Living in the Orange State of Florida this entrepreneur doesn't want you to hire his PR Agency, but this is what he will teach you.

Journalists don't want to talk with Agency people, according to this agency owner and so   Brandon Watts in Florida has created a DIY Pr program for early stage start ups so that they don't have to pay people like Brandon and me to help them. He shares the 5 stages of a PR plan which are generating great results for his clients, and we talk about how much time should be spent on owned vs earned, and whether Sheryl Sandberg was right when she said the media don't care about the little guys. 

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Transcript

Brandon Watts: 0:00

My core belief is that companies are the best messengers of themselves. It's kind of right on the front of my website where I say reporters, journalists, they don't want to talk to an agency. They want to talk to you.

Jim James: 0:12

hello and welcome to the unnoticed show. I am delighted to have joined me. Brandon Watts. Who's the founder and Principal of Wattsware who's in the sunny state orange state. I think a Florida.

Brandon Watts: 0:24

Yes, I am. It's finally getting beautiful here. So yeah. Happy to, happy to be with you, Jim.

Jim James: 0:29

Brandon I realized it's Georgia is the orange, orange state. Isn't it.

Brandon Watts: 0:33

George is the peach state, but yeah, Florida is the orange state. So you got it. You got it right?

Jim James: 0:37

Okay, perfect. I didn't want to get the PR wrong for the state already. Now Brandon, you have a background or like over 18 years of doing PR and you're on the show to share with us how entrepreneurs and founders can do their own PR using your fire stage methodology. So that'd be really useful to share with all those people out there, what you do to help them get noticed. Do you want to just dive in and just tell us the first firm you see entrepreneurs have and your first set of solutions?

Brandon Watts: 1:05

I've done full service PR and, and worked with clients for, you know, many years at a time and helping them handle all of their PR PR needs. But I started to identify this opportunity for say like a seed stage funded or early stage funded tech startup, which is what I work with primarily as tech startups. But I found an opportunity in the market for. That type of startup that has a small team, a little bit of funding, but wouldn't really be interested in working with a normal PR agency. Kind of like what I was, and my background is working with early stage startups. I love working with companies when they're fresh and trying to figure out who their audience is and being that first pitch to the press. So I I've been fascinated with this idea of productizing client services, and that led me down the road of. What I'm doing now, which is DIY PR strategies for tech startups. And so, yeah, it's, it's broken down into about five steps, but essentially have a kickoff meeting with a client, learn about their goals, what they want to achieve their competition. I go off create a strategy with them, review it, see what they think we adjusted as needed. And then present that final strategy to them and the training on how they can execute. So they'll know their messaging they'll know who they should talk to. They'll know when they should talk to you, their clients about certain things. And then I'm also giving them the training to be successful at it. And so that's, that's kinda how the process breaks down. And then after three months, I have a review call with them to find out how it's going to see, you know, what their challenges are. Is it working for them? What can we tweak? so that's kind of how the service is productized. but it is a solid scope. So about working with companies for about a month to get them through this, this program. And then, you know, hopefully they have everything they need to do their own PR successfully as a small team.

Jim James: 2:47

So Brandon, are you doing agencies out of business because. You know, companies normally come to agencies like minded, like yours to get advice. So what is it that the, that the agency, if you like, doesn't do that, the individual client can do for themselves.

Brandon Watts: 3:07

Yeah, well, I do have a belief and I I'm I'm with you. I mean, I I'm a normal PR agency too. I, I'm not going to reject a good client that I can help full-time and, and really assist them. I just, I just saw this, this separate need, the clearly defined need for a certain type of customer. And really I've wanted to experiment with this for many years. So this is, I figured COVID is the right time to try this. It's we're all trying different things and, and here we are But yeah, my, my core belief is that companies are the best messengers of themselves. it's kind of right on the front of my website where I say reporters, journalists, they don't want to talk to an agency. They want to talk to you. And sometimes as a PR PR professional, you kind of feel like a middleman. You feel like you're, you're the bridge between two different entities that really want to talk to each other anyways. And so, especially with a small company that can't afford an agency wants to handle it themselves, giving them the ability to know, you know, how to talk to the press when to talk to the press, what to say. It, it just, it, to me, it drives a closer connection and it really helps them to create their own success because they can have that relationship directly. Now, as that company scales, they're probably going to want to hire a full-time PR agency. And that's totally understandable. But again, we're talking about a very small team, maybe raised a million, two, and funding, you know, so they're not looking to just. Expense a ton of things and do all sorts of different projects. They're trying to be lean and be productive. And that's where this comes in, because really it's about the cost of one month retainer and they're done. So it's very realistic for them and they can implement it.

