This transcript was generated by AI - apologies for any mistakes
Pippa Goulden (00:43)
Hello and welcome back to PR Made Simple. So last week we talked about knowing what you want to get known for and why that's the foundation that everything else is built on.
Today, I'm talking about something very
see stopping founders in their tracks when it comes to their PR. Just one word, and that is storytelling. The moment that storytelling comes up in the context of PR and authority building, I can see founders physically recoil. I see it in workshops, I see it in training sessions, I see it in the comments on my posts. And the reason is usually one of three things. Founders think that they're not in
enough to have a story worth telling. They don't want to share their private things about their life or they think that they haven't had anything majorly dramatic happen to them and therefore they haven't got any stories to tell. And I want to say to you, I totally get it, I also want to say that that's not what storytelling means, not in the context of PR, not in the way that I'm going to teach you to use it today, not in the way that I know it works for you when it comes to PR.
when it comes to you getting featured, getting you on podcasts, getting you on stages, getting you known for what you do, connecting with your target audience in relation to your business. It's not about drama or trauma or oversharing, it's about connection. It's about making the human behind the business visible. And it's about using layers that already exist within your business to communicate your expertise in a way that lands in a way that big brands
often don't have because they don't have the humans behind their business in the same way that you do. Storytelling as a small business owner, as a founder is your...
Storytelling as a founder, as a human, storytelling as a small business owner, as a founder, it's your superpower. And once you understand that, you'll see how all the opportunities open up for you in your business.
I want to talk about
when
PR doesn't work within relation to storytelling because I think it's really important and I think it's often the thing that puts people off doing PR for their business that makes them think that PR hasn't worked for their business. Because
when
tell me that PR hasn't worked for them, it's usually one of two things. Either they haven't given it enough time, PR is a long game, expecting results from a few pitches is just not going to work. We have to keep going back to the gym to build on what we've
started right or and this is what I'm going to focus on today they've paid a PR to get them press coverage and that press coverage has landed in random places telling stories that have absolutely nothing to do with their business
I know a brilliant business owner, really amazing at what she does, really well respected, established. know, she was telling me she paid a PR agency thousands of pounds. And yes, she got press coverage in some national magazines, but it was personal stories, things about her life that felt completely disconnected from her expertise, from her business, things that didn't build her authority. And it made her feel uncomfortable. It didn't attract the right clients. It didn't do anything for the authority ecosystem that I've
talked about building that knowledge, built showing that you know what you're talking about. And she came away from that relationship with that PR thinking that PR doesn't work for her.
But I know PR works for her because I've seen her doing it time and time again. It works brilliantly when she uses her own business expertise, her own experience, what she's seen with her clients, what she's learned, her own expertise in action. When the stories she tells are inextricably linked to what she does and who she does it for, that's when the press coverage, the podcast appearances, the speaking opportunities start to move the dial.
And that's the thing that I really want you to take away from this episode more than anything. Storytelling that works in PR isn't random personal content with a business name drop at the end. It can be, but that's not the stuff that works for you. That's not what you're doing with me, okay?
It's the stories that are so deeply connected to your business that you can't really tell one without the other. And when you're doing that, it becomes so much more natural. It becomes so much more easier. You can get so passionate about it. You can really convey why you do what you do in a way that telling a random story about when you went traveling, when you were 26 and something random happened to you is going to do, okay?
So let's get really clear on what I mean by storytelling in the context of PR and authority building. It's making your business human. It's connecting the dots so the person listening or reading doesn't just understand what you do, but they understand why you do it, how you think about it, what your approach, why you're the person that they should trust with it. It's using the layers that already exist within your business, not your services, not your offers, not your price points. That's boring, but the deeper stuff,
things that make you distinctive, the sum of all of your parts, all the things that have got you to where you've got to today, the thing that nobody else has. And the great news with this work is that you already have those layers, you just might not have learned how to see them yet, how to talk about them, how to use them to your advantage. So let me give you some examples of what I mean by the layers in your business, because I think this is where, you know, we can get really practical with this.
