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S3E4 Priscilla Vega
199 Plays9 months ago
Thanks for listening to our episode with Priscilla R. Vega.
Stay in touch with Meredith.
✨Follow Meredith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meredith-farley/
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We loved talking to Priscilla.
Stay in touch with her here:
✨Check out the PR Vega website: https://www.prvega.com
✨Follow Priscilla on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pvega/?hl=en
✨Check out Priscilla’s CupOfJo profile here. https://cupofjo.com/2019/07/16/week-of-outfits-priscilla-vega/
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Transcript
Introduction and Inspiration from Pete Holmes
00:00:04
Speaker
Hey guys, welcome to Content People. I'm your host Meredith Farley.
00:00:17
Speaker
Trying to edit a bit less and just let it be a slightly more natural conversation. I'm actually like super inspired by Pete Holmes's podcast. Do you know him? I don't. Oh, I love it. I think it's really, he talks about really interesting ideas and it was actually a Content People newsletter subscriber who recommended it to me.
00:00:37
Speaker
And he'll do things like, a guest is, I have to pee. And he'll be like, yeah, well, pause, go for it. And I really like that authenticity. But that's the beauty of podcasts is you feel like you're in the room waiting. And yeah, you have to let it just be natural. So how was your vacation?
Vacation Stories and Family Time
00:00:55
Speaker
It was lovely. It was just me, my dad, and my sister. And it was so nice to just not to worry about kids.
00:01:07
Speaker
and make sure they were having a good time. All I had to do was make sure I was having a good time. Very foreign territory for me, but much, much needed.
00:01:17
Speaker
That sounds nice. And then I was sick last week. I think you said you were under the weather too. Did you get like traveling or? I don't know. My daughter was sick and I thought it was just allergies, but then upset. So I think I might have got something from her or it could have been traveling. There's just been something going around. So who knows? I'm glad you're feeling better and things are really scheduling. It sounds like it was good for both of us. Yeah. Yeah.
00:01:44
Speaker
Uh, Priscilla, I seriously, I think I say this all the time and I always mean it, but I seriously have really been looking forward to this conversation with you. I feel like every time we talk, I just, you just follow so much info, but also good energy. And I just love talking to you. So thank you for making the time today. That's so nice. I went into this field of communications because I love to talk. Thanks for having me on your podcast and allowing me the space to share.
00:02:14
Speaker
Yeah, I guess I should have thought about that. Like you are in communication. That's your thing. I'm like, God, Priscilla is just so good at communicating and connecting and talking. That's good to hear because sometimes I don't feel like I'm so great at communicating, but it's a nice reminder that I'm in the right place. For anyone who doesn't know you, could you just say a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Meet Priscilla Vega and PRPiga
00:02:37
Speaker
Sure.
00:02:38
Speaker
My name is Priscilla Vega and I'm a mom of two. Ina is 11 and Ozzy is 7.
00:02:45
Speaker
And I am the founder of PRPiga, which is a PR agency, but I like to reference it more as creative communications because PR has evolved so much. I went to school and learned PR and more of what we do is more custom catered to what the specific brand needs because one brand can need
00:03:10
Speaker
traditional PR and that works well for them. And then another brand is more influencer outreach or affiliates. It's not the same formula for every brand. So we're really custom to whatever the brand needs.
00:03:32
Speaker
That's so interesting. I never thought about that, but like communications has been a major for decades, but influencers as like half of all PR and communication strategies, it seems are maybe five years ish. Like how, what is, what am I even trying to ask? Like how have things changed since you went to school for it? And what are the things that you're finding you're just having to keep up with as they evolve?
Impact of Social Media on PR Strategies
00:03:59
Speaker
Yeah, I think one of the main things that has changed in this space of PR and press relations is the way press absorbs information that is getting pitched at them. Because I find that with Instagram, old reporters and editors and publications are on Instagram and they're seeing brands and what they're doing. And before it was, the only way that they would see things is
00:04:27
Speaker
things that were coming, right? So you would pitch them, you would email them. But now they're seeing things on Twitter, they're seeing things on Instagram, they're interacting with brands so much more than I think they did before. So it's the brand's responsibility to look at it through the lens of everything I do on social is not
00:04:47
Speaker
It's not just my consumer that's looking at me. It's potential press, potential investors, potential partners. You have to speak to everyone at once. Where it was before, it was like, okay, I'm going to do, and that's going to speak to my cancer. And I'm going to write press release, and that's going to speak to potential press. And I'm going to do, there were like specific channels
00:05:09
Speaker
But now it's just I'm putting something out there and who knows who's going to see it and who knows what opportunities that might bring. But I'm going to put it out there and it's
Crafting Platform-Specific Messages
00:05:19
Speaker
going to hopefully appeal to them.
00:05:23
Speaker
I feel like you actually just articulated something about my work that I haven't articulated to myself, which is like for one of my clients, she is an incredible story. She has a seven figure business that she's bootstrapped and she has really built it up through a huge Instagram following a community, almost 100K followers. But the work we're doing on LinkedIn for her is a bit of
00:05:46
Speaker
like just another space to introduce people to the really cool aspects of the brand and product, but also a bit of like potential investor interest generation. But it is, so it gets every message you're weaving in little, like little Easter eggs for potential audiences. Oh, if an investor reads this, we want to reference this, but if a potential employee reads this, we want to make sure we're highlighting XYZ, like
00:06:11
Speaker
It's, I hadn't really thought about it so much, especially I'm thinking in relation to social, but I presume you're thinking even outside of social and maybe, I don't know. I'm such a visual person. I like to think of the work we do is more like a quilt. There's a whole batch work of, okay, here, this is the bucket where we're talking to the consumer and this is the bucket where perhaps there's like press that's watching us or I think
00:06:35
Speaker
potential investor, you never really know who's watching. And you never really know what the outcome is going to be. And we were talking about this last time we talked, but I was saying how everything I do is so intuitive. I don't know why we're going to do this, but I just know it feels good to do it. And the outcome may not be next week, it may not even be next year, but eventually this will come around and we're going to be really glad we get this.
