Tim Cox from ZingPR – Helping Everyone Find Their Voice

Greetings, folks, and welcome to the Small Business show here in Durham, New Hampshire. As usual back in Durham, New Hampshire, I suppose I should say. I'm Dave Hamilton.

And I'm Shannon Jean, coming to you from lovely Lafayette, California. And Dave, it's good to have you back.

Thanks, man. It's good to be back. Yeah, we. We had nice little travels and all that good stuff, but today we actually have someone joining us here. Like to welcome Tim Cox from Tim Cox PR to the show. How you doing, Tim?

Hello there, Dave. I'm very well. How are you?

I'm good. I'm good.

Yeah.

Good. So, you know, Shannon, you speak within. You speak with an accent that indicates that you're somewhere that you probably are not.

Well, I've been practicing it all morning just for this podcast. I heard. I heard that British accents, you know, they do well in podcasts. So I switched away from my usual Kansas accent and tried this on. I am, in fact, from London, as you may have correctly surmised, but I've been actually living here in the US since 86.

Yes. Nice. Well, Tim, we're thrilled to have you here. I have a ton of questions for you. Tim and I have been friends for a long time, and I just found out that Dave, you know him well yourself, so it's a small world.

Yeah, well, being, you know, I guess calling myself a member of the press is not entirely incorrect, so Tim and I have interacted on that front. And in fact, I know that Tim is, or at least was, at some point in time, has been a listener to our podcast.

I was just the other night listening to it, and. And yes, that's right, Dave, you and I know each other because I have. Have, I think, been sort of badgering you now and then on behalf of my clients as.

As you are, as you are supposed to do. It's the natural order of things.

Yeah, I'm making a note here, badgering. So we can make sure we come back to that a little later.

Yeah, yeah.

So. So, Tim, we're going to talk today, you know, first about your business, about. And take a moment to give us a little background how you got started, what you do for your clients.

Yeah, you bet. Well, I never thought I'd be doing pr, I must say, when I first started working, I've been doing marketing jobs ever since I graduated, really, around the world. But in this country, I was lucky enough to work for a couple of great tech companies, one being Autodesk up in Marin. And then later, eventually I moved over to Apple, where I worked in a variety of roles there. And so, yeah, throughout those roles, I was working with PR people just because I was either a product manager or a brand manager or something like that. So PR was part of that marketing mix that I was overall managing. And it wasn't until I was given the opportunity by means of a layoff to think about branching off on my own. And actually, it's a funny story. I mean, eventually Apple had, as everyone I think who's familiar with Apple knows, some rocky times in the late 90s. And I was part of a large raft of people that was cut off. And after licking my wounds a bit and wondering what to do next and applying for lots of hot little startups that were just starting to happen around then, and spending perhaps a little bit too much time at the swimming pool planning my next move, my wife Marcela, who had actually started this, this gig, sing PR said to me, why don't you help me? You know, you can write, you can call, you can help me even catch, you know, get some new business. And before I knew it, I was out there with her doing new business pitches, writing press releases and, you know, and badgering the media. So in a way, I just drifted into it in the nicest possible way. And then finally we had, you know, we had kids and Marcella quite gladly handed me and said, oh, yeah, you got the hang of it. You do it. So here I am 17 years later.

Oh, it's a great story. And it's, you know, it's such a common thread. You hear from people that strike out on their own, almost like they have to be, you know, we have to be pushed out often and, and then, you know, landing and it's, it's, it's a great story, it's fun.

It's been a good ride. I must say, I've had a lot of fun doing this. And I think, you know, what I find my clients are mainly looking for is someone to help them tell their story. Initially, it was just really thinking about telling it to the media, right? Help me figure out how I do a press release and how I connect with the right people in the media, engage with them, and somehow get me, my company featured in the media. And that's really how, that's the essence of pr, really, for most people. But nowadays, I would say it's a little bit more than that, because companies, startups, small businesses even have at their, at their, at their means, at their fingertips, all the channels they need to engage directly with their potential customers so they don't have to count on. On media, you know, newspapers, magazines, whatever.

Yeah, that makes sense. And have you found that. Does that make your job harder or is it opened up other opportunities to expand your business?

It's a good question. I think. I think actually life was a whole lot easier when it was just, you know, doing press releases and putting them on the wire and connecting with the media. It's fun. It was a little formulaic, I would say. I would say now it's more fun because it's really now helping people tell their stories in a. In a way that actually can bypass the media completely. Whereas before, you know, press releases used to be very, very dull. I'm sure. I'm sure Dave will remember that. Not that they aren't still, but I.

Was just gonna say, when did. When did dull press releases stop showing up in my inbox?

Yeah. All right. Well, there you go. Well, I try. I know, right, that beyond the. The people who are lucky enough to receive press releases from my clients, there's another very willing recipient, and that, of course, is Google, is search engines. So you have to assume, therefore, that those press releases are to get read by potentially someone who has never seen a press release before, and if that person looks it and thinks, my goodness, what a fantastic story, you know, about that company or product, and where do I buy that, then? Well, all the better, you know?

Yeah, yeah, it really makes. It really makes sense. So it kind of puts you in a different position. You know, we usually ask folks, okay, well, how do you market your business and what's been successful for you? But, you know, you're in the. In the business of marketing everyone else.

But I'm sure there's. There's still a question there, right, Shannon? Maybe that's where you're going.

Absolutely. Yeah, that's right. That's where I'm headed. And, you know, I would think it could be difficult sometimes to step back and really focus on, okay, I got to get the Zinc PR story out there. And how have you done that?

You know, it's a. It's classic for me. It's. You've heard the. You know, the. What is that. That saying, right? The cobras children are going shoeless, you know, and, you know, I spent all this time laboring over other people's websites and their social media feed and getting their stories placed in the right media when it comes to doing it for myself. Well, assuming there is time for that after all that stuff is done, it's more of a challenge, actually, I must say. You know, because you know, the do's and the don'ts, you know, what you're trying to accomplish. What I found works for me anyway is, is trying to have, try to have a narrative on the website, you know, with, with the blog. So website otherwise becomes extreme, extremely static. So I want to make sure that my website is updated with interesting tidbits and my own customers, their client stories. I spend a lot of time on LinkedIn, so nurturing a network that I am trying to develop of people in marketing and PR who might potentially be looking for help. I have dabbled in AdWords, not terribly successfully, I must say. I mainly got, I think it was, you know, students looking for internships. So I'm clearly not an AdWords expert. And what else have I been doing? Oh, well, that was. Well, a lot of it's also networking with people whom I know who I've maybe used to be clients. Quite a lot of my business is referral business, so I try to keep that alive and kicking. How.

Yeah, that was my question is obviously referrals are going to be a big part of really any business, but certainly one like, like yours. How. What percentage of your business truly comes from, you know, solely from the outreach and sort of the selling that you're doing in all these various capacities.

Well, let me see, if I were to look at my current roster of clients, right, I would say of the. There's actually currently like so 11 firms, companies I'm working with in various, you know, various degrees. I would say of those, well, three really are like off, literally like inbound, never heard of them before. And the rest have been cultivated in some cases, two, three years actually from the beginning of my connection with that person to actually then starting to work with them.

But still, that's almost 30% of your active business is coming from you just doing outreach. That's actually pretty good.

Yeah, well, gosh, I wish it was more. I wish I could replicate that, Dave, because sometimes the, you know, the pipeline goes dry and you realize, oh my God, I've not been doing enough biz dev. You know, and that's the balance, I think, for any small business owner is, you know, you, you've only got so many hours in a day and you're busy doing the work, whatever that work is. And when, when times are good, you're thinking, ah, this is how it's supposed to be. You know, I can, I'm just bobbing along here and the tracks are coming in and then something happens.

Always, always.

And then you're realizing, oh, wait, wait, A moment. What about those, those business development ideas I had a while back? I need to put them into gear fast. Of course, by that time it can be a little too late. Too little too late.

Yeah, it makes sense. And you know, you talk, you mentioned how important story is and with connecting with people and I mean, what, what happens? And I'm sure none of your current clients are like this, but what happens if you have their, what if they just don't have a great story? Or maybe their founder or whoever their front forward facing person is maybe isn't the most outgoing, gregarious person? I mean, it sounds, it seems to me that there could be a number of challenges, you know, trying to craft this thing with either a particular person or, you know, a company that may be awesome, but just hard to get their story across.

Yep. Well, that's, I think one of the things I bring to the table is digging deep enough to find there's always a story. Right. Somewhere there's a, there's an idea, there's a gap in the market that someone saw the way that they deliver this, this service or product is different or it's a right time, right place and it's a story there for somebody. Right there for somebody in the media would look at that and go, that's interesting. That the trick is, you know, finding that, I mean, we're not all born storytellers, right. So helping that person find a voice that he or she is comfortable with is, is part of, part of what I help them with. I will also say this though, right? I'm a consultant, so I get to pick my clients. So, you know, I have to say there are, there are some people who approach me, I looked at it and I think, I don't know, I don't, I'm just not feeling, feeling the, I've got to like it, right. I've got to have interest in this, whatever it is they're doing and believe in them. So for me, it's very important to find clients with whom I know I'm going to get on, who have got an interesting story and, and who are willing to, to, to tell it, you know.

Yeah, that makes sense. And I, we, we've discussed this before. Dave is on previous shows that having the confidence or the power to say, to say no and not feel like you have to chase everything. And of course, from a, you know, a revenue standpoint, we all want as much business as we can manage, but being able to step back.

Yeah, not necessarily. I, I was just having a conversation with somebody who ran a Mac website years and years ago. He was, he was in the business before, before I was. And we were just sort of reminiscing about, about the old times and talking about the various folks that we've encountered along the way. And we both encountered one person that we were both very, at the time that we encountered them, were very interested in working together because there was potential opportunity and all of this and neither one of us did. And I'm sure we each would have made some, some money doing it working with, with this one, you know, one outfit. But man, in retrospect, we were both really happy. We didn't because it was just, just bad people, you know, and, and it's, I think it's important to, to be able to say no and, and, and important to take a step back and, and like we did today look and say, hey, that, saying no there. I trusted my gut and I'm glad I did. Even, you know, 10 years later or whatever it is. That's a good, you know, good to remind yourself why it is you, you'd make these decisions and reevaluate them just to make sure. Yep, I'd do that again. I'm glad I did it.

Yeah. Makes it makes a lot of sense. And one question I have is, is your, is your business cyclical? I mean, are you coming along in a certain light time frame within the life cycle of a business? Is it more important to, you know, engage with someone like you? Ah.

Oh, you mean is my business cyclical?

Yeah, yeah.

Does your, no, you're well related to ZingPR, you know, do you see, are you typically getting contacted at certain time FR frames of these businesses? Is it all just when people, they're getting going and when they're launching products, or is it an ongoing thing?

It is ongoing, I would say. I'm always, actually, when I have slow months, I always think, oh yeah, that's right. It's always so around this time. And then, shazam, right? Suddenly I get a new lead. So it's hard. I would say it's not terribly cyclical. Okay. I would say I used to think perhaps it could be associated with people's budgets, right. With budget cycles like, you know, toward the end of November maybe, you know, you, you're, you're a market and you're thinking, okay, what's the spend going to be for next year? Will we do pr? If so, who with? Let's put our feelers out. And I have seen that to some extent in November, December things I get inbound Leads. But thereafter, I would say it's more to do with vacations. Definitely. People are less busy in August, July. Many people in the media are taking their vacations then. So we'll. Why would you be super active on pr? And of course, my clients themselves, they're taking vacation. So I, I always, I've always regretted it, I must say, when I've decided not to take a vacation in a given summer, thinking I was going to be really busy looking at, you know, looking at my client load, say in June, July, and then realized too late, you know, wow, everyone, it wasn't so busy after all. I could have gone.

I see. Yeah, sure, sure. It makes, it makes a lot of sense. And, and do you find yourself in a position where you're having to. I mean, everybody talks about, you know, roi, the return on investment, but so many of these areas are kind of squishy. Yeah, they're squishy. That was what I was looking for, you know, and having to do you spend a, you know, a portion of your time kind of educating your customers about what that value is on some of this stuff.

Yeah. You know, I think one of the things that's happened in a really big way in the last 10 years is that marketing has become a science. It used to be, you know, an art. Right. Good marketing. What's that saying? Right. With David Ogilvie or somebody? You know, I know that 50 of my ad budget is wasted. I just don't know which half it is. Yeah, that's right. Some people used to live with that. That used to be okay. You could never really be sure. Well, nowadays there's no excuse for that.

Is that still. I mean, I know we have all these metric out there, but is, is that phrase still not or is that phrase now untrue? Because it seems to me like these metrics are just. A lot of them are just built to support the business that the metrics companies run.

Yeah, I see your point. Well, all I can say is being on the receiving end of feedback from the people who are paying me. Right. Is they want to know where am I spending my time and what is, what are the results. Sure. And the thing about PR is that it's a little hard to measure that. Right. I mean, I can say, well, you know, we, we put out this press release and I contacted all these people and we got, we got, you know, engagement with so and so and so and so who may write a story and you know, and then yes, we did get some coverage over here. But let's now look at that. What are the metrics on that piece of coverage? Right. How many clicks did we actually get back from that? Because they can look at that now. Sure. Whereas before they really could. Shouldn't. I would say, if I'm pushing back, I'd probably say, look, you know, you're, you're developing your brand, you're getting your name out there and the more place it, more places it is out there, then the higher you're going to score in organic search. And that's. There's a value to that.

Yeah, I would say, I mean, if we write an article about something, anything on Mac Observer, I do not expect our readers to click through to find out more because it's our job to tell you everything you need to know. And now you know it. So why would you click through to. To learn more when we've already told you what it is you need to know? And, and I can tell you from our metrics that the numbers, the, the amount of people that click through on a, you know, on a product announcement type type post it. The percentages are single digits.

Wow.

Yeah, yeah, sure, right.

I mean, because, I mean, and this, this shouldn't be a surprise to anyone. It, I get that it's frust frustrating to people who want to say I spent money here, I got results there, but it's like, why, if that person did their job, that's it, you should be done. And now whoever read that knows about the product and when it's time for them to need that product, they know about you. And that's it, it's done.

That's right. I agree with you there, Dave.

I know I might be preaching to the choir a little bit here, but.

Yeah, yeah, well, I mean, for example, his example, I just did a big launch, a big, well, a big announcement with a client, conjunction with another well known, you know, cloud company. Sure. And so the order of the day then was to get that news picked up in all the Right. Enterprise tech media. Right. So the E Weeks, information weeks, all those guys. Sure. And actually I was pretty successful. I got some pretty good stories. Now just yesterday I sat down with the, with the marketing VP and we went through. I asked the question, you know what, what has been the results? What have you actually seen on your end click throughs from these stories or the uptick, shall we say, on your website? He could point to maybe 200 clicks, right? Or yeah, clicks. Actually that came through. From what, how many stories? We got like 10 stories. So that would, that would kind of correlate with what you were saying right there. And I was thinking to myself, wow, all that work, right? 200 people actually clicked through. But we also know that a lot more people read that story and thought, oh, I didn't know those guys were in bed together. That's really interesting. Next time I'm going to deploy on the cloud, I should probably look at them. That's exactly moving those people along that pipeline from not knowing, not having a clue about what you, what you're offering, to thinking about what you offer and situating yourself into that decision matrix and then finally to, I need that thing right now. Now, what was the name of that company that I saw the other day? Oh, yeah, those guys.

Yeah. And then what happens is they search on Google for it and Google gets the quote, unquote cred, right, for the, the conversion or whatever it is. Because, because that's how the funnel works. When, when it was funny, when Shannon and I were running a website together, it was a deals website called Deals on the Web or Deal Brothers, depending on the year. And, and, and you know, that same, looking at that same metric, the number of people that clicked through on that site was so much higher. Right? Because if you went to this deal, you were going there because you were interested in buying something, whereas if you go to a news site, I always said that, you know, they were at two opposite ends of the funnel. Mac observer and Deals on the Web were. Because Mac observer was at the top of the funnel. You're just learning. You're just beginning. Whereas Deals on the Web was, you know, the bottom of the funnel. I am about to buy. I found the deal. I'm going to click and I'm going to go. And our click, you know, our click rate was, you know, our click rate per article read was much higher at that point.

Point.

And it makes sense. It would be.

