Please note this transcript is created using AI - apologies for any mistakes!

Pippa Goulden (00:44)
Hello and welcome back to another episode of PR Made Simple. Now today, I want to tell you about a conversation I had recently with a brilliant business owner. She's established, well respected, genuinely brilliant at what she does. People in her world know it and she's built a reputation over years of really incredible, important work. And she told me she didn't do PR.

By the end of our conversation though, everything had changed. Not because I taught her something new, but because I showed her what she was already doing. She didn't think she was doing PR when I was standing watching her business, thinking, God, she's really good at this. And I think the same might be true for you. So we're gonna deep dive into this a bit more today. Before we go any further, I just want to reframe.

what PR actually means because I think a lot of founders have a version of PR in their head that looks like paying an agency thousands of pounds, getting some random press coverage, telling personal stories that have nothing to do with your business, spray and pray pitching to journalists who don't

what PR looks like to you or if that is the version of PR that you've tried and hasn't worked for your business, then I completely understand

while you've written it off. But that's not what PR is, not really. So PR is third party endorsement. It's somebody else saying you're brilliant. It's you showing up in front of other people's audiences in a way that builds trust and credibility. It's your reputation management. It's what people say about you when you are not in the room. It's the difference between you saying, I'm the go-to expert in my field. My products are the best products.

in our industry and someone else saying it for you. And when you think about it that way, you're probably already doing it at least to some extent within your business. Let me give you some examples of how I see founders doing this already. And some of these might sound familiar for you. So it might be guest workshops and expert sessions. So when someone invites you into their community to share your expertise, that's PR. They're lending you their audience and their credibility.

They're saying to people, this person knows what they're talking about, you should listen to her. That's third party endorsement. You are bridging that trust gap very quickly. That is PR. Podcast appearances, every time you've been a guest on someone else's podcast, that's PR. You're reaching a warm, engaged audience who already trust the host. And here's the thing, those episodes keep working for you. One of my clients I was talking to last week

still gets inquiries from a podcast she recorded three years ago. And also, if you have your own podcast, there are lots of ways that you can be using that as a strategic PR tool, not just as a marketing tool. So the guests that you bring on, the topics that you're talking about with them, you can do that really strategically. Word of mouth and referrals, when somebody recommends you in a conversation you're not even part of.

That's your PR working really hard for you. Your reputation is preceding you. People talking about you when you're not in the room, like I say, that's one of the most powerful forms of PR there is and one that most founders completely underestimate. Speaking at events, whether it's a big industry stage or a small room and both of those, trust me, have benefits, but when someone puts you in front of their audience as the expert worth listening to,

Again, it's that third party endorsement. It's so powerful for your business. Being quoted or featured, even informally being tagged in someone's post on LinkedIn or on Insta, being recommended in a Facebook group, being mentioned in a newsletter, all of it counts. All of it is building a picture of who you are. It's building your reputation. It's getting you known for what you do. And yes, of course we can add the press stuff into the mix there, but the question

isn't whether you're doing PR, because I think you probably are. The question is whether you are doing it strategically, and then when you are doing it, whether you are then amplifying it, because that is often the piece of the puzzle that founders miss when they're doing this work.

So let's talk about the amplification gap. That is where I see most founders leaving the most on the table when it comes to this work. They do the podcast, they share it once, they move on, they do the guest workshop, they don't mention it again. They get recommended by someone, they never talk about it, and they wonder why it's not building momentum. So going back to my conversation with this brilliant business owner, she has YouTube videos, podcast appearances, guest workshops, a reputation that means people recommend her constantly.

an entire authority ecosystem that she's built without really realizing it, but she wasn't making it work hard enough for her. She wasn't repurposing it, she wasn't referencing it, she wasn't amplifying it across her marketing, using it in your email sequences when people subscribe to your newsletter, that kind of thing. She wasn't using it to open the next door, and that is the gap.

not the doing, it's the amplifying. And that, as part of my authority ecosystem, is really the last piece of the puzzle that often founders forget to do. And I wanna talk about why this matters now more than ever. Here's the context We're in a trust recession. We've talked about this before on this podcast. I'm seeing more and more people talking about it in lots of different places.

Buyers are more skeptical than they've ever been. They're not just seeing you on Instagram and deciding to buy anymore. They're researching, they're deep diving. They're looking for proof that you know what you're talking about. 40 % of people research across multiple channels before making big ticket purchases. They're not just looking at your social media. They're Googling you, they're AI searching you, they're listening to podcasts you've been on. They're looking for evidence that you're the real deal. If all they find is your Instagram, they might drop off.

But if they find you on podcasts, in publications, on stages, being recommended by people they already trust, that is when the trust builds quickly. That's when they arrive at a discovery call already knowing they want to work with you. That's the authority gap and you're already closer to closing it than you think. I've done that. This weekend, I saw somebody recommended on threads and I'm never on threads. It just got served to me through Instagram. And I thought, that's a really good testimonial.

So then I went on to the person who'd been recommended Insta. I saw that she knew what she was doing. She's got a private podcast, so I've signed up for that. But I have also searched her on podcasts that she doesn't own. So I've looked at who's recommending her, who's bringing her into their world. I've Googled, searched her for press she's done, for who else is talking about her.

I haven't bought from her yet, I might do, but I haven't just gone Instagram buy, I've gone Instagram do more research, check that she is legit because there's so many people out there who have been exposed, who we see that aren't actually, you know, doing what they say they're doing. And that is where you want to be really thinking about that authority gap and thinking about how you can close off.

that authority gap when people are looking to research you more and understand more about you, the way you work and they're wanting to deep dive into your world. So here's what I want you to do after this episode. Have a think about the PR you've already been doing without calling it PR, the podcast you've been on, the workshops you've delivered in other people's communities, the referrals, the recommendations you're getting, the reputation you've built. Write it down because I guarantee you're sitting on more than you think.

and then ask yourself, am I making this work hard enough for me? Am I amplifying it? Am I letting it open the next door? Because the founders who get the best results from this work aren't necessarily doing the most PR, they're making what they do do work really strategically for them and they're amplifying it so it keeps working long after the moment has passed.

And if you haven't been doing this work, don't worry. There is plenty of opportunities for you to get started.

That's what my DIY PR membership is for. That's what my one-to-one accelerator is for. I have got one more spot to work with me in April on my one-to-one accelerator. So if you want to talk about doing this work together, the link to the Booker Discovery Call is in the show notes. I want you to get on, I want you to know that this work is powerful stuff. You're probably doing some of it already. So think about...

how powerful it's gonna be for your business if you're doing it strategically, if you're doing it proactively, if you're doing it to a plan that works to your business objectives and works to your target audience. The world is your oyster with this stuff and I cannot wait to help you do it. I will see you again soon for another episode of PR Made Simple.