PR vs Publicity: What Business Owners Get Wrong

Most businesses don't fail at PR because they didn't try. They fail because they thought PR was something that it's not. They go ahead and they chase headlines. They chase mentions. They chase visibility and miss the one thing that actually drives growth. And that's what we're talking about today on Marc Haine Live. Welcome to this episode of Marc Haine Live. Of course, this is where the small business owners and entrepreneurs pick up some core skill sets to create some show-stopping, jaw-dropping experiences that our customers and our employees deserve. I am your host, Customer and Employee Experience Strategist Marc Haine. And I'm so glad that you're here with me today because my My guest today is Steve Turner. Today, we are going to be breaking down why most PR efforts fail and how to build a strategy that actually earns trust, credibility, and long-term results. The price of admission today is to please make sure that you subscribe to this podcast. Make sure that you share it with your circle of friends and colleagues. I'd love to see the business community really rallying around what I've been doing Since, oh my goodness, we started March of 2020. We've been going for 6 years and it's all been for free. So, please make sure that you share it out to everybody. I know how it is for those of us who have tried to run PR campaigns. We invest in the campaign. We maybe get a feature. Maybe we're lucky and we get 2 features. Our teams get to celebrate. Our name is out there. And then, nothing. No meaningful increase in trust. No real shift in our brands. No noticeable impact on our bottom line. And so then, we're left wondering, did we just spend money just to feel good? And that brings us to our Question of the Day. So, here's the million-dollar question. Are you investing in visibility or are you intentionally building trust and credibility with the right audience? If you're not sure, you may already have a very expensive problem. I'd love to hear your stories. Why don't you go ahead and share this episode on your favorite social media platform? Hashtag it #ExperienceLeadership. And make sure that you put your comments down so you can be part of this conversation. You remember the moment. That speaker who made the whole room lean forward, who said exactly the right thing at the right time. That doesn't happen by accident. It happens through curation. Elite Headline Speakers is a boutique speaker curation service. We find the voice that fits your event like it was made for it. Visit eliteheadlinespeakers.com. Elite Headline Speakers, the right voice, your stage.

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Welcome back! My guest today is someone who has spent more than 3 decades helping organizations figure out how to tell their stories in a way that actually lands. Steve Turner is the principal and owner of Solomon Turner PR and an award-winning agency that has been recognized as one of the top PR firms in St. Louis for 17 consecutive years. He's worked with brands like Northwestern Mutual, Coldwell Banker, and even Tony Robbins and has been featured in outlets like The Wall Street Journal, PRWeek, and NPR. He's the author of the book, PR That Works, where he pulls back the curtain on what actually drives results in public relations with no fluff, no hype, just real strategies from real campaigns. Steve brings a rare combination of media insight, business strategy, and practical experience, which makes this conversation really, really more valuable for anyone trying to grow their brand Steve, welcome to the show. It's been such a battle getting you here.

Yeah, we had a few problems with the connection. But I think we're in good shape now.

I think we are now.

Yeah, excited to be here. Yeah, absolutely.

So Steve, let's start a little bit about— let's dig a little bit deeper into who your clients are and how do you help them now?

Well, we work with a variety of businesses, some small, some large, ranging from speakers and authors to corporations. We've worked with Northwestern Mutual for over 2 decades actually in different capacities. We helped a rather large classic car dealer increase their brand and presence in the local marketplace, which was kind of a conundrum, kind of a reverse problem for them. Most people say, well, let's start locally and grow nationally and then internationally. Now, his problem was he had international clients And he wasn't as well known in St. Louis as perhaps he thought he should be. So, we embarked on a 2-year campaign to change that. And I think the results are pretty good. And we actually won an award for local press coverage based on things we did with him. So, that was pretty cool. And I mean, it's a great client to have. Who wouldn't want a client that sells cars that were once owned by Elvis Presley and Sylvester Stallone and stuff like that. So, it's a mixed bag. We've worked in healthcare, real estate, finance, you name it. Probably just about every sector, retail, special events. We do all kinds of things like that.

Yeah.

So, for the audience tuning in, can we clear up the vernacular a little bit? What is the difference between marketing and public relations?