Yeah. Yeah, that makes sense. And I think it, you know, like you mentioned Dave and Tim, it goes back to, you know, now that that content is going to be indexed, and when next someone goes up and does a search, it's going to come up. And Dave, when you, you know, feature the article on the Mac observer, you know, maybe there's probably going to be a direct link back to, you know, the, the company that's making the product or offering the service. Those are very valuable. But it, it's hard to measure that at, you know, when you sit down at that meeting and say, okay, so how did we do? You know, and, and that's the squishy part still that I Think that, that I think is still out there.

Well, if I may, Shannon, there's another thought I have that came to mind just when you were talking about, you know, pr. Well, there's sort of this continuum of moving the, the prospect, should we call that person, right, from oblivious to what you're doing to actually pressing that buy button. And I would say that the PR probably plays the best role in creating awareness and educating your customers. Just like, you know, in fact when people come to me and they say, oh, you know, we're thinking of doing PR but we've not done any advertising yet. We've actually done nothing. We've just really just launched the business and we don't know where to start. I would say, well, okay, PR can play a really good role here in launching the company and getting the word out. You're going to have to follow that though, with your own advertising and marketing and don't depend on PR to deliver a customer that's ready to buy because there's so many, there may be an offer you need to put in front of them. When you think about if you're say a car dealer, right, and you're looking to say Ford the brand to do those sort of air cover branding for the brand and the cars and then locally you've got the dealer who's doing local advertising. Well, PR kind of plays that mix, plays a role in helping someone to understand how this product compares with other products and what it can do for you, what it can't do for you. But it's very rare for a PR article that you've placed to actually deliver someone who's ready to actually go buy. It's more awareness and consideration. I suppose that's the point.

Yeah, that's great. I think that's really important where you're mentioning that the PR is part of your long term marketing plan. It's not the end all solution. It's got to be kind of part of that whole package.

Yeah, I have. Sorry, go ahead, Dave.

No, I was going to say part of it is you've got to sell good products and you've got to have an easy way when people do finally come to your website to take their money when they want to give it to you.

Right.

It doesn't matter how good your PR is if your web cart sucks.

Oh yeah.

You know, for sure, for sure. Right.

You know, and that's actually very, very true. I mean, I would say to anybody who is considering pr, you know, before you even think about it, make sure your website is is really good because if that's the portal, if that's the shop front, then if there's anything wrong, anything amiss there, right. In terms of I can't find a way to buy this or it doesn't tell me enough about the product to convince me I need to then, well, why deliver people to your front door through PR or what, whatever else, you know, marketing, if you then can't take the order properly, that would be a disaster.

Yeah. That's huge. Yeah. Oh yeah. Google probably makes 50% of their revenue from stories like that, you know.

Do you think it's that low?

Yeah, yeah. That's why they're selling clicks. Right. I mean it's for sure. Okay, so we've talked a lot about PR and I do have a couple more questions for you about Zingpr specifically and I'd love to delve back into some of the methodology and things of it. You know, one of the things on the small business show is that, you know, we're real big fans of mistakes because, you know, we've certainly made our fair share and hopefully we've made, you know, less than we have successes. But you know, if you could look back on your business, what mistake were mistakes have you made that have taught you the most?

Most. Well, back to this. So lead gen thing, right? I mean when I first got going, I had a pretty good network of people and the business was just sort of coming in and I think I waited way too long to actually create my own website. To have a website. I've been thinking about doing it. I knew I really should. And this was before things like, you know, social media. It was easy now to have your own safe Facebook page or whatever. I had no, no home on the web at all. So I waited too long and I think. And I didn't really budget properly for that. I was lucky to find some guy who, out in Pakistan who wanted to do the job for, you know, for very little money. Did a really nice job. I thought it was a good guy. I love that website. Yeah, there he is. He's probably still out there beavering away. Actually, funny story, right? One of the reasons I selected him is because his company was called Barely Average Design. I like and I thought someone who has the guts to call their age their design agency, Barely Average Design is someone I want to talk to. They've got a. They've obviously got an interesting attitude to. Little cheeky. Exact little. Exactly. Exactly. A little irreverent, should we say? And anyway, that went great. I got great Websites. And then I think the next mistake I made was then waiting way too long to upgrade it. You know, the last few years in particular with people using, you know, accessing the website, you know, on mobile phones, and they'd call me, you know, they say, I saw your website. Oh, interesting website, Tim. And I'd think, oh, what's that mean? Really? Because I knew if they looked it on a mobile phone, it probably wasn't looking great. So maybe they had an interesting experience trying to use the website, read the website. So finally I sat down one afternoon actually last year and just fired up Squarespace and thought, how hard can this be? And just tackled it Right. And I was really happy I did it. And I wondered why on earth did I wait so long? Because it definitely makes a huge difference when you've got a really good looking website that works across all different platforms.

Yeah, I think that's a huge issue that we see with our data and our metrics is that, you know, just the vast, vast majority of people that are hitting your site are coming in on their phone and you've got to be prepared for them to do that or they're just going to click away.

Yeah. In fact, as you probably know, you know, Google now dings you directly if you're, if you're not so mobile friendly. So.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's great. Okay. And so, you know, we always ask this business, you kind of alluded to it a little bit. I always ask this question at the end. If you could go back to it when you were just getting started, when.

You sell it, you know what, I have a, I have a question that feeds into this before we ask him anything final here, Shannon.

Okay, good.

Yeah. But you almost dipped your toe in this same water. So you have an interesting story, Tim, because you effectively, and I realize this is the wrong word, but effectively you acquired your business from someone else. Now that someone else is your wife. And so you have an interesting situation. I'm curious if, if your wife is still involved at all in the business, and if not, do you at least still, you know, is it still dinner table conversation? Because, you know, I find it nice to be. My wife does some work for us here and when she started doing that, it opened up the opportunity for us to just be able to kind of talk about the business, not obsess over it at home or anything. But, you know, for her to be involved and understand what I do all day and, and that was kind of a nice thing. So I'm curious what that dynamic is. Like when she started it and now passed it to you and how that works.

Well, it has changed, I must say, because originally we were working together side by side in the office, and so we were both so intimately involved with every. Every. Every detail. When I took the car keys, so to speak, I still. I mean, Marcella still provided a lot of good input and. And to this day, Right, she's still an excellent sounding board, but I think mainly now because she's actually more in the business of therapy of actual people, marriage and family therapy, she has become, for me, really useful as a sounding board for my own frustrations and providing me with tips and tactics for dealing with difficult situations. So I'm lucky enough now to have someone who understands this business that I'm in, understands the trials and tribulations of working with clients who can be very demanding and helping me to strategize and not say the wrong thing. Maybe don't send that email to. Maybe, Tim. Wait till tomorrow with that email. Maybe. How about changing that last paragraph to something a bit more positive? You know, though, that kind of feedback has become hugely important for me. That's awesome. In this line of work. Yeah.

We've talked a number of times about the support structure and having, you know, someone at home that supports and gives you that feedback. And I think you've got it doubly, you know, covered there. I think that's. That's awesome.

Yeah, that's awesome.

Yeah. I'm very lucky.

Yeah. So I want to come back to this question about what you would have told yourself. And the reason I want to come back to this, because you gave me a little note that I thought was really important to talk about, you know, what critical bit of advice you'd give yourself. And you mentioned to me, or give me a note, never assume it will always be up and to the right. And I'd love for you to extrapolate that on, because especially people that are not in business, they don't know this. And when you're getting in and getting started, this is very important.

Yeah, well, that's true. What I will say is, when I first got going, it was just going gangbusters, right?

And.

I thought, my good, what a great move this has been, Right. I left Apple, which is a ton of fun and all that, and I was flying all over the world, having a wonderful time, but now I was in charge of my own destiny. I was working the hours I wanted from home, enjoying spending time with my kids, with interesting clients and making good money, Right. And then, well, We've had a few, a few dot com busts and financial busts over the last 15 years, should we say. And in both cases, I was not very well prepared. So I think, I guess the advice I would have would be, you know, the classic sock it away for that rainy day. Sock it away, you know, some. So you can survive that without having to totally panic. And, but it's, it's easy advice to give, of course, because when things, when times are good, it's very easy to sort of get into the habit of, you know, having that money available and thinking it's always going to be improving and planning with that in mind. So I think as a small business owner, you're in particular, you know, you're certain. Well, anybody can get laid off from any company, of course, but as a small business owner, you've got to be able to weather that storm all the time. Really. I mean, I'd be prepared for any time. But I will also say this, is that, that you can maybe weather the storm a little bit better because if you're laid off, right, boom, suddenly you're, you're done, you know, with that company, you've got to find a new company to work with. And in my line of work, that's how it would be. Whereas if you're a small business or a consultant with a range of different clients, you can lose one or two clients and maybe you can, you know, keep things ticking along while you, while you build, rebuild. So I guess, I guess my point is that, you know, save for a rainy day and always be, always be, always be closing. Always be business developing.

Yeah, well, you, you know, we've heard this story over and over when, you know, save your cash, save your cash. And, and I think it's one of those cases, at least in. I can tell you I've had this exact same experience. Your optimism, your internal, you know, most business owners are, that are successful, are pretty optimistic and sometimes that you can, you know, stretch that optimism and you're like, oh, you know, everything's just, we're just pounding it out and, and then you can, can. It can come around and bite you a little bit. So you're right, you gotta, you gotta think ahead. So I think that's, that's really valuable value. So, Tim, if you have a little more time, we'd love to roll in and just, and talk about some, you know, marketing and PR topics that I, I know you're very familiar with. I think our listeners would love.

I'd love to. You bet.

Awesome. Dave, you're good?

I'm good, yeah.

Man. Sitting all afternoon. So we kind of also covered a lot of this in the, in the, the lead up to that. But, you know, you mentioned to me, you know, the big picture of PR and how it's a part of marketing and what are kind of the key things when a small business or business in general thinking about pr, what should they be considering? You know, what, what areas does it encompass?

So I, one of the, I suppose one of the things that I often see people being confused about is for many people, I think they think PR is something you do when you have a crisis, right? You've got to, you know, you often see large companies, their PR machine swings into gear, right? And, you know, and, and I think it's, it's a misconception, right, because, because PR is really just the, the basis of, of telling your story, getting the word out there. And it's different than advertising. One, one, one way to look at it is, you know, advertising, I would say, is, you know, me, me telling Dave how just fantastic I am, right, What a great PR person and what wonderful work I do. Whereas PR is you, Shannon, who know me separately through the work I do, telling Dave, hey, there's this guy, Tim Cox, he does pretty good stuff. You know, you check him out if you're in, if you're looking for that kind of stuff, it's, it's a thing third party, a trusted third party that is providing that, that information to your target customer. So if you look at PR alongside the other, so marketing disciplines, so, you know, pr, advertising, direct mail events and these days, you know, social media, it's the one that I think can play a really, really major role because it's the, the one marketing discipline where telling the story is so important. So if you're thinking about getting into pr, if you've got a business, right, and you think, well, should I, should I do pr? I think the starting point would be to say, do I think I can reach the customers I need to reach through particular media that they, that they read? You know, if I'm, if I sell water pumps, right, that's my line of business. Well, now, who buys water pumps? Where do they look for water pumps? Is this B2B or B2C? And as you run through those questions, you start to realize the answers lead you to defining, you know, what might be a good PR strategy. Oh, it turns out that the water pump buyer reads, you know, water pump monthly, whatever. And, and in fact, yes, they do have a section in There where they talk about new products. Aha. Well, maybe we should try and get into that. There's that. That's. I think one way to look at PR is. Is frame it through the lens of is it B2B, B2C. And that then helps you then select the media that makes sense to target those people.

