Please note this transcript was generated using AI - apologies for any mistakes!

Pippa Goulden (00:43)
Janine Jacobs is the co-founder of Happy HQ, an innovative culture consultancy that helps businesses build a culture that is right for them and their people. She is also a brilliant example of a service business owner who's used DIYPR to get her and her co-founder Louisa known for what they do. And she has totally smashed it when it comes to building a profile that's authentic to who she is and the work they do at Happy HQ.

She has worked one-to-one with me and was part of my DIY PR membership for two years, getting regular press coverage in places like stylist, glamour, courier, and really maximizing other PR routes. She's a regular on the speaking circuit and has spoken on some of her industries and other people's industries' bigger stages. She's great at podcast interviews, collabs, and using her marketing channels as PR tools to help her become discoverable. So let's find out.

how she does it.

Pippa Goulden (01:40)
welcome Janine to PR Made Simple. How are you?

Janine Jacobs (01:45)
I'm good, I'm good, I've got my Christmas jumper on. We're on the countdown now, aren't we?

Pippa Goulden (01:47)
you have all sparkling!

we are, I mean if anyone's listening to this post Christmas then it's all done and dusted but right now we are on the countdown to Christmas time. So let's jump in, tell us about Happy HQ

Janine Jacobs (02:02)
Yeah, so Happy HQ is a culture consultancy and in short, we guide companies on creating People First Culture Foundations. So we work with lots of companies, big and small, I would say some 100 years old.

some one day old or just launching. And basically we're on a mission to change the world of work as we know it. We feel like people deserve so much more from their workplaces. On the same hand, companies can, you know, create more financial revenue from creating happy cultures too. So it's all about building happy, healthy, high performing teams. We do that by working with companies on a retainer basis, but we also do lots of projects. And essentially that'll be anything from culture

strategy and mapping to values discovery or working with culture cohorts. So that's a project that we've recently launched this year, which is basically recognizing that all the things we've learned since 2020, since we've launched and been working with companies, how can we create a program to educate founders that can't necessarily have access to the consultants on a one-to-one basis, but want to learn with peers? So culture cohorts have been running. been just finished almost, well,

Tomorrow we'll be finishing our last cohort which we're running for the second time which is a 12 week long programme that's always really sad to say goodbye but it's building a community, it's having FaceTime with people and it's peer to peer learning which we love.

Pippa Goulden (03:32)
amazing and you've made real waves since you've launched. When did you launch? Four years ago? 2020? Yeah.

Janine Jacobs (03:37)
2020. Yeah, and we always show this picture when we talk, when we do talk, so we talk to people in workshops about when we launched and we talk about the dynamic world of work that we live in because actually there was this big, it's a photo of Louisa and I, my co-founder, and behind us we've mapped out our values, our purpose, know, we're really basically doing Happy HQ's way on us to start with, so really building those culture foundations up from the very start and, you know, how do we want

to run, what do we care about, know, how will we do check-ins, how will we work together as a team basically. And we always show the picture because it was pre-COVID and I was thinking, you know, we were so, look at us there, we think we're about to change this world of work and then before we knew it right in front of our eyes, six months later when we'd already, you know, had the concept, built the website, everything, COVID happened, people are talking about culture more than ever.

and we happened to be there right at the starting point of that.

Pippa Goulden (04:38)
Yeah, amazing. And I think one of the things that I've seen through your PR as well, but obviously how you run the business is you have real adaptability with the business. Like you're constantly changing and evolving it, aren't you? And I think you're really good at keeping abreast of what's going on within your industry, which allows you to comment and be a voice of that, whether it's through media opportunities or speaking opportunities or that kind of thing.

Janine Jacobs (05:06)
Yeah, I mean it's constantly changing and I think it's really hard, you know, even as a culture consultant to keep up with the change and so this dynamic world of work, you know, a big turning point for us was about two years ago we sat down with a business coach who had said, you've got to help people come on the learning journey with you. So look at where you are now and look back two years ago. How can you get people from where you were to

where you are now and so that's where the idea for culture cohorts came into play because actually when it does come to culture it is such an abstract

piece, right? It's not very tangible. And so a lot of the times it's breaking it down. It's giving people a culture model. It's saying, actually, we just need a strategy and a framework. And we actually approach it exactly the same ways as you would a communications campaign. It's going, what are our insights there from your people? And how do we then create an action plan from that that we share? And it's all transparent. We celebrate the things we're doing really well. And we focus on the things that we need to focus on. And so when we look at it

like that from an education point of view we've had so much fun along the way learning like a big value of ours is stay curious I I don't have all the answers I don't know what's going to happen to the future of work nobody knows and so it's it's sort of you know if you if we really value that that learning piece and we're not you know we're constantly trying to find ways to wrap up information and give it to our clients or our followers in a really you know easy easy

digestible way.