Well, marketing is more lead gen. How do we create leads right away to increase our sales? The sales guys need leads in order to close business. So, marketing is the process of getting to that point. Are those ads on Facebook, social media? Are they different kinds of things online? Is it an email newsletter? How do we do that from a marketing standpoint? PR, on the other hand, is building trust. With your customers, your clients, your community for the long term, your stakeholders? How are we going to improve our relationships? And we want to show that not only are you doing some work with us, but we're good guys to do business with. How do we differentiate ourselves from all the competitors that are out there? And it's not going to be done through an ad. It's not going to be done through, hey, we're great. Buy us on LinkedIn. It's, it's a, it's a process that's long-term. You're going to start with coming up with an objective. How are we trying to be better than, than other people out there that deliver the same product or same service? Or maybe we have a brand new product or service, and how are we going to let people know that this is even out there? And who the founders of our company are, and what we're doing, and why we're doing it in the first place. So, we start with any company no matter what size by saying, what is your objective? What are you trying to accomplish? Most businesses have a growth plan. Okay, this is where we want to be in 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, maybe 15 years down the road. How are we going to get there? What kind of people are we going to need on the bus to make that happen? What are we going to need sales-wise to make that happen? New products, new services, these kinds of things. Well, PR should also have a plan that fits into that overall business structure. So, what is PR going to be doing that's going to help you get there? And it's a process. Think in terms of long-term, not something that's going to just take off in 30 days. Although, we have seen some good stuff in the short term that does happen from time to time. But that's not the goal. So, the goal is to start with an objective. And it could be anything as simple as help the sales team sell more toy wooden trucks. Maybe you make these toy wooden trucks that are really cool and you've sold 50,000 but you want to sell 100,000. Well, how is PR going to play a role in that? And we can talk about that. So, once we have our objective, we want to find out who the audience is. And we want to identify that audience on a macro level. So people say, well, my audience is women 25 to 54, which sounds good. But in, at the end of the day, a woman 25 years old is a lot different than a woman 54. And you need different platforms to connect with them. The same as men, 25 to 54, 18 to 35. 18 and a 35-year-old male have a lot of different things And they're trying to think about on a daily basis and they have nothing in common. So, you kind of have to pinpoint those audiences on a macro level. Well, we want to reach engineers, for example. Okay, who are these engineers? What do they specialize in? Are they local? Are they regional? You're looking to connect with engineers that run million-dollar companies, $50 million companies, national conglomerates. I mean, there's all kinds of ways to peel this down and then kind of figure out who the CEOs of these companies are. What do we have in common with them? How can we match them and their direction for their company with a PR campaign that's going to help them get to their objective in the long run? So, we kind of look at that as a second piece of this puzzle. And then, we look at the delivery system and the message. So, the message is how are we going to differentiate ourselves in a couple of sentences or a paragraph that makes us different from the other company that's kind of doing the same thing we are? If companies are selling similar products or services, how are we going to differentiate us through a PR process that involves some creative writing and boiling this down into some sentences? It doesn't have to be a cute ad slogan but something that states your position, And how you were different in the marketplace, what you're bringing to the table that isn't out there yet. You're solving a problem. What problem is it? Is it your product solving a problem or your service that's solving a problem? Can you do it better, faster, quicker, more efficiently, cheaper? What are you doing? And so, all these things come into play. So, the message is key. And then, what delivery system are we using? Are we using advertising? Are we using radio interviews, TV interviews? Do we have something for TV that makes sense? Are we going to use social media? Are we trying to reach other business people on LinkedIn? Are we trying to reach the Facebook audience or other things like TikTok and Instagram? So, we need to define who that audience is and then use the right kind of messaging to reach them. And maybe you have a couple of different audiences and different media to use to reach them. And that way, you possibly create different messaging for each group and use different kinds of media to reach them as well. So, it just depends on the company and what it is they're offering to the public. And the final piece that we like to talk about is how do you measure all this stuff? Well, a lot of people say, well, like you were talking about in your intro, We got a couple articles in the paper. We were on TV. Hey, that's really cool. All my friends saw it and patted me on the back. But what does it really do at the end of the day? It really doesn't move the needle and advance your company forward unless it's part of an entire program and process that takes care of that. So, you want to go back to the objective and figure out those pieces. And are we on target with those? So, if our goal is to help the sales team sell 20% more product, We can measure that. We can sit down after 90 days and say, how are we doing? Well, we're up 10. Now, we just need that other 10. Oh great! Things are working. This really hasn't had an impact so far. What are we doing? Is the messaging off? Are we using the wrong media to convey that messaging? What's the issue here? So, you kind of have to look at it and regroup on your messaging possibly. But look at the measurement of all these things. And how is this going to impact your sales, your revenue, or what it is you're trying to do? Connect with the community. Some people just have employee communications. They're a big corporation and they just want to better connect with their staff, their employees, their team, and help them become more productive. Well, how do we do that internally from a PR standpoint? And there are things you can do with that. So, it just depends on the company. What they're trying to accomplish, what their objective, what the message is, who's their audience, and then measure it as you go along. And you'll get much better results than just throwing some things out there and hoping they'll stick. So, that's kind of the whole secret to the process.

Okay. So, I mean, this is— I mean, right there was the price, the value of admission. Those 5 categories, those 5 steps are integral. For the people tuning in who this is resonating with, How can people get in touch with you if they want to work with you?

Sure, they can email me, sterner@solomonturner.com, S-O-L-O-M-O-N-T-U-R-N-E-R.com. They could always call. I mean, pick up the phone, which is unusual, 314-205-0800. Or they can look at our website, solomonturner.com. And they can find us that way.

Terrific! So everything, the 5 steps that you've outlined for us, how does that differ from running a Google ad? Because a lot of what you talked about doing a Facebook ad or Google ad, they all take us through those steps of defining the target market. What are their interests and so on? So, how is this PR leveraging kind of these steps in public relations different from leveraging kind of what social media is trying to do with ads and marketing that way?

Right. I think with the ads, again, you're looking for an immediate response. You're looking for sales. You're spending X amount of dollars on Facebook ads or Google ads. What's it doing? Is it increasing visits to our website? Well, it better be, you know, or else you're not getting much going. And is it really moving the needle? Are you closing any sales because of it? The PR piece is entirely different because you're arming your salespeople with all these great tools. It's not just us saying we're great or stuff we're paying for that says we're great. It's a PR campaign where you get a third-party endorsement from the newspaper saying we're great. The magazine features us. They say we're great. Here's a TV feature. Oh, you know, our local NBC affiliate says we're great. All these things. And you can load these up for the sales team so they have all this information in their arsenal that they could show to a prospective client. Say, wow, did you see this feature on us in the paper? Did you see this feature in the trade journal? Did you see us on TV? You've got all these weapons to use. And the salespeople can take these out where they just can't take out an ad and say, hey, did you see our ad? Wonderful, great.

Right.

You know, chances are they probably didn't see the ad. But With an article, it's hard to miss. And you can put all these things in your email newsletter. You can use these things a million ways. You could put them on your corporate website. For example, somebody says, well, who are these guys? They go to your website. Oh, look, look at this article. Oh, wow, they were featured in 10 different places. They must be pretty good. You know, so that raises your influence and in some cases boosts your leadership authority you have with prospective clients. looking for a company like yours to do business with. So, those are some differentiators.

You mentioned a couple of things that kind of got my antennae up. I get a lot of plugins for pay-for-play article generation. I look at them and I call them ego pieces, right? That you get your face on the front cover of some obscure magazine you've never heard of. They'll give you a 6-page spread. Is this the same thing that you're talking about? Or is what you're talking about kind of more organic and more authentic than just paying $3,000 to some publisher for a book you'll never— or magazine you'll never see?

Yeah, no, I mean, you can use that. But I think people will know it's kind of phony. Marketing Experts 2026. Here's Steve Turner's picture. I mean, come on, really?

Well, I mean, it was a good picture though, Steve.

Yeah, that's right. Well, there are free things that are digital magazines that you might be able to get into. Like, I was fortunate to be featured as a rock star publicist in Authority Magazine, which is a freebie. It's online. It's not a print thing, but it has a lot of weight. And so, you know, those kind of things are are very valuable. And then what we tell everybody is to link those to your social sites. So, it's not just getting it, but it's how are you going to use it. So, you want to give it to the sales guys, you know, as some— as a tool, LinkedIn, Facebook, and so forth.

Right.

To really increase it. But at the end of the day, the real publications are the places you want to be. I mean, if you can get a feature, think big, in the Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, Uh, the New York Times, that, I mean, those are all home runs if not grand slams. Forbes Inc., anything like that. Your local newspaper is great. Your local business journal is a great place to start. We always tell people, well, think locally first before you try to go after the big fish. And the reason is, is because a lot of the local stuff is national.

Yeah.

It all goes on the same place on Google. So, if people search for your company, an article from your local business journal is going to show up and will be read and then linked and so forth. And so, it has a lot of weight, a lot of credibility. And so, that gets seen by anybody anywhere, whether it's Alaska, Hawaii, or London. They're going to see it if they're researching your company. So, those kinds of things are awesome.

It's interesting to know that like even smaller community papers are actually represented. Most of them have been picked up by the big papers anyway. And so, a small feature or a feature in a local newspaper could end up 3,000 miles away as a storyline in a major city newspaper.

That's right. And that does happen every once in a while. So, I'm glad you mentioned that. But one thing that's good about thinking locally is you're going to get more space and probably more coverage than if you went after a national publication.

Right.

And, you know, and they may mention you. You may get a quote or two. But it's not going to have the same impact as a local thing will, where you've got your picture and, you know, they're going to talk all about you and your company and how this came about and these kind of things. So, Those are really great things to have. And it's really a good place to start. And a lot of people looking, reporters, journalists, other people looking for companies like yours to do stories on, they may run into it because it was in a local publication. Even a suburban publication has some weight in your marketplace if that's your target audience. If we're in St. Louis, so if we got a suburban publication that wrote about our company, for example, that's great. I mean, you know, you're going to get a lot of paragraphs. You're going to get your pictures in there and different things. And that's going to have a lot of weight if we're targeting local business owners. So it just depends on how you want to do that.

Am I right in assuming that putting something, you know, reaching out to a local newspaper and saying, oh, this Thursday we're having a 50% discount on spas. That's not what we're talking about here, is it?

No, no, they wouldn't care about doing an article about that.

So, what would they care about? What are some of the things they would care about?

So, most people are interested, A, is it a new business and why are you doing this? You know, who's the owners? You know, are they big people locally in the market? Who are they? What makes this business story so unique that we should write about it? So, you have to think like a journalist. What makes this unique? Why is this different? Why should we do an article about you guys as opposed to every other business that's out there? So, you have to start with that and then kind of go from there. You know, the spa dealer. Okay, what's the story behind the spa dealer? Who is he? Who is she? What do they do? How did they come to this place in business? Why are they selling spas? You know, what is the owner? An easy thing to do, and people a lot of times they don't think about this, is People in Business. A lot of newspapers will run a People in Business segment for free in their Sunday newspaper or something like that in the business section. And it doesn't cost anything. And so you just take a picture of a new hire, a new employee, perhaps a board member, a new executive or something like that. And you put a little news release together and send it out to your local publication and they run that. And a lot of the national trade journals will do that too. If you're an engineering company and there's an engineering trade that's well-read by the industry, maybe they have a people in business section. So, you can kind of do the same thing with them and get a lot of coverage that way. And there's wire services that you could put people out there. I mean, there's all kinds of different things you could do to really get a lot of bang for the buck. so to speak, that a lot of people don't even think about. And so, that's really a great way for a small company or a company on a limited budget to get some press coverage and do it very simply and efficiently.

