Women of Influence by SheSpeaks
Join us each week on the Women of Influence podcast, hosted by Aliza Freud and presented by SheSpeaks. Each week, Aliza sits down with trailblazing women from various fields—business leaders, social media influencers, authors, speakers, entrepreneurs, and thought leaders—who are using their platforms to create meaningful impact. Discover how these women harness their influence to inspire, motivate, and drive change, and gain actionable insights you can apply to your own life!
Women of Influence by SheSpeaks
The Art of Publicity: Expert Advice on Success from Heidi Krupp
In this episode, we sit down with PR powerhouse Heidi Krupp, a master publicist and brand strategist with decades of experience shaping bestselling books and personal brands. From working at ABC’s 20/20 to launching her own successful agency, she shares her journey, the art of storytelling in PR, and what it takes to craft a message that resonates.
We also dive into the current media buzz surrounding the Justin Baldoni & Blake Lively case, breaking down what people get wrong about publicists and the blurred lines in today’s media landscape. Plus, hear the fascinating story of how she started her business with just $5,000—and how that risk turned into a career working with icons like Tony Robbins, Dr. Stephen Covey, and more.
Key Highlights:
✅ Why storytelling, consistency, and relationships are the true keys to building a lasting brand—and how you can apply these principles to your own success.
✅ Lessons learned from interning at ABC’s 20/20 and working with Barbara Walters
✅ The role of a publicist: understanding what the role entails & what the job is
✅ How to turn a book into a brand (and a business!)
✅ The truth about the PR industry and the media’s changing landscape
✅ The surprising way she funded her first business
✅ The impact of mentors and the power of personal branding
Key Links:
Follow Heidi at:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/heidi-krupp/
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So if you're going to walk around thinking it's never going to work, it will never work. If you have a dream and if you want to do something, do it. Look at me. I'm a little girl from Pittsburgh, pennsylvania, whose father drove a cab, whose mother worked in a clothing store. We all came from somewhere. We all have a backstory that's going to lead us to our business, our book or our brand, or a beginning or an ending.
Speaker 2:Welcome back to the show. I go way back with our guest today. Heidi Krupp is the founder and CEO of Krupp Communications, which is a powerhouse PR agency. She is someone I encountered early in her career when I interned for her when she was at ABC and working on 2020. And she was a producer and a publicist at 2020, working with people like Barbara Walters on the show and on publicity. I can't tell you how much I learned from her again early in her career in a very short period of time, and she went on to found her own agency, crump Communications, where she has represented people like Tony Robbins and helped make mega book-selling, best-selling books like the South Beach Diet, which not only became a bestseller but also went on to become a powerhouse brand with food products that you could buy in the store.
Speaker 2:So what I talk with Heidi about is her career, what it's like to represent some of the personalities that she has, and the role of publicists. Obviously, there's so much in the news today about the whole Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni case if you are familiar with that and the role of publicists in that. So we touch on that and we really talk about how Heidi thinks about books and individuals that she represents as brands and how to build them out. I think you will find this conversation with Heidi so interesting. She has had just an amazing career and had the chance to do work with names that you will absolutely know. We're going to jump right into it. Here we go.
Speaker 1:Hi, welcome to the show. First of all, you have a show. I knew you would have a show, oh well, we met on a show.
Speaker 3:We didn't want a show. 2020, when you were early in your career and I was interning. I interned at ABC and they assigned me to 2020. And I just watched you work and I thought well, this woman knows what she's doing, so if I'm smart, I will just absorb everything she says. So thank you for teaching me so early on.
Speaker 1:Thank you. I mean honestly, I had a mentor. We don't all have mentors. I think mentors are so important and I had a dream job working at ABC News 2020 for Barbara Walters. Who didn't want to be Barbara Walters or work for Barbara Walters? I mean legendary, what struck?
Speaker 3:me about you also in those, you know, when I was watching and observing as an intern does, as interns should do. You know you just had you carried yourself, you were confident but you also would listen and I remember being very struck by that. Like that you didn't have to know all the answers, but you were so clearly confident in terms of what you were going to do. So could you talk a little bit about what the role was? Publicists are in the news right now. We can just say we're going to talk about the whole Blake Lively and Justin Baldoni of it all in a minute. But what does a publicist do?
Speaker 2:Heidi.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so that's a great question. It's funny. I mean there are different versions of publicists, do Heidi? Yeah, so that's a great question. It's funny. I mean there are different versions of publicists. I mean I believe that publicists take a message and share it with the world, so there are celebrity publicists, there's entertainment publicists.