00:07:01
Speaker
I'm so excited to dig in. I've got some questions for you about your intuitive approach, which I love. But I also want to just say, so I'm rereading all the Harry Potter books and have you read them? Do you know that? A few days ago, I was reading book six when Harry takes that like Felix's lucky elixir or something.
00:07:22
Speaker
And like the way it works is it just, please, I feel like I need to go to Hagrid's hut, et cetera. And I was thinking about our conversation and I was like, I feel like you with PR are like hairy with the elixir. I can't say why, but I just know we need to go X here. And you're like in alignment with things in a really cool way. And it's that approach. I've learned over time that because I can't
00:07:46
Speaker
really articulate it is we need to do something. It doesn't really totally make sense at that time, but I'm trying to be somewhat of not intuitive. That's not the word, but it's just like being a visionary. I know that social is going to end up going down this road. I know we need to focus more on video. So let's just try to create more video content or I know that eventually this publication is going to be purely online. So we need to create
00:08:15
Speaker
content that reads better online than in, or we should be, because we have something going on three months from now, we should be pitching this angle. So I think PR is a lot of being able to predict what's happening before it happens, so they get ahead of it. And that's part of the reason why I chose this profession. It's because it feels like a nice mixture of, there's this analogy to it, like trying to get into people's brains and see
00:08:45
Speaker
what makes them tick and what they want to purchase and what they want to purchase it and then there's also this just like getting ahead of the curve being somewhat of a fortune teller in some way and it's just fun. Oh my gosh there's so much I want to say in response to that when you're talking about being an intuitive person and
00:09:09
Speaker
Like you're in an, I'd imagine you're in a situation with a client and you're like, I don't have data on this, but I really feel XYZ.
00:09:19
Speaker
I feel like intuition is so helpful and important in business, but in situations like that, for me, I know it can feel complex in the moment. I'm thinking actually of moments where I was managing people and I was like, this is just my really strong instinct. And if it was a person who was like, but Meredith, what's the data behind the decision?
00:09:42
Speaker
Earlier on, I felt very insecure and uncomfortable asking other people to just follow my gut. And then over time, something I got a little more okay with and I was like,
00:09:53
Speaker
I get that you don't see it the way I see it and you're finding this a confusing choice, but this is my call and I could end up with like, I got my face, but this is what we're doing. Right. But I don't think there's a lot of space in the business world to like really talk openly about making big decisions with as much intuition and gut feeling as data. And sometimes in the moment, I don't know if you've ever felt this, but I feel insecure and I think.
00:10:19
Speaker
I'm not, I can't articulate this. Like maybe I sound or look like an idiot, but this is just my feeling. I don't know. Do you
Trust and Long-Term Impact in PR
00:10:25
Speaker
ever feel like that? Or are you just full of grace and you're like, this is like not nice. I think from top to bottom, there has to be trust. When Pierre Vega was larger before the pandemic and we had a really healthy roster and I had a team of people working for me. It was, I had to trust these people and these people to trust me.
00:10:48
Speaker
especially because, again, it's not really formulated the work that we do. It's really fluid in, okay, you're going to do this today and you're going to do this today. It was every day my team had different tasks. And I think part of what makes intuitive work so difficult is that like level of accountability.
00:11:10
Speaker
when you have KPIs and there's like these specific goals that you're achieving, once you achieve them, you check out that box. Okay, we did that. Now moving on to the next thing.
00:11:19
Speaker
but a lot of the work we do, there's no real end goal. It's just outputting, like we're gonna reach out to so many publications, we're gonna get as many press hits as we can, we're gonna build out this campaign, we're gonna reach as many people as possible. It's not, like you can't necessarily say, okay, we're gonna reach 1.2 million. Or we're gonna reach 700,000 people. It's just like this world of social,
00:11:46
Speaker
It's really infinite when you think about it because something goes out there, out there forever. So someone, it can be like immediately 20,000 people will see it, but over time it will build out into the millions. Creating a goal of a specific number is really difficult for this kind of work because ideally I think what you want is longevity. You want it to be evergreen. You want whatever you put out there to resonate with people tomorrow and 10 years from now. Yeah.
00:12:15
Speaker
I think that's really interesting and it's a helpful viewpoint on things because, at least specifically to social, I think I was talking to a friend about this the other day and we were like, you never know. Sometimes, like I once had a prospect, there was this post I did a year and a half ago and I was like, that was a dud. And then the prospect was like, oh, I started following you because you posted this quote, it really resonated with me and I thought,
00:12:41
Speaker
The things we think are like, oh, this thing went out and got a lot of like vocal response or support that must have been a successful XYZ, whatever we're putting out in the ether can still have positive or negative ramifications years later. And I could see from a PR perspective too, it's so hard because you're like, Hey, this might get you a book deal in four years, but I can't report on it this week. Exactly. And I also, when I meet with colleagues and
00:13:07
Speaker
potential new clients and really just anyone. I love when they say, oh, I remember this thing you did five years ago. And I'm like, really? That resonated with me? That's so awesome. I love hearing that whatever we're doing today, we may talk about five years from now, this podcast, someone might say, oh, I heard you on this podcast or Meredith, I discovered you because Priscilla shared this podcast. Like who knows? But it's exciting to think about the things just continue to
00:13:34
Speaker
grow and evolve and positive impact, hopefully on the things that we do in the future. Hey guys, interrupting this interview for 10 seconds to talk about Medbury. Medbury is a social media agency that I founded in 2023 and we produced this podcast. Our promise is pretty simple. We create social media strategies that really, really work.
