Justin's Podcast
Dive into the captivating world of extraordinary individuals with "Interesting People," the podcast where host Justin Wallin sits down with some of the most intriguing personalities from all walks of life. Each episode unravels the unique stories, challenges, and triumphs of guests who have made remarkable impacts in their fields or led fascinating lives. From trailblazing innovators and inspiring artists to unsung heroes and enigmatic personalities, Justin brings you candid conversations that reveal the human spirit's endless capacity for wonder and achievement. Tune in for thought-provoking interviews, surprising revelations, and a celebration of the diverse tapestry of human experience.
Justin's Podcast
From Journalism to CEO: Navigating Growth and Wellness with Erin LaCombe
What's it like to transition from an award-winning journalist to a CEO of a thriving communications firm? In this episode of Interesting People, I sit down with Erin LaCombe, whose career journey is nothing short of captivating. From her early days at KROQ and KTTV to becoming one of the youngest news directors in the country, Erin's remarkable story is filled with invaluable insights. Discover how she leveraged her journalistic skills to start CV Strategies, a firm known for its impactful blend of traditional excellence and groundbreaking new effective tactics.
Managing rapid business growth in the ever-evolving communications industry is no small feat, and Erin shares all. Learn how she navigates the complexities of scaling a team, balancing profitability, and maintaining long-term client relationships—all while staying true to the core elements of great storytelling. Erin’s wisdom on choosing the right clients and nurturing those relationships offers a blueprint for anyone looking to sustain long-term success in business.
Erin also gets personal, sharing how she balances health, happiness, and professional success, especially after becoming an empty nester. With a focus on wellness and calculated risk-taking, she offers practical advice for those just starting out in communications. Don’t miss this episode filled with inspiration, practical tips, and heartfelt moments.
Welcome to Interesting People, the podcast where we delve into the lives and stories of fascinating individuals from all walks of life. I'm your host, justin Wallen, and in each episode we bring you inspiring, thought-provoking and sometimes surprising interviews with people who are making an impact in their fields and communities. There's only one common thread that the world is more interesting because of them. Get ready to be inspired, entertained and enlightened as we spotlight the extraordinary. Let's dive in.
Speaker 1:Today, I'm joined by my friend, erin Lecombe. Erin is CEO of CV Strategies, one of the premier communications firms, not only in California but throughout the nation now. So she's been growing it. She also has a unique background. She's an Emmy award-winning journalist with over 20 years in the communications industry, and her particular company has a remarkable group of people. They bring a balanced methodology of conventional public relations, deeply steeped in her own background community relations and image adjustment government relations, and a sophisticated blend of I particularly like this whisper conventional and guerrilla tactics. So Erin and I have been friends for a long time. She is absolutely amazing and, erin, it's an absolute pleasure to have you here.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. It really it's a joy to be here with you today, justin.
Speaker 1:Well, I wanted to talk a little bit about this amazing career of yours and how you got started and how you transitioned out of being in the journalism space and deciding to start your own firm, which is a pretty radical break.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I'll give you the relatively streamlined version of that because it could take a while. I was one of those people who always knew exactly what I wanted to do. I wanted to be in broadcasting and when I was 17, I got my first job at K-Rock Radio, which was an alternative music station in Los Angeles, extremely popular. It was a great job. I was a production assistant and that is literally the job I would go back to today if I could. It's the best job I've ever had. It was super fun Concerts. I learned the technical side. I learned the programming side. I learned the music side. It was a great job.
Speaker 2:From there, when I enrolled in the journalism school at USC, I got a job at KTTV on the assignment desk. So it was television broadcasting, which was terrific. And then I went to work for KFWB radio and I was there for a couple of years doing 24-hour news and on the news broadcast side. So that was when I found that job. That was the combination of the news bug that I had and the broadcast bug that I had and that was a wonderful job.
Speaker 2:And when I graduated from SC I thought, okay, I can be in LA. You know I've got this great job in LA. I'm in market number two. It's terrific, I'm making good money. You know, it's connected to my degree, which was in broadcast journalism, and I could be here forever. But if I want to become a manager which I decided by then I really wanted to be a news director. I need to go to a smaller market. So after I graduated from college, I went out to the Palm Springs area and got a job as assistant news director and then pretty quickly was promoted to news director when my manager left, and so by 23 years old I was a news director in television.
