Kate Rambo - Founder at KRPR

Welcome to another Founder Wisdom podcast. We have Kate Rambo with us today. Nice last name, Kate. Thank you. Love Rambo. KRPR is her company. She's the founder of that. Been that way since 3 years. Had a background as a consultant, VP at various companies. See Monster here, PR, and that's a Monster one. Kate, welcome to the pod. Tell us a bit more about yourself and how's your week?

Thank you so much. So yeah, I mean, I've been in PR since I graduated from college. I've done everything from the big things to the small things. I worked at one of the Big 5 agencies. I think now there's Big 3 because there's been so much consolidation. But it gave me the opportunity to work across a ton of different industries and clients and crises and not crises, uh, just doing regular old PR. And about 3 years ago, I started my own business. Um, so I am a very small consulting shop intentionally, no interest in being a big company. Um, I think it benefits my clients, I think it benefits me. Um, and, uh, the week has been nuts. The week has been nuts. I accidentally went viral this week, so Why? I decided to post on Threads my PR-only take, very intentionally not wading into the politics of it all, about the Ed Sheeran, Macklemore, Robert Kraft tour situation. When Ed Sheeran put out his statement, at the time I had a whopping 94 followers. So I felt like I was screaming into the void and not much was going to come of it. 24 hours later, I had 150,000 views. Then I was like, oh no, I've done the thing.

But what did you say? So what happened? Let's talk about PR, right? So what happened with Macklemore and whatever, Ed Sheeran, right?

Yeah, I'll try to do the Cliff Notes version because it's a little convoluted and complicated. Macklemore was an opener on Ed Sheeran's tour. one of the stops at MetLife in New Jersey, he spoke during his set about freedom for all people and said, free Palestine, which was picked up and written about by the artist Pink. And after she shared something about it, apparently some of the other owners of the venues that Ed and Macklemore were set to perform at came together and said Macklemore is not welcome here and kicked him off the tour. So Macklemore issued a statement about being kicked off. Bob Kraft issued a statement that basically was like, yep, I did it. And then 24, 36 hours later, Ed Sheeran issued a statement that was like, not it, wasn't my fault, I can't believe I actually have to say something. Kind of deflected all responsibility and ownership and blame, and with a— with that air of, I can't believe I'm actually issuing a statement about this. And that's where it really went sideways.

Okay, fun one to dissect. Uh, so, but why was Macklemore kicked out because of Ed Sheeran is my first question.

Um, so Macklemore was kicked off because Robert Kraft Did not appreciate that he said free Palestine.

Okay, Ed Sheeran didn't say free Palestine. I thought it was Ed Sheeran that said that.

No, no, no, no, Macklemore said it.

Okay, so if I was Robert Kraft, right, maybe he's of Jewish origins or something for sure, but even that is just very bad press for any Israeli or Jewish person. Like, free Palestine can mean a lot of good things. I mean, depending on, on what the words were were used. But if it's like, hey, freedom from oppression and violence, then sure, what's wrong with that, right? If it's like, uh, I mean, yes, it's, it's very nuanced, this conversation, because Palestine need to be watched, like literally, else they'll fucking murder Israelis again, right? Like they, they need, they need some kind of supervision. They need help as well. So that, that's why, like, I guess the Robert Kraft guy was, uh, was angry. But I mean, it's very bad press to kick an artist of that renown for your tour, from your tour, from your, uh, event place or whatever. That's a terrible business decision, isn't it?

Um, you know, Bob Kraft, Robert Kraft, uh, I grew up in Boston, so I'm familiar with the Kraft family and, and know some of the history there. He has always been pro-Israeli. He has spent a lot of time, effort, and money fighting antisemitism in this country and raising awareness of the ongoing antisemitic behavior. So not surprised necessarily that he took the stance that he took, and he owned it. You know, he said, yeah, I did that.

