Scaling With People
Tired of spinning your startup wheels but never gaining traction? Buckle up, founders and CEOs, because this podcast is your rocket fuel to profitability! Every week, we ignite explosive conversations with bold-faced founders, brainy experts, and even a few out-of-this-world vendors. Get ready to crack the code on growth, master employee engagement, and blast through your scaling goals. We’re talking real-world strategies, actionable tips, and perspectives that’ll make your business do a cosmic dance. So, strap in and prepare for lift-off!
Scaling With People
Mastering PR Storytelling: Mickie Kennedy on Strategic Narratives, DIY Press Releases, and Building Trust in Tech Entrepreneurship
Unlock the secrets of masterful storytelling in business with our guest, Mickie Kennedy, the visionary founder of eReleases. Discover how Mickie transformed his approach to press releases by embracing compelling narratives that not only captured media attention but also fueled business growth. This episode is a treasure trove for entrepreneurs, especially those in tech, as Mickie shares invaluable lessons on crafting strong, humanizing elevator pitches that captivate both media and potential employees. Get ready for insights into overcoming storytelling challenges and leveraging personal stories for impactful communication. But that's not all—explore the strategic power of PR for startups and learn why timing is everything. Find out how to build trust and credibility before jumping into paid advertising, and why choosing the right industry-specific PR firm can make all the difference. Mickey also uncovers the art of DIY PR efforts, including using AI to draft press releases that stand out. Plus, get inspired by a creative case study of a local auto repair shop that harnessed the power of surveys for media buzz and SEO success. Packed with strategies and success stories, this episode is your guide to using storytelling and PR as engines for sustainable business growth.
Welcome everyone to today's Scaling with People podcast. I'm Gwenavera Currie, your host and founder and CEO to Guide with HR. So I have Mickey Kennedy here today and I'm super excited to be talking about some lesson learns always a fun topic of mine as well as some PR information from the expert. So, mickey, tell us a little bit about yourself.
Speaker 2:Hi, so my name is Mickey Kennedy. I run and am the founder of eReleases. I started it about 26 years ago and basically I help entrepreneurs, small businesses, startups get access to the media utilizing a newswire a PR newswire in this case, and in the US it's largely a duopoly, with BusinessWire and PR Newswire, and you definitely want to make sure you reach one of them. There's no need to reach both. But it started me working for a startup 27 years ago and being handed a Rolodex of fax numbers and saying here, write press releases, figure that out and fax it to these guys. And so I did that, and at first I did it very poorly. But looking at what journalists were writing, I realized that what I was sending them was just a lot of data tables and we were publishing numbers. So I felt like that's what they want. And instead I realized that journalists like or strange little, you know growth patterns and you know talking about those, and I got really good at it.
Speaker 2:The first one I did was I had sent out fax with data tables for the Caribbean countries and the traffic predominantly to and from the United States was the big lead with it, and nothing happened. And then I looked and there was one country I forgot what it is that was way more traffic than all the others, and I explored it and realized that it was a big call center for the US for 1-900 numbers which were popular at the time. You could pay 50 cents a minute and get your horoscope if you caught a certain 1-900 number, or you could speak to a live person for a dollar or two a minute. You could get pet advice or love advice or just all kinds of little things like that. And so when I resubmitted that press release, we got picked up by the Economist, financial Times, wall Street Journal, washington Post and three telecom trade publications, and so I was just like, wow, I think I may have figured this out.
Speaker 2:And I continued to do press releases focusing on the story and giving journalists the ingredients for them to craft a story arc, approach to it and continue to get picked up and continue to grow the business with new customers, new leads, but even more and more recognition within the industry. Every time we got earned media and that's what it's called when you get journalists writing about you. It's syndication when the press release is replicated on places, and that happens with even the news wires, but I always tell people that's a distraction, that's not the focus. You want the articles. You want a journalist crafting an article about you, using the press release as the core information to get that.
