Please note this transcript is generated by AI so apologies for any mistakes!

Pippa Goulden (00:43)
Hello and welcome back to PR Made Simple. Right, today I'm getting straight to it. This is the pep talk episode. This is where we are going to address the issues that are stopping you from starting your PR and cracking on with it and getting those results that are going to drive your business forward. It is now the second half of 2025.

It's seems to have happened very quickly this year but we have got to July. At the time of recording there is a heatwave. The last thing you want to be doing is thinking about the rest of Q3 and into Q4 and beyond but we are here because PR is obviously something that you are thinking about doing for your business but perhaps haven't quite got round to yet.

and you are not alone. I work with lots of small business owners who have put it off and put it off and put it off and you are only putting off getting those results. I can imagine that you've been thinking of doing PR in 2025. It's been on your to-do list. I'll get round to it when and it just hasn't happened. So halfway through 2025

and I'm here to help give you that kick up the bum you need to finally make PR work for your business. So this is your six month pep talk and by the end of this episode, you're going to know exactly where you've been stuck and more importantly, how to unstick yourself so you can take that action, you can get those results for your business.

know we have six months left that is why I have at the moment until the 4th of July an offer that is a six month subscription that I don't normally offer for my DIY PR membership so have a look at that if you're listening to this before the 4th of July it's just 2 for 7 to nail your PR for the rest of the year in my DIY PR membership

So the first thing you might be doing is that overthinking trap. Let's start with the elephant in the room. You are overthinking this massively.

I see it time and time again with the business owners I work with. You might have spent hours researching how to do the perfect pitch, saving articles for the magazines that you want to be in. Maybe you've started your own media list that you'll get in contact with when. Does that sound familiar? But here's the thing, whilst you've been thinking about the approach and whether people want to hear from you or whether they don't, or whether reaching out to that person's gonna make you look like an idiot or not,

then your competitors have been using that time to get featured on the right podcast, to get quoted in articles, to build relationships with journalists, to collaborate, to speak on the stages that you want to be on. And they are not better than you. I want you to remember that. They are actually just doing it. They're taking the action to make things happen. There is no such thing as the perfect pitch. There's no such thing as the perfect PR strategy. Yes, I am a big advocate for having a plan.

and working to your business objectives and knowing who your target audience is so that you reach them. But the key is taking the action. You don't have to be an award-winning writer to get results for your business. You just need to draft a pitch and get it sent. And I want you to think about those things that you've done that have scared you in your business. They are often the things that...

produce the best results for you and they are also the things that you do and the build-up is scary and you overthink and you worry about but actually when you've done the thing you realize that you could do it in the first place. So stop waiting for everything to be perfect. You are great just as you are.

You've started your business, you've kept improving as you've gone on and PR is exactly the same. When I'm working with a client, I will always go back and revisit the first pictures that I've sent. It's an evolution, it's not like one thing that you have to create that has to then stand the rest of time. The next thing that might be getting in your way of you doing your PR for your business is the prioritization problem.

PR is one of those things that slides down your to-do list. I know, I do this myself and when I do this, when it becomes something that I don't proactively do in my business, I honestly see an impact three to four months down the line. You can tell yourself it's not urgent, that your business is ticking along, you're serving your clients, you're selling your products, you're making sales. PR often feels like a nice to have, doesn't it? Rather than a need to have.

But this is what you're missing here. And this is what is really important to remember that every day that you are delaying it, that you're pushing it to the bottom of your to-do list, your ideal customers are finding your competitors instead of you. podcast owners are finding other people to interview. Journalists are finding other experts or products to fill their pages. Every...

you're not taking the action to do your PR, somebody else is doing it for their own business. Remember PR is not just about getting a bit of press coverage here and there, it's about positioning yourself as the go-to expert in your field, as the must-buy product. When someone needs what you offer, you want to be the first person that they think of and that doesn't happen overnight. PR is not a short-term sprint, it is a long-term marathon.

It happens through consistent, strategic building presence, through that momentum. I often talk about it being the snowball and you pushing it up the hill to begin with and it feels really hard and it's like you're trudging through the treacle. How many analogies can I use? But you get to

the top of the hill and then you suddenly feel that momentum building and halfway down the hill it's building, it's building, it's building and people start coming to you. You've made yourself discoverable. People ask you to be featured on things. They ask you to do talks. They ask you to comment for articles. So that podcast you appear on today might lead to a speaking opportunity next month which might lead to a partnership in Q4 but none of that will happen unless you get started.

So a good tip for this that I find is either blocking out an hour or two a week to get your PR done and make it a non-negotiable. Give yourself a reward at the end of doing it or do what I do, which is proactively do 15 to 20 minutes a day, making sure you've sent an email to someone, you've put yourself on someone's radar, you've done some research.

Build into your day. You don't need to spend hours and hours doing it, but you do need to take the action to do it.

So the third thing I think might be getting in your way when it comes to you doing your PR is what I call the Instagram default trap. That is you reaching for your phone when you know that you want to be doing something to connect to your audience, to do some marketing, to put yourself out there. We are battling the algorithm gods on Instagram and we have been for a long time and still so many of us default to picking our phones up to...

take that action on Instagram when actually you could be thinking about so many other routes there are to reach your target audience. Don't get me wrong, absolutely social media has its place but if Instagram is your only strategy then you're essentially renting space in someone else's house and that landlord, that algorithm can change the rules whenever they want and that's what we have seen so much in 2025.

the battling of the algorithm, which just leads to frustration. It leads to your posts being seen by not as many people as are following you. Five, years ago, you could start a business on Instagram and you could pretty much sell through your Instagram platform, but it doesn't give you that long-term credibility, that longevity, and it doesn't work in that way anymore. Think about it, when you're featured on a podcast, those episodes,

They're around forever. You've got evergreen content there. When you're quoted in an article, that becomes part of your credibility, part of your as seen ins. When you speak at an event, you're not just reaching followers, you're creating a connection with an audience that's actively chosen to listen to you. PR gives you that content that really does convert for you. The testimonial from a podcast host carries more weight than 100 Instagram lights. A quote in a trade publication opens lots of doors that an Instagram story

definitely couldn't. I've got so many examples of people being found by buyers or other brands or journalists through other PR they've done. I've got a great story about a brand that did some Christmas PR, they got featured in the Telegraph and they got read about by the producers of BBC Morning Live and asked to go on BBC Morning Live to talk about their business. That would not have happened if they had just been focused.

on their social media platforms. So this is my call to you to look at more opportunities that are out there for your business than just focusing on your Instagram and the algorithm battle. I want you to remember as well that PR is a secret weapon for you and this will hopefully motivate you into taking the actions. It's helping you to reach new audiences but it's also helping to cement your reputation with your existing ones. It's reminding them

about why they are there in the first place. So you're reaching people lots and lots of different ways through the buyer's journey, whether that's bringing them into your world at the beginning or reminding them about why they're there in the first place. It really does help to cement that reputation, to give you that trust and that credibility and it makes them likely to refer you to others, it positions you as an expert or the must-have product that you always knew you were.

And this is really important as you are growing your business, it helps to signal that you are not just another small business owner, that you are a thought leader, an expert, that you have products that are worthy of being talked about by the right people in the right places. And that is really key to remembering that when it comes to doing your PR and it's a really good motivator to get going with it. So.

Enough about the motivational speech. I want to talk about taking action and I'm going to give you five things that you can do right now to get your PR moving. number one, start a list. Start with maybe 10 PR opportunities for your business, whether that's press coverage, the right magazines, podcasts, speaking opportunities.

Find ones that work for your niche, for your audience, where your people are actually hanging out. Don't start with the diary of a CEO. Start where your audience is Spend 30 minutes on this today. Start doing that research and that will stand you in a really good stead. I always say to people, invest a bit more time upfront to do the research, to understand how to do it and then...

you can get into the rhythm of doing your PR for that 15, 20 minutes a day or that one to two hours a week, whatever works for you and how you work. The next thing I want you to do is think about your assets. do you need a bio? If you're an expert, probably. Do you need a press release? If you have new products coming out, then probably. Start getting that.

done because then you have the basis of your pitches to be able to send to people. Your pitch will be tweaked depending on who you are sending it to but if you've done that upfront thinking then you will find that incredibly useful as you come to find the right PR opportunities for your business. The next thing I want you to do is to create a simple

The next thing I want you to do is to create your media kit. So that will have your imagery in it. It will be an online shareable folder, say a Google Drive or a Jotbox folder. And you'll put in there your photo, your bio, if you need one, if you're an expert, your product imagery, if you are a product business, and then show what you can talk about. And then let's just get on and send a pitch. Maybe start with your network. Start with people that you know, who could you collaborate with, even if it's just an Insta live.

Get that ball rolling because that's when that momentum starts building. Send an email to somebody today with an idea of how you guys could work together. If they say no, what is the worst thing that can happen? But imagine if they say yes, you are starting to take that action to get those results. I want you to send that by the end of the week. Go on, I dare you. And the last thing is to really set up that system.

Block in that time in your diary as a non-negotiable. Know that you are going to be doing PR for your business. Commit that time to your diary. I know some of you will have summer holiday juggle coming up, but honestly, by starting to take the momentum now, by starting to take the action now, you will start seeing the results coming through in.

the next few months and that is what we want to do for the rest of the year. We want to start thinking about getting you out there, about taking that action. And here's your final pep talk from me. This is the best time to start. Honestly, don't waste any more time on the overthinking. Every minute that you've been spending thinking about doing your PR is time that you could have actually taken to be doing it.

I know it feels uncomfortable, I know it feels a bit icky, but honestly

into the rhythm of doing it, those things just go out the window. I often get asked how my DIY PR members, how my accelerators, the one who really nail it, how are they doing it, what is their secret? I promise you it's just that they are taking the action.

despite not feeling ready, despite thinking that, that pitch isn't right they've just taken the action. This was something, I talk about this a lot. I wanted to do this.

speaking gig at Top Draw for three years and I thought about it and I thought about it and I thought they'll find me I'd connected with the right people on LinkedIn you know I was very visible on my social platforms I did other podcasts I thought they'll find me and then I realized last October that I needed to take a spoon of my own medicine so I sent the pitch email and within a few weeks I was confirmed to speak on the stage which I did in January and I can promise you that

has changed my business this year for the positive. It has been incredible from doing one talk and the momentum that that has given me for the rest of the year. So I am saying, please take that action because the results will start happening for you. So by the end of this week, that's not next week, not next month, by the end of this week, whenever you're listening to this,

I want you to send a pitch to somebody, go on, just do it and see what happens. And remember, done is better than perfect and started is better than stuck. And I want you to use this pep talk to get unstuck.

if you are listening to this on the week the podcast comes out, then I have a six month.

offer available for my DIY PR membership. It is just £247 for the rest of the year to join the PR set, to take the action, to make things happen in your business. That is available until Friday the 4th of July. Otherwise you can join monthly or you can join annually so those options are always available. I just have a six month option available for the rest of this week. So come on let's take some action people, come and find me!

Pippa Goulden on LinkedIn, I'm Pippa the PR set on Instagram and you can find out all the information you need in the show notes or at theprset.com and I want you to let me know when you have taken that action and let me know what happens as a result. I can't wait to hear from you.