Pippa Goulden (06:48)
Yeah, I think that comes across really well. So when it comes to your PR, I know you've got a PR background, which obviously helps when it comes to you understanding how it all works and how to pitch yourself and that kind of thing. But you're a B2B service business, which people often think is kind of more difficult to PR.

But actually, I think you're a really great example of using all the different PR routes, really understanding having a strategic approach to your PR. Can you tell us a bit more about how do you go about doing the PR for Happy HQ? What's your approach to it?

Janine Jacobs (07:22)
Yeah, so.

My background was in PR and comms for 15 years and I did make the jump into setting up Happy HQ after realising actually leading teams, you become so much invested in their welfare and how they're performing and whether they're feeling happy. At the same time, I was studying positive psychology thinking actually there's so much we be bringing into workplaces, stuff that I haven't seen in all the 15 years I've worked in agencies.

I guess the approach at the very beginning when we set up Happy HQ is building a brand first because I couldn't go out as an expert. For me that felt too fake, I didn't feel authentic enough. It's the same way as when you're working with any client in PR, you have to really understand their industry. You're putting comms messages and key messages together, you have to really know the industry. So personally for me it was

I think looking back, I hid behind Happy HQ for about the first 12 months and I built the brand up and I knew we had something that had talkability that media would want to talk about post-COVID. I think it was in the first even two weeks of putting stuff on Instagram, Courier Media got in touch with us and said, you put something really interesting. You talk about culture ad, not culture fit.

I think the commerce background really helps, think, because that's where I feel really comfortable. I know what people want to read and listen to. I know how to talk to stakeholders. I didn't ever really see the strategy as being how can I get media attention, more so who are my stakeholders and what are they interested in. So I think sometimes with PR there's this big myth that it's just journalists that you're talking to, but you're not. You're talking to so many stakeholders.

And yeah, I guess the focus, we break down like B2B and B2C, business to business, business to consumer media, is well the consumer media don't care about.

us as the service that we're offering. They really don't care. They might care about a report that we put out or trends that we're talking about, but really for them

this affect my readers? So we had things like great resignation, 2.0, quiet quitting. They're all conversations that we were able to say as experts, this is the lay of the land and this is how it will impact people at work.

Pippa Goulden (09:57)
Yeah and you've done really well haven't you getting in the kind of mainstream consumer press you've been in places like Stylist using that insight and putting yourselves forward as an expert so it's funny isn't it that you you spent the first year kind of hiding behind the brand but I think then you realized didn't you that actually you do have some really valuable things to say as expert somebody who's living and breathing workplace culture and you've got insight that's really of use to the journalist which is therefore of interest to the reader at the end.

Janine Jacobs (10:24)
Yeah, massively. I think it's, you know, it's that expert. I don't love the word expert, actually. It makes me feel really icky. I had a massive turning point where I figured, actually, I'm going to stop putting stuff on Happy HQ's LinkedIn as much as I'm going to do it myself on my own LinkedIn. And, you know...

I've sort of been posting regularly once or twice a week if that, right? It's not loads. But for me, I'm always thinking about, can't just post for post sake. I want to be posting about a partnership. I want to be giving a free resource. I want to show people that we've appeared somewhere. So I'm constantly in my head thinking what's coming next. I'm really transparent and honest.

I can't tell you what I'm going to post in two weeks time but I can tell you what I'm going to post ish next week. And so it's I guess for me it's like thinking of myself as this content playground that we're in. are our own, you know, we can be our own like media publisher if we want to be and that's I think where you gain more followers and support from your community because you're adding value constantly.

Pippa Goulden (11:41)
Yeah especially for B2B service businesses but actually across the board,

your own channels basically are helping you to be discoverable, so you're putting out content that is really.

obviously relevant to what you're doing, you're putting your stake in the ground, aren't you? You're kind of using your content to show who Happy HQ is and the kind of work that you're doing. But that in turn allows you to be discovered. So whether it's career on your Instagram or LinkedIn have featured you as well, haven't they, on LinkedIn News, that kind of thing. It really helps with that, doesn't it?