Speaker 1:I look at myself as a storyteller and a PR strategist. My job, as I see it, is to be a mirror to my clients, find out what it is that they might want to say, much like when we were at 2020. As producers, I'm helping them produce and share the message that they want and I'm making it personal for them Because I think that public relations yes, it gets out into the public. And now, even then there wasn't social media, there wasn't all these parts. So when I, you know, fell into this position working for the assistant to the publicist and also working with John Stossel, catherine Cryer, deborah Roberts I mean these were people and a bunch of the best Emmy award winning producers it was wonderful to be able to go out and tell a story. I was able to be a producer and then be a publicist. The publicist part was telling people what we were doing and packaging it away.
Speaker 1:And as news has evolved and the media has evolved, there's blurred lines now between what used to be news, what is news now. We don't know what's fake news, what's real news. Everybody shares everything and you have to be so careful in being a publicist. Thank you for talking about the grace and humility and humbleness that I have. I grew up. My father drove a cab, my mother worked in a clothing store and I just always remember where I came from, and my dad, when I was younger, had made me go to a Dale Carnegie course so that I could like stand up and learn how to speak in front of people and you know, how to win friends and influence people. He made me do it and get this certificate because I was afraid of public speaking.
Speaker 3:What an insightful dad to back then say you know this is important for you, go, go do it. I mean it's. I mean for those who don't know who is Dale Carnegie and what is the-.
Speaker 1:Dale Carnegie was one of the greatest of all great speakers and best-selling authors and had a whole organization of teaching people about public speaking and connecting and the ultimate of mentorship and leadership. I take this course when I was young and then my very first client when I started Krupp after I left ABC, was a doctor who actually had a book called Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, dr Covey. So I mean, this was one of my very first projects that was given to me from my mentor, jan Miller, who is my mentor. So I love you talk of me. I like literally talk of Jan the same Like. I remember her walking into the room and having all this gravitas and being like, oh, I want to be like her. And how do I learn how to do that? How do I model that behavior? I think in some ways I have. Lately she's been telling me oh, you're like, you've surpassed certain things. I'm like not exactly, but you know, it's great to be able to have people that are role models that you can learn from.
Speaker 3:You started your company before a lot of people, a lot of women, were starting agencies. So can you talk about that leap A hundred?
Speaker 1:percent. I did not think about starting a business. I just had this wonderful woman that was best friends with Catherine Cryer, who I was the assistant for at the time, as well as the assistant to the publicist. And this woman, her name is Jan Miller and she has most of the best authors Tony Robbins, who became my client that she introduced me to. She has Maria Shriver and her daughter and I mean you name it like Dr Phil and you know, joel Osteen and Bishop Jakes. She has so many of the greatest, great, great greats of all time.
Speaker 1:And anyway, she had said to me, you should come work for me. I said, well, I work at ABC News 2020. Like, I'm at ABC. And she said, well, you know, if ever you want to, you can. So I fast forward.
Speaker 1:I was, I was looking because at the time, pr at ABC, you had to be in the union, and so I did not. I wasn't in the union, I hadn't been. I was young, I was like in my 20s and I didn't have the experience, but I had the insight and I had the intuition, but I didn't have the courage and I certainly wasn't looking to start a business and I left ABC to go work at a PR company and as I was at the PR company Rutherford at the time, they had a book division called Plan Television Arts and I'd opened this book and it said to my agent, jan Miller. So I called Catherine and I said is this the same person? And she calls me on the phone and says listen, now you're on your own but I will meet with you. All you need is $5,000 cash to start a business.
Speaker 1:I was like, well, easy for her to say, like I don't even have $5,000. Like I own a Toyota Celica convertible that's like 1989, that I bought when my grandmother died, with the inheritance I owe probably like $5,000 on it and a lot of parking tickets. And my parents, like you know, took care of me but didn't really have. I'm self-made, like I didn't, you know, but at the time, like I, I didn't have anybody to go to for money. She said all you need is $5,000. And it was so funny because she's done this to me my whole career. Now I do it to my staff, I do it to my clients. She it was like a manifestation and an intention. So I walk into the store and this woman says to me I love your car at this little clothing store in Hoboken and I say it's yours for $5,000 cash. She says let me think about it. She calls me the next day. She buys my car. I sold my car and here.
Speaker 3:I am. That's who you got the capital to start your business.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's the only capital I got like to this day.