Speaker 1:How many 23-year-old women were news directors in television in California at that time?
Speaker 2:Not many. So there are only a couple of hundred markets in the country, right, and most of them are male news directors. That's are only a couple of hundred markets in the country, right, so, and most of them are male news directors. That's obviously changed a lot, but it was a big deal it was. It was a big enough deal that ABC, the network, actually put out a press release about me being the youngest news director in the country, and the fact that I was female, you know, added a layer to that. So it was a really incredible experience. It was not it was not the easiest thing in the world, because everybody who worked for me was older than me, more experienced than me, so I learned a lot on the fly.
Speaker 2:And then what happened was that station. The owners of that station started buying other low power stations, so they bought a Telemundo station, they bought a Fox station and they had a couple of radio stations, and so the opportunities kept coming my way. By the time I was 25 or 26, I was running the news department for three different stations, including a Spanish. So, even though I was in a smaller market Palm Springs is not a big market but the opportunities were amazing. So I did that for a few years. And then CBS started an affiliate out here in the desert and they hired me. Not the network, but the affiliate owners hired me as their first news director. So here again, another huge opportunity. News stations, tv stations don't start up every day and I had this opportunity to literally be the inaugural news director of a television station. So again huge opportunity. I hired more than 50 people in a six week span. Um, it was incredible.
Speaker 1:How do you do that? By the just just that that that task itself hiring 50 people how, how do you manage that? It is a, it's an extraordinary thing. It's difficult. How do you find the right people? How do you vet them? And you're doing it. Uh, 50 people is a significant chunk of folks. How, how do you manage that?
Speaker 2:Well, one, one of the advantages I had, which I had been hiring as a news director for years already the advantage I had is that we were not on the air, so the only thing I had to do was hire people. And when you're a television news director and you have your main anchor changes your weather guy leaves, your producers leave you're still on the air, so you've got content to produce every day. So I looked at it as wow, this is, you're still on the air, so you've got content to produce every day. So I looked at it as wow, this is the coolest thing in the world. I don't have a TV newscast to put on every single day. So I was really able to be intentional and very strategic about it. I went around the country looking for talent. I dove into the recruiting world. I used agents. I mean, I just hustled. And there's there's two things that I am you know this about me, justin, because we've had this conversation I am, I am faithful and I'm fearless. So I don't spend a lot of time worrying about what's not going to happen or what can't happen. I just make it happen.
Speaker 2:So every and one of my favorite stories is that I hired this photographer. I needed nine photographers. I hired one great guy side on scene. He was in Indiana. I'd never met him in person. He calls me up a few days after being hired and he says I have a twin brother who's also a photographer. I said, done so, I got two for one. So I just sort of I had a long list of people. I checked them all off and again I was so grateful that I didn't have to put a newscast on the air every day that it it was great and that was really a major career highlight for me. And, um, just to wrap up that story, I I had that job for a few years and about five and a half years into it they fired me. Like my job, fire me.
Speaker 1:How does that happen?
Speaker 2:You know I have a few theories I had had. I was on my third child by then my twins were one year old. My theory is that when I went on maternity leave they never thought I would come back. I don't know if that's true, but I know that that's around the time things started to change. I had won the Emmys by then, I had a great review, I had a great raise and two months later and that was 2006 and I wrote down this sentence I will never be fired again. And that's when I started figuring out how not to ever be fired again. And the only way to never be fired again is to work for yourself. So here I am and I started freelancing.
Speaker 2:I dabbled in the land use, government relations sort of side of things I had done when I was at KFWB. I had done a lot of government reporting. So the city, county, bureaucratic world came very easy to me and I love that space. At the time, development was happening like crazy in Southern California, so there was a lot of work and you know, fast forward 18 years, I've got, you know, 23 employees, a few offices, tons of work. It has to do this. It was a result of something that happened to me and I just pivoted and turned it around and said goodbye to the news world.