Janine Jacobs (12:11)
Yeah, for us doing things like the podcast.

interviewing people that are trendsetters, people that are really shaking things up in the world of work. For every podcast that we recorded, it felt like so much work went into it. There was so much research, the questioning had to be right. We're talking like thought provoking things like salary transparency.

think you know was such good groundwork then for repurposing content throughout the year I mean we don't to be honest we don't do it enough I always say my favorite hire will be someone that can literally go through our culture hub blogs and just start to pick out loads of content because it can all be repurposed you know we try to do a bit more of it but we're always because we're always looking at for fresh new ideas and new things to think about I think there's definitely missing a trick in some way there but yeah

LinkedIn news piece was just as repurposing a post about laughing at work, you know, we're not laughing as much at work as we should be and they picked that up and yeah it went into LinkedIn news across UK and Europe and just yeah it went a bit mental.

Pippa Goulden (13:22)
Amazing. It's so great isn't it? And it just shows, think, often we just kind of put out what we want to say.

on things without thinking about the tools, the marketing tools that we've got and using them as PR tools as well. you know, being strategic with something like a podcast about the guests you're bringing in and the conversations that you're having and the type of content that you can then use from it as well. Things like Insta Lives are brilliant for that or using your LinkedIn kind of more as a PR tool. Are you looking at doing things like that for 2025? Is that hot off the press?

Janine Jacobs (13:51)
Hmm.

We do, yeah, do, yeah, I mean video obviously is massive, right, even on LinkedIn, I think that's why that peak post. mean, Instagram isn't, we started with Instagram, I think from a brand building point of view, we wanted to put something out there, know, people hear about your brand, one of the first places they might go to is Instagram. At the end of the day, we don't have a huge following, I don't really care about the numbers at all, I care about, you know, just us putting great content out there.

that people might want to share. That's fine. LinkedIn become much more of a priority for us. But you know, at end of the day, we're a really small team. We're bootstrapped. We both actually also have other gigs as well. So Louisa runs, you know, a really successful recruitment company called I Love My Job that's BeCorp. She'd been running that for 14 years now. I'm also a people and culture partner two days a week at an amazing events company because I went in there as an embedded partnership.

loved it, stayed and after four months ended up becoming a permanent member of staff and that's great for us because we both have our own thing going on and for Happy HQ we can just focus on the things that we really enjoy doing. So I think when it comes to PR we...

often I just look and go where am I going to have fun? know, getting up on stage, it might sound scary but actually we both love it, we both come away like buzzing. So definitely I think for us, our strategy is also focused around where we feel we can add value, be authentic, have some fun, connect with other like-minded people. I know you connected us with Steph at Don't Buy Her Flowers, we did a nice collaboration with them.

last year. It's interviewing people that you know are on our radar and have the same kind of businesses as we do. know, collaboration over competition always and I think that talking about trends, being on podcasts, all of that stuff, it just keeps you in the know, it keeps you knowledgeable.

Pippa Goulden (16:03)
Yeah and I think something you've said there is really important which is having fun. Like I think PR can often, to people who haven't done it before, feel incredibly daunting like something that big brands with big budgets should be doing and you need an agency to do it but you're so right there's so many routes out there that you can you know look at and enjoy it. It doesn't have to be this big scary kind of thing that's like...

Janine Jacobs (16:23)
Hmm.

Pippa Goulden (16:27)
facing you. It's actually leaning into the stuff that you are enjoying doing. I think something that you are brilliant at as well is looking at all the different PR routes and you mentioned speaking there. Tell us a bit more about kind of the speaking opportunities that you do because you've had some amazing things happen.

Janine Jacobs (16:42)
Yeah, last year I think it all kicked off with the Startup Show. we spoke there and you don't really expect there to be a big crowd. It's like a queue, a queue of people to get in and it was just brilliant. And afterwards actually we walked away going, need to just do more of that. That felt right.

It's telling, you're able to tell stories, I think,

At the end of the day, people want to hear stories, they want to hear your founder's story, they want to hear why you exist, they want little tidbits and inspiration, but to go on stage and to deliver a talk, we've talked before, haven't we, about the happy PR dance you do when you get a piece of print, but I think giving a talk for me is, it just makes me feel like I want to call my nan and tell her.