Speaker 1:Wow. And storytelling I feel like it's starting to become even more of a key factor to success, not only to grow your business, but to also engage and get your employees on board and candidates to want to join you in a way where you're not dealing with a lot of turnover and the people are understanding where we're going and what you're marching towards. So storytelling is such a key to your success and I know so many founders, especially on the tech front, that can be a little challenging. I know so many founders, especially on the tech front, that can be a little challenging. So, by chance, as an expert, do you have any key steps that someone could take or how they could think about maybe tackling their story writing of any kind of problem as being the first time they're doing it? What are some of the components of the story writing?
Speaker 2:aspect that would make it successful. It's really just getting an elevator pitch that incorporates you know your, you know what it was that you know caused the business to be created or what inspired a product or service. If you look at everybody who goes on Shark Tank and I mentioned them because the producers of the show recommend us and tell them to do a press release before their episode airs you know they all start with their story. You know what was it that landed them with this company or this product. And you know, often it is sharing a vulnerability, something that happened they lost a job, they lost a loved one, they got a divorce, but anyhow, at the end of it there was a need, a calling for them to create this business. Hey, I used to have this hobby that me and my dad did and then he passed away and I just got laid off and I just said I wonder if I could create a business around this hobby.
Speaker 2:And the reason that these stories exist and they're short, they're elevator pitches, they're just a sentence or two or three at most. And the reason that they work so well is they cut through everything else and they immediately give you this empathy and it humanizes them and all of a sudden, it's no longer I'm interested in this empathy and it humanizes them and you know, all of a sudden, it's no longer I'm interested in this logo and corporation, I'm interested in these people behind it. And so, you know, don't discount your story. You know, as a founder, you know what was it that got you involved and sometimes you're not even aware of it.
Speaker 2:I had a woman that I talked to and we were going through one of these audit brainstorms and she said I'm just coming up blank and I was like well, tell me about your family, what did your dad do and what did your mom do? And she goes oh, my mom never worked, she always hated it because she always said that she felt less than and it was very important that I get educated and, you know, start a job. And and she's like you know, she always cautioned me be careful who you work under and if you can try to work for yourself. And I'm like you, don't think there's a story there you know that.
Speaker 2:You know and she's like I never thought of it like that and so sometimes you really need to do a deep dive and an audit and look at your business and maybe there's something there. I first started doing podcasts and I was just like, oh, I just created e-releases out of the thin air and they're like, well, you know, did you do PR before? And I was like, not really. I mean, I did press releases for this company and it's like, but your business kind of focuses on press releases. So I had to spend a little time going doing a deep dive and auditing myself. So I recommend that you do that as well.
Speaker 2:And you know stuff can be encouraged a little bit. You know I would tell people, don't invent origin stories. You know eBay did that. You know in the early years they shared the story about that. The developer created it to help, I think, his girlfriend sell her Pez collection and that was completely made up by a PR firm and the reason they made it up is it worked really well. I mean I can recall for three years straight, every article in Red Herring and all the big publications at the turn of the century, year 2000,. All mentioned this story and I think that they did that because it immediately humanized and made it feel like, oh, this geek just created something and then said, oh, I could start a business out of it. It's a beautiful thing. I know why the PR firm did it. But, you know, do an audit, do a deep dive, is there something there? And really work on that story. And if you can't focus your you know a press release specifically about that, incorporate it into the boilerplate. And that's a section of the press release that usually appears at the bottom and it usually says about company, about microsoft, and it's like a few sentences, like you know, three to seven sentences. But maybe incorporate your story there because the journalist reading through and gets that, they read that and they know my audiences are going to really, uh, you know, feel for that, uh, for that little bit of thing there. And, like I said, it's the first thing that people on Shark Tank do because it gets you to really care. And caring is so important because people really like to do business with people. They don't like doing business with logos and brands and things like that. We have to, but it's so much easier to go and support someone you care about.
Speaker 2:I can't recall the number of times I've read a blog post or an article about a Kickstarter campaign and I read about this person who's just, you know, tilting against windmills trying to get this one product that does this one thing, and he's got people who've almost got the product and he's trying to get them to just make a change and they won't. And he's like, am I going to have to do this myself? But the next thing, you know, he's visiting factories or sending bids to different countries and stuff. And I support those left and right and you know, my thing is I click through and if it's affordable backing, I'll just do it. I don't need that widget or whatever. But I bought into this person, I care a little bit about them and that is really important and one of the reasons that a lot of startups focus on PR as one of the first things they do, focus on PR as one of the first things they do.