00:14:00
Speaker
We offer of LinkedIn, Instagram, and newsletter management for founders, execs, entrepreneurs, public figures, and brands. Our clients often see significant results within just a few weeks of us working together. We're fun to work with and we'd love to help you. You can check out our website, sign up for our newsletter, or shoot us an email. Everything's in the show notes. Okay, back to the interview.
00:14:31
Speaker
So to drill down a little into the nitty gritty, what are the kinds of projects and clients that you're working with PR Vega right now? What kind of work are you guys doing?
00:14:43
Speaker
I am that's evolving right as we speak. There was a time when I was known as baby PR person because I had babies and that's really how PR Vegas started. We started with baby brand and then that became a huge success. And then by word of mouth, other people in baby brand world.
00:15:05
Speaker
I found out I was doing consulting and I was helping startups, female startups. And so the very beginning of pure Vega was purely focused on baby. And then as my babies got older, I started exploring other brands and other options that be fun for me to promote and for me to help in those early stages of their businesses. And where I found that I,
00:15:34
Speaker
was hitting my stride is when I represented brands I used in my everyday. So it was like a clothing brand that I wore all the time. It was jewelry that I wear always. It was like, I was the walking billboard for all my clients because I really believed in what they were doing. I was like their number one cheerleader. And it felt, and so then when I pitched them to press, I came at it from a spot that I was like,
00:16:04
Speaker
honest and it was this is, this jewelry is truly the best and this is why. And this clothes is slow fashion and the founder behind it is passionate about what she does. It came from a real place of purpose and just substance and I really enjoyed the work. Now I'm evolving into a place where I feel like I want to do more nonprofit work. I feel like I want to work with
00:16:33
Speaker
more women of color, some diversity. I really, there's room to support other brands. The difficult part at all is typically women of color and I'm a woman of color and I'll say this for myself is we feel like we need to wear all, feel like I need to do my own design and I need to do my own PR pitching and I need to do my own marketing and accounting and all of those things because I can do,
00:17:01
Speaker
And bringing in help is a really hard thing for me to do. And I know this when I pitch women of color brands and I say to them, let me help you. Let me support you in this PR lane because I believe in what you're doing and I think that we can do great work together. Sometimes I'll hear Priscilla, this is awesome. I'd love to do that. I could really use your help, but I'm just doing it on my own.
00:17:30
Speaker
And so I think that over this next year, I'm going to make it my goal to try to support more women of color and try to get them to see it's okay to not wear all the hats. It's okay to not do all the things. You should be supported in different areas. And in order to be successful, you have to let that go. You have to let a PR person think about PR for you all the time and a marketing person think about marketing for you all the time.
00:17:55
Speaker
Whoever's going to get you out there on LinkedIn, it's like you trust again, a word of trust. You have to trust. These people are going to do their job and they're going to help you be successful. Yeah. I feel like it's not like all of your pitching, like every step that it's evolved, it's just evolved from a place of what you feel and it's so authentic and like service that you feel really drawn to provide.
00:18:24
Speaker
Like what, I wonder if you could just tell folks a little bit about like your professional journey today because I know you had some cool work before PR Vega too. Like where did you start and how did you get to this amazing place? Yeah, I was thinking about that earlier today and just how I've told this story a few times and I really wanted to give it a new spin for you and this cast and a new PR angle.
Priscilla Vega's Career Journey
00:18:48
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. I'm like, come on, can you freshen it up a bit for some?
00:18:52
Speaker
So I always start with this, and I think it's really important to explain how I got to where I am right now. But when I was in college, I thought I was going to work in the movie industry. Growing up in Southern California in LA, it was just always a part of what interested me. And so I went to study media arts, and they make you take the school that I went to as Chico State, Chico.
00:19:17
Speaker
they make you take a minor, pick up a minor, something outside of what you're doing. And I thought public relations just sounded really interesting. Oh, I like talking to people. And I'm curious about just what that, what convincing someone to buy something or convincing someone to do something or being a storyteller in general just sounded really fun. So I picked it up as a minor. And first, I'm really
00:19:43
Speaker
School was never super easy for me. I always had to work hard at it, but for the first time I discovered something that just was like second nature.
00:19:53
Speaker
just couldn't take like too many PR classes. I wanted to do the ethics class and I wanted to do the writing class and the design class. And so I ended up picking it up as a double major because it was just like, I finally felt like found something that was meant for me. And I was already thinking through what PR agency I was gonna work for right at college. Like I couldn't wait to graduate and get out of there and start working in PR. And then professor said to me,
00:20:24
Speaker
so that we're not preparing you for what it is you're gonna do at a college. We're preparing you for eventually what you're gonna do. And that kind of crushed me a little bit because I was ready. I was ready to get out there. And it brought me back down a little bit and made me think, okay, I know I'm eventually gonna land in PR. What am I gonna do right out of college that will give me the tools to be a better PR person?