I get a sense from how you phrased all that that this is about storytelling. It's about creating stories, not creating information.

Is that fair? Yeah, very fair. Yeah, there's 2 approaches that I would— that you would take with that. One is the story of the company, how you got there, how your company's different, what's so interesting about it, you know, why should I write about you guys. We had a company that opened up here in the St. Louis area called Ameeney's. Home Rugs and Game Room years ago. And we walked in, this place was still being built. There were wooden planks all over the place and all this. And so, we had a meeting with the owner. I said, well, you're a young guy. You know, why are you doing this? Why St. Louis? You know, you're spending millions of dollars on this facility. You know, so there was a lot to that story and their background and why the company chose St. Louis for this big headquarters they were doing. So, all these things were great. And we could spin that into a great story behind him and his parents and the company and how they initially started in Oklahoma. But they wanted St. Louis to be the centerpiece of this and how this young guy came to be the CEO of this company. Good-looking young man, kind of a— and single. So, there was some play on that that we got some good mileage out of in some local magazines. So, there was a lot of ways to work with that. But you're right. It's exactly storytelling. Now, if you're targeting national publications, there's a little different twist to this is they're interested in trends and information. So, if you have some industry trends, these are how many Gen Z people are buying our products as compared to other age groups. And we're making an impact. This is how we're doing it, what we're offering them. They're interested in these table statistics. informational trends that the local people may not be so concerned with. But on a national, the way to pierce through the journalism walls at the Wall Street or the New York Times or things like that are trends, things happening. Why is this important and how are different age groups responding to this? And if you've got a big palette of research and surveys that you could offer them, the much better chance that they're going to cover your company and do a story about this. We surveyed 1,000 people and these were the results. We talked, you know, we have 5,000 customers and this is what they're saying about engineering today or about pinball machines today. You know, why are they buying pinball machines? Well, this is why. We surveyed 5,000 customers and this is what they told us why they're buying them. How much they're spending, you know, where these machines are going in their homes. I mean, you could play this out as far as you want. And keep coming up with great stuff that would make a very good story for a Wall Street Journal or a Bloomberg or something like that. So, it just depends on the time and effort you want to put into this. But locally, yes, storytelling. Tell us about the company, the founders, and so forth. Do the same nationally but give us more insight. What are the trends? Why is this important? Why is somebody in Des Moines, Iowa interested in your company in Miami, Florida? Why are you telling us this stuff? And what's the impact on them? Why should they know about your company thousands of miles away? So, these are all very important things to keep in mind as you're putting these campaign ideas to work for you. But again, there is a difference between local and national and the way you pitch these different journalists.

Yeah, it's interesting. I was thinking along the lines as well that Probably one of the avenues that we have to keep an eye out for are things that hit the news. Because I have a sneaking suspicion that if one's expertise is challenging something that hits the news, that that in itself would be of interest. So for instance, I did a piece when there was a story about passengers being left for 5 hours on an airplane with no water, no food, no nothing. And I did a blog piece out. Well then, I had a reporter call me up and said, oh, because you're a customer experience strategist, what's your feel on what should happen? And I thought that was really interesting that that should happen based on a blog post I wrote. But I never even thought about reaching out to mass media and saying, here's my take on this situation.

Right. No, that's perfect. If you have a tie-in to a national story, That's perfect. Uh, we work with a couple of IT companies here in St. Louis.

Mm-hmm.

And you remember, uh, I think it was about a year ago, maybe a year and a half ago, when, uh, that computer system failed and Microsoft and everybody was impacted for a while. And things went down and you couldn't get a hold of your doctor and, and flights were delayed and all these things. Well, we have a client that's great on television. And so we connected him with our NBC affiliate here in St. Louis. And he got on, they wanted to talk to him about this issue and what, you know, what people can do and so forth. So he came on and he was so good that they kept him on. So he, he started with like the noon news. He was on for like 5 minutes. And they said, well, can you stay for the 4 o'clock news? And he said, yeah, I guess. So, uh, they made it possible and he was on for 7 minutes on a local newscast.

Wow.

Which is virtually unheard of.

Yeah.

And then, they had him on at 5 and 6, and they recorded something for 10. I mean, in all, I think we figured out he had 20 minutes of airtime in one day on the NBC affiliate here in town.

Wow.

And I mean, it was just terrific stuff. I mean, you just— I mean, there's no way you could ever advertise anything like that or buy ads or whatever. I mean, it was just fantastic. And he was on the whole time, the president of the company, And he worked all day from there. And at the same time, he did 2 radio interviews while he was sitting in the lobby in between TV segments. So, I mean, it was like a million-dollar publicity day.

Right. But, and really, all you did was you just kept an eye on, here's something that hits the news. Oh, we have an expert who could talk to this.

