Representation Matters: The 'Who's Got You' of Good PR

Megan Hanson, Public Relations & Communications Consultant

In an age of perpetual content creation and AI, you don't tend to hear much about traditional PR anymore. Often, it can feel like it's about the likes, the engagement numbers. And, don't get us wrong, measures are important. But here's a secret that this Proofing Stage episode shouts loud and proud: It's the people behind those measures that matter most. Customers. Team Members. Your Publicