2026 - The Year You’re No Longer ‘One of Many’

2026- The Year You Stop Being ‘One of Many’

You know it’s time.

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Transcript

Speaker 1 0:03

Welcome to Dauntless PR Unfiltered. I am so excited to be back for 2026. And today we're gonna talk about the your recognition becomes inevitable, which is right now, 2026. We're there.

Speaker 0:24

Yeah. I actually love I love New Year. I love the sort of a new year, not because I'm desperate to go off on some fad diet or go running around doing marathons. I love the blank chapter of the year and that you can write your future and it's all kind of waiting for you. And I love that side of things. And from a PR point of view, I absolutely love that you're starting a year and anything is possible. And we see some absolutely phenomenal results for people and the ways it changes their business. And I love that there will be people sitting there thinking, right, this is my year. This is the year that I am gonna hook my head up above the parapet and I am gonna own myself, own what I do, share my message, and I'm gonna stand out from the crowd. And I really just I get so excited about the idea that this is gonna be the year that people are gonna be, maybe they're gonna be stopped in the streets, maybe people are gonna get in touch because they've heard them on a podcast, they've read about them in a newspaper. And if that isn't already happening for you, this could be your year to make it start happening.

Speaker 1 1:40

Oh my god, yes! Like it's so exciting! I just love the energy of the new year and like you say, all of the possibilities about what's to come because there's so many people out there who are just amazing, like absolutely incredible at what they do, and they have a message that's so powerful. But at the minute, it's like they're talking into an eco chamber, so they've they've they're on their socials, they've got their email lists, but it's their message is still contained, even if they've got a huge social following, their message is still fairly contained. It is time for it to break free, and when that happens, oh here's the thing about PR, it's a category of one. So some people mistakenly like compare it to other forms of marketing, don't they? Like ads and socials and you know, organic um marketing on socials or whatever. But it is none of those things like um speaking, books, like all of these do things, but PR is what amplifies everything. It's like if somebody goes, should I do PR or should I do ads? Well, it you can't compare the two. You absolutely do different things, you absolutely cannot compare. And the I think the one that comes the closest is the is speaking on stage because then you are like sharing about yourself, you're resonating with the audience, you're really like demonstrating yourself as a person of authority, but the room's limited, and then even a stadium is limited compared to media, right? Even if you're talking to absolutely thousands, it's still contained where where PR isn't. And the the beautiful thing that I love is that for people who want to have their ads working better, people who want to book more stage, sell more books, they want to um have their social content working better. Well, PR is going to make all of that easier.