Sure. No, that's great. And, you know, so you. You've got, you know, our typical listener, you know, small business owner, limited resources, which is. Is. I mean, I've had the. The same thing. Like, okay, I have this limited budget, and especially now, where do I put it? What's it worth to get a. Like on my Facebook page or a follower on my Twitter feed or where. And maybe you can't make a blanket or answer to this, but for a typical small business, where would you think they should focus to get the word out and to find those folks?

Well, one way to answer that question is, am I a local business or a national business? Because if I'm a local business, let's say a pet store.

Sure.

Right. It really makes no sense if I'm based in, you know, in. In Lafayette to be read about in, you know, the Boston Globe, assuming that's still around. I think it is.

It is. Yeah.

Yeah, it is.

It was. As of this morning. I don't know what's happened.

I don't know why that one came to mind. But anyway, I know it is a matter of fact, it's a very good website now. Now that you mentioned. Now that I mentioned it. So that's one way to think about it is if I'm doing p. P. R. Realistically, you know, how should I weigh spending money on. Or time, which is, you know, your money as a. As a small business person, on trying to get into media. Do I have a story that's going to appeal to media? Right. That's. I guess the first part is. And if. If I think I do, what exactly is that story? If I'm a pet shop owner, maybe it's right that you have a. A new service. You've got, you know, you've got a new expert master groomer working with you now. And this person comes from a rich heritage in his family of master grooming. I wonder if a local. Local press might find that interest and talk to this guy and see what keeps him. What makes him interesting. Is that helping? I'm. I'm trying to.

Yeah.

I want to learn more about this groomer. You tell stories really well.

Yeah. You are a good storyteller.

Well, it's Funny that. It's funny. The grooming thing came to mind because if you happen to have got a pup, you recently. And I bumped into somebody who I knew how he has visibly a very, very large dog that was immaculately groomed. And so I said, well, hey, who. Who pays your dog? Who. How do you. He looks fantastic. How do you keep the dog looking so good? He goes, oh, well, Dave, Dave the mobile groomer. He comes to your house. I thought, that sounds fantastic. So I got his name and. And so, yeah, Dave the master groomer came to the house and his very nice van. And. And we've been working together since. But along the way, right, I got chatting with Dave the master groom and found out his story. Like, how do you get into dog grooming, right? It's not something you think would just. You'd fall into, so to speak. And he had a good story, right? You know, he initially was working within a pet store and kind of got sick of the. The rat race, bad choice of terms. But he, you know, he went off and did his own thing and decided to be a mobile groomer. Now he could probably have a fantastic website, right? He could probably do. He could probably on his blog, do sort of fake interviews with dogs. You know, you could have a real interesting personality. And so as you a small business, think about that, right? You've got your website, you've got your storefront. How do I now add personality to my brand, to my company? Because ultimately people like to do business with people they like, right? And so I think that's where the blog and social media can be a really good way of expressing your interests and the nuance and color that makes you a great business to work with.

So I have a question. I've employed several different, different people in the PR realm over the years. I don't currently have someone that I work with on that front because oftentimes what I find is I'll hire someone to do, you know, what, what I would consider PR for me and what they want to do. And maybe it's because I'm a decent storyteller and I'm okay being out in front of people and all of that. What they want to do is make me do all the work and they just want to tell me what work to do, which is. Which is fine, but a lot of times I just want somebody else to do the work. But maybe, maybe that's the wrong way for me as a business owner to go about it. Maybe I should be listening to what these people are saying and and just be the one that's the face and. And all of that.

But when you say do the work, what do you. Can you give an example?

Yeah, like what you were suggesting there, you know, blog posts and. And all. And creating all of this. This stuff, like the, you know, the interviews with the dogs and all of this stuff. I would. I would get. I would have these great conversations where someone would say, oh, here's all these great ideas, like, yeah, well, I want you to implement them. I don't want to implement them. That's why I hired you. Time. Yeah, exactly. Time.

Yeah, Fair comment. Well, my solution to that question, which, which, which by the way, very frequently comes up when I say, why don't you have a blog? Is I don't have time for a blog. What do you think I'm doing? Just sitting around writing stories all day? No, I'm busy. I'm running a business here. Yeah. I don't see how we could do a blog because I couldn't do more than one post a month and it would look really pathetic. So, no, that's why I don't want to do a blog. To which I say, well, that's fine. So then you help me by giving me bullets, ideas of stories. We'll work together. It's a creative process. And then you may be driving along in your car. Well, just dictate. An idea comes to mind. Just dictate it and send me that dictation. Or bullet it out in an email and say, tim, is there a story here? I just read an article about this and it drove me insane when I read it. I want to respond on the blog and here's what I'm thinking. I want to write, can you then make it, you know, a polished product? So that works pretty well, I think.

Yeah.

So I'm capturing your, you know, your expertise and your thinking. Because I can't be you, right? I can't. I don't have your email inbox and understand what drives you crazy or what you read that you think you need to respond to or comment on or whatever. So. But if you can just help me by mapping that out, sketching it out, then I can then get it across the line and, you know, boom, we've got a blog. We got a. So it's hard. It's hard to get that started. I'm not going to say it's not, but once it gets going, I find a lot of people start to really quite enjoy it because they start to see, you know, that they could put their blog on LinkedIn, it's good for their own personal brand. And.