Right. Yeah. Anything that impacts consumers, Yeah. And you have a client that matches that is really important for television. Uh, you know, shutdowns, a TSA thing. If you have a local expert to talk about what's going on with TSA or security, airport security, or just security in general, how does this impact? Uh, we've had our IT guy on multiple TV stations talking about security and iPhone security and all kinds of stuff, kids' security. And you kind of train the TV stations over time where they're starting to call you. It's like, oh, this happened. Can we get a quote from our CEO? Yeah, I think we can make it happen.

So, and what's nice about that is you'll get the call before it ever hits the wire. Like the people in the newsrooms are the ones getting kind of the feed down. And it's like, oh, here's a story. Oh, we know John. Let's give John a call quickly.

Yeah. And so, one of the producers at the TV station will say, well, let's do a story on this. Can you find a local expert? So, they'll, you know, start going through their Rolodex and saying, oh, here's a guy we've had on camera before. Let's call him and call his PR guy and see if we can make something happen. So, yeah. So, you kind of train them over time, and it's pretty interesting. It doesn't always work, you know. You know, it has to be like a major thing that impacts the community or nationwide. But that local spin on it is great. And they're always looking for that. You know, every day there's something happening and they're always looking for an expert on the war in Iran. You know, if you have somebody that on a local basis that was involved, you know, these people were in Israel and they couldn't get out. Those people were on TV, you know, for a day or two. I mean, there's all kinds of things like that that they're always interested in, right? So yeah, absolutely.

Steve, you have a book. You want to talk a little bit about your book? Because I believe some of the stories we're talking about today are probably going to be in there somehow.

Oh, look at this! I just happen to have a copy. PR That Works. Yeah, so it's interesting how this book came about. I was going to write a memoir about my work in the PR field spanning over 3 decades. And I kept running into some PR people and business owners and others that are involved with PR and said, you know, we really need a book that kind of explains how these things work, how to put campaigns together, how do we approach this thing. And we don't want to spend like hundreds of dollars on a textbook that's 600 pages that we don't understand anyway. Or something on behavioral economics. We just need something straightforward that spills it all out. And so, I said, yeah, I think I can write that. And they said, great, do it and we'll buy a copy. I said, absolutely. So, I came up with PR That Works and it's, I think, pretty comprehensive, maybe more comprehensive than anything else I've seen because it Not only gets into the case studies where you'll find other books that may touch on some case studies. Well, Crayola crayon did all these things to sell crayons, which is great. But it's not like something that they can just grasp and run with. So, what we do is we have 28 PR strategies at the beginning of the book, 14 case studies. This is actual work that we did, not theory, not hypothetical stuff. Actual things that we put into play. And then, 4 interviews with leading PR people nationwide that I know and was fortunate enough to interview them. And they're from different walks in the PR field. One works in corporate America. Another one has a small ad PR firm that gets phenomenal national coverage. Another one trades media people. I mean, it just covers the scope. And we were able to put all this together into one book. And it's at Amazon and barnesandnoble.com. And what I like to say about it is this. Years ago, I picked up a book on PR case studies, which I had never seen before. This is going way back, over 20 years ago. I was in Philadelphia working on a project. And I went to the University of Pennsylvania. I said, I've always heard about Penn and all this. I went to their bookstore. And there's this book on PR. And all these case studies. Oh, this is great. I've never seen anything like this. And so I bought it. And I figured, you know what, I've had that book for like 25 years. It cost about $20. It's like $1 a year. So my book's like $20. So if you buy my book and you hold on to it and you keep referring back to it in the case studies when you get stuck or you need an idea or something, you know, it's like $1 a year. I mean, it's very affordable. And if you just want the Kindle version, you can get that for $9 or whatever. But the paperback's really the way to go. You can make notes. You can refer back to it. You know, you can just throw something in there. Hey, you know, I've got a client in IT. What did these guys do? I have a classic car guy or a guy in automotive. How did he get national coverage for that? You know, I want to read about it in the book. Oh, I've got a guy that's an author, or I'm an author. How do I get publicity like this guy? I did. We have a client who writes books about the origin of the Jeep vehicle that goes back to World War II. And so, it was interesting to work through all this process with this because I wasn't— I'm not a Jeep driver. I wasn't at the time. So, it was kind of like, well, okay, so how did the Jeep get started? Well, it got started for this mobile vehicle the U.S. Army needed to take on the Nazis during World War II. Okay, well, I didn't know that. And the first one came off the line in Butler, Pennsylvania. But they had to create this thing in like months and not years. And imagine starting an automobile from scratch and getting it out into the field in months. I mean, it's impossible today. You couldn't even get anybody to agree on the design, you know, in a year's time. But, uh, it was amazing. And everybody bid on this I mean, it was crazy with Ford and all these people. And this little company called Bannum won the first government contract, and Willys got involved later in all these things. But it's a terrific story. And as we went through our research on this, we found that these Jeep people— and I don't know if you drive a Jeep or know people that do.

My son had a Jeep. Yep.