Speaker 4:04

Yeah. When people say to me, should I do ads or PR, to me, that makes as much sense as if I said to you, Luana, should I eat or should I sleep? That's as much logic to me as and you'd be like, both, both. Like, do both. Like there is absolutely, I would never say to somebody, don't run ads, don't do other marketing, don't do this, don't do that. Do those things, but PR is not the same thing, it is a really crucial, it's like a lubricating oil for all the other parts of your business because it's making sure that you're not just preaching to the converted, you're not just telling your potentially awesome audience that you've built great things all the time, and of course you should be doing that, but they already know a lot of what you're saying and you're telling them those things. Get more people. PR brings more people into that audience, it widens your circle. It takes, like, imagine you're doing an amazing TED talk in say a football stadium, let's say a really big thing, PR would be like taking that TED talk and sharing it with that audience, but then having the potential for that talk to then go to more and more stadiums full of people for it to I mean, for a start, the numbers, the PR numbers can be crazy. Like, you know, millions of people can be reading a really great article or listening to something, and there are very few venues that would fit millions of people in, so it would be very unlikely you would ever get on stage and talk to millions. And of course, some people will say, Oh, but of course, but Catherine, you can do that already. You can have your TED talk on YouTube and get loads of views, and yeah, that's brilliant as well. But sharing these different parts of yourself in different platforms means that you are getting in front of more and more and more people, and you are doing it in a way that doesn't feel salesy, they're not feeling like they've seeing an ad, and oh yeah, there's they've got a great budget for advertising. Because that's what I think. If I see someone with an amazing ad campaign, I think, good for them, that's brilliant. Like they've got a brilliant, they're doing really well because they have an amazing budget for advertising. That's what I think to myself. So I think great things about them, but I think good for them, they've got the money for this. If I see somebody on TV, only on the well, I don't see them on the radio, I hear them on the radio, I listen to them on podcasts, I open a magazine and they're there, I go online and there's an article about them, they're on the front page of a newspaper, all that stuff. I don't think, oh my god, they've got a great budget for advertising. I think, wow, this person is somebody I really need to pay attention to. Yeah, this person is doing stuff, this person is saying something. I might, because I'm in the business, think, wow, their publicist is doing a good job. But most people are going to be like, wow, they are really relevant. They've got lots to say, they're fascinating. They're they've got great stories to share, they've got wisdom, they've got all of the stuff that would make you want to work with somebody, make you want to seek them out in a way that an ad is kind of like, oh, they've got this offer, they've got a good budget. Do I want to, do I want to work with them or not? So yeah, to me, it's like, don't, don't choose between the two, because that would be like choosing, do I eat, do I sleep? Do do both, do both well, but definitely if you can only do one, make sure you're doing PR because that is so crucial to making sure that you stand out from the crowd. Because let's be honest, in today's world, we all have an opportunity to speak to people on social media, we all have the possibility of building an audience, but and that is really freeing and really empowering, and I love that, but it also can mean that spaces are really crowded. Like, how do you know who's the person to listen to? You've got millions of people claiming to be the best at something on social media. How do you know who is worth listening to? And one of the ways is that seeing them again and again in the media will make you pay more attention on social media. That amplification. Any of you who have had children will know that there's something where, if you're giving a toddler food, you have to show them that food multiple times for them to eat it. People, the general public are the same. You need to see somebody multiple times. You need to for them to really live in your head and you recognize them, and for them to be the first person that comes to mind when they think of somebody, you don't see somebody once and think, oh, they were good. You have that repeated exposure that means that you say to somebody, think of a psychologist, who do they think of? Think of a hypnotist, who do they think of? Think of a personal trainer. If you did think of anybody I said those, those will be people who are in the media, unless it's someone like your best friend that would be the person you think of. We all know this intrinsically to ourselves, don't we? That the people that we have seen the most of and that we've heard stuff, and that we've actually thought, yeah, I like what you're saying. They're going to be the people that we're going to be the most attracted to. And that's what we want you all to get for yourselves, you know. And I'm sure lots of you are already on that path. But let's make this year the one that you're not just popping up in a few places, you have that recognition that people really you become a no-brainer choice. You're not just a oh yeah, they're an option, there's somebody who exists in this space, they're a possibility. You become a complete no-brainer. You are the person they want to speak to because you've established yourself as that go-to expert.

Speaker 1 10:39

Completely. And by building that familiarity as well, like that's where trust comes from. And trust is the number one blocker. Like everybody knows that on calls, when somebody says time and the all the rest of it, 99% of the time, or even more, it's down to lack of trust, either in themselves, in the to be able to follow through with it in the other person or in the offer. But PR helps to break through all of those, like on a on a crazy, crazy level, and it just cannot be compared to anything else. And you know that like there are gonna be people listening to this now who have a message who are already changing lives, and it is absolutely their time. It is absolutely their time just to go. Do you know what? I am fucking doing this now. I am doing this now because they deserve it, their message deserves bigger recognition. The people out there who are waiting for them to show up deserve that to happen, like they can make the world a better place, yeah.

Speaker 11:56

And you know, it takes courage, it takes courage to be in the media, and you know, but if you are someone who has an amazing purpose and an amazing message, that courage, that being fearless, that not knowing that, yes, being visible is a bit scary, but you're gonna do it anyway because that's the difference.

Speaker 1 12:22

It's not not feeling scared, it's the ability to do it anyway.

Speaker 12:26

Because you know, it it would be uh ridiculous for us to pretend that it isn't a little bit daunting at first to go into the media, to go on TV, to maybe be doing a live segment where you're not quite sure what the interviewer is going to ask you and you're on the spot. But you if you are somebody that has a message that needs to be heard, that is how you do it. You you lean into it. The playing safe and keeping small, that's for other people, that's for everybody else in that isn't going to go into that because it isn't the norm for people to actually focus on PR nowadays. You know, that is it's a way of standing out in the crowd because most people are content doing regular social media posts, and then they'll complain if, say, Facebook comes up with some usual Facebook fuckery that means it changes its algorithm, and suddenly all your posts get buried under a load of ads, or maybe you get kicked off a platform for doing goodness knows what, you've no idea, you've just got banned, you sent one too many messages, you did whatever stuff. We all know the nonsense that comes from putting the power of your business in somebody else's hands. And the key with the media, so if we use you as an example, Luana, you've been in all sorts of stuff, if the sun folded tomorrow, that wouldn't impact you because you've had some pieces in the sun. For a start, your pieces would live on past that, but you've been in other things. If you put everything onto one platform and that platform disappears for whatever reason, you've lost your audience. Yeah. If you are all over the place, then you're not reliant on any one thing to prop up you and your messages.