Jim James: 4:41

But I think you're right about that idea that, you know, as agencies, we really are middlemen and we help to package and groom a client to be prepared for the journalists but also we do know the journalists and what they're looking for in advance, because we have relationships with the media. The client often doesn't have the time to build, how do you help them to overcome that problem? Because that's a structural one, right? They don't spend their time dealing with journalists in the way that we do for multiple clients for many, many years.

Brandon Watts: 5:10

Yes. Yeah. And it's pretty straightforward advice. It's what we do as PR people, but it's helping them to appreciate it, which is essentially turning to Twitter. really what I encourage clients to do is, you know, part of my process is helping them to understand who they should, who their prioritized contacts are. So of course there's hundreds, thousands of people you could communicate with. Through PR activities, but generally you want to find who has the most impact, the best fit who's worth your time and attention in an ongoing way. And so I simply encourage my clients or anyone who's listening, follow those people on Twitter, spend 15 minutes a day, just reviewing what they're saying, interact with them. See what they're asking for. It's amazing how transparent reporters are about. What they need for a story are what's interesting to them. And so if you, if you give yourself a 15 minute investment per day, you're going to be pretty close to what they're thinking about and what they're looking for. And that's, that's how I get around that idea of, you know, PR people always know what everyone in the press wants. That's they may be true to some extent, but even us we're, we're divided with a lot of different clients and. You know, it's kind of hard for us to always know what everyone's looking for. So that's, that's the advice is just be a listener on social media, interact with them and find out what they, what they want to hear about. And that's going to land your pitch better.

Jim James: 6:28

Then the other obstacle often for clients is one a self-confidence I've found, especially with tech clients that I've worked with. And they're like, like not socially that comfortable how do you help them to articulate the messages in theater in a structured way so that the journalists can understand it because often the technical people get very technical and the salespeople get very sales driven.

Brandon Watts: 6:54

Yes. Well, that's very true. I try to break it down and this is what I do in my own work, but also advising clients is less, is always more. and part of the process with working with clients on this, this DIY approach is figuring out what the competition's doing, what you have unique, how can you sum it up in a boiler plate? Like you see at the end of a press release that paragraph. My messaging always starts with that. We try to nail that down first to make that as clear, comprehensive, appealing as possible, and then your pitches come from that. And so one of the things I do too, and I picked this up from a guy named Donald Miller, he has a book about StoryBrand. He has this philosophy, incredible book on communication. If you want to read about that, but he guides you through storytelling principles. And I've kind of used that for my pitches. And I have a storytelling framework, which is very simple. Which is basically problem, solution, experience results. If you can, if you can combine those four elements in a very simple way, in a very short pitch, that's, that's really what you need to get attention. And, you know, I I've looked at a lot of data on this and you realize that journalists, their preference for a pitch is one to two paragraphs. And I think something like 37% prefer two to three sentences for an initial pitch. So. Sometimes we get in our own heads and complicated. Like we have to tell this incredible long story and all these different elements, really journalists are. Time constraints. They get hundreds of pitches. They need to know in three seconds, if it's interesting. And so helping companies realize, make the initial contact very straightforward, simple, attractive. And then if you get a meeting, a briefing or a request for an interview, you know, flush out the story, make it more verbose and you know, tied to your goals. But to me, it's all about that initial contact. You have to get that first because the rest won't matter. If no one's going to give you attention

Jim James: 8:43

If you have got that journalist interested in your story, Brandon, how are you helping the, the clients to understand how to fill out that story as you talk about to build it out, because there's a skill as well in structuring the content for the media. Isn't there. You want to talk through some of the key elements that are required for the journalist to actually be able to use it.