Speaker 1:I know it's a truism, maybe even hackneyed, but some of the biggest and most positive inflection points in our lives really start being being pretty rotten. They're just not good part good good. You know, at face value they're a pretty miserable part of our life, but but they they result in tremendous opportunity. It you know, if you, if you approach them in the right way and you tackle them the right way. It's been almost two decades you've had this company. I mean, what's changed?
Speaker 2:Oh boy, the biggest thing that's changed is just growth. I mean, that's a big word, but the growth of the company, which is also the hardest part of the job. Hardest part of my job is managing growth. So pivoting along the way along with the growth, anticipating growth, reacting to growth, that changes everything. You know, having the instincts to be in the right place at the right time, it's gotten. Myspace has become more competitive. It's part of the answer to the question. What's changed is competition, and not only in people who are competing or firms that are competing, but in technology that's competing right. So I've had to really pivot along the way, and I don't like being reactive, I prefer to be proactive and anticipate. So that really requires that I'm ahead of the game, and so is my staff. But, but that growth piece is really that's the best way I can define change, I think.
Speaker 1:Managing growth is is a difficult thing, right, I mean the. The goal when you own a business a lot of times is growth. I mean chasing the ever increasing uh annual revenue numbers, and. But the challenge is aligning that, of course, with your, with your, your profit and your your the style of life that you want. And, um, growth for growth state can be tough. That's right. Yeah, that's right. It actually can be less you can. You can have a very large uh firm and not actually be getting everything that you want.
Speaker 2:How do you achieve that balance so well? Part of my over overarching strategy is that for me, this, this, I don't call it a profession, I call it a vocation. This is my vocation. I am, I call it a vocation. This is my vocation. I am supposed to be contributing to make it better. I am supposed to be participating. I'm not just an observer.
Speaker 2:So I'm deep in the weeds and it means that I don't just seek out a client, get the client and then serve the client. It's it's not, it's not that transactional, it's really thoughtful. I feel very responsible for providing a service. You know we and I I use the, I use the term strategic counsel. That's really what we are for these clients. So the more I know going in, the more I can provide that thoughtful service. And then I'm choosing clients more wisely. Another thing I wrote down when I started this company and a very good friend of mine said it and I wrote it down. I use it a lot. I define this company by the clients I don't take, not the ones I take. So I'm willing to say no, I've always been willing to say no.
Speaker 2:And to your point about managing the growth and client doesn't equal profit, part of it is really understanding what the appetite of the client is going in. And you know this in your world. You can have a couple of early conversations and know I'm not right for them, they're not right for me, it's not a good match. It doesn't mean you don't nurture that relationship because maybe five years later, with a new executive director, it's a perfect match. So the relationship building is extremely important.
Speaker 2:But the decisions you make and the mining you do to understand the client before they're a client, I think has everything to do with whether or not they're going to be a good fit, not only from a work product standpoint but from a financial standpoint. And part of that is making a lot of mistakes. I mean, I have I fired a few clients and said you know, love you, but we're breaking up, right, it doesn't, it doesn't work. I have I fired a few clients and said you know, love you, but we're breaking up, right, it doesn't, it doesn't work. And and you, you know this in your, in your world too we have a similar, I think, um process there.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah. If it doesn't fit, then, um, and the key to that is maintaining the relationship right, making sure that that you know it isn't something where people walk away and they're sore and they're unhappy and there's miscommunication. Just make sure that people understand.
Speaker 2:My core on that is purity and truth telling. For me, if I am always telling the truth and always just showing up as Erin, not BS, not I can promise to do something I don't really want to do. If I can just be pure and truthful, then there's no problem cutting off the client or saying the timing's not right or you're not ready for us, that's all okay and that. And that goes back to the faithfulness. If you lead with truth, you always have a theater for progress and the relationships usually don't go away. It's when people start lying.
Speaker 2:I've had a couple employees steal clients from me. Those are relationships that aren't coming back, but the ones where you know it exists in truth. You can hang on to those and chances are, five years down the road, ten years down the road, people come back in your life and then the match is better Because sometimes the chemistry time has to go by. So that attitude really allows me to not worry so much about do I have this result, this get on this particular day right, I can sort of relax in in the decision-making, and part of that's the success too. You can't do that in year one because you're a little more anxious to get the work, but 18 years in, I can. I can make better, more thoughtful decisions.
