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Pippa Goulden (00:43)
Hello and welcome back to another episode of

Simple. So last week I reflected on what I've been seeing across the board with the founders that I work with over the first six months of 2026. The ones getting real results, the ones building authority that is actually growing their business and why PR is genuinely having a moment right now. So if you missed that episode, go back and listen to it because it sets this next one up.

perfectly because this week is part two and this is the practical one. This is the going forward one. This is the vision to get you to the end of 2026 and having actually achieved what you've set out to do with your PR because here is where we are. We're halfway through 2026 and I know you've probably had PR on your to-do list and it's been there since January. You've had good intentions. You keep meaning to get round to it and I am here to tell you this is Pippa's PR pep talk.

that the time for meaning to is over. We're done with that, okay? This episode is actually about doing it, about taking action, starting now, building it into your business in a way that means you finished 2026, having genuinely moved the dial, rather than getting there in December and wishing that you had started sooner, stop kicking the can down the road, okay? Before we get into the practical stuff, I just want to remind you, if you haven't heard me talk about this before, of...

the context, why I think changes how you think about PR for your business, or it should be changing about how you think of PR for your business. Because a lot of people have had PR as a nice to have, know, it's something that they have on their to do list, and if it gets thrown off because something happens urgently in the business, then you know, that's annoying, but that's fine. We need to stop this now because there are several factors at play out there,

And I'm gonna go into them really top line because I have talked about them in quite a lot of detail and in the last episode too. know, we're in a trust recession. Buyers are more skeptical than they ever have been. They're not just seeing you on Instagram or LinkedIn and deciding to buy. They're researching you. They are deep diving. They're looking for evidence that you know what you're talking about.

An AI search is changing everything and it is only going to get more prominent, okay? So the ones that are doing this now and thinking about this early on are the ones who will reap the rewards, further down the line. More and more people are using AI tools as their starting point when they're researching who to work with or what to buy. And AI does not pull from your Instagram grid. It pulls from credible third-party sources.

Press features, podcast appearances, expert commentary, thought leadership, your own authority tools, things that other people have referenced and shared. There was a finding from Muckrack recently that more than 95 % of cited links in AI generated responses come from non-paid sources. That's earned media, the PR that you generate for yourself, which means that if the world is mostly saying nothing about you at the moment, and you're just focusing on trying to get seen and...

you know, showing up on your stories a bit more, then you are increasingly invisible to the way that people are actually searching and discovering who to trust. And I want you to be there because I know that you are brilliant at what you do. And the founders who are building their authority ecosystem now, who are getting quoted, getting featured, showing up as genuine experts, they are the ones who are going to win this as it continues to build. Not because they've paid for it, not because they've gamed the system or, you know, done some...

SEO stuff on their website, it's because they've earned it. And this is the thing about PR that makes it different to any other marketing activity. It builds ongoing momentum. One opportunity needs the next. Podcast appearances lead to press features. Press features lead to speaking invitations. Speaking invitations lead to clients arriving knowing that they already want to work with you and that is so important. But none of this will happen until you start.

Okay? And the longer that you wait, the further you are going to fall behind. Not because you're losing ground, not because you're brilliant at what you do, but because other people are building their, they are doing this work, they're putting themselves out there, they're sending the fucking email. Okay? So, let's look at the next six months. And the first place to start is whether you should be doing PR for your business over the summer. It's something I get asked all the time. And my answer is absolutely yes.

Obviously there's a caveat because you are running your own business in a way that works for you and if you have decided to take the summer off then go for it right? The PR work will still be there in September but there are a few reasons why the summer is actually a really good time to be doing PR for your business You know most founders talk themselves out of this because it feels like the wrong time. It's actually great because few factors so...

there's less competition out there. A lot of the big brands do, down tools over the summer. They do less activity because people are away on holidays. They're not pitching in quite the same way as they might be through the rest of the year, right? And it means that there's less competition, but the journalists are still working. Yes, obviously there's going to be summer holidays involved and teams are going to maybe get a bit smaller at various times through the summer holidays, but...

They are still working. They've still got pages to write. They've still got, you know, features to do. There's news breaking that they need experts to comment on. Podcast hosts are still filling guest slots, whether it's over the summer or they're planning ahead for Q3 and Q4. So, September gets very busy again, but actually July, August are really good times to get your ducks in a row when it comes to this work. And if your business has...

any Christmas or Q4 focus, then you really do want to be starting this now because the long lead gossip magazines are planning their Christmas issues right now, not in October, right now. And if you want to be in those pages this Christmas, you need to be pitching over the summer. So the work that you do now is what lands in September, October, November, December. We've even seen stuff for next year, okay, for 2027. It's starting already. It's not...

starting when your audience is back at their desks and ready to make decisions, okay? Summer is not the wrong time. It's a really good time to start this work. Before I get into the practical plan, I just wanna also talk about a few things that may be keeping you stuck at this point of year. So I've talked quite a lot recently about passive visibility, and that is thinking about doing PR.

Deciding that you want to be more visible, posting about wanting to be more visible, asking networking groups if anyone has any contacts or telling people that you're getting more visible this year and telling yourself you're doing things to make yourself more visible. That is not doing PR for you. It is not going to work for you, okay? It feels like you're doing something, so therefore you can tick off the list that you are being more visible.

but it's not actually going to shift the dial for you. It's not going to get the opportunities for you in the same way that proactively pitching yourself for the right strategic opportunities is going to for your business. Okay, I've done a whole episode about that a couple of weeks ago, so that is there for you if you feel like I'm speaking to your soul and that's what you've been doing. It's absolutely okay because I see it lots and lots. You're not the only one, but I want you to start thinking about how you can be proactive.

The second is waiting for the right moment. I'll do it in September. It's a fresh start. And then September arrives and you're too busy. And then it's November and then you think, I can't do it in December. And then you think, I'll wait until, until January. And you are, like I said, you're kicking the can down the road. There is no right moment to start this work. You will never feel ready. Okay. Stop waiting to feel ready. Stop waiting until there is only now. Okay. And later and later.

is not necessarily ever going to arrive for you. That sounds so cheesy, doesn't it? But you understand what I'm saying there. It is about just taking the bull by the horns and getting going with this work, okay? The third is doing PR without a strategy. Random pitches, disconnected coverage that's not related to your business. No clear thread connecting it to actually what you want to get known for.

PR with strategy is just a bit of noise that doesn't shift the dial for your business. I see this time and time again with founders who come to me saying, PR doesn't work for my business. It's either because they haven't given it enough time or they haven't done it strategically. PR with strategy is a core growth engine for your business. I know this because I see it not only in my own business, I see it time and time again with the founders that I work with in my DIY PR membership.

in my one-to-one accelerator, in my get known sprint, wherever they are, what I'm working with them, I can see how it is helping them to grow their business. And that is what I want you to be doing with yours. Also on that, whilst I mentioned my DIY PR membership, I actually have an offer running this week.

for a six month subscription to my DIY PR membership that is going to take you from now until the end of the year. And it's a Barry bargain. It's such good value. I will put the link in the show notes, but I just thought I'd mention that whilst I was talking about my DIY PR membership. Okay, let's give you a practical plan to get going because this is what I want you to focus on for the rest of 2026. This is how we are going to make this work happen for you. First,

Get clear on what you want to get known for. This is not the soft fluffy bit before the real work starts. This is the most important thing on this list because until you know exactly what you want to get known for, everything else is harder than it needs to be. Your pictures are vague, your content is all over the place, you say yes to the wrong opportunities, you feel a bit weird about them, you might actually say no to opportunities because you don't think you know what you want to talk about. I have had

brilliant six and seven figure founders come to me because they've said no to going on podcasts because they didn't know what they wanted to talk about. They weren't clear on what they wanted to get known for. And once you do this work, I see it time and time again, everything changes, not just your PR actually, your content, your messaging, the whole sense of direction in your business. So I'm asking you now, what do you want to get known for? Not your whole business.

Not everything, not your offers, not your products, not what you do. The specific angles, the specific opinions, the specific expertise that is yours and nobody else's. Get really specific on this before you pitch anything. Okay, number two is building a focus list. Okay, not a spreadsheet of every PR opportunity that ever has existed. Let's start small with this. 10 to 15 specific podcasts, publications,

industry events, opportunities, brands that you could collaborate with, places where your actual audience is hanging out or places that they are actually influenced by. Do that research, have a listen to the podcast, read the publications, understand what they cover, who their audience actually is, because when you know that, your pitches will become very specific and targeted rather than generic, rather than, you know, very easy to ignore because you're not pitching for a specific thing.

And when you have a focus list that isn't incredibly overwhelming, you are much more likely to do this work because you can set yourself small targets to go through that list, to work through it, Then the third thing you're going to do is pitch with specificity. I said it. It's quite a hard word to say that one. This is where most people go wrong, even when they do actually send something. They send a message saying, I'd love to come on your podcast or I'd love to be featured. That is not a pitch.

You know, that's a wish in an email. A pitch tells the person exactly what you can offer their audience, why it's relevant right now, why you're the right person to deliver it. It's not about what you want. One of the key things I say to people is to remove your own agenda, right? It's about what you can give them that benefits them and their work and why their audience needs to hear it. Okay, think about the end listener, the end viewer, the end reader.

They don't want to know about the five different ways to work with me in the PR set. They want to know about how I can help them use PR to grow their business or five ways to build their profile that they don't have to spend any money on. Okay? Can you see the difference there between, hi, I'd love to tell your readers about the PR set to, I'd love to help your readers understand how they can use PR to get known for what they do. Do you see the difference there? Hopefully you can.

And then number four is the amplification, right? So every piece of PR that you're getting should be working hard for you across your email marketing, your content, your conversations ongoing for as long as you want to use them for. It's not about a bit of press coverage here and there and then forgetting about it, right? Making your PR work as hard as possible for you is key to this being really successful, to building your authority, to building that trust, to building that credibility.

And actually, if you have already generated some PR for your business, a little task for you this week is to shout about it in some way. So for example, I wrote an article in December for Startups Magazine about authority versus visibility and why I think authority is more important in 2026. I have used that numerous times over the last six months and I will continue to use it. Hey, I'm using it now, right?

but I will keep using it because it is still relevant to the conversations that I'm having. So actually, if you have already generated a bit of PR for your business, I am gonna challenge you to remind your audience of something specific that you did that does that trust building, that does that authority building, that shows that you know what you're talking about. And if you haven't, well, let's get pitching. Let's get you out there.

focused on what is going to shift the dial for you and your business and get you that PR that's actually going to make a difference for you. And the last piece is to build a rhythm. Okay, PR is not a launch. It's not something you do for three weeks and then stop until you feel guilty about it again. Anyone else? Anyone else feel that?

It's a rhythm, a constant sustainable habit that builds momentum over time. One of my members was saying in our accountability session the other day that she takes herself off once a month to a fancy hotel and works from there to do her PR I mean, that is brilliant. That's ingraining a habit into your business. It's making it a priority. And when you make it a priority, it becomes part of your core growth So if anyone wants to meet up with me in a fancy hotel and do some PR, I am up for that.

But it is this rhythm, okay? It's the consistent, sustainable habits that is gonna build momentum over time. And the founders that I work with who get the best results are not doing massive campaigns. They're not doing every six months, I'm gonna send out 50 emails and hope for the best. They are doing 15 to 20 minutes a day, a couple of focused hours a week, a day, a month, whatever it is, but

important thing is that...

that is a non-negotiable for them in their business. It's built into how they run their business. And that is when PR becomes an effective tool for you, Find the rhythm that works for you, block the time, come into my membership. We do a monthly accountability session where we work together on Zoom to get the PR shizzle done. Commit to it, stick to it, even when it feels like nothing is happening yet, because the momentum builds even when you can't see it, I promise you.

it's doing the work for you. And then one day your inbox changes, you get that result and you realize that it is worth the work all along, okay? So that is your six month plan. Get clear on what you want to get known for, build your focus list, pitch with specificity.

amplify everything that you're getting and build a rhythm into your business that is going to mean that you get to December and you think, yes, I've done it. I've nailed it. I can put them into my Instagram highlight reel at the end of the year I really noticed this in the end of 2025, everybody's highlight reels, everyone's LinkedIn posts, you know, saying about the key things that they've done that year,

They are filled with the PR things, the speaking opportunities, the amazing magazine articles, the podcasts, whatever it is that they've done, they become highlights for their business because they are such a powerful tool for you to build your authority, to show that you know what you're talking about, to bring new people into your world, to help bridge that trust gap, okay? And I want that for you at the end of this year. I want you to have...

those highlight reels, So let's make a commitment that this is what you're going to do, That is your six month plan. And here's your challenge from me. By the end of this week, I want you to send one pitch. Not next week, not when you're feeling a bit more ready, this week, okay? Let's get going with it. Send the fucking email people. Done is better than perfect and started is way better than stuck, okay? Do it. And if you are wanting support with this, then...

absolutely come into my DIY PR membership that's where to do it or my one-to-one accelerator I have one spot left to start with me now and we can work around summer holidays and all that kind of thing and I am also taking bookings for September start too I am offering a six month membership to my DIY PR membership so it's not usually available normally it's a monthly or an annual thing but six month offer that will get you from now until December

It will set you up with everything you need to make this happen for the rest of 2026. That is only available until Friday, so if you're listening to this after then, then sorry. But link is in the show notes and I will see you again soon for another episode of PR Made Simple.