Brandon Watts: 9:06

Yes. so I've been taking a data focused approach on this, and there's some really good surveys that have been done for our industry. And I'm sure you're aware of them through like MuckRack and Cision where they interview a lot of different journalists and find out preferences and what's working. What's not. So I try to apply their research and show, you know, what, what do the journals actually say they want? So this isn't hypothetical. Like what's the outline of a structure. They appreciate. Well, you know, what format, what kind of images do they want? You know, using their actual feedback to, to factor into a company strategy. and, and a big part of that too, is not just knowing the data and how that comes into it. But developing for me, I think. A quarterly PR strategy for a year. That's usually what I, I create in my process mapping out which types of goals you want to achieve along the way, if you know how to communicate effectively. And you know, when to say the right thing that's, that's 90% of the battle. A lot of the formatting things are reporter specific, but if you can follow some best practices, And have some building blocks on your story throughout the course of a year. You know, generally that, that works out. And the idea too, is that these, these companies are going to have dealt with these reporters along the way. They'll get some feedback. So they should know just like we do. When we work with reporters, we know what their personal preferences are because we've been talking to them over a course of time. So those three things combined really helped them and to be productive and deliver what's needed.

Jim James: 10:34

Now a key aspect that I find with clients is they're always very keen on talking about themselves and the content they produce tends to be quite internally focused and often quite technical, especially with the technology guys. How do you help them to understand the creative aspect of PR the use of infographics, for example, infomercials and mixing it up. So, Brandon, how do you help them to get a little bit more creative? Because you've dealt with the communication plan, but. It's not just a process, is it? There's an art to PR.

Brandon Watts: 11:10

Correct. Yeah. And that's, that's something that I always try to include in the plan is, you know, if you're just writing a bunch of long blog posts, you know, that works for some companies. But to me that's a little uninspiring, you know, there's so many different formats and ways to do things these days. And that's always how I try to give a little sampling of that throughout a strategy. Like, well, what if you did a video series on this. Are, you know, what, if you did a podcast about this to try to open up clients' minds to different ways to tell their stories. And like, what you're doing with this podcast is, is brilliant because it's showing, it's not just advising clients how to do these things, but you're actually showing them you're doing it the way to do it. And you know, you're, you're balanced because you're getting other voices on. And so I agree. I, if a company is always talking about themselves, everyone tunes out and the experts in the market, you serve. One of the key things I always advise clients to do is get them involved. So the people in your industry that are known as experts do an interview with them, that could be a blog post. That could be a 10 minute video. you get validation from them. They promote the content. It's a mutual, you're in a relationship and you're not pitching yourself constantly. So yeah, you have to be creative. And that, that probably is a struggle because the clients are on their own. But I try as part of my strategy to open their eyes to all the different formats of. Storytelling that exists today.

Jim James: 12:32

Now here's the one that always sensitive for clients and that's crisis management Brandon whenever I broached the issue of a crisis plan, they all look at me as I'm insulting them, that they would somehow make a mistake. But I was reading recently a actually it's the buzz sprout hosting go to DDoS no denial of service attack on their hosting. And so now crises are not necessarily a function of the company, but of the environment right now. Are you helping them to prepare or are you helping them to prepare for a crisis? Because I'm going to companies now are suffering. Whether it's under the black lives matter, they, somebody says something wrong. Or there was a guy that went on Capitol Hill to the March in February and it turned out he was the CEO of a company. You know, it all happens so quickly now, are you helping people in how on the crisis comms?

Brandon Watts: 13:29

Yeah, that's a good opportunity and something I should be focusing on on more as part of my process you know, each time I work with a client, I always try to find what are the weak spots in this? What can I improve? Because every time I've done it, it's gotten a little bit better. Like I always think of a different answer. And part of that Is part of that is, is media training. which kind of combines with crisis management. so yeah, I'm actually trying to find the best way to do that in a scalable way to help a client realize the best practices of that.

Jim James: 13:54

Yeah. And I think with cyber crime and also environmental issues taking place, uh, that are beyond people's control and with more frequency. What I call a scenario planning for crisis management was all about creating the different options of what might occur. Uh, and it was all about the preparedness, like any insurance policy really, uh, that should be in place. Now, what about then Brandon, some of the tools that a PR agency might use. That a client doesn't know about. Can you shed some light on your course in terms of what they could use to help them either create content or distribute or empathy, amplification or monitoring?