Speaker 1:This, um, this funny little industry that we're in, this communications business in some way. I'm in a little tiny fraction of it and you're in a much larger component of it. The business of telling stories. That's really what it is, right, I think. Every year we're told that that is being transformed and that it's going to be completely different and that everything has changed. What has changed, if anything, and what are the things that really remain the same about telling good stories, stories that stick, stories that move opinion, stories that move behavior.
Speaker 2:So I think one of the biggest changes that I've seen over the years is the attention span. So the attention span of your average audience. That is just getting shorter and shorter. And then the vehicles to communicate are getting wider and wider. So finding those vertical opportunities you know it used to be when I was at KFWB. There's no internet. Everybody's listening to news. You can go. It used to be when I was at KFWB. There's no internet, everybody's listening to news. You can go wide and vast, right, far and wide on your communication. Right now you cannot. You've got to meet people where they are and that's an exponential number and a shorter amount of time that you've got their attention. So that's that's on the what.
Speaker 2:What makes it harder, what? What's changed? What hasn't changed is is how you get somebody's attention in the storytelling, and for me it's it's health, heart and pocketbook. Those are the three things. I've said it for 18 years. I've said it in the newsroom If you tell a story on television 20 years ago, you need to connect on one of those three things heart, health, pocketbook and if you don't reach one of those, you're not going to get the person's attention.
Speaker 2:That's still true today and thank God it is because I still use that as the criteria to, even if it's drafting a social media post, if it's writing a strategic plan that's 50 pages long for a county, I'm still trying to meet that audience in their heart as it relates to health of them and their family, or in their pocketbook, that's it. You're doing the same thing on opinion polling, right, you're trying to connect with. On opinion polling, right, you're trying to connect with that part of the human being and people are really complicated, so there's a lot of opportunity there, right, that part isn't simple. You, nature is vast, but that remains true. Those three for me, those three core elements, and if you don't hit those, you're not going to get anybody's attention, whether it's a billboard or a press release or a social media post, like I said, you've got to hit one of those.
Speaker 1:Yeah, you're absolutely right and it's one of the reasons why I particularly enjoy working with your firm. And one of the values that should come to a company, an organization like mine, of working with communications firms, is that interaction. You know, when we're developing an instrument, the collaboration of looking through language, looking through the intent of the question, the way a question is worded, it has to be when you have someone who has that lens, the instrument becomes so much better. I'm good at what I do, I'm proud of my work, but I'm not afraid of saying that it is much, much improved when working with a team like yours that has that lens. It's just, yeah, it's tremendous.
Speaker 2:We feel the same way the other way around, because what your work enables us to do is mine for the words test some words test some messaging, because we don't always know going into a community I mean on water districts, for example. I represent over a hundred water districts in the state of California. They're all not communicating the same way, they're not. The complexions are different in each, in each individual community. So I might be dealing with farmers in the central Valley or businesses in Orange County. Those are completely different messages. So when your firm and I work together to determine you know these are the words that are really going to work with this community, then I'm not throwing a dart right.
Speaker 1:So it's extremely effective and I appreciate your firm so much as well. Thank you, I appreciate it and I appreciate your firm so much as well. Thank you, I appreciate it. By the way, I have to mention because a couple of things all of the places that you worked when you were first starting I'm familiar with. Any Southern California person is familiar with. I have the KFWB jingle in my head right now I can hear it. I'm excited. Yeah, k-rock. When I was in junior high and high school in Lake Tahoe and we would come down all the kids did this we'd come down and visit family in Southern California. I had family down in Long Beach. You would bring your tapes and you would tape K-Rock and you would bring it back and listen to it in Lake Tahoe Taped radio. That was how iconic K-Rock was. I still wish.
Speaker 2:I had a couple of those tapes. I would love it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it would be wonderful to find them in a box somewhere, but they're key moments, key parts of anyone in Southern California's life and in the peripheries, one of the things I want to talk about.