Speaker 1 14:30

You look at me, I'm constantly in and out of Facebook jail. Like, where would I be without PR? I don't even know. Like, it's it's crazy.

Speaker 14:40

I was talking to an absolutely awesome person just before Christmas who runs brilliant events and they had randomly been blocked from running their ad campaign for no particular reason. Yeah. They had no idea why, and it didn't, the why actually didn't matter because it took them so long to try and get hold of somebody to get to the bottom of it that they were losing valuable time on running that ad campaign. Those kind of things I hear anecdotally all the time. These kind of, oh, I've been locked out, or a hacker took it over. That isn't to say, oh my god, social media is bad, but just like broadening your scope so you are only ever relying on yourself and your messages, and you're not relying on other things. So by telling them in different places to different audiences, it means that if one strand of that goes wrong, it doesn't matter because there's still all that stuff out about you, you know. If someone wants to hear what you've got to say, they can find it in so many more places so that you're not kind of thinking, oh my god, that's gone down now, no one's gonna see anything, no one's gonna be able to find me because everything's invested into this one website that isn't owned by you. That's the thing, isn't it? That when you put everything into something like another platform that you've no control of because it's not yours, like it's completely different to your own website, which you have some control over. I mean, what if what if Mark Zuckerberg tomorrow just went, I'm just gonna delete Meta.

Speaker 1 16:25

Yeah, part of it now. And you can't decide your direct to send that.

Speaker 16:32

And he's like, I'm just gonna delete it all and I'm gonna delete everything on it. Just think for a minute, what would that do to so many people's businesses? And that's uh hopefully never gonna happen, but like diversifying where you show up is so crucial. It's essential, it's about not just that security of spreading yourself out and having your eggs in more than one basket, but it's about people really seeing you as someone that they can relate to. Because if you're in the media talking about different things and presenting something other than your very slick marketing approach, then they're gonna resonate with you. Because what tends to happen with marketing, and I I love marketing, I'm not saying this is a bad thing, is you pick you pick a lane with marketing, you're like, this is my tagline, this is my branding colours, this is what I want to say, and then you say that and you say it and you say it and you say it and you say it and you say with PR, you have to be saying different things because journalists don't just want an advert, they want to be like, what are your thoughts on this? What's your story? Well, tell us a bit about you. How did you get here? What's your darkest moment that you've overcome? What advice have you got for people doing this? And it gives you an opportunity to talk about so much more than just your one thing. You get to show your flexibility, you get to show the many, many different things that you can help people with. You get to show who you are as a person and whether they are whether your clients can actually relate and resonate with your story and relate to you and build that trust with you because they get to see beyond the glossy marketing photo shoot when they get to see who you really are completely, and that's the stuff that changes people's perception completely, isn't it?

Speaker 1 18:45

Like something I always find interesting is, and one of the reasons I love PR, by the way, is because it's such a good filter, it's such a good filter. Life becomes so much easier when the people who don't resonate with you just don't come near you in the first place. But in doing that, you also show yourself to the people who really do resonate with you. And something I find so interesting is in my experience, and I know that in the experience of a lot of our clients as well, it's not the pieces that they think are going to get traction that actually has people like clamoring in their inboxes, inquiring to work with them. It's often like because people typically want forbs and you know, all of those kinds, and they are great pieces. Don't get me wrong, they are fantastic, really great to work in market alongside your marketing, you know, as part of funnel and and that kind of stuff, particularly. But the ones where some people would be like, Oh, I don't know about going in that one. They're the ones that are getting the biggest results. The Daily Mail.

Speaker 20:08

Yeah, I was just gonna say Daily Mail.

Speaker 1 20:11

Personally, it's my it's the pieces that I've done for the sun that I get people doing. Even the years later, they turn up in my inbox and they literally say, I've read read your piece in the sun. I know that I I'm gonna work with you for sure. And I'm like, that piece wasn't even about PR. It wasn't anything about PR, it was just me show demonstrating it talking about things that scare the shit out of me, in all honesty. And it's it's those that are cutting through like more than ever right now, especially with AI coming into the mix, isn't it? Because journalists are inundated with crappy pictures. Let's get real. And people saying the same things. Like if the people that are saying what ChatGPT is saying or what's already online, well, why you know that they're not the ones getting published, the ones that publish the ones that are saying things that are different, things that are unique, people who are bold enough to say what's on their mind and to show who they really are without constantly assessing what am I gonna get get from this? What am I gonna get out of saying this thing? What am I gonna get out of sharing that story? What you're gonna get is you're gonna attract the people who really resonate with the human side of you, and that is when you stop being one of many, and that's when you start becoming like the only choice for the right people. And I I, you know, I emphasize the right people, it's not gonna be everyone, but uh that's how they're gonna find you, you know, like oh.

Speaker 22:00

This stuff excites me. Yeah, sometimes just being out there and doing stuff that interests people as well. So, like we've had clients that have been in the media doing exciting things, not necessarily telling people you should do this or you should do that. Demonstrating living the kind of life that their clients want to live. That's right. Showing the kind of person and their values and their amazing stuff that they do. And again, those kind of things will often get people coming up to them and going, I recognize you from this because they are an inspiring person. Like, let's be honest, if you could choose, if you sit down and you think, would you prefer to work with somebody who kept everything really, really formal and safe, and just said the same thing again and again in slightly different ways, or somebody that you could see absolutely living their best life, really doing the things that matter to them, showing their values and the things that they believe in in their what they not just what they say on their posts, but in their actions, in the way that they show up in the world. Like which one, hand on heart, would most people be more excited to work with? The empowering, inspiring one, or the safe corporate toe the line, colouring inside the lines carefully, everything's perfect. Some people might say that, not our people say the first thing.

Speaker 1 23:43

Some people will, but that's the filter, isn't it? Like, I don't want somebody like that coming through to us because then it's gonna cause a whole lot of fuckery when they're through the door. I would rather up front show people who I am so that they the wrong people can filter themselves out, and then we end up working with people who we love to be around, who we vibe with, who we don't have to filter ourselves around, who you know, everything just becomes easier, more fun, and everything works better as well.

Speaker 24:19

Yeah, absolutely. And you know, people come to you excited to work with you if they've seen stuff about you. If they've come to you because they've heard an amazing podcast interview and they really like what you said, or they've read a piece about you, they're coming with a level of excitement about you and what you've got to say that you wouldn't get from an ad. You know, the ad kind of it would make them know you exist, they'd be like, oh great, this all looks like it might work for me. That's interesting, but they're not going to come with that sense of curiosity and excitement and wanting to know more and wanting to be be in your ecosystem online. So, what often will happen with PR is it works perfectly with your marketing because it sends them to your social media platforms, it sends them to your website, and this is why I say it's it's not a case of either or because you need the marketing to take the people from PR and then give them the opportunity to actually work with you. Because if you just were on the front page of a newspaper talking, but then you weren't online, there was no way of getting hold of you, there was nothing, there was no offers, you weren't doing anything, then it the PR would fall flat because you'd be like, Well, I love that person, but where the heck do I go? You need the infrastructure that marketing gives you, you need that way that you need to, you know, sign up for my email list, come and follow me on social media. You need something easy that they can do so that they can stay with you, and then they become part of your audience that you're telling your stuff to, and it just grows and grows and grows and grows. But yeah, I'm really excited to hear what people who are just starting out in 2026 like how things change for them by this time next year. That's the thing that excites me. That if you haven't gone full throttle and you haven't really been in the media much, maybe you've done the odd piece, but you've played it really safe and you've been really selective, and now you're like, I'm gonna really go for it. I'm gonna live fearlessly, I'm gonna step into that, I'm gonna stop hiding and I'm gonna step into the light and I'm gonna show people who I really am and what matters to me. I'm just so excited to then find out how that actually works for people as the year goes on.

Speaker 1 26:54

Oh my god, yes, it is time to own that. It's absolutely time, and on that note, we will bring this episode to a close. Really, really excited for the rest of the year. Big things are gonna happen. Big things are gonna happen. Okay, if you have any questions, comments, or you want to know more about how to get into the press consistently and become somebody who really stands out that isn't one of the many. Hello at dauntlesspr.com. Looking forward to hearing from you.