It's your own expertise, what you've noticed. As an expert, your stories don't have to be dramatic personal events. They can be what you know, what you've observed, what you keep seeing happen. I keep seeing this pattern with the founders I work with. Something shifted recently and I started noticing X, Y, Z. it's the deep stuff that you see,
I talk about it a lot. talk about the mindset shifts in the people that I work with because I think it really, A, is amazing to hear about the transformation, but it helps you as the listener to really identify with that person, to put yourself in their shoes, to understand where they're coming from.
storytelling through an expert lens is really different to storytelling in a novel, right? It's incredibly powerful because it positions you as someone with genuine insight, not just someone who's read the same books as somebody else. So like I say, I use this all the time in my own business and my stories aren't things that happened to me when I was 25. They aren't things about my personal life. I don't really talk about my family life. I don't talk about my kids, my husband, that kind
thing, I don't really have anything very interesting to talk about in that side of things, they're about what I see working with female founders over five years. What I've noticed about the ones that get results and the ones that don't.
what I got wrong before I figured it out, what I got wrong in my own business that you can learn from. For example, you've heard me talk about this before. I talk about it over and over again because repetition is not a bad thing. But I held myself back from pitching for a speaking opportunity that I really wanted for three and a half years. I didn't launch my podcast for three years. I held myself back from doing both those things. I was doing everything that I tell my clients not to do. And when I finally
sent the email for the speaking opportunity I got the gig in two weeks. That story's not really just about me, it's about the mindset that holds female founders back from taking action. It's useful, it's relatable and it connects directly to my expertise. It's way more interesting than the fact that I have a DIYPR membership and an accelerator one-to-one of working with me, right?
It helps you understand where I'm coming from. It helps you understand how to do it yourself. It helps you to put yourself in the context of the stories that I'm telling. And when we're talking about client stories and transformations, we're not just talking about my client got great results, here's a great testimonial, the specific journey.
where they started, what shifted, what's different now. Nicola Pye, one of my one-to-one accelerator clients, she built her authority ecosystem so deliberately, so strategically, that her clients now arrive at discovery calls already knowing that they want to work with her, the cause of formality. That's a story. It's not about me. It's not even really about Nicola.
about what becomes possible when you do this work. And also,
talking about Nicola in the context of the work that she does, the work that we did together in My One-to-One, she put together her thought leadership piece, the purpose papers. She interviewed 40 leaders about purpose in business. They gave her two things simultaneously, original insight that nobody else had and specific stories from those 40 conversations to back up her points, to drop into interviews, to use as context for explaining her approach, her way of doing things.
Expert storytelling at its most powerful. She's not talking just about herself. She's talking about what she's learned from 40 conversations and that positions her as someone who thinks deeply about her subject and has done the work to understand it. The things you've tried, the mistakes you've made, the moments that changed how you think, they're all gold. Not because people love a failure story, but because they make you human and they make your expertise feel earned rather than theoretical.
So I want to talk about something slightly different when it comes to your personal story, because for some founders, their personal story isn't just connected to their business, it is their business. And when that's the case, it's so incredibly powerful for your business, but only when it's inextricably linked to your business. And there's a real difference there. So let me use a story as an example. One of my DIY PR members created products specifically for women who were experiencing postnatal anxiety.
because she'd experienced it herself. That is where the inspiration for her business came from. So her story and her business are inextricably linked. They're not separated, right? So when she tells her story in a press feature or on a podcast, it's not a random personal detail thrown in at the end, or her business isn't a random thing that's just, you know, added on as an extra. It's the whole reason the business exists. It creates instant trust, instant
empathy, instant understanding of why she's the person to listen to on this topic. It gives depth to her business, understanding of why she set it up in the first place.
Priya, another founder that I've worked with. She's been in my DIY PR membership for a long time. There is a podcast episode with her. She makes beautiful home accessories from pre-love saris. Her grandmother taught her to sew. She started her business in lockdown. She now works with a women's cooperative in India. The story isn't separate from her products. It's the soul of her business. It's what got her.
into John Lewis is what got her, her products were included in the John Lewis Christmas ad. It's what gets her press coverage every year, year after year, because yes, her products get featured on the product pages, but this storytelling allows her.
out of the product pages. It gives her opportunity for deep dives into her why, into the stuff behind her business. Journalists want to write about people and meaning and why things matter and what connects us to being human. People want to read about that stuff as well.