00:20:53
Speaker
And my first job out was event production because I wanted to travel. And this job in particular did events in Vegas and London and New York and everywhere. And I thought, well, that sounds fun. Like traveling is something that I didn't really get to do a lot of. Uh, so I got this job and I traveled a lot and hard work. I didn't anticipate.
00:21:20
Speaker
how hard events were because you're the first one in and the last one. But it was a really great learning experience for me and without knowing it at the time, a lot of the PR work I do now is a venture. It's producing product launches and it's like Valentine's Day events and holiday events and it's all specific to the client.
00:21:44
Speaker
that first job really gave me all the tools to know how to produce events under pressure, to be cool, to not like stress out about it. It's definitely stressful, but I can navigate level of stress.
00:22:01
Speaker
And then once I was, I felt, okay, I got like the foundation of that production. It was just time to move on to something different. And I thought, what sounds fun to me? And at that time it was concerts and music. And I really wanted to be in the music industry.
00:22:19
Speaker
I also really wanted to meet John Mayer. So I thought I need to get a job in music. I need to meet John Mayer and I need to figure out what music marketing is all about. And so I got a job for a music manufacturing company in LA called Line 6. And I worked in the marketing department and the PR person there said to me like, oh, I realize you have a PR background. Would you like to write some press releases? Would you like to see what PR is like in music?
00:22:46
Speaker
She took me under her wing a bit and opened up a world for me. And I also didn't really know a lot about product marketing. And I learned so much from that job. I also did meet John Mayer so that- I was going to ask that you didn't. Was there a spark? It was wonderful. We made eye contact. It was just really, it was just a really kind of surreal experience, but I felt like I had invested
00:23:12
Speaker
felt like I was, I got into this work because I wanted to meet John Mayer and here he is and everything's happening for a reason. And then from there, I felt like I was ready to do more heavy hitting PR work. And I was feeling like this is the moment where I need to lean into my PR. I was feeling like I was losing it for PR because I was enjoying marketing so much.
00:23:39
Speaker
And so I saw a job listing for a media relations specialist. And I thought, that's crazy. I don't even know why I'm even looking at this. I never enjoyed science or math growing up. I know about space, but not much about space. Why would anybody hire me to do that job? But I apply for it anyway.
00:24:03
Speaker
And that interview process was intense because there were 12 people sitting at a long table, and I was the only one on the other side. Whoa! It was really terrifying. And I just went into it thinking, I'm not going to get this job, so I might as well just show them who I am.
00:24:26
Speaker
I shared a lot about my social media background because in music marketing it was like the first time Twitter started and so we just went for it. We started a Twitter account and really built out social in the very early stages of social and that's what most of my interview was about. It was about social media and what I knew in that space and at the time I didn't realize but everyone across the table
00:24:53
Speaker
was at least 10, 15 years older than I was. So social media was a very kind of new and maybe even scary thing for them. But I spoke from a place where just a conference around social and I ended up getting hired not for the media relations position for the social media position.
00:25:14
Speaker
And someone else got the media relations job, but when we started, it became really clear that I was more passionate about writing and PR and she was more passionate about social media. So then we just switched jobs. Were you like, we don't need to tell anybody, we can just get out. Well, I'm just going to do your job and you're going to do my job and it's going to be great. And then I got assigned the technology and education beat. And now it's just so.
00:25:39
Speaker
In the communications department, it works very much like a magazine where everyone has beats or like a newspaper. There was the Mars be there was the earth be outer solar system be it was just really interesting how everyone had their specific area.
00:25:57
Speaker
of the solar system of space. That's so interesting. So just because we got sitcoms, all right, I don't mean to interrupt, keep going, but like the visuals are great too. Trust me, every day felt surreal. Every day that I was walking onto my NASA job, I would think to myself, okay, today's the day that they're going to figure out that
00:26:17
Speaker
I'm not qualified for this. I don't know what I'm doing here. It was so fun because I went into it with that in mind. I'm going to hire for a reason. I'm just going to do this job.
00:26:32
Speaker
I remember one of the first things I did there was it was International Dance Day was coming up and there was this robot that I was assigned to ride about and it's this massive robot designed to go to the moon.
00:26:47
Speaker
And it moves super, super slow, like an inch, like every 15 minutes or something. It's just the slowest largest thing. And I thought, what if we sped it up? Like we have this video, this very slow moving rope.
00:27:08
Speaker
Let's speed it up and we sped it up and it looked like it was dancing. We called it the dancing robot and we pitched it just so you think you can dance because everyone submitted videos of themselves dancing on International Dance Day and it got picked up.
00:27:27
Speaker
And so you think you could dance during the middle of the episode. And even NASA participated in international dancing. And it felt like the biggest win. And it really gave me this level of confidence. That's why they hired me to infuse my own creativity and my own interests.
00:27:49
Speaker
Because I am NASA's target audience. I love space. I don't know that much about it, but I'd like to know more about it. So I just need someone to meet me where I'm at. Yeah, to me about space.
00:28:05
Speaker
That's so cool. As you're talking about it, I'm thinking a funny aspect of imposter syndrome, I think, is we think everyone else is smarter than me, except they have a blind spot about me. And it's like all these NASA folks, this 12, this quarry of terrifying interviewers probably saw so much in you and they knew what they were doing when they hired you. Yeah, it was such an incredible time to be there also because
00:28:34
Speaker
We were getting ready to land the Curiosity rover on Mars. Wow. My specific role turned from the technology and education beat to media training, the scientists and engineers that were going to be in front of the camera during this mission. Wow. And that, my media training back then came from event production when I would media train
00:29:01
Speaker
all these CEOs of these companies right before they got on stage, I would coach them through presenting themselves with more confidence, being able to talk to this large group, and you'd think they're CEOs. They, of course, can talk to their company, but you put a mic on someone and you put them on stage, and you'll be surprised. Even the most confident people
00:29:24
Speaker
get nervous. And so it was my job at the production company to coach them through how to feel more comfortable on stage. And so then it just became second nature for me to do that. And so then when I was at NASA, media training became my new job. Wow. And I got assigned the lead engineer on the mission, who is a dear friend of mine, Adam Steltzner. And
00:29:50
Speaker
We work together on all kinds of different scenarios and you can prepare for a million scenarios and it'll be the one that you didn't prepare for that ends up happening the night of launch. And it was landing night actually when there were all these cameras in mission control and everybody was like, had their eyes on the lead engineer and all the people that were media trained. And all of a sudden we see some guy in mission control that has a Mohawk and I'm looking
00:30:21
Speaker
at the camera and I'm thinking, who is this person that is completely standing out on camera that the entire world is watching? And all of a sudden the phone starts ringing and it's CNN, it's Fox News, it's ABC. We want to interview that mohawk.
00:30:38
Speaker
And I'm thinking, was he media trained? No, actually he wasn't. And so I pull him aside, open up my laptop and I'm standing up, I'm standing behind it and I'm holding up signs of, okay, don't say this, say this, don't say that. We got a media train him there on the spot as he's taking interviews. And he's a, his name's Bob back and he's a lovely man and super incredibly smart, very, and just,
00:31:08
Speaker
but a natural like he was amazing and such a great representative of engineering and ingenuity and all the amazing things that NASA is but it was just a really fun
00:31:23
Speaker
And story to tell. Of course, Adam was also interviewed, but it was just fun that he came out of nowhere and we were able to media train him really fast and get him up to speed really fast.
Founding PR Vega and Early Challenges
00:31:36
Speaker
But it was just a crazy time to be there. And then I got pregnant with my daughter.
00:31:43
Speaker
I went on maternity leave and I just never went back. I couldn't go back to working those long hours and while I was trying to learn how to be a mom. And it was probably one of the hardest things professionally that I've ever done is
00:32:01
Speaker
give up that incredible job and that incredible experience to do something that mattered. But it was also very easy to let because I knew I had this big responsibility that I really wanted to have it mirror my life. My life has always been and all the jobs I've always had have always evolved or revolved around my interests.
00:32:29
Speaker
And once I had my daughter, I'm like, okay, this is it. This is my interest. I have to somehow create a job around my daughter. And then that's when I launched PR Vega really unknowingly. Like I was wearing my daughter in this row and that I discovered through a blogger and I emailed the person who made the row and she was on Etsy. And at that time Etsy had like emails that you can just contact the seller.
00:32:59
Speaker
And I said, I don't, I left my job. I don't know what I'm doing. I don't know what's next for me, but I know I love this thing that I discovered through a blogger. Can I help you? Are you, do you need PR help? And she said, I'm making these out of my living room and I don't have money to pay anyone, but maybe we can brainstorm. And once a month.
00:33:19
Speaker
And as her business grew, my involvement within that company also grow. It turned into meetings every two weeks. It turned into meeting once a week. It turned into a part-time job. It turned into a part-time support role. And I was focused on PR, marketing, communications, collaborations. It was like when you're one of the first employees at a startup, you wear all the hats. And it was really fun at that time because it was the very beginning of Instagram.
00:33:49
Speaker
Instagram had just started and I remember the conversation with her being like, should we start an Instagram account? Sure. Let's do it. And then it turned into, Oh, there are people that have 2000 followers. Like we should send them stuff. And then it turned into, Oh, we should maybe.
00:34:10
Speaker
do a collaboration with a really well-known designer and make it exclusive. And then it just evolved from there. We were learning as we were going. And I also met a ton of other brands that were in that same startup stage. And then they would reach out to me and say, oh, Priscilla, can you help us the same way? You help that brand? And I said, sure. And so eventually, it was I had
00:34:36
Speaker
I was working with three brands, I was working with five, and then when I hit 10.
00:34:41
Speaker
Oh, wow. This is, this is my thing. Like I'm a donor. I'm an entrepreneur myself. And it was not, I thought I was going to be in the movie industry. I thought I was going to work for a PR agency. Turns out I was going to have my own PR agency and it was always written in the stars. So here we are. And also my initials are PR. Like I always say I didn't choose the job. It chose me. It was just, I just got really lucky that I fell into something that I love so early on.
00:35:14
Speaker
Wow. It really, it is an incredible story. I feel like you're like a very powerful person. You like your ability to follow your gut and stay in alignment is incredible and really cool. I can't take full credit for that. I definitely get knocked off my alignment, but it's just, I have to keep reminding myself like what that feeling is like when I do feel aligned and then just do the work to get
00:35:41
Speaker
Do you have advice for people who in their careers right now feel out of alignment, but maybe are, I don't know, when you tell your story, I don't hear a lot of fear. Like I hear, was it there or is, are you just, are you just, I'm just going to trust this. I'm going to go with it. Like, how does that, what's the internal experience like for you? Yeah. Fear is not really a word in my vocabulary. I mean, about a year ago, I decided I wanted to do something that I
00:36:13
Speaker
I feared, and it was open water swimming. And I just went out there, and I open water swam, and I know there are sharks around me, but I just keep swimming. And it's really interesting to me that I'm not, I don't, I'm not, what's the word, feared of fear, I have fear of things. Because I just always trust that it's gonna work.