And yeah, you're dumb is my question to Rob. Like, I'm pro-Israeli too, but I'm pro-business. I'm pro— I'm libertarian. And is— I mean, you'd have to check the statements precisely. And if Macklemore has a history of antisemitism, which I don't think he does, he's a pretty cool guy, um, and not like an uneducated, like, rapper like we see nowadays, um, but to kick someone out of your establishment, that's very bad for, for business. That's also just very bad for freedom of speech, right? It's like—

So yes, and the thing about my post, quite honestly, is there are so many things about the entire situation that you could pick apart, from the politics to the First Amendment to the— what right do stadium owners have in censoring, um, Speech, basically. And so you have all of these things happening. But from where I sit and what I do on a day-to-day basis, I look at it from the perspective of, are you clearly communicating what you believe in? And if you're clearly communicating what you believe in and you firmly believe in it and you don't care who you make mad or who you upset, that's great. And from that comms perspective, whether I agree with the sentiment or how it's being handled from a business perspective is almost irrelevant. Robert Kraft's statement left no room for wondering where he stood, for wondering why he took the position he took, for— like, you, you read the statement and you were like, well, that's okay, can't poke holes in that. Ed Sheeran's statement, on the other hand, you could poke about 50 holes in. Um, and that was the problem that I saw.

Yeah, definitely a problem as well. I mean, artists are not, uh, notoriously not so good at these things, right? Like, they're mostly good at peace and love and, uh, I don't know, helping the, the good vibes continue, but making statements and being uncomfortable and arguing with people Especially Ed Sheeran. He looks like a sweetheart, this guy. So it's probably not the kind of guy you would expect a good PR statement from. But, but yeah, no, I mean, communicating clearly and showing where you stand. I guess, like, probably the best examples of our time would be like Elon, right? It's like really unapologetic.

He is very unapologetic. That is for sure.

But he's very clear also where he stands, right? There's, it's very, engineering and science and first principles-based philosophy and its numbers. So at least if you disagree with him, you can start going down a productive path, right? And maybe he'll change his opinion. I mean, Steve Jobs was incredibly knuckleheaded, but yeah, once he was wrong and once he had the facts to prove that he was wrong, then it— you change opinions, you know? And I think that's what's good about standing your ground. And I'm the same when I communicate something, but I don't mind being proven wrong. Actually, I invite that, right? Because then I can get taught, get thoughts, and get better conclusion and make more money if ultimately I'm right. So, yeah. But yeah, and that caused outrage apparently on your thread. So did you get the wrath of the internet?

So, I didn't catch the wrath of the internet. Most people were actually fascinated by the strategic thinking behind what happened or what didn't happen, or some might say the lack of strategic thinking. I would argue a lack of strategic planning, which is even more egregious as a communicator for 20 years, because we always tell our clients, you're going to do this. We hope it all goes well, but let's be prepared for worst-case scenario because the— literally the last thing you want is for something to happen and for you to not be prepared for it. And to your point, Macklemore is who Macklemore is. He's been outspoken. He has had opinions about things. It doesn't exactly take a rocket scientist to think that he might have used the platform that Ed Sheeran was giving him to make a statement of this nature. My question is, why wasn't Ed Sheeran's team prepared for that eventuality?

Does he have a team? It's like, I mean, he has a team, but does he have a PR person? He doesn't have a PR person for sure. He has a manager, but what do managers know about PR? Or is he signed to one of these big labels? So yeah, yeah, but maybe also he wants to get their Advice, and he just tweeted impulsively, right? Because like you said, when the world gets in your face, right? Like you feel like you need to have some kind of response because of your emotions, right? So probably just impulsively pull the trigger. And yeah, I guess in PR the worst that can happen is like constantly treading and trying to recuperate your initial stance, right? Keep like some. sinking and sinking and trying to explain yourself and not making yourself clear. And the, not just like the financial loss of that, but you as a founder, a CEO, just the bandwidth that you allocate to that. You could have fixed it a long time ago. You could have answered clearly, but instead you fucking opened the gates wide open to hell, right?

Yeah.

And I guess that's when it really sucks.