Sometimes there's a bigger life event, absolutely, a health diagnosis, a loss, career change, the moments that change everything. And if that event is genuinely, inextricably linked to what you do now, there are absolutely ways to tell that story that are powerful and purposeful. But, and this is really important, it has to connect.
It can't just be a personal story with a business name drop at the end. I don't recommend doing those. They're just not worth it. The thread between your experience and your expertise has to be clear and genuine. Otherwise it feels really disconnected and it won't work. It will get you in places as well that aren't relevant for your target audience. And if we go back to my whole approach.
of having a PR strategy when you're doing this work, of knowing what your business objectives are and knowing who your target audience are and building your PR strategy from that. If you're telling stories randomly in random publications that just aren't going to help you reach your target audience, then you're wasting your time doing them. I wanna talk specifically to product business founders here for one minute because I think storytelling is massively underused in this space.
Without storytelling, you're competing on your products alone. Price, features, aesthetics, and that's exhausting, right? But when you step out from behind your products, like Priya does, and let people get to know the founder, the why, the story behind what you make, what you believe, why you do what you do, everything changes. So Priya's the great example here. She could just be, you know, a product business.
but her story means she gets into press features, radio interviews, podcasts, talking about...
the why behind her business. The product gets her onto the product page, the story gets her everywhere else. And for product business founders, the question is, what's the story behind what you're doing? What do you believe? does this exist? Who are you beyond the product? What do you know about your customer that nobody else does? Those are your stories and they create opportunities that product placement never can. And it's a really important way to build your brand.
So here's something to make really clear because I think founders sometimes think that once they know their story, they can just tell it everywhere. It doesn't work like that. Where you tell your story matters as much as what you say. So like I said, go back to your business objectives, your target audience. The story that works brilliantly on a wellbeing podcast might not be right for a trade press piece. Your founder profile feature calls for a different angle than comment in a business publication on something that's happened in the news.
about what you're trying to achieve, think about who's going to read or listen to it. You can dial up the stories and dial them down, absolutely. That serves a specific purpose for a specific audience. Strategic storytelling isn't just knowing your stories, it's knowing which story to tell, where and why. And I want to end on something that's really important when it comes to storytelling. You don't have to share anything that you don't want to share, full stop.
No PR is better than bad PR, better than talking about things that you don't want to talk about. No press opportunity, no
interview, no speaking gig is worth compromising your boundaries or your comfort. So if something's not feeling right for you, then...
Don't talk about it. Don't put it out into the world. Hold it back until you've really done that work to think about whether it's the right thing for you to do. Yeah? You don't have to share anything that you don't want to share. And I would really encourage you to not to because you don't need to. You can do this work without deep diving into things that you just don't want to talk about. Good PR is strategic and purposeful.
It serves your business. feels aligned with who you are and what you want to get known for, right? No PR is always better than bad PR or PR that's going to make you worry, feel uncomfortable. So a story that feels wrong, puts you in a position that you're just feeling icky around that attracts the wrong attention. That is not working for you in a good way. Your PR is working against you. So it's not going to get you the results that you're hoping for. Your boundaries matter more than any other.
Remember that and there are always so many other ways to storytell. So let me bring all of this together. Storytelling in PR isn't about...
trauma or trauma or sharing things you'd rather keep private. It's about using the layers that already exist in your business, your expertise, your client stories, your original thinking, your lived experience to make your business human and to connect with the people you're trying to reach. For some of you, that story is inextricably linked to your personal experience and that is incredibly powerful when you use it strategically. For others, it's about what you know, your expertise, what you've seen, what you've learned. That is equally powerful in the
places. For product businesses it's about stepping out from behind your products and letting people get to know the founder and the why. If you want to work on your story and your positioning and figure out how to use it strategically in your PR, well you're in the right place aren't you? I am running Get Known in a day on the 3rd of June, there's only a few places left for that. A small
in-person group working day where we'll be doing that work together all the info is in the show notes and obviously if you want to do this work with me in depth
My one-to-one accelerator is where we build your full authority ecosystem together, including your story, including your positioning, your strategic PR plan. The link to book discovery call is in the show notes. All the links with all the info are in the show notes and you can find out more at theprset.com. I'm Pippa the PR Set on Instagram and I am Pippa Gordon on Nick Tin and I will see you again soon for another episode of PR Made Simple.