Speaker 2:You know, I've noticed that with the Shark Tank people that came through Manscaped Squatty Potty, they did many, many releases with us right out of the bat. Before they did paid advertising and they said you know, we want to have on our website lots of real logos of real companies and links to real articles about us, so that people you know have seen us in Shark Tank, but now they've read these other articles and it just creates such a signal of trust, and so it's going to. When we cut on app paid advertising, the conversions are going to be much, much better and we're going to have a smaller lead time. So if it normally takes a few weeks to turn someone into a customer, now it might take a few days, and so it really is one of the things that works so well and why so many startups you know really embrace PR and see it for the longer vision.
Speaker 1:I love that. It's such a powerful story too, and so many times I talk about marketing, but never really about the PR side and how impactful even just doing a little bit of that ahead of time. You might not need to do such a heavy marketing just yet. Let's get that PR side kicked off first. It's kind of like the baby step method, right, and so you said it earlier. You're like you know, a lot of startups are starting to do this earlier on, when our as our listeners are here listening or watching and thinking about whether they have it or not. If they don't have it, when is like a sweet spot that you have seen bringing it on? I mean, obviously, like you know, you and I can both say bring everything on at the beginning of like moment you decide a name, right, but the reality is, is that time and money are not our friends, and so when is that kind of sweet spot that you've seen that's been very beneficial for businesses to start thinking about and implementing PR activities.
Speaker 2:When you think about it, when you have when, when you have someone in front of you saying now is the time for you to start and you don't need to pay a PR firm. Some startups do and they're able to afford it and they go beyond a press release. They work personal relationships that they have. And I always tell people if you are looking for a PR firm, make sure you pick one that's specific to an industry, because it's hard to stay on top of personal connections and I can't imagine someone who does that outside of more than one industry and does it well. And so if you're in the technology space, you only want to work with someone who is a PR firm for technology companies. If it's consumer electronics, you know someone who works with. You know brands like that, because the people I've had bad experiences with PR firms are the ones who are like I will work with anybody as long as you pay me, and that's not a good recipe. You know that I could tell it's not going to go well.
Speaker 2:And also, another thing is you know, don't discount doing it yourself. Um, you know e-releases is set up as a diy sort of uh business and that you can come in and order. You know, one release at a time. Or buy a package of releases. Or you can have us write it, but I tell people we have a lot of samples and templates of releases. Or you can have us write it, but I tell people we have a lot of samples and templates on our website. You know, really, you know, consider writing yourself. You can even lean on AI.
Speaker 1:I was just about to say that.
Speaker 2:AI does a really good job of writing, but it does not do a good job of deciding what to write about. So never come to AI and say write a press release. Don't ever give it free reign like that. So the way I approach AI is I know what I'm going to write about and so I'll tell. Well, ai is like hey, I have this company, here's a boilerplate about it, here's our website, and you know I'm writing a press release about this subject. How would you structure, say, a 500 WordPress release on that? And it'll say and then say okay, give me 10 headlines based off of that assumption and pause between each headline and determine is the next headline that you're giving me really distinct and unique? I find when you tell AI to stop and slow down and ponder, I get a much better result.
Speaker 1:Wow, I'm going to have to try that next time.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And then I'm like, okay, now write the first paragraph. And I'm like I read it and I'm like, is that a strong paragraph? And I'm like I really want to incorporate this one aspect in that paragraph. Could you rewrite it with this? And then I get it what I want. If I'm still a little like, eh, I'll say, give me three different versions of the opening paragraph, three different versions of the opening paragraph, and again pause between each and say, am I really giving you a unique and distinct paragraph between these? And again, boom, I get that.
Speaker 2:And then I approach it paragraph by paragraph. I also ask it to come up with an amazing quote. Say something very concise, distinct and strong on this argument or position or thing that we're launching. And sometimes you have to go in there and just write that yourself. Never go with a safe quote, because the thing is, if a journalist is looking at two mid stories about the same level of newsworthiness and one has an amazing, they know they can write around that a really good article. But if they have a mid-quote like a so-so quote, any article they write is going to have that so-so quote in it. So they're going to gravitate to that press release with a better quote. So make sure you have a really strong quote.
Speaker 2:And journalists have managing editors and people they report to with a red pen and they'll slash through a weak quote. So I've had clients inspire an article. The article gets published and they're not mentioned in it and it was because that quote was so weak that the person just crossed through it and they didn't care that that person inspired it. It wasn't the journalist that did it, but the managing editor or someone else on staff. And so you really want to spend some time. You're not expected to say a lot. Sometimes you could just a sentence, but say it in a concise and strong way that if a journalist was to paraphrase what you said, there would be a loss or an ache for the original way that it was worded. Phrase what you said there'd be a loss or an ache for the original way that it was worded. And so again, for most people who aren't wordsmiths or don't have a poetry background, like myself, just making it condensed and strong is really the way to go.
Speaker 2:And also with AI, I said know what you want to write about? And I have a free masterclass where I teach people the types of press releases they should be doing. The truth is, a lot of people say press releases don't work and I agree. 97% of people's press releases that are out there that actually go on a wire do not generate earned media, but that's not a reason not to do a press release. I focus on the 3% of press releases that do work and there are models there and you can adapt them.
Speaker 2:So if you do a PR campaign, and a PR campaign is six to eight releases, you don't have to do them all at once. You can do them six to eight months, you can spread them out a year, even a year and a half if you're a small business and it just doesn't make sense to do that many all at one time. But you're going to do six to eight and then you're going to gauge what worked and what didn't work. And it's just like I'm not going to judge one ad campaign that I've got running on Google whether Google is good for advertising. I've got to set up different types of ads, different types of landing pages. I've got to play with it a while until I find something that works and that free masterclass that I have for anyone who's interested. It's less than an hour long video and some additional materials that it comes with, can really allow you to do an audit of your business to see if there are several different of these 3% of press releases that do get picked up that could apply for you, and it's at ereleasescom slash plan P-L-A-N and again completely free.
Speaker 2:You know there's one press release that never fails and that is to do a survey in your industry, and you know who are you to do a survey. You're the person who authored it and it's as easy as that it's. It's, it's credibility that's just waiting for you to claim it, and I've had it work for a local auto repair shop in Pennsylvania. I've had it work with all different types of businesses that are not newsworthy at all, and they felt such an imposter syndrome of who am I to author a survey. It's like anybody can do it, and so it's just a matter of asking some meaningful, timely questions right now.
Speaker 2:You know, looking at your industry, are there challenges. You know, coming out of the pandemic, it seems like work has changed for some people and work culture, and are you struggling with that? There may be questions around that Could be questions around AI. Do you feel like it's a threat to your business or how that's working. But it can also be very specific to your actual industry.
Speaker 2:If there's something that you would ask someone at a trade show or conference like hey, have you noticed lately that this is really going on and a lot of our customers are asking for X, y and Z, that could be a really great question to ask, especially if the reason you're asking is it's not being reported anywhere in your industry. It might be right for trade publications and people who cover your industry to write about it in an article. So ask those types of questions. I like SurveyMonkey. I like four questions per page, so you can do eight questions, 12, 16. On the last page you can put a crazy question sometimes, because sometimes those work really well for the local auto repair shop in Pennsylvania. That's what we ended up going with. We asked the question what's the strangest thing someone left in their car while being repaired and it was just open field. So statistically it had no relevance, but it really went viral.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, those must have been some fun quotes in that.
Speaker 2:Yes, there were. It was like a boa constrictor. There was somebody in an urn that had to be recovered from a memorial after hours.
Speaker 2:There was just all kinds of little fun anecdotes is what they turned out to be, but they were very viral and did very well in automotive trade publications, their local newspaper and a lot of other places, and they were looking for links and so we built out the survey page with all the questions and responses and we only put the top I think it was 20 of the anecdotes of what was the strangest thing left in a car, but we linked to all the other ones on the website. So a lot of these trade publications and places that don't normally link linked to it because it was a resource page for the survey. It had more information. They knew their people would want to see it and those links were critical for them because they had lost their domain name, which was somehow tied, and an SEO person had recommended me to have a discussion and I just told him. I said the only way you, as a local auto repair shop, is going to stand out is to do a survey in your industry. So we did that and the next big thing people say is I don't know enough people to send a survey to. Great thing is we do just like we did here. You just partner with an independent or small trade association.
Speaker 2:We went to Independent Auto Repair Shops of America, something like that. They had over 1500 members and we asked if they would take that link and send it to their members and we told them we're looking for at least 100 responses for it to be statistically relevant and in exchange for this, we will mention you in the press release we'll be issuing over PR Newswire in the coming weeks. And they immediately said yes. And why? Because the small and independent trade associations get no media attention. As a matter of fact, you probably don't know of any in your industry and they're out there because they don't get a lot of attention. The big one does and so avoid the big ones. You know they've got their own PR, they got their own team. They don't need you. But these smaller and independent ones find one that represents you like what you would fit and go from there.
Speaker 2:I actually had someone on one of these podcasts tell me well, mickey, in our industry, the Public Relations Society of America, that is the one big exception, because there aren't any others and I had to break it to her. There's over 470 other trade associations for PR and marketing. That was related to publicity in the US alone, and some of them don't make sense because it's like Florida or the Mid-Atlantic, but some of them are like you know it's like Florida or the mid Atlantic, but some of them were like you know, independent shops of 50 employees or less. That's a really great group of people and really represents you know who I am, and so that would be really good for someone who's looking to send this out. About two thirds of the time the first trade association that we approach will say yes, and so sometimes you have to go to the second one and then you know you get the responses, you analyze them and you look at it and say what's the biggest surprise here? Print it out, share it with your clients, colleagues, share it with other people, say what would be the biggest shocker of this survey, and once you've sort of come up with one or two, write a press release for that one or both of them and then have someone read that and see what they think. So again, you can use AI. Once you have the results and everything like that. The quote is generally going to either provide some analysis of why you felt the number skewed a particular way, and sometimes they can make you sound really grounded Like hey. In this survey of graphic designers, 82% feel that Adobe is evil and AI is going to take our jobs.
Speaker 2:No-transcript. And the great thing is that quote will be in there. You are the author of the survey, you will get in there. You're the author of the survey. You will get earned media. On average, we get eight to 14 articles from just doing that one type of press release, and the least we've ever had is four for someone that I've coached through the process, so you know. And yet I've seen people spend 20 to $40,000 with a PR firm and come to me saying, hey, we have an announcement we want to do, but I don't want to go through the PR firm anymore because they got us nothing and I'm like nothing and they're like no, and I'm like is it because I'm a poet? But I have this one press release that just works and I've been able to replicate it every time.
Speaker 2:I would like to take credit for inventing that, but I didn't. It was actually one of my customers For inventing that, but I didn't. It was actually one of my customers basically had a link farm and they represented like 30 verticals. So if you were looking for top accounting software, they would have the top 10 or top five for that. And if you were looking for top CRM for auto sales people, they would have that. And it's just a link farm and they didn't have a big reputation.
Speaker 2:But, like over seven, eight years ago, they started doing a survey or two and they saw that they got picked up and all these links going back to that one section, that one vertical, and so they started doing these surveys for all of these verticals and they were doing 30 plus press releases a year, each one on a different vertical. Every one of them got eight to 20 articles and they've sort of cooled down on that. Like, hey, we've heard talks about these two software giants maybe merging or one of them's targeting this third company for an acquisition. Do you have a comment on it? And it's because they've been elevated as experts, you know, because of the credibility that comes from being there. So from link farm to legitimate business just using earned media. And that's one of the great things about PR and really making it work for you. And not everybody has to do a survey or study, but that's one of the ones that's in my masterclass that is just never fails and anybody can utilize that.
Speaker 1:That's great, mickey. I really appreciate that. Some great stories and some really great tips to be thinking about and how you can start exploring your PR, if you're not doing it already, and so I really appreciate your time. I can't believe it it's already time for us to say goodbye to our audience here today, but thank you so much for joining us, mickey, and for the audience. Look forward to you joining us next time. Thanks everyone.