Speaker 1:Before we started recording, we caught up briefly and you have a lot going on and I think you've always had a lot going on and you know whether it's professionally. You've got uh, you know. Obviously, you know your role at the company. You've got management of people at the company, which is extraordinarily time consuming. You've got expansion of the company. You've got family. You've got a whole host of other things that you do. How do you do it? How do you maintain yourself so that you're healthy and you're happy and you can still accomplish all this stuff?
Speaker 2:Well, one way I do it now is that I'm an empty nester, so I have all the time in the world. I have never.
Speaker 1:Go on, get out.
Speaker 2:I have never had the time. I mean, I had my daughter, evan, when I was 27. And it was the year we started the CBS affiliate and she would literally come to the newsroom with me every day. And then I had the twins. As you know, I have twins who are about to be 20 years old. I had them three years later and my boys are only just now going into their sophomore year of college. So this house has been a full house world compared to what I'm used to.
Speaker 2:So I have prioritized. First of all, in the last couple of years I've really prioritized my own sort of wellness and self-care. A lot of that came after COVID, right. So I want to sleep well, I want to eat well, I want to have good, strong mental health. I want to exercise. I mean want to eat well, I want to have, you know, good, strong mental health. I want to exercise. I mean those are a few things that that I really prioritize and I I no longer have the excuse of I'm busy.
Speaker 2:I've been far busier in my life than I have now and I have more clients, more staff. I just don't have soccer games and, you know, four loads of laundry a day and really smelly teenage boys and, you know, helping them get into college and reading their essays, you know it's life is just different. There's been a lot of relief for that. So, um, I don't see a lot of reason why I can't, especially compared to what I'm used to. But, yeah, just prioritizing my own wellness creates the space to just really have fun and, like I said before about it being a vocation, I love what I do.
Speaker 2:It's really fun what I do. It's really fun. I'm a big risk taker, so I enjoy just. Oh, you know, that's a good idea. I didn't start a water company, you know, I started a land use communications firm, but then the drought happened, so I reacted to that. And now here I am, with predominantly serving water agencies and government entities, public agencies. So I'd like to pay attention, I pay very close attention, and then I react, and then I don't wait around, I just take the risk and go for things. And now I have more time than I've ever had.
Speaker 1:So I recommend it to everyone.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you it to everyone.
Speaker 1:I've got some time for that. Well, the last thing I wanted to ask you, before we wrap up, is is for folks who are starting in this funny little world of ours, what are the things that you would recommend to them, the most important things to keep in mind, that are going to set you, set you up for success?
Speaker 2:I think the first thing is figure out what you do extremely well. What do you do well? When I started the company, I knew I could tell stories and I knew I could write. I didn't do newsletters, I didn't do graphics, I didn't do websites. I didn't do all of that until I was about seven or eight years in, because I couldn't do it myself. It wasn't my core skill set. I came from TV so I could do right, I could write and I could do video. But there were many things I couldn't do and I stuck with that. I stayed in my lane until the company got big enough and the demand got big enough that I could take a few risks.
Speaker 2:I think being willing to take risks and playing them out like planning, planning for me is imperative. I say to my staff planning prevents problems. It also is optimistic. You don't make plans to be bad right. You're making plans because you have an optimistic view. That sensibility for me really helps drive the direction. So a good planner who's willing to take a calculated risk and have the confidence to perform the work yourself. If you want to start a company, make sure you can do the work yourself like you right, because there are some days you wake up, certainly early on, and I did this, you know, back in 07, I'm waking up, going okay, I guess I'm doing this from my living room. I better figure it out. I remember when I designed every PowerPoint God forbid right there. And then you, and then you grow and you manage the growth and you, you integrate other staff and other skillsets. But in the beginning, do not, do not commit to doing something that you cannot personally do at your core.
Speaker 1:That's sage advice. Um, Aaron, it's been an absolute pleasure. You are a consummate professional, an incredible friend, and I can't thank you enough. It's been absolutely wonderful to have you on. Thank you.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so much for the opportunity. It's always, always great to talk to you.
Speaker 1:Thank you for tuning in to Interesting People. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you liked what you heard, be sure to subscribe, rate and review the podcast on your favorite platform, and don't forget to follow us on social media for updates and behind the scenes content. I'm Justin Wallen, and until next time, remember that the world is more interesting with you in it.