Pippa Goulden (17:30)
Look at me I'm on the stage! I love that. And how do you find, so when you look at all the kind of different PR routes that you do, whether it's podcast interviews or talking on stages or press, how do they impact your business? And I imagine it is in different ways. What's the effect of the PR that you do?

Janine Jacobs (17:31)
Hahaha

I thought you might ask this question and I was like I'm going to be really honest when it comes to things like our website I don't know analytics behind I remember being the guy that does our website stuff I remember him saying what what kick things off there and I was like that would have been glamour you know it does have an effect on SEO it does have an effect on people linking through to your website for sure I think for me it's the clients that come to us we've had clients come from America we've had like I'm not going to

Pippa Goulden (17:53)
hahahaha

Janine Jacobs (18:20)
name it now because we didn't end up getting this work with this brand but we we hope to in the future but they read something and then they came to us and they're trying to figure out where we will fit but I think people don't think of PR as selling but actually it's it's credibility isn't it it's that for me you know I put stuff out there because

not because I think that it will get me clients because I'm not a natural salesperson but I do want to add value and I do want you to be able to go onto LinkedIn and see these as featured in that was always a big thing for me when I started out like as featured in because it's credibility and I think you know when you're building a brand that really helps.

Pippa Goulden (19:06)
Yeah, and from an outside looking in, think for you guys, going back what you said about the having fun, you are having fun with it and you're enjoying it and that comes through from seeing you post about us.

speaking on a stage or being featured in Glamour or whatever it is. And that allows you to show who you are and what you're about. And I think that helps to attract clients, I would have thought with you guys, because you are like living and breathing happy HQ. you're practicing what you preach. And that comes through in the way that you talk about all the of the PR opportunities that you have and the partnerships and the collaborations. So yeah, I think living and breathing what you do is through, definitely.

Janine Jacobs (19:42)
Yeah, I mean, we all work. We all want work to be happier and better. You know, every single person on this planet can relate to that in some way or another.

Yeah, it's, you know, at the end of the day, it's that expert word as well. We're still learning, we're having fun. We definitely want to make sure that we're coming across as authentic. We're not corporate at all. You know, when we run workshops, people go away and they say that you two are such a joy. You know, we need to be big energy. We bring people together. We want to get ideas from people. That's what we're all about. And so I hope that translates or I'm pleased to hear that translates as well.

and what we put out there.

Pippa Goulden (20:24)
Yeah does definitely. When you're doing kind of a speaking up what do you do to prepare for that? How do you kind of get yourself ready to go on stage?

Janine Jacobs (20:33)
So I'm very visual so I'll build the slides up with visuals and just a point per slide as you would but then I print it out and I put every slide up on the wall

And then I sit with that for about a week and I add a story to every side because I think people just care about stories more, right, than they do about actual, like we have the facts and the stats and everything. So I'll add little stories, little things and, you know, bit of philosophy here and things that will just make people think differently. And then I record myself on Loom.

to that script or the things I want to put on each slide. And then I listen, this is going to sound terrible, but I listen then if I'm on a run or on the school run in the car or whatever, I listen to myself on the recording because I find that that really sinks in for me. I've had friends, literally I've pulled up and they're like, what are you doing? I'm I'm listening to myself, this sounds terrible. But actually it just really helps me soak the

in and then when you're giving the talk on stage it's just so natural it just you're sort of like reel it off so that's that's my biggest tip is just it depends like everyone learns differently. Louisa I could literally just give her a post-it note before she's about to deliver a talk and wheel her in and she'll just deliver it but we're we're different.

Pippa Goulden (22:02)
I love that, that's such great tips, well done. Brilliant idea, I love the fact that you're like, you know, jogging along listening to yourself. Everyone thinks you're listening to some high bar podcast, it's just I'm listening to myself.

Janine Jacobs (22:13)
Yeah, I'm trying to soak myself in. I think, know, otherwise if you listen, if you're sort of like listening to another podcast thing, they're saying great things, but actually you're saying that in your own words. And that's the most important thing. If you try and go on stage putting something that it doesn't come from the heart, or you're trying to sound more clever than you are, or you're using words that you wouldn't normally use, that's where I think the nerves come in, was actually the thing that I feel really comfortable in myself.

turned 43 this month and I think it's sort of like maybe a coming of age thing but do you know what, I am just me. I think that's been a massive turning point. I'll turn up to a culture co-op or a workshop, a presentation, I'm just being me and I think that always, I think people really appreciate that so yeah.