00:36:42
Speaker
Just trust. And there's that word again, trust, but that what I'm doing, I do it with intention and I'm a bit of an optimist in that way. It'll just work out. I just roll with the punches. Also that word imposter syndrome, the first time I heard it, I was so sad. I was like, Oh no, this is going to be a thing. Like people are going to use this word all the time to identify
00:37:12
Speaker
feeling worthy of something and that really just bothers me because if you're doing it
00:37:19
Speaker
then you're worthy of it. Like, I might not be the most successful PR person, but I'm doing it, so I'm worthy of this work. And I'm not, I know I'm not the best mom, but I'm doing it, and I'm worthy of like, kids and everything I do for them. So I think we turn that lens, just to smidge, whenever anyone says posture syndrome, or like my clients,
00:37:44
Speaker
You're like, I don't even know what I'm doing. I'm like, yeah, nobody knows. Nobody knows. But the point is to just keep moving forward. Let's just keep getting it. And perception is everything in this work. When you get one press hit, it may not be the biggest press hit, but you can make it the biggest press hit. You can talk about it all the time. And then everyone that's watching
00:38:07
Speaker
Yeah. Picked up in next door magazine. No one knows what door magazine is, but it doesn't matter. Like you got picked up. You got picked up in a magazine and that's amazing. And then just giving people the room to celebrate you. Clients say, oh, it feels like self-promotion and it feels like I'm bragging or gloating. Yeah. Good for you. Like you did that work. Talk about it. It's not bragging. You're just talking.
00:38:38
Speaker
It's a huge accomplishment, achievement. You're proud of yourself. Tell people that you're proud of yourself and then people will be proud of you too. Oh my gosh. There's so much you just said that I'm obsessed with. First on, just to go back to open water swimming, like what an incredible metaphor. It seems like you're just like building into your day where you're like, I'm swimming among the sharks, but I just trust I'm going to be okay. Like that's so cool and so brave and, um,
00:39:09
Speaker
What you're saying too about being in it and doing the work and letting that be good enough, like that resonates with me so hard. Actually, like I was a few months ago, I was talking to my therapist. I'm talking about the business and I'm like, I don't, I'm just like, it's still like taking shape. I'm loving it some days and other days feeling just, I don't know.
00:39:32
Speaker
anxious or comparing and she was like, you're in it. She's like, it doesn't matter. She's you're in it and you're doing what you want to do and you're making it work. And just by doing the work, it's, it's good. And, and it was really powerful and, and perception. That's, I totally hear you on that. I was, I feel so often too, like with clients I'm working with, they're like, it feels braggy. I don't want to put that out there, cringe or.
00:39:54
Speaker
And I love the way you phrased it. I've never articulated it that way. It's giving people the room to celebrate you because like people want to celebrate their friends and the people that they know. They want to be like, awesome job with your next door interview. Like they want to give you a like on social and give you a congrats, but we're so often I feel like so many people have a lot of resistance about like putting themselves like asking for
00:40:19
Speaker
support in a way and especially if people have been following you for a while and they've been with you for a while, they feel like they're part of your journey. They've seen you grow and they've seen you have successes and they want to celebrate that. They want to continue to be a part of your journey. They want to see that you're moving forward. I always and I also when there's times where I feel like
00:40:47
Speaker
things are not working for me like I didn't get this one client that I want or I'm pushing so hard for this press hit for this client it's happening to me it says oh a big win is on that's just how I always see it when things feel real down it's just because something's gonna come
00:41:10
Speaker
something. And I literally had this feeling a couple weeks ago. And I thought, okay, a big one. It's around the corner. I know it. And then you emailed me and asked me to be on your broadcast. No, that's when that's needed. I needed that to shake me up and remind me that you're in the right, you're in the right place. You're doing the work and you got your way.
00:41:35
Speaker
Priscilla, I'm literally like freaking out right now because I had a client email today of Prospect who seems like pretty eager, but they were like, I just need two more weeks. We're finalizing budget. Can I come back? Blah, blah, blah. And I can't say it wasn't like heart sinking disappointment. I'm like, all right. It would be a sign if they don't, it doesn't, it's not the end of the world. And it's not a hard no.
00:41:54
Speaker
But I then had this thought, I was like, sometimes when someone says no, I then get a weird big yes. I literally, I had my thought today and you're saying it like, I totally agree. And what a helpful way to look at the inevitable setbacks of running a business. I feel like your mindset is so incredible. Like when it comes to just being a business owner and I suppose, what do I even want to ask here?
Advice for Business Owners
00:42:24
Speaker
What advice do you have for business owners who are in the thick of it right now? I think business owners always feel like they're in the thick of it. It's even if they have a success, they're still always thinking about
00:42:40
Speaker
what's next and like, how do I continue to be successful? And I think some of the most successful business owners have it the hardest because they think, have I peaked? Is that it? Whereas the startup people that are just on the ground trying to have their mark in the world, they're so head down. Like they're just trying to do all the things and they don't even have the space to think
00:43:08
Speaker
And that's why it's like a lot of times I love working with startups because they're so like raw and they're so like aggressive in their approach and a lot of them are fearless because they think they can't get any worse than what it is right now because I'm just starting so I might as well
00:43:29
Speaker
by all things and be creative and be adventurous and do that. Whereas when you're really successful, you've had that experience of setbacks and you've had the experience of what really works and you fall into continuing to do what really worked. But the difference is
00:43:50
Speaker
People are evolving. The way consumers are absorbing information is changing and you can't do what worked before because it might not and what will likely not work in the future. Your audience is changing always, every day. So you have to have that startup entrepreneur mindset all the time to be creative, to be fearless, to be aggressive, to roll up your sleeves and do the work.