Yeah, so, so that brings up a question, you know, and. Well, first a comment. It seems to me like you're, you're kind of teasing out things that maybe the, the owner or, you know, the, the whoever's in charge of things is not able to kind of step back and focus on and even think it's newsworthy because a lot of times, you know, you're, oh, this is just so boring. I do this every single day. But from an outside standpoint, like, like you talking to Dave the dog groomer, you're like, hey, this is fascinating. Tell me about your business. The guy looks at you like, well, not really. I wash dogs. No, no, you do much, much more than that. You know, your story and that would, you know, I think you're teasing that out. And anyway, now the question I think is, so you're doing your blog and you mentioned, you know, getting on LinkedIn and what do you think's more valuable? Or maybe you do both, you know, spending the time to grow the blog on your own site that you're trying to drive traffic to or using other platforms, whether it's, you know, LinkedIn or Medium or some other, you know, platform to do, to do your blog.

Even Facebook, right?

Yeah, even Facebook, yeah.

Well, I think you've got to focus on your, on the me, on the medium that you control first and foremost. Why? Because, well, it's certainly going to help you with overall rank, just organic rank, if your website is replete with interesting commentary and keyword rich articles that relate to your business and your expertise. So definitely start with the blog. But having said that, or rather building on that, the blog then becomes a really good sort of content hub from which you can deploy that content onto other channels. So for example, people would often say, well, some clients will say, think about doing a newsletter. We got a pretty good list now, a house list of people that we've acquired over the years. Some of them are customers, some of them are prospects. We want to do a monthly newsletter. We've always struggled with content. Well, now of course you've got a blog. If you're doing an article on the blog each week, you've therefore got nice fresh content that you can then sort of repurpose into a newsletter. You can use it to, to power, to power the social media channels and of course always be driving people back to the blog in so doing. So I like the blog for that reason. I do know people having success with channels like Medium. Obviously you Have a little less control over the message there because you've got to sort of fit with what they're looking for. And also you've got to. Well, you've got to be in from a tone and message standpoint. You can't be out of kilter with what's normally on that channel.

I see.

So, yeah, so, but I, I think start particularly small business. Right. Start at home. Right. Focus on, on the channel. Channels you, you, you, you control. In fact, one thing that's becoming, I think, increasingly clear is, is that all companies now really are, in a way, their own media companies and they've got to start thinking like that, start thinking about, I've got a message, I've got these channels. How do I engage with people on those channels?

Now that's really great. And do you think, I mean, is it acceptable to repurpose that? You know, you've got this content on your blog, you talk about repurposing it for a newsletter. Can you go out, could you take your blog post and, and duplicated, if you will, on a LinkedIn post if you're B2B.

I, I'm guilty of that. I'll say it right now, I think. I mean, I don't know if anyone's really going to notice or care. Right. Is it a bit lazy? Well, it is a bit lazy, yes. But if I didn't do it, it wouldn't happen.

I suppose some people are only going to read LinkedIn and not your blog, and some people, it's only going to read Facebook and not your blog. So, yeah, I don't, I, I've never seen a problem with that. But I'm glad, I'm glad to hear you. Don't you do it too?

No, it's good.

Well, again, well, you know, we're looking at this through the small business lens. Right. And I would say, you know, if I was sitting here as, you know, as, as, as the captain of a Fortune 500 company, I might ask that question a bit differently.

Sure.

But for the more expedient and let's get things going here, let's do something approach that for small businesses is really, I think, the order of the day. If you've got good content, maximize it. In fact, I would say this, I'd go even further. I'd say I have worked with clients on blog posts and we thought that was actually a really good blog post. We did. I wonder if we could just slightly tweak it and see if a magazine somewhere might want to run that as a story. As a bylined article. And that's been successful, you know, so yeah, it's really good.

And do you think, is there a difference between, in your opinion, getting your customers to subscribe to your blog versus sending out, you know, repurposing and sending out a newsletter is one better than the other or just. Just different?

Got it. I would love to have people subscribing to my content. That would be, It's a dream, isn't it? I think for anybody that's creating content. I mean, that's your business, Dave. I think it's a lofty goal for a small business, I must say. And while we all know that those inboxes are chock full of stuff that we don't read, it's hard to imagine waiting to get a subscriber list built up on your blog. Have you ever signed up for a blog? You know what I mean? When you say subscribe to this blog, does that mean I'm going to get an email now from this outfit?

Every time there's a post, you're typically going to get an update. And you're right, it is difficult. But it can be very organic. I mean, for protect restore, it's worked well for us. Well, it didn't work well for us until we kept trying new things and even offering discounts for repairs and this and that. Not until we started putting a brochure in every box, if you will, that basically said subscribe to the blog and we'll double your warranty.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, and that has had a big impact and really hasn't really cost us anything.

Very little cost.

Yeah. And most of the time, you know, we're going to fix the thing anyway. You know, if it comes with, if you're buying a refurbished product with a three month warranty. Well, and you know, if you call us five months out, I mean, we just don't tell you to go pound sand. We want you to be happy for the life of however many, you know, Apple products you own. So that is, you know, if you, if that, that's worked for us, you can offer something that has a perceived high value to the customer but maybe doesn't hit your bottom line quite as much.

Well, also, I think in your business, Shannon, I, you know, you, your, your blog is a place where you can be pro providing tips and tricks. I mean, useful content.