Pippa Goulden (22:53)
Absolutely.

Yeah.

And I think that's a really good point for PR is that the more authentic you can be to who you are, what you're doing, why you're doing it, the more likely you are to find the right PR opportunities for you. Because if you're trying to be like your competitor or trying to be somebody else or, you know, stepping into shoes that don't really fit you, it's just going to come across as being inauthentic. And people are looking, especially now and as we head into 2025, I think even more for authenticity and people who

Janine Jacobs (23:28)
Hmm.

Pippa Goulden (23:37)
are genuine and that's a really great tip it's stepping up to be who you are rather than worrying about who you're not.

Janine Jacobs (23:45)
Yeah, I mean I'm obviously very passionate about figuring out your values, especially if you're a business owner as well, figuring out those values not just because they sound great but actually because they are core and you've got stories that back them up and you are living and you are breathing them daily. That's exactly what we build up as culture foundations with companies but if you can work out those values...

then your content becomes easier because you feel like, yeah, that's something I want to talk about. We talk about pillars, well actually they can just be your values really. know, things for me are like authenticity, being radically transparent. I will always talk about our failures, like where we effort massively. It's collaboration, it's curiosity and learning. They're the things I talk about and they're our values at Happy HQ. So everything feels so aligned and just like it's meant to be.

and that's where we can feel like experts actually because we're just, we're doing what we know best.

Pippa Goulden (24:46)
Yeah, absolutely. It's definitely the authenticity thing is really key. And you're right. It's about being aligned to who you are and what you do. It's why I really dislike the term personal brand because I feel like it obviously we're all trying to build personal brands, but it feels to me like it's something not genuine. And actually the best way to get known for what you do and to build your profile is by being you.

Janine Jacobs (25:05)
Mm.

Yeah exactly. Do you know what I have a funny story in relation to that and I always think it proves the point so a brilliant agency in Brighton that we worked with this year I met that client in a sauna because I was with friends and they asked me this this client basically it was she had gotten like a Mother's Day present or something and you can fit say 10 people in and I was with nine friends and we kept saying to the guy who'd who organized the sauna Dan who's this

10th person he said her name's Laura and I was like Laura we're gonna have to really look after Laura like poor Laura coming in with all of us and while we were in the sauna friends basically said wow you and Louisa are smashing it at the moment Janine like tell us more about happy HQ so started to talk to them about it and Laura's listening in I didn't know Laura owned an agency and was sort of like looking for some to work with someone like us so we swapped business cards and before you knew it you know we

together and to me that is just the very essence of PR and reputation it's not me you know being out there I probably would have if she'd have asked me the question I would have delivered it in such a different way maybe and actually when we break it down and we're just being genuine and authentic and human you know that's the thing that sealed the deal for her.

Pippa Goulden (26:35)
Absolutely, I found one of my...

best clients this year in the gym. And somebody recommended me, they were having a chat in the gym about her business and they were like, should, know, Pippa, she does PR, she can help you with that. And you know, that's how we ended up working together. So yeah, it's about, yeah, living and breathing who you are because that translates across all of it and it comes through from your PR. When, the co-founder, with Louisa, how do you balance who does what from a PR perspective, from an opportunities perspective?

Janine Jacobs (26:39)
Yeah.

Pippa Goulden (27:07)
How do you do that when you have a co-founder?

Janine Jacobs (27:10)
I basically look after that side of the business. Don't ask me about finance Pippa, ask Lou. Yeah, we just have our roles and responsibilities. We actually create, there's only two of us, but we create objectives and key results. I look at it, I break it down a little bit and say, know, ideally within a year I'd like to be in this many publications, do this many talks.

Pippa Goulden (27:14)
Ha

Janine Jacobs (27:33)
It sounds like it's strategic, it's a lot of it's around time and what we actually have time for in and around our clients which obviously take priority. But yeah, we balance it in a way

I will secure spots and give Lou the run over and we'll collaborate and We'll figure out what we want to both say She's ace she's does a lot of panel talks as well because she's B Corp. So she's a real champion for B Corp

Pippa Goulden (27:57)
I think you probably are doing it much more strategically than you realise because even having that plan about where you want to be next year or in the next half or quarter or whatever it is just it helps you to focus doesn't it and you know that right we want to have this many speaking opportunities we know that this does x for the business we know that the press does this for the business so you know when I'm talking about PR strategy you don't need those 65 page PowerPoint documents that we used to write for

Janine Jacobs (28:11)
Yeah.

