really interesting situation because I think even at the time when I talked to Christie about coming on with you guys, I was, I may have had the one client, probably not even.

And so I've just basically thrown my business plan out because my vision for the first year or two, or maybe even three years of this was just gonna be okay I'll piddle around on my own. And try to make a little bit of money and see how it goes. And if I have some low times, that's fine. I'm prepared for that.

And I'm 60 days in roughly. And it's just been like, okay, I guess I'm an agency now 'cause I have more work than I individually can handle. So for now it's contractors and me doing a lot and as soon as I can get some more. Solidity, and some longer term contracts and be able to see a longer horizon line then I'm sure I'll be calling you up, David, and asking you how you how you changed your business mindset.

'cause I also don't want to be the person who's driving the whip to work as, as long and as hard as possible. 

I don't people quit within a month, it doesn't work. It doesn't

[00:33:11] David: work. I just don't do that. No, it's very cool. Your slog sounds like it's gonna be a lot better than My slog was. My slog was at least 18 months. If not, in some ways, and I, some, one of our guests a while ago said, I don't know if you ever get out of the slog.

Your slog just changes. And there is some truth to that. I think at some point you're large enough that you can probably safely say that. It's not like it ever, at least as a small agency we're just a little ahead of you there, right? There's still, you still gotta go kill it and drag it back to the cave. That doesn't change until you have one heck of a foundation, right? Where you can have salespeople go out. That's one of the things that I find with all professional services, whether you're marketing, development, pr, whatever. No one's gonna sell your service like you do, because they probably don't know how to do it like you do.

And everything you do to a certain extent is custom to a point. It's, oh, your customs, your company's different. So I'm gonna PR different, right? And that's true for anything. So having some, it's not a widget, right? I can sell an iPhone because I can learn everything about an iPhone and I don't have to know how it was built.

I just need to, this is what it does, right? And I'm gonna sell you an iPhone, however, here you go. My service changes every time by definition. That man, that slog just is a ever changing beast. And that's where I think a lot of agencies really start to grind out and they try to get out eventually, oh, I'll just sell or whatever.

And very common, a lot of people come and go, but I'm now rambling again. Gary, do your thing.

[00:34:43] Gary: All right, Evan. You're in the beginning of the slog, but it doesn't sound like it's really that painful. So 

[00:34:49] David: Yeah, we,

I really hope

this gets harder for you 'cause and then

[00:34:52] Evan: yeah so the interesting thing about it is it's so new that I'm wondering what if the bottom just falls out? Is it gonna be like, next week I'm gonna wake up and I have, I think I have eight clients right now, looking over at my board. What, if they all decide no more next week, what do I do then?

And I know that's not really living in reality, but and David, you probably I'm hoping can relate to this a little bit. There's always that little nag in your brain, or does that go away? 

[00:35:20] Gary: Does David

ever feel fear?

[00:35:22] David: Shut up, man. No. I'm a, I'm 12 years in and I can say, no, it does get better. Like I, again, my slog was much longer than yours, so yours prob the timelines wouldn't work, but to me, I think when it comes to the fear starts to shrink when you're past, like right now, you're probably killing it for one month, right?

I've got a month of work. I'm good. I've got two months of work. I'm good. I've got. Three. That's a big milestone. Now. I got three months of work, like I can see, starting to have year long contracts. Three it's a three month project. It's a year long contract. Once you can start foreseeing six months and further the fear drops when it gets down to under that, because now there's urgency to killing it and dragging it back.

And then payroll is a, a. It is the never ending drum beat. I remember back when our payroll was $15,000 a month and I was like, how the hell am I gonna do this? Oh my gosh. Our payroll is many times larger than that now. And I had that same fear, right? Even though our clients are bigger, everything's bigger, but it's still there.

That doesn't go away. I think until you can forecast that at this rate. Unless something crazy happens, like my big client leaves me unexpectedly, which if you're doing your clients right, that should never happen, right? They go away, but they shouldn't disappear, right? They're your good clients.

They're gonna ramp down, as it were, right? Hey, in three months I'm gonna have to shrink down some. Okay, that sucks, but we can deal with that rather than I'm out, right? That's once you start building those kinds of relationships, the fear does get. Better. But it's, again, for me, that took years. I didn't take my first vacation for five years. 

I didn't, I couldn't take a vacation for five years.

And I just did that math the other day. Carl he's still with me. He's my director of operations. He was the first employee that allowed me to step away and I was scared to hell. I was scared to death to take that vacation, but. It worked, right? And last year I was able to take a two week vacation, which

was crazy to me. I'd never been able to do that. And so it, it takes time. That's 11 years to get to that point. But it does get better. And I and I love every day, even though it's hard, right? I think that's also part of the entrepreneur spirit is that some of the hard is what makes it great. Does that make sense?

[00:37:54] Evan: Yeah, a thousand percent. 

[00:37:57] Gary: all right, Evan, we ask everybody that comes on the show the same question at the end. It's gonna be different for you, I'm assuming, since you're new to this. So what are your top three pieces of advice to give to a new entrepreneur or someone starting their new business?

[00:38:11] Evan: Don't overthink it. One. I Think I went into this. I tried to do all of the spreadsheets and forecasting and napkin math as I possibly could, and none of it really mattered. I think the only thing that really mattered is that I was gonna do it, and I was committed to that. So not overthinking it, seeking help.

I've always been a super independent person, like to do things on my own. Don't love asking for help and the. I do it more now than I've ever done it before, and I'm really glad because I've met some crazy smart people who are willing to share their experience and provide me with guidance. And most of it is free, and that's a really incredible thing.

And then the third thing would be just to have some self-belief. I think for me, just thinking about how long I was in agency and just the idea that I am here for a reason and I'm doing this for a reason and I've had success in my career for a reason. And trying to carry that with me and believing that I could do it rather than wondering.

It. But to the second point, I think is particularly important, seeking help. And I'm super grateful for everybody who's given me their time or allowed me to bend their ear about problems that I have been facing and over the last 60 days and even before that the most important thing

[00:39:46] Gary: Solid advice.

Now, if anybody wants to learn more about you or leaders pr, where is it the best place to find you?

[00:39:52] Evan: The website is leaders pr.com and I stay pretty active on LinkedIn as well. You can find me LinkedIn slash Evan Boyer.

[00:40:04] Gary: All right. We'll put the links in the show notes too, so they'll be ready for anybody who 

[00:40:10] David: Awesome. Thank you so much Evan. This has been a lot of fun. I appreciate your time and your answers,

[00:40:16] Evan: Thank you guys.

[00:40:17] David: and on that note, we are out. We'll be back next week everybody. We'll talk to you then. Bye.

[00:40:23] OUTRO: That wraps up this episode of the Biz Dev Podcast, and this time you get me, Jen Baxter, co-owner of Big Pixel and David's Wife. Yep. I finally took the mic or rusted it away from David. Biz Dev is a production of Big Pixel, a US-based provider of UX design strategy, and custom software. This podcast is edited by Audio Wiz Matt McCracken and Christie Pronto marketing guru for Big Pixel.

Want to connect, shoot us an email at hello@thebigpixel.net. Or find us on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, X and LinkedIn.