Speaker 3:That's amazing because you have worked on Crop Communications, your, your, your agency. You have worked on some of the most like, amazing, amazing books, like the South Beach Diet. Right, you've you. Tony Robbins is a client. I did Tell me how, tell me 30 years, almost.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry, it's almost 30 years. Tony Robbins, yes, tony Robbins, not anymore. Not anymore. We're friends. He's like my forever friend. Yes, but I worked with him for decades.
Speaker 3:So okay. So so, in terms of what your company does now and you work with, like you, you are like the best seller maker. That's how I think of you that you take these, you take, you understand when someone has a talent and that they have something to tell and something that that that can be made into a much bigger message, and then you help kind of craft the message and the plan for that to happen.
Speaker 1:Here's the truth we look at the book as a brand, so we look at the book as the vehicle to a brand. And now, not only do we promote and for many years we promoted brands, and then various people came to us. One of the first was a friend, who's still a friend and I love so much, and she was one of my first people that I did literary agency for, and it's Tori Johnson, who you see regularly on Good Morning America.
Speaker 3:Yes, Deals and steals right.
Speaker 1:So Tori had this incredible idea she was going, she was really wanting to work on her health and so she had a mindset shift. She had this idea to write this book called the Shift. And again, like you talk about mentors and she sat with me and said, well, why wouldn't you sell it? I said, well, because that's not what I do. She goes. Well, you can do it. And she literally pushed me to do it, I kid you not. And we did it and it was a number one bestseller, unbelievable Out of the gate.
Speaker 1:So at the time I was kind like, oh my gosh, I don't know if I could get into literary agency. My mentor was a literary agent. I felt like I didn't want to get into the world of what other people get into. But as I've continued to evolve in the industry, I understand that PR and what I do and what I know and how I understand like we not only can help you ideate a book now, which we do we can help you come up with your.
Speaker 1:You know what is your story, what is your legacy, what do you want to leave, whether it's a book that we sell to a publisher, whether it's a legacy book, whether it's an in-person book, whether it's something for a family office, whatever it might be, I believe that everybody has a book in them. So now that I know how to promote them and do them, I can also help you ideate them and be a matchmaker with the right writer and then help you come up with a business around it and turn it into something, not just a book, because, yes, it's beautiful to have books, but many people and many people don't have the appetite to do more than just like I have the book, but some people look at the book and they want to skyrocket a business. I mean the South Beach Diet Doctor. He did not realize in writing that book what was going to happen and my little changing the way America eats, which we came up with when, when a processed food company came knocking, turned that into like a global brand.
Speaker 3:I mean, I mean a consumer packaged goods company, right?
Speaker 1:Exactly, and then for us, I love that. That was like one of my, that was one of my major successes. A I loved it because I my mentor didn't give me that piece of business. It was something I fully did on my own. She would give me credit for everything I fully did on my own, but often it was easier to think that I worked for her versus working for myself, which we all go through as women when you start a business, and I would say, like the first like decade or so of being in the business, I did look at myself as the skilled producer, not a business owner, because I just loved the work.
Speaker 1:I still love the work, by the way. I love the work. I love to be in the thick of it. I love to help a client tell a story. We have a book that we haven't announced yet that I'm super excited with, with a billion dollar global brand, a person with an incredible story and this is her first book and you see her in all the retailers and she's beloved by many celebrities and it's a great immigrant American story of someone who has just changed our faces and the way we see ourselves. I can't wait to share it with you.
Speaker 3:Let's talk a little bit about for a publicist, for a producer I know you've kind of worn both hats yeah, publicist hat, producer hat. Bringing them together is such a great like it's such a smart mix right.
Speaker 1:Because it's the of the media mindset. Yes, you can think like them. You make it easier for them.
Speaker 3:Yeah Well, and it's also brand building right. When you do it well, like you did with the South Beach Diet, like you've done with a lot of the clients you've worked with, it's brand building at its best form. So, when you think about how people view publicists today now we started kind of briefly talking about this before we started, but I was saying to you about this before we started, but I was saying to you gosh, I feel like I'm hearing so much about publicists because of the Justin Baldoni, blake Lively situation, because their publicists were kind of pulled into the whole thing, like they were very involved. What do people get wrong about publicists? And what do we? What should we know about the reality of what it is to work as a publicist?