Pippa Goulden (28:24)
for pictures. It can just be a plan about where you're going and how you're going to get there.

Janine Jacobs (28:30)
Yeah and I'm a big believer like I've written up on my notice board here it's a dancing party not a talking party and I've always been a big believer in that. Do the do. You know don't just say you do this stuff actually go out there and host these events host that webinar put that podcast out put that freebie out put the work in and then that talking party doesn't feel so icky because you're doing you're putting things in action and actually I think that's when PR is at its best when we're

putting things in action.

Pippa Goulden (29:02)
love that and so what about accountability is of how do you kind of keep yourself on track with it what do you do? Leading question! You were.

Janine Jacobs (29:09)
Pippa, admittedly, yeah, yeah, I was a member of the PR set for two years and I did notice actually that when I finished up because of time and having to sort of refocus on things like culture cohorts and the new gig, the accountability piece I really missed. So I definitely think that from even what I loved about the PR set,

and Pippa didn't ask me to talk about the PR setting this way by the way, I'm just being a PR person, is every week you'd send the journal what the journals are looking for and actually sometimes you might put out an email and say, I don't know, this actually happened with Stylist so there might be a freelancer working on a piece, you put something out there and respond to that and actually that's not quite right for that piece but you're on their radar now and I think that's the best way rather than this blanket press release approach.

which is a big no-no anyway, is building up relationships that way so even if you don't hear back from a journalist and you put something out there don't worry because you might still be on their radar and that happens loads like the amount of emails they must get are getting pestered all the time so I think having so many years of experience of not hearing back from journalists you get

thick skin and you know it's nothing personal it's just not not right and they're on a massive time deadline and you know they might put you aside for another story or have you in mind but you've just got to start

Pippa Goulden (30:33)
do.

Exactly, and I think that's a really good tip for people who don't really have the background, like you you send the pictures, you know from your own experience, you just keep going. If you don't hear back, you keep going. And I think one of the things I see happen is people give up too quickly because they haven't heard back from the first two or three journalists they've emailed and they've gone, right, that's it, it's not working for me. It doesn't work like that, does it? You've just got to keep it going and keep that momentum going.

Janine Jacobs (30:56)
Yeah.

Yeah, yeah and usually what will happen is I'll...

I mean, I don't like to use the excuse of time, but time does get in the way. It's hard when you've had years of experience working on PR campaigns and you know the possibility if you just put the time in. Unfortunately, it isn't always like that and we have to sort of, yeah, we do have to be a bit more strategic and sort of handpick a few opportunities. But for instance, we, I posted about the culture gap and I actually think that's got talkability and you did post underneath,

you put this has legs and I'm like I know it has legs so it's pinching out that story but then going if that isn't a hit and say like the Metro don't pick that up for example then is there something on BBC work life where I can write a feature or you know it's just breaking it down so I'll always have like this would be my top tier if that doesn't come off I'll go to these people and that's that's it's thinking it through and you know you've got a story that might be

interest.

Pippa Goulden (32:14)
something you're really good at doing is collaborations. Can you talk about those from a PR perspective? But I just think you're so good at aligning yourself with the right businesses. You work with some really interesting people. How do they come about and what are you kind of thinking about when you're approaching people to work with them?

Janine Jacobs (32:33)
Yeah, so collaboration, so I'll give an example. So, HOODLE is a new community which is for agency people in creative agencies, so it's about...

gearing up the next generation of talent with all the knowledge, expertise, peer-to-peer learning. That for us was a perfect collaboration because I have agency experience, you know, building great cultures and knowing how to support and develop your team is really key for future leaders too. So that was a really great collaboration. We did with them like a culture cohort style, self-paced learning course that

now sitting on their platform. Barclays Eagle Labs we've just announced today at the time of recording this so that's a big one for us that's a really great brand that will be a national webinar that will be free

Pippa Goulden (33:20)
Amazing!

And what would be your top tips on for anyone who's listening to this and kind of wants to get their PR started? How do they do it? What would be your recommendations?

Janine Jacobs (33:40)
I would almost get a piece of paper and plot out all the different avenues you could take. Collaborations, talking on stage, podcast, talking in the press.

putting stuff out on LinkedIn, putting stuff on your own channels as well, like blogs, et cetera. And I'd look at where you feel most passionate, what will really help your business? Is it that you wanna have these as featured in logos on the top of your website? Is it you wanna just do a couple of talks is that where you feel comfortable? Do you wanna speak on podcasts? Because they're brilliant for, getting your whole story out there, not just a snippet.