Okay. It's kind of like a small cult unto its own. I mean, they work on their Jeep all the time. They're doctoring it. They're adding stuff. They're making it cooler. Oh, let's try this, you know. Making it better for camping or hunting or fishing, whatever it is. And so they have their little niche groups. And so we sought those out, and there's podcasts that were just targeted for Jeep owners, and we found that, and those were awesome. And then we found on Facebook all these Jeep groups, and it was amazing how many there are and how many— not only tens of thousands but hundreds of thousands of followers some of these groups had. So we were able to Do a lot of free stuff, uh, just getting posted there and, and, and, you know, linking podcasts, all kinds of stuff. And it really helped the sale of the book and, and I think established our guy as kind of an authority on early Jeep history. And he speaks at museums and different places like that, and he's been featured in newspapers and stuff. So, I mean, you just kind of have to dig through this, and this is in the book, the whole process of how we started with the, uh, Cheap Deal and the author. It's all in here. And that alone to me is, you know, if you're an author, if you're looking for leadership authority, everybody says, I want to be a thought leader. Well, okay. Well, how are you going to do that? It takes more than a blog post. So, I mean, all this stuff is in the book. And I think it's really valuable. I think it's great. I've even been referring back to some of the stuff that I even know and wrote about just to kind of get a refresher from time to time. It's like, how did we do this again? And keep going back. So, there is high value here. Absolutely. I mean, you know, 20 books.

I look forward to checking it out. I'd like to get into some common challenges that leaders face when they're trying to start a PR campaign. And we'll get to that right after this.

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Welcome back! I hope you're getting tons of value from today's episode. As you can tell, Steve and I are on a mission to support businesses just like yours. So, if you belong to an organization that could use our help, or you or someone you know might be planning a leadership retreat, a conference, any kind of gathering where you think our knowledge could be helpful, we'd love to explore how we can be of service to you and your people. So, drop us a line. Our contact information is in the show notes. It's really interesting, Steve, because just when we talked about before we talked about it, about this idea about telling stories. And then just before we hit the break, you did something that you endorsed at the very beginning of this podcast, which is you told the story of Jeep. And so, being able to figure out storytelling can be a little bit of a challenge for somebody. So for instance, like a guy who owns a welding shop or a guy who owns a pizzeria restaurant. How do they start thinking about what they do in this Yeah.

So, a pizzeria would be a lot easier than I think a welding shop.

Oh, I don't know. I could tell you a story about a welding shop.

Oh, okay. Hopefully, that's a positive one and not a negative one. But yeah, let's take the pizzeria example. So, what can we do if we want to get our brand out? I mean, this is going to be a lot— pizzeria obviously is going to be a lot different. than a corporation or somebody with multiple offices or different business-to-business kind of thing. But the foundational elements are the same. So, how can we differentiate our pizza company from everybody else that's out there? What can we do that's unique or different? Maybe we can come up with some flavors of pizzas or ingredients or things that nobody else has in the marketplace. Maybe we can do Detroit-style pizza. Nobody else is doing that maybe in the market. Maybe we could do a thicker style of pizza with a crust or a thinner style. Different takeoffs and ingredients approach, things like that. Location, delivery. There's all kinds of things to be, you know, to think through this and how it can play out. But if you could come up with some angles, maybe you could have the biggest pizza in town, for example. We're introducing our 60-inch pizza. Perfect for groups, Little League teams, and so forth. This would be pretty cool. And you can invite the media down. You could have a pizza eating contest. How much pizza can you eat in 5 minutes, 10 minutes? Different things like this. You could have the winners and you could put their pictures up on the wall. Have like a Hall of Fame. for pizza eaters, uh, different things like that. So there, there's all kinds of techniques to this. You, you've probably seen those steakhouses in Texas where you have so much time to eat a steak.

96-ounce steak or something.

Right, and the people that do get their picture up on the wall. So it's kind of like a Hall of Fame. So you could kind of do the same with pizza. And you know, you have these different challenges. Oh, Wednesday is challenge night. How much sausage pizza can you eat in 10 minutes? You know, whatever it is. You know, and you're going to start with, you know, a 30-inch pizza or whatever the size is and kind of go from there. But you could do all kinds of things like this and really have a lot of fun with it. You know, a lot of the food guys that I've seen, they also take stuff to the TV stations for free and drop it off and say, oh, this is for your news guys.

Yeah.

So, and it's funny how some of those people end up on television because they've been feeding the TV people for a while. And all of a sudden, they're featured for different things. Well, let's ask Harry who runs Harry's Roast Beef and Hamburger Joint about the traffic in front. Has it increased since they put these things up? Let's get comments from him. It's funny how these things work themselves out.

So, it's almost like trying to build relationships as well because the other question I had Was like, I know that the press pools now are shrinking. Newsrooms are tiny compared to what they used to be. So, the big challenge is how do you actually get in front of journalists today? And so, you've just kind of tipped your hand on one of those is bring them free food.

Yeah, that's worked a lot in the past. I had a client that made donuts and sold donuts. And so, I used to take donuts around the radio stations and stuff. And at the time, you could kind of get in there without security and stuff like that. And so, they're like, yeah, come on in. What do you got? Donuts. Oh my God. So, they start talking about it on the air and they put you on and stuff like that. So, I mean, those are all awesome things. Not so easy today, but you can still do it with a different tact.

Yeah.