Yeah, I mean, in an ideal situation, using this as the use case, A, they would have been prepared for this eventuality. Okay, let's assume that doesn't happen. Fine. You know the direction behind the scenes where this is headed. You're not just randomly getting a phone call from the promoter out of the blue saying we're dropping Macklemore. There are conversations that have to happen. And once it starts heading in that direction, you better start preparing a statement then. Because when the promoter announced Macklemore was off the tour, Ed Sheeran should have had a statement ready. There are about 150 different things that statement could have said. He had so many options to justify if he wanted to justify or to explain what was happening, whatever the case may be. He had choices. He did not issue a statement. The first statement was Macklemore. The second statement was Bob Kraft. And then the internet was filling in the blanks for Ed Sheeran, and they were speaking for him. And that is worst-case scenario from a comms perspective. When you are quiet for so long that everyone has created a narrative for you. And then when you finally say something, your statement doesn't effectively make clear what your position actually is. So I think part of the reason why people were like, what the heck, is because when the statement did come out, it's like you just said a whole bunch of nothing. Like, you didn't actually say clearly what your stance is. All you said was, this wasn't my decision. And I don't like to keep politics in my shows, which we have the receipts to show that that's not true. You have made political statements at your previous shows. So then now he's dealing with not just this communications crisis, he's dealing with a credibility crisis because of the words he chose to use in trying to rebut the narrative that was out there that he lost control of. So like, it just snowballed. Into this thing that, to your point, could have been a 3-sentence statement when the promoter announced that Macklemore was coming off the tour. It could have been as easy as that, which is really kind of wild to think about.

Interesting. I still think that the main PR disaster is actually Robert Kraft. Like, I think he's gonna have to pay a lot for, for that because that's generating a lot of bad press and It's not just like for pro-Palestinians people, it's just like freedom of speech people and a lot of Macklemore fans, right? And Macklemore must be pretty pissed off, right, to be canceled after— I mean, it seems like it's disproportionate, right? Like a song and a concert, which historically has been a venue many times to give speech about peace and love and Hippies in the, the '60s, the '70s, right? Like, and then you have this guy, this billionaire, and that's, that's the, that's the narrative, right? It's like Michael Moravia's big bad billionaire. So I think this guy's fucked. Like, the Robert Kraft guy, I think like he's gonna have to pay a lot of money for that.

It'll be interesting to see because when a situation gets this big, there, it's often true that it takes multiple forms, right? And it's not just the initial story. Sometimes the initial story is the story and you all move on.

Yeah.

Typically that happens when everyone handles it right. This is an instance where it wasn't handled right. So it will be interesting to see because, as I said, there are so many different aspects of this whole situation that raise flags of various kinds. Um, It'll be interesting to see if sort of the public discourse picks up on any of that.

Yeah, I think he's screwed. I'm reading his Wikipedia and we see Jeffrey Epstein there. By the way, I'm not saying— I'm not like one of these conspiracy theorists guys, but he's already under the radar, right? So now he's cooked.

Robert Kraft would take more than 30 minutes to dissect. Yeah, yeah, yeah. There's a lot, a lot we could talk about there.

Yeah, I'll study him. I have this podcast called The Greats, right? So an AI podcast. I have my AI do full research on them and then give me their stories. So it seems like a nice guy to study. How did you get there, Kate? Like, you have your agency since what, 3 years? Like, what was your background before getting into all that chaos?

Sure. I worked at big agencies, small agencies, and in-house. I've worked in communications and PR since I graduated from college. It's actually what I studied in college. I was one of the first graduating classes at my alma mater, Seton Hall, to have PR as a concentration. I found it, I loved it, I haven't left it. I worked my tail off to be in the position that I'm in today. And probably the most shocking thing about my career is that I run my own business now, to be perfectly candid. Because over the course of my career, I always had people say, like, why don't you just do your own thing? Why don't you— like, one day you're going to be a CEO, one day you're going to do this. I'm like, I don't want any of that. I don't want the responsibility. I don't want the stress. I don't know. And then I got laid off from what I thought was my dream job where, you know, it just didn't work out. And I was disappointed and I took some time to lick my wounds. I took the summer off and I had a former client reach out to me and say, what are you up to? I have an idea. And I was like, oh no, I know exactly where this is going. The idea is you want to hire me, isn't it? And he was like, aha. And I said, well, okay, fine. Like, what else am I going to do? Worst case, I work with him for a little bit until I figure out what I want to do next. And 3 years later, I am still running KRPR. I think you're muted.

Yeah, congrats. You're doing that as a single mom also, so on like hard mode or very hard mode.