I'd go with where you feel most comfortable and then I'd overlay that with the topic. So what's happening in the industry? For us it was things like great resignation 2.0, culture ad versus culture fit. Things like that that you think actually this has a bit of a hook and this might be something that if it was media say that their listeners would be interested in or if it was B2B. And you like writing say can you write a piece? I wrote a piece for Star

magazine and I still refer back to that because I think God I said some good stuff in that I think making sure that you're focusing on where you're going to have most fun where you feel comfortable and the topics that you feel you can talk to

Pippa Goulden (35:01)
love that, absolutely brilliant and I think something you said there as well is that that PR that you're getting is you can use it can't you, ongoing it's not just like it comes out in startups once and you've forgotten about it you're you're very good at repurposing those pieces of PR that you've had and saying just to remind you we've been here and we've been featured here the content that keeps on giving isn't it.

Janine Jacobs (35:23)
yeah, I think definitely making sure that you're repurposing content that...

you know, I will just say on the AI front, it's making sure as well that you are coming across as you

because I think more so even next year, like even on LinkedIn now, it just feels so chat botty sometimes, doesn't it? And you can really fish out the people that are like truly putting things in their own words that speak from the heart versus all this corporate jargon that we're hearing.

Pippa Goulden (35:52)
Yeah, definitely. It goes back to the authenticity, doesn't it? I think there are ways, and we do this quite a lot in the PR set, that we talk about the ways you can use AI to kind of enhance what you're doing, but it's not your starting point. It's not the thing that should be telling you what to say, because then it's just regurgitating stuff that's, it's found words from other places, other people. So yeah, it's all about authenticity, isn't it?

Janine Jacobs (36:04)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Yeah, definitely.

Pippa Goulden (36:20)
And what is 2025 looking like for Happy HQ?

Janine Jacobs (36:24)
so we've just announced obviously the Barclays

partnership which is great so that will happen in January. We'll be back on Spring Fair this year so in February we'll be giving another talk

Pippa Goulden (36:36)
Amazing, God, lots going on for you!

Janine Jacobs (36:39)
also just

more of the same to be honest. It's been a great year for us. you look around you and you go God companies are closing that started at the same time as us you know we we've never spent a pound on marketing we feel really lucky for that so a lot of how we've grown has been very organic very word of mouth and I think if we can just exactly if we can just keep it that way I'm happy so yeah.

Pippa Goulden (37:01)
PR. Yeah, absolutely brilliant. it's been so lovely talking to you. Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us. It's very generous of you to kind of give people the insight behind the scenes. I think for B2B service businesses, especially, you can do it. There are lots of ways that you can use PR, as we both have done, to build your business and get known for what you do. So thank you so much.

Janine Jacobs (37:25)
Yeah and you're very welcome and nothing feels more happy does it than that the PR dance that we talk about. I always liken it to like finding a tenner in your coat pocket you're like yeah. Thanks Pippa, great to chat bye

Pippa Goulden (37:32)
yeah brilliant well lovely to see you see you soon bye

Pippa Goulden (37:46)
I hope you got lots out of that chat with Janine. She really is a brilliant example of how B2B service businesses can really use PR to get known for what they do to help their business grow and thrive. And you can follow her Janine Jacobs on LinkedIn or find out more at happyhq.co.uk. And I really would recommend following her on LinkedIn because you'll get some great tips on how you can do your own PR.

And if this has whet your appetite, then don't forget you can use the POD50 to get 50 % off your first month in my DIY PR membership. I also have my one-to-one accelerator and I have a couple of spots left for Jan and Feb. And I am so excited. I have a brand new offering. We are kicking off at the end of January with my new course called Get Known, which will help you.

to get known for what you do. It's part course, but it's really mainly about action taking and getting results that will help you step out of the shadows and start building your profile to get you talked about in the right places by the right people, just like Janine has done. So you can find everything about that on my website or DM me Pippa the Piazza on Instagram or on LinkedIn Pippa Gordon. And that is...

us for a couple of weeks I am going to take a well-earned break for Christmas but thank you for listening to PR Made Simple it's been an absolute thrill to bring this to you over the last few months and I have a lot more planned for 2025 so do come back in January for more PR Made Simple but in the meantime have a very Merry Christmas and a wonderful New Year