But yeah, it's building relationships. PR is all about relationship building. That's what it is. It's building a relationship with a journalist. How do you do that? How do you build relationships with different people? You know, maybe even with customers and clientele, with the people who run your city. You know, how do you become kind of a bigger authority locally in your city or county or whatever it is that you're trying to do. And this plays back into your business. You know, oh, we know Joe. Yeah, he comes to all our city council meetings, or he's on the board of this. He volunteers his time for that. Yeah, let's go to his place tonight for dinner or whatever. Or let's call his company for a quote because he's very visible in the community. They're great people and they do a lot for free for us. They volunteer. Let's give them a chance to build on this business.

Yeah.

And maybe, you know, they wouldn't have had that opportunity. So, you want to build relationships and show that you're good people to do business with. And that's kind of the key to the PR. Community impact. How are we impacting the community? What can we do for them? You know, we've worked with companies that went out of their way to, let's say, go to the USO. And when servicemen come in and serve meals for nothing, Or for Thanksgiving, help serve Thanksgiving meals to underprivileged people, you know, in these big places with turkey and the dressing and the whole thing. And they volunteer and they bring stuff in. I mean, there's all kinds of things you can do like that to increase your community impact. At the end of the day, that's what you're trying to do. And the more visible you become, the thing people don't realize is you're gonna Get better job candidates applying to your company because they see you, they see the great things you're doing, they see you're making an impact locally, you're working with charity, you're helping, uh, you know, in the environment in a certain way, uh, locally you're getting into that orbit of being, you know, a good corporate citizen. And people looking for jobs are going to see this.

Right.

And you may get an upscale, uh, type of person to apply for jobs there as opposed to somebody who may not even about applying there because you're not on the radar. So, all of a sudden, your talent pool is going to go on an upswing. And that's really going to be key to get the right people on the bus as you want to grow going forward. So, all these things come into play.

Would it be fair to say that everything that you've talked about is about kind of sharing your values? I mean, you're doing it in the context of relationship building. And of course, The one thing I'm always telling entrepreneurs is get out of your store and get into the community every which way you can. Make that a priority because of course, to your point, we're all part of something bigger than ourselves. And if all we're concerned with is what's going on in the 4 walls of our business, then that's where our PR is going to stay. And so, getting ourselves out. But more than that, I think this whole idea of kind of be out there to reflect your values of who you are. And people with shared values will be coming to you.

Right, exactly. And a lot of this is kind of how the brand of the CEO or people that work for you come across in your community. In most cases, you want to dress the part. Not necessarily always wear a suit and a tie unless you're in the financial world or something. Or a lawyer. But for most businesses, you don't want to look like you're wearing a sweatshirt and, you know, tattered jeans and all this kind of stuff. You want to dress the part. So if you go to a Chamber of Commerce meeting, you have business attire on. You have the right grooming. And you look the role as a leader. And if you want to be a leader in business and in the community, you just kind of have to Look at your values. What are you about? What's important to you? And then, look and see what's important to the community. And then, see if you can kind of match those together.

Right.

And if you can do that, you're going to get a lot further than just looking at sales data every day. Well, this is what's happening in our business. Well, yeah, we're down 10%. We're up 5%. This is good. This isn't so good. What are we doing wrong? What can we be doing better? Well, Get out there. Meet people. A customer you have from 20 years ago is great. But new people may not know anything about your company. Right.

So, for the people tuning in who like this is resonating with them and they say, you know what? You're absolutely right. We need to start thinking beyond the marketing strategy and thinking more along a PR strategy. Is there any pitfalls or cautionaries they should be aware of? as they try to enter this realm?

Yeah, absolutely. So, I tell people, don't just do this for publicity's sake. Just don't feel like you're going to get an article here, an article there, and this is going to be great, and you're going to get tons of results. Or approach it like, well, we spent $100,000 this year on advertising. I guess I could budget $20,000 for PR. Well, why? Why are you doing this? Don't just throw money at it. And then, you need the resources to make it work. Do you have a writer on staff? You're going to need, if you're going to do this right, you're going to need press releases. You're going to need people that can write stories to a certain degree. They don't have to be former journalists. But somebody that can do this. And if you don't have like a marketing person on staff that can do this, that is skilled in this, you could always hire a freelancer. You could work with a small PR firm. You don't need the biggest guy and, you know, the biggest PR firm out there in the city. You could start small and kind of—

I am.

Call me. Yeah, all right, call us. That would be good. We'd love that. But, uh, yeah, I mean, you have to start from somewhere. And I mean, we've done a lot of, uh, work for small companies where, you know, it's kind of like a project basis just to start. It turns into, you know, retainer and all the long-term and all this stuff. But yeah, just get started. You know, figure out, okay, have somebody walk through this. Get in your business that knows the game and let them walk you through the steps for a successful PR campaign. These are the elements we need. You know, I need your headshots. Oh, really? Oh yeah, I never thought about that. Yeah, I need your bios of the key people in the company. Oh, okay.

Yeah, yeah.

Let me get one together. I mean, you need all these things to make it work. Maybe there's a video or different pictures of people doing things. Or you've got a very visible product. Let's show people doing the— with the product, whether it's customers or doing different things. Maybe it's the manufacturing of the product. You do like a minute video that you could just flip out there to journalists and like that.

Right.