Brandon Watts: 14:40

Yeah. So I do link to some resources or give them a breakdown of different tools they can use to accomplish different things. For instance, you think about, you know, if you're trying to create quick visuals for your content, a blog post, I mean, for instance, I recommend Canva is a fantastic way to do that. That's what I use great way to create basically any visual content you need and almost anyone can use it and make something look good. So, yeah. That's that's something that I recommend. There's a tool called Biteable that helps you develop really good marketing videos quickly that look like ads. It looks like a really expensive ad house built them, but it's, you know, 15 bucks a month or something like that. So I do have a bunch of SAS tools that I go by and say, you know, if you want to do monitoring media monitoring, here's what you can use. Now, when I talk to companies, I try to, I try to have covered all the basics that they need, so they don't need to use a lot of different tools. But it's basically, as you grow, grow your PR efforts, you know, what are tools that you don't know about yet that I can instruct you on? They're gonna make your life a lot easier. And part of that could be Newswire distribution. It could be SEO optimization. So I have some recommendations for how to do that. so yeah, that's all part of the process, but kind of at the end of it, where, you know, if you want to really amp up your efforts, here are the tools I recommend that you should use to do that effectively.

Jim James: 15:57

Sheryl Sandberg, you know, former COO at at Facebook said that the media aren't really interested in the small companies. And as we know, 90% of companies are less than 200 people. So what hope has the solo entrepreneur got then Brandon of getting noticed.

Brandon Watts: 16:17

I think they have a lot of hope. I that's why I like to work with them. That's why I'm going back to working with smaller startups. Now you have to have a good story and you have to be willing to tell a good story. And that's part of what we do as PR people. You have to coax it out of your clients. it's funny. They, they get really ambitious when they talk to VCs and raise funding. But then for some reason, I noticed a lot of times when they want to talk to the media, it doesn't quite be as ambitious as, as you like. And so it's just helping clients realize you have to tell a big story. Anyone can get attention. If you've had, you've got a good story and you can back it up. you know, you've seen people that just. Build websites in their, their basement and get a ton of attention because they do great work. I mean, it's, it's the quality of the work and it's how you talk about it. And, you know, that's kind of unfair how PR agencies that work with huge clients. Like if you work with Tesla, you're going to get attention for anything you do. Yeah, there's no doubt about it, but you know, you've got to put a little more effort for the smaller guys, but I never think it's impossible. is it going to be hard? Yes, but that's where we come in and try to, as PR people give advice to find the most appealing angle and get them attention so it can be done. And it's done every day.

Jim James: 17:26

What about the use of owned content? Uh, channels because that is really the preserve, isn't it, of the solo preneur, the entrepreneur, they can control their own outlets. So can you give us an idea of emphasis? Do you ask them to focus on their own channels or the earned channels first?

Brandon Watts: 17:49

Yes. so own channels for sure. And what I like to do is emphasize content themes and content themes could be per quarter, but they apply to all sorts of channels that applies to content. You create pitches, you share, maybe some ads you make So it gives them some flexibility on any content related to that, but I'm a big fan of, of Jenny Dietrich. she has a blog called spin sucks. That's really popular in the PR industry, but she has this model of the peso model, which you start to hear a lot about in PR paid, earned, shared, and owned. And the idea is that all of those things have to work together. it might start as a blog post on your own channel and then. You use earned media to pitch it to the press, you then share it on social and you amplify it with paid advertising. And when all four of those things are working together, that's how you get the most mileage out of any piece of content. But usually it always starts with owned content, whether that is a blog post, or even in my mind, a pitch is sort of owned content because you're creating a story that you're then externally sharing. So. Yeah, but it's, that's a key part of it. You can't just rely on outside channels. You need to be starting internally and then amplifying that. So I'm a, I'm a big fan of that model.

Jim James: 19:05

Brendan, if you want to find out more about Brandon Watts and the Watson and the, and the fantastic services you provide, how can they find you?

Brandon Watts: 19:14

Yeah, simply put, if you want to learn more, go to Wattsware.com and everything's there contact information social. So yeah. Happy to talk to anyone or just offer some advice if anyone's looking for that too.

Jim James: 19:26

Brandon thanks so much for joining me all the way from as we've agreed, the orange state of Florida.

Brandon Watts: 19:31

Happy to be here. Nice to talk to you, Jim.

Jim James: 19:33

So we've been listening to Brandon Watts, who is the founder of principal of what's web, but he also has his own podcast, which I want to give a shout out because it's called the freelance dance podcast as well. So a man of great talent obviously, and also wonderfully sharing with it. So, thanks. You've been listening to the unnoticed podcast and here we'd be talking about really how you can create your own content and manage that as an entrepreneur. Well, Brandon, I will be happy to help you as agencies. We're also happy to help you as consultants and to guide you. So with that, we wish you the best of health, a profitable, or at least sustainable business. And that if you've got some to share, start sharing it now. Thanks so much for listening.