Speaker 1:That's a great question. I think what people don't know about publicists is they're usually the last to know everything. But everyone tries to make it like they're the first to know everything. Often they're not the first to know everything. Honestly, I mean, there are so many layers. It depends on what organization structure so like when it's celebrities and entertainment publicists you know they have a team of people, they have agents, they have managers, they have assistants and all of that.
Speaker 1:And I think that you know, unless a publicist goes rogue which some might, you know, I don't know, I can't say if they, we don't. But if somebody ever did, you know, I can't imagine that any publicist would go and do and spin and say something that others would, especially if they're representing somebody wouldn't know about. And so this whole case is very fascinating and it's really troubling on so many levels. I mean, you have, you know, you have a reputable newspaper that you know covered a story and you know, and we're talking about a woman that felt a certain. I'm a woman, you're a woman, you know, and we're talking about a woman that felt a certain. I'm a woman, you're a woman, aliza, you know that felt a certain way.
Speaker 1:Something happened like horrifying that we would even have to like pick that apart and defend it. I mean, granted, we saw the Amber Heard, johnny Depp, that all happened too, and it's so upsetting that, like if someone actually has these things happen to them that they're having to defend themselves at like that level as a woman, it's just very upsetting. Number one, yeah, two. I think like blaming the publicists on all parts is outrageous.
Speaker 3:You know I mean like Right Right, Because, to your point, publicists don't typically go rogue it's. You know you're part of a conversation with your clients, who and you're crafting a message together. Yes, You're crafting a message.
Speaker 1:It's not the client that goes rogue of water. You can't make a drink Right, and I think oftentimes publicists want to always to protect their client. I mean, there's a joke in my house, you know there were many, many things that, like, I knew about in various ways with various clients throughout the years, that my husband still doesn't know to this day. And it's because why would I? And it's not because I trust my husband, I just I worked at 2020.
Speaker 1:At least we were news people, like there are things that you just don't share and you have, and it's like, it's like an oath to me, you know, it's like holding somebody's personal here and so and it's not that I'm doing anything disingenuous and I'm not trying to lie or at all or hurt on anyone's behalf I think what we're watching, though, with all of this, with the suing of this PR person and that one, and then that one's doing this one, and I mean it's unbelievable when you see so many other PR people in the industry, we already have a bad rap. I mean PR, I say and I've been saying this even before this happened needs a new branding. I mean seriously, yeah, it does. And it's really not public relations, it's really personal relations and personal relationships matter, and your personal relationship with your client and operating on their behalf is critical.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:That's like number one. Yeah, like you just have to make sure that you're doing what. You're their mirror, you're their representative, you're trying to help them. I think it's really sad. Actually it's very it's. The whole thing is very upsetting and troubling and bully-like. Even in social media there's so many people that are popping in and telling the story and trying to recast it and glomming onto it to then have their five minutes of having a conversation. You have all these different YouTubers and TikTokers. It's like is this where we?
Speaker 3:are now. The thing that strikes me about what publicists are so good at is you, and you learn to be so good at this, I'm sure, given the job, is crisis management Right, and in today's day and age with social media, oh yeah. And how an innocent post can get you to, can get you all sorts of attention that you didn't intend.
Speaker 1:Let's say yeah, not all publicity is good publicity, that is for sure. I think that we all have to understand that anything you say or share or post now will be held against you. It's like what I used to say to my team. They all were like, oh, you're such good friends with this media person. I'm like, yes, and they're still media. They are my friends, but if there is something or someone that I'm representing and they want to tell a story about whatever it is, that that client did or didn't do, they're going to want to do what they're going to want to do. You have to really know where to draw the boundary line and the neutral line thing. You have to. But, like, our job is to protect and our job is to support and our job is to come up with the right angles and to share the narrative. And, honestly, PR person's best job is to give the media an amazing story to be able to tell that will enroll and engulf their readers or make compelling television or give them information and insight and education into something that they didn't know before. I mean to me like that's like a great win, Like if you get a great human interest story of something you wouldn't have known about or like like.
Speaker 1:We have a mutual friend, Tamsyn Fidel. I mean I love Tamsyn. I mean here she is, this anchor turned advocate. She's trying to help women and she did not even have a plan or a strategy. She had her own personal pain and going through menopause and passing out on, you know, as an anchor on air couldn't read her teleprompter. That painful moment has turned into purpose for her and I love that and take like a moment in time and turn a pivot into a possibility and a purpose like home run.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and a purpose like home run, yeah, I mean, and I love that example because I think that is when you get to tell the really good stories and when I think about right, you have helped over generate over a hundred bestsellers in the work in the time that you have been doing what you do. What is that Like? How do you do that? What is the secret to generating a?