So, what are the tools, the ammo that it's going to take to put this campaign together? And if you hire a freelancer, somebody who's been through the wars to help you get started, that's going to be great. You'll be miles ahead. And then, you can start piecemealing together the campaign. Getting back to what I said originally, what's our objective? Okay, Mr. CEO, what are we trying to accomplish? Or tell me, tell me, tell me, what would you like to see at the end of the day in 6 months, a year, a year, 2 years? So you could say, hey, this was a great return on investment. I never thought about this. But the ROI on this thing, boy, it's really helping us grow, getting recognized in the community, making an impact, having an impact with customers and stakeholders. This is awesome. We should have been doing this all along. Okay, how do we get there? But let's plan that today. Let's work backwards. This is what we want to see in 5 years or 2 years. How are we going to get there? Let's start today to put that objective together. Let's identify that audience. Let's our message together. Let's figure out the message delivery system. How are we going to do that? And then, let's figure out how we're going to measure it all.

Right.

And if you do that now and get those things in place, then the other things kind of work in tandem with it. Then, we can start calling journalists. We've got our story down pat. We know exactly why we're here, why we're in business, how we're impacting the community, all these things. And then, we can approach some journalists and say, okay, boy, you should really be Doing a story on XYZ because of these things. They're really having a major impact. You may not know this, but— and those, these kind of things. And so, at the end of the day, it becomes really a great story. But you've done all your homework. You've gotten everything in order to make it successful. And if you don't do these things, you're either going to sit there at the end and go, well, we put the money out. Not sure it was worth it. Yeah, you know, my friend saw it, blah, blah, blah. I'm not sure. That's kind of the feedback you're going to get. But we want that ROI to be solid where they can see multiple, 5 times, 10 times the return based on the investment that you made at the very beginning and be happy with the whole thing and happy with you, the PR person at the end of the day.

I love that. Steve, this has been an absolute fantastic conversation. Could you remind everybody how they can get a hold of you again one more time?

Sure, you can email me sturner@solomonturner.com. Call me 314-205-0800. Go to our website solomonturner.com, all O's in Solomon. Or you could even go to Amazon and look at my book, uh, PR That Works, and it'll help you. Yeah, you'll find ways to connect through there. We even have a separate website just for the book It's called getprthatworks.com, getprthatworks.com. And you can reach us there, leave a message or whatever. And let me know what you're thinking. If you have any PR questions at all, I'm happy to answer them. You don't have to hire us. If you just have a question, gee, you know, we're not getting results, or how do I target the newspapers in my area? I'm not sure how to do that. Send us a line and we'll be happy to respond with an answer. And, you know, if we can help as many people One thing I'm trying to do too is work with colleges and universities. And if anybody is interested in having me come out to speak to their college students, I'd love to do that. You don't necessarily, you know, we've been told our book would be a great textbook or used for college reading for students in the PR segment or communications segment, which is great. But, you know, I love to talk to anybody, any marketing classes, communication classes. For people that have access to those, or you're an adjunct professor or something like that, email me. Let me know. And maybe we can set something up where I could actually come on site and talk to your students and see if we can make an impact that way.

That's awesome! Thanks so much for that. As we wrap up, Steve, do you have any last thoughts? Anything that we haven't talked about today that you think is important to highlight?

Well, I think we've kind of covered it. I think it all goes back to what it is you're trying to accomplish and what is the objective of a PR campaign. It's not just publicity and it's not lead generation. So, if you're thinking, oh, we're going to get articles out there and we're going to get 50 people to call tomorrow, forget it. I mean, it does happen from time to time and which is great. But that's not the intent.

Yeah.

It's the long-term goals of how you're impacting the community and building relationships. And if you're in it just for immediate sales impact, don't do it. You won't be happy. Just keep buying ads on Facebook and Google or whatever you're going to do and forget about it. But if you want to make an impact in the community and work with your sales team to give them ammunition they wouldn't have otherwise— articles, interviews, things like this that they can use to get more business that way— then by all means. And this will make it easier for your people to To get you searched out on Google and AI search, which now is very attuned to all these newspaper articles and things like that. So, they show up.

Love it.

So, yes, absolutely. Think through these steps. Hire a freelancer to get started or somebody that knows the PR game and work that way. And work backwards. Find out where you want to be 5 years, 2 years, 1 year. And how is PR going to play a role in that? And then, put the organizational strength together ahead of time before you embark on a campaign. And you'll be real happy with the ROI at the end of the day. Love it!

Steve, thank you so much. I really appreciate you being here, sharing your knowledge, your obvious passion, and your expertise. This has absolutely been brilliant. Thank you for doing this.

Thank you, Marc. Really appreciate it.

So, if you've got questions about today's episode, or maybe you're thinking, hey, we could really use a complimentary 30-minute brainstorming session with Marc. Or with Steve? Well, good news. You could snag a spot on my calendar. Just hit the link below, the one that's marked meetwith.marchaine.com. And of course, Steve's link is in the show notes as well. If you want to pick his brain and get a little bit of insight from him directly, make sure you contact him. As always, I am at your service. And if you haven't done so yet, please make sure you subscribe to this podcast. Follow me on social media. I post all sorts of really cool things all the time. And of course, I look forward to seeing you next week when I have another amazing thought leader coming to the show. So, thank you so much for being here. My name is Marc Haine. I hope you stay safe, stay healthy, and I hope you dare to be the exception. See you next week.