Absolutely.

Perpetually useful for someone that owns, for example, a Mac or an iPhone or whatever.

Yeah.

If I'm the pet shop owner, I guess you could argue. Yeah, you could actually have very Good.

Tips and tricks for your flea season or this. Or this is it.

Yeah, yeah, I see, I see realtors struggling with this. Right. I think trying to be providing useful tips and tricks as a realtor to an audience that needs you maybe once every how many years. Yeah, is, is a struggle. But at the same time, there's the, the, the, the value of that referral. Right? Oh, that's right. So, and so just send an email. She's an expert in that area of that, in that neighborhood. So, you know, maybe you're sitting there on the, on the lacrosse sidelines, you know, watching the game and you hear someone is looking for a Realtor. So yeah, I be great if I could get subscribers, offer the option. Why not?

There you go. Yeah, I mean we basically do. No, I mean, I guess subtly we're selling. We want to be known as the experts in this, you know, our area. But you know, we really don't sell, we don't do any selling in the blog at all. It's all information. It's all connected with us and that kind of stuff. So. Good. And so as we, as we're starting to wrap this up, I have a couple of. One area I'd like to spend a few minutes on is social media. You know, it seems so readily available and it seems okay. You know, you can kind of dip your toe in and I'm going to focus in this area, but it can quickly, you know, take a lot of your time, which is, you know, very limited as a business owner, you know, what is there one that you think is better or where someone should put their time or does it kind of depend on what they're trying to achieve?

It's a really tough one this Shannon. In fact, yesterday I happened to be reading an article which I'll send to you in case you guys want to link to it, where a pretty reputable and thoughtful opinionator, shall we say, made a pretty convincing case that he thought social media is pretty much dead for marketing beginning he felt that the, the glory days or the, the, the early days where it was all huge expectations have largely passed. Everyone now is rather fatigued with their social media stream. They're very suspicious now of brands being in their social media stream and they don't really want to interact with brands anymore. Right. Maybe it was kind of fun at the beginning. You know, you have your own favorite brands and you're interested in seeing what they're up to. But increasingly, according to him, they don't, they don't want to click on your stuff. They don't want to hear what you're up to. They don't want to see your company picnic. They're just having enough time and just keep enough trouble just keeping pace with their own network.

Yeah, that's. That's interesting.

Now, you know, the comments back on that revolved around that may be true if you are an enterprise company. Right. It's probably not true if you're a pet shop, though. Right. So. And I think that is one way to look at this is realistically, can you. Do you think you're going to be able to. Well, first question is how much time do you really have? To your point there, Shannon? I mean, because it can be a massive time sync and if you're doing it badly or a sloppy way, it's pretty evident. So you kind of got to be reasonably good at the beginning. I know what you're doing. How much time do you want to spend doing it? And then which are the right channels? Because there are many now, right. You've got LinkedIn, you've got Facebook, you've got Twitter, you've got Instagram, Pinterest. I think for B2B, what I'm seeing with my clients is LinkedIn and Twitter are really kind of where it's at. Just stop there, there. Yeah, it's okay to have a Facebook page. Why not? But, you know, you're not going to get people spending much time there, I don't think. And if you are, if you're a B2C. Well, if you've got a very visual brand, you know, let's say it's fashion or something that, you know, products are involved. Well, certainly, you know, Pinterest, Instagram makes sense and probably for that kind of brand, LinkedIn in less so. So you've got. Every case is different and it's a question of who you're selling to through what channels. How much time do you have? How much time can you really put into this? And if you do this, what can you not do? Right. Because it's a zero sum game as a, as a, as an entrepreneurial small business.

Yeah, that's for sure. It's challenging. There's no easy answer. And, you know, we'd love if any of our listeners have had great success in one channel or another, LinkedIn or Facebook. I mean, we'd love to hear back from you. Be feedbackusinessshow. Co definitely love to hear your stories and share them here on the show. Well, Dave, do you have any more questions for Tim?

I don't. This has been awesome, man. Yeah. I mean, you've got great stories, you have some great advice, and you sound fantastic, so.

Oh, thank you, Dave. That's a true compliment coming from you. I appreciate that. Thank you.

Yeah, it's no wonder, it's no wonder you're successful. All this information is really valuable. And the thing I got after hearing all this is to be really effective, I think as a small business owner, you got to get to a point where you really have some time to work on your business. Meaning you've got to be able to step away from grooming the dogs so you can think about it. And whether that's ten to midnight at night, or you've got an employee or, you know, multiple employees that are doing things so you can think. If you can have that time to think and engage with, with a guy like Tim at ZingPR, you know, it can, it can be very, very, very powerful.

Thanks. Well, I, I must have had fun doing it over the years. If there one piece of advice I would provide, it would probably be, you know, don't stay away from the social media after a couple of drinks.

Yeah.

Yeah. Make sure, make sure your podcast camera is off.

Yes.

Before you join the Skype call, assuming that you're not appropriately attired. That's awesome.

Yeah. Right, right. After a few drinks, publish when you're sober.

That's it. Precise. Very good. Good, good advice there, David.

Yeah, yeah. Awesome. Well, Tim, and what's the best way for people to get a hold of you? Yeah.

Well, my Twitter handle is Zing PR and my website is ZingPR.com.

Perfect. That works. We really appreciate you spending some time with us this afternoon. I thank you guys.

I really enjoyed it and I, I, I love the show. I'm now a confirmed listener, I must say, and I look forward to hearing more from you guys.

Awesome. Very good.

Thanks, Tim.

Take care, everybody.

Thanks, Shannon. Thanks, everybody. See you next week.