Speaker 1:bestseller. Oh my gosh, we don't have enough time for you. Just give us one secret. Well, here's the thing, aliza Hard work, I mean. Writing a book is not easy. Promoting it and breaking through into the clutter. It takes commitment, it takes focus, it takes you have to look at the book as a business, operate it like a business and you have to come up with whatever its content, strategy is, who its customer is. We have the five C's in it. You want to know what the culture tension is, how you're going to create community, where you're going to collaborate, and how it literally draws itself into commerce, which would obviously be to sell the book. And then, if that book is something and can turn into a course, a company, an organization, a podcast, a television show, whatever it might become, there's always something that it can be. I think that's the part that excites me about the book business, because I've never worked in a publishing house. I'm like this person that's like. I'm like this accidental bestselling book publicist that like never worked in a publishing house.
Speaker 3:But, but that's what I. That's. The thing is that you bring. You know it's interesting, you bring this. When you said before that you had the production part of what you did at your first role at ABC and you had the PR publicist part of what you did there, it makes so much sense to me. I married them. You can bring those two things together to do this so well. Thank you, aliza. If somebody was listening to this. They have built, let's say, some sort of social media following and they want to make it bigger into a brand, maybe have a book, maybe do the things. What advice would you give them about how to think about what's coming?
Speaker 1:I would tell them just to do it. I know it sounds so silly. I think people get really afraid and caught up in being stuck and they want to make things perfect and I think you know, perfect is paralyzation, honestly, and I think that so many people just don't just jump and they think about it and I think if they have a passion and they have a story and they have something that they want to share and they feel like it would resonate with somebody, I think they have to start somewhere, whether it's a blog, whether it's on social, whether it's an article, whether it's like having little dinner people are having dinners these days. I'm so excited. I'm working with somebody she's incredible, mona, and she has a podcast called Motivation and she is absolutely adorable female talking about clean eating and clean dining and she has these clean dinners. They're super cool. I mean she's so smart, smart and she has like the best of people talking about it. I mean, meet with people like, test your idea. I mean I was very privileged.
Speaker 1:I work on a book by the founder of Netflix, the CEO, the first CEO of Netflix, the co-founder. His name is Mark Randolph. Talk about a masterclass. I mean, I have to say, one of my favorite people that I've ever met and worked with because he is so humble and he would just say no idea is bad. Like he was told Netflix would never work, the book's called That'll Never Work. He was told that Like. So if you're going to walk around thinking it's never going to work, it will never work, but if you try it and you get out there, you'll do it.
Speaker 1:So, like for me, I think, what's next? Keep learning and digesting and listening to positive podcasts from people and places and things and just keep wanting to be curious. Give up on whatever your dream might be. If you have a dream and if you want to do something, do it. Look at me. I'm a little girl from Pittsburgh, pennsylvania, whose father drove a cab, whose mother worked in a clothing store. I have met some of the coolest people I think about like my life, and I think we all came from somewhere. We all have a backstory that's going to lead us to our business, our book or our brand, or a beginning or an ending or whatever, but it's something that I think is so important to share and not be afraid to share.
Speaker 3:Well, that is such great advice. And, heidi, if people want to follow you, because who wouldn't really Thank you, where is the best way for them to do that? Or, krupp, like, what's the best way for people to keep up with what you're doing?
Speaker 1:So my social media, you know at Krupp, heidi Krupp, at Krupp PR Agency, and I'm also on the Krupp Agency as our website. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm also on the Krupp agency as our website. I'm on LinkedIn. I'm so funny, I'm the publicist that doesn't promote herself. Don't talk to me, aliza, that is so.
Speaker 3:it's so true, though it is so true. Oh no, I don't do it.
Speaker 1:I had to do it for other people. I do no PR for myself. I mean, literally people say like why aren't you speaking? Why aren't you doing it? Where's your book? Maybe it'll come, because I keep being asked how do I make a bestseller or how do I turn my book into something? And I am thinking about it.
Speaker 3:Oh, let's manifest that Manifest and thank you for being such a great role model. It's so important for women to be able to see other women, especially when I was starting to see you know that, a young woman like you. You were early in your career. I started the business at 30. Yeah, so I could relate. I could say, oh, wow, there's someone I can relate to who's doing it. So thank you for being a role model.