Yeah, I am. I tend to be an overachiever. Um, so I got laid off and then I rescued a dog And he was very sick. And I spent that summer licking my wounds, also nursing a puppy back to health, quite literally. And then I started a business in October. And then in January, I was like, oh, you know what would be cool? I should just, I should just have a kid. Like, that sounds normal. So I started my business October 2023. I welcomed my daughter November 2024. 4. Now my business is— my dog is 3, my business is 3, and my daughter's about to be 2. So I went from who needs stress to let's, let's just do this all on our own, which is not a fair representation. I have a wonderful village who helps me do what I need to do. But yeah, it is. Stressful is one word you could use to describe it.

So how do you let the steam off then? How do you relax?

Um, it's a great question. What is relaxing again? No, I'm kidding.

Cortisol level in the blood.

Yeah. Um, I, I don't think I'm very effectively good at that, although I will say one of the things that I've learned, especially in this last year, Is if I don't give myself at least 1 or 2 nights off a month, I'm not a good business partner and I'm not a good mom. And what that looks like to me is sometimes it's going out to dinner, sometimes it's catching a show, sometimes, you know, it's just being a grown-up. I went to a football game with one of my girlfriends and We didn't, I didn't have to worry. My daughter wasn't around. My business was fine. Like I just got to be Kate for 5 hours. Um, and that helps refuel me.

Yeah. Yeah. I love it. And the business, what's been the most, uh, challenging thing about it? Has it been getting new clients? Has it been satisfying them? Tell me a bit more.

Um, I think it's the unpredictability. of the business. I'm really lucky in that 95% of my clients and prospects are referral-based. Um, I've not had to do a lot of proactive new business hunting. I have great coworkers and former colleagues who are now friends who are kind enough to think of me when Someone asks if they know a good PR person. But it's, it's the unpredictability. It's, you know, I miss, I miss a steady paycheck, quite honestly. And I miss having health insurance paid by my employer.

Yeah, for sure. One, one needs that when the stress levels are high. What's been the great, the great, the greater part of it and the positive aspects of running your own business? Because you couldn't probably do all that you're doing if you would be employed, on the other hand.

Correct. I, like I said a little bit ago in this conversation, like I worked my tail off. I was working 60 to 80 week, 80-hour weeks in the corporate world at various points in my career. And in this job, I have the opportunity to work with people I want to work with, work on things I want to work on, and be a present mom. So I'm doing really good work that I'm proud of for really good people that I like working with while still living the life that I want to live. And having that flexibility would not be possible otherwise.

You work mostly with CEOs and founders? Like, who are your clients?

Yeah, so we specialize in financial services, professional services, and nonprofits. And we really try to focus on working with clients who in some way, shape, or form are mission-driven. Pretty obvious when you're talking about a nonprofit, but even with financial services and professional services, we, we like to work with people who believe that what they're doing is making a positive impact on their clients.

How do you get these clients usually?

They're referral-based, um, so a good handful of them right now were clients that one point or another. A couple were coworkers who have now started their own business and brought us in to help them. Some of them are friends of current clients. It's just, it's for one, the financial services space that we play in, which is wealth management, is very small. It's like a big small industry. Everyone knows everyone. And if you do good work, your Reputation precedes you, which is lovely.

Why not a podcast? You could use that as a front-end funnel.

I know firsthand how much work a podcast is.

Initially, but after that it calms itself up, just like anything, right?

Yeah, yeah, you know. I could, but I'm in PR in part because I like to be behind the scenes. I don't— I've had a weird week. This is my second interview I've done this week. It's probably the second interview I've done in the past 10 years too. I like to be the person behind the scenes helping people present who they are, what they believe in, and giving them that confidence to tell their story effectively.

Yeah, yeah, different when you're selling the company as well, right? You need to be out there, but get sort of— get what you're saying. What are your main goals for this year then?

Uh, so it's interesting because KRPR will never be a big agency. I don't want it to be. Um, I want to keep doing good work with good clients. With good people, work that we can be proud of. And to me right now, what that looks like is we have a limit on the number of clients we will have. We have room for about 2 more that we can bring in for 2027, and then we're at our capacity. Um, so we want to find the right 2 companies to partner with and to work with and to do good things with. There you go.

Where can people find out more about you, Kate?

Uh, well, they can go to my LinkedIn, which is Kate Rambo, um, or they can go to KRPR's website, which is katerambopr.com.

That's Kate and Charles from KRPR.