00:44:21
Speaker
So yeah, so I think anyone who's in the thick of it, I just like to remind them everyone's in it. Like, you're not unique in that way. And you're an entrepreneur. You've already got one of the hardest jobs out. Yeah, I like that. You're always in the thick of it. I know we talked about this like a few weeks ago when we chatted, but you
00:44:44
Speaker
I feel like you really articulated what the past few years have been like from a business perspective for small to medium business owners. Could you talk a little bit about your sense of the landscape right now? What you think 2024 is going to look like? I know it's a general question.
00:44:59
Speaker
Yeah, I think obviously the way we look at things now, I feel was before pandemic, pandemic, like how we reference. And like before the pandemic, a lot of the work I did was again, intuitive and also a bit of fortune telling element to it. During the pandemic, I was
00:45:21
Speaker
the busiest I've ever been because I was doing a lot of media consulting, a lot of crisis communications mode. Everybody was in crisis communications mode during the pandemic. And I found that I had to space out my meetings before I would take meetings.
00:45:44
Speaker
During the pandemic, I had to give myself hour breaks in between because the truth was no one knew what was happening. No one knew what was going to happen next month, next six months from now. I definitely didn't know, but anytime I got on a call with a client, they were paying me to know. So I had to come in it with this confidence. This is how people are going to absorb information. And this is how people are going to want to be marketed during this time.
00:46:13
Speaker
And now it's like everyone can take a breath of fresh air because we've served that. And now people are trying to figure out what's the new, what's the new way? How are we all? How are we communicating with each other? And I find that brands have had a real difficult time.
00:46:36
Speaker
since 2021, like 2021 was a hard year, 2022 was even harder. And if you survive 2023, then you're gonna be golden for 2024. Like we're on, we need to win. And it's coming, it's around the corner. A lot of brands that have shut their doors in 2020, it was like, this is it, we barely made it and we can't keep going. Brands that are still around are the ones that are,
00:47:06
Speaker
good year this year I think 2024 is like people are ready to get to what it used to be and brands need to speak from a place of what do not what people want to hear more who are we what brand are we because
00:47:25
Speaker
That's what people want to know. Don't market me because you think you know what I want. Show me who you are and let me make the decision whether or not I want to support you, whether or not I want to buy from you, whether or not I want to be on your journey. Thank you.
00:47:43
Speaker
you for all that. I feel like you're like 2021, 22, 23, we're all like the hard nose and 2024 is that like unexpected wind coming around the corner. So that's really interesting when you're like, they don't, people, we want them to show us who they are and let us decide how we're going to engage with them or
00:48:04
Speaker
move forward with them as opposed to barking at them. I think that's really interesting and it feels right to me. Can you think of what are their do's and don'ts around that from your perspective? Avoid the hard sell. What does that look like in practice maybe from a PR perspective? Yeah, I think that's really specific to every brand. Like a hard sell can sound kind of cringy, but for some brands that works. Like you need to buy
00:48:31
Speaker
And that's why you need to buy this thing, right? That works for some brands or other brands is I don't even I don't even care that you sell effects Like I want to support you. So whatever it is, like I love your personal story So whatever it is that you're selling like I'm gonna buy it really just depends on the brand No, that makes sense
00:48:56
Speaker
Well, okay. I know we don't have too much time left, but I feel like I could not, I have to ask you about your Cup of Joe profile because speaking of like personal stories, I feel like being profiled on Cup of Joe is like the crowning jewel in a personal brand, I think.
Feature on Cup of Joe and Its Impact
00:49:12
Speaker
Yes. And like, how did that come about? Tell me everything.
00:49:17
Speaker
Honestly, I don't know. I have been pitching Joanna for like over a decade. When her blog was really small, I remember thinking, I love her writing. I feel like she's just talking to me. The way she writes is like talking to your best friend. And I'm so happy for her and her success and her journey. And anytime she talks about anything,
00:49:47
Speaker
I'm like, yes girl. Yes, like she speaks to me, she sees my soul. Anyway, I pitch her all the time. She's my number one. Like anytime I have a brand, no matter what it is, it could be like toothpaste. It could be like anything. I'm like, you need to be featured on Cup of Joe. Like everyone needs to be featured on Cup of Joe. So I just pitch Joanna all the time. And I think that's how like she knows me is just from my constant pitching. And then we went on a family vacation to Montana.
00:50:15
Speaker
And of course, because my tan is so beautiful, I was posting all these beautiful images and she reached out to me and said, oh, would you be interested in doing our fashion feature? And it's like, I had to reread the email like hundred times at least, like she wanted to feature me in my five days of outfits, like five different outfits that I wear in any given week.
00:50:47
Speaker
And then she connected me with a photographer who's a good friend of mine, Nikki Sebastian. And then we set a date to photograph. And even then, I thought in my mind, there's no way. And then we shot the images. And even then, I was like, this isn't funny. And then I got the images back.
00:51:04
Speaker
And then Joanna interviewed me and she called me, and this is for some picture on the phone. Always been an email communication for a decade. And then she had the most beautiful, wonderful questions. And of course she did. She's a phenomenal writer. She's an amazing interviewer. It was so lovely to talk to her and to just have a conversation. And at the end of that call, I even thought, did I say anything worth saying? I don't even...
00:51:31
Speaker
Is this happening still? And then she gave me the date when my feature was going to go live. And even then, I didn't think it was happening. I couldn't believe it. I couldn't believe it. And it happened. And this was now like, what, five years ago, maybe? I still feel like it was yesterday. And I still get people like, we're talking about it right now. Like, longevity is everything. And it felt like the biggest one of my career highlights for sure.
00:52:02
Speaker
So I'm glad you asked me about that because I haven't really had the opportunity to know that. So it was just great. No, I love her too. I agree. She's such a good writer. I feel like I admire so many things about Joanna, but one of them in particular is I feel like she has the subtle turns of phrase that are like succinct ways of even CTAs, like click the link to see it. She'll do subtle, like.
00:52:30
Speaker
a subtle way where you don't feel pushed or sold to. She's just like, love this pretty top. It's here if you're interested. I'm like, yes, I am interested in everything you post, Joanna. I'm pretty good at looking at the shirt. But it's the opposite of pushy, fear-based. If you don't have these 10 items in your wardrobe,
00:52:51
Speaker
You're a, you're going to look like a slob this fall. Isn't this like a pretty French aspired top? I just, not even, I feel like that's even too high level and is doing her disservice by implying that it's more surface level than it is. I agree. I think she's like a bit of a genius. I have a picture, she's a maybe for this podcast, which killed me. And then I think the woman who runs her awesome sub stack subscribed to content people's sub stack. And I.
00:53:18
Speaker
freaked out for a few minutes. So I, but I, okay, sorry, I'm babbling because what I always really want to know more about too is I'm so interested in the process. So you get on a call or a video call and Joanna herself is there asking you these questions. Yes. She just emailed me and she said, okay, the pictures look great. I want to just ask you a few questions for the feature. Are you available tomorrow at this time? Yes. So you're my schedule to talk to.
00:53:46
Speaker
And she called me and it was just a conversation. It wasn't even like a list of questions. It was just like, we just... And then from there, she wrote this beautiful feature that I was just honored to just have Joanna talk about being. And yeah, bubbly like on my tombstone in my obituary and featured on Cup of Jow. Click here to see if you like. Click here to see the feature.
00:54:16
Speaker
Do you, so you do your own photo, like you provide the photos for it. They don't send me. No, she sent me up with the photographer. The photographer just happened to be my friend. Yeah. And she sets you up. She has a photographer come to your house. Of course, like I did the fashion feature. So it was like all my own clothes and I didn't go and get anything new for it. Like I wanted it to be actually clothes that I wore, that I felt comfortable in, that I love. So yeah. So it was like a mix of like vintage pieces and.
00:54:45
Speaker
brands that women owned brands that I support. Well, we'll put the link to it in the show notes because also that's how I came to know you. I remember when it went up, I emailed you and that was the first time we had a conversation. I don't know if you remember that, but it was a big deal to me that you even replied. So you're famous to be a Scappadote Joe association.
00:55:05
Speaker
Hope of Jo was a very exciting time and I did to her credit because she's built such a beautiful community. Like everyone that has come my way from that feature has been like, has become a friend and is someone that I enjoy working with, someone I worked with, someone that even just had conversations with and coffee with.
Future Hopes and Staying Aligned with Passions
00:55:25
Speaker
It's just been really, she has created quite something like super special and magical. Yeah, no, I totally agree. Is there anything
00:55:34
Speaker
that I didn't ask you about that you feel like you'd want to talk about or say? Um, no, this feels really good. And I'm just going to leave it at this. Like it's nice kind of ending on that connection of how we met and our mutual admiration for Joanna. Um, and again, like we're talking about it five years later. We might be talking about this podcast five years from now.
00:55:59
Speaker
Yeah, hopefully in five years, we're both like, huh, some, what's my fantasy? I suppose some book agent slash like someone's list. And they're like, whoa. So they should both write a book. Oh, okay. I can see with your fantasy. What's your hope for five years from now? You get the call. They're like, Hey, we heard this random conversation. Yeah. I, five years from now, let's see, my kids, I will have teenagers and I just hope that they like me.
00:56:28
Speaker
And I continue to be just doing the work that I love and also just falling from my hands. Yeah, mumbling all my wins and holding them to remind myself another win. I love that. Another one is around the corner. Let's end on that. Yes. That sounds good. Thank you so much for having me. This has been such a treat. No, same. I'm gonna stop recording.
00:57:00
Speaker
Hey content people, do you mind if I call you that? If you like the show, there are a few ways you can stay in touch and support us. The first is you could subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts. That way you won't miss an episode. The second is you could leave a five star rating and a review.
00:57:16
Speaker
Those make a really big impact. I know they're kind of a pain and they take a little bit of time, but if you're feeling generous and you've been listening to the show, I'd appreciate it so much. And the third is you could sign up for the Content People newsletter. The link is in the show notes. We share news about the show and episodes. And I also write a lot about the intersection between work and creativity, which is kind of at the heart of so many of these Content People conversations. We also love feedback. If you want to request a guest or a topic,
00:57:46
Speaker
Pit yourself to be on the show, advertise with us, learn more about Medberry social media, or otherwise just be in touch, shoot me an email. I would love to hear from you. It's Meredith at medberryagency.com. That's M-E-D-B-U-R-Y agency.com. I will throw that in the show notes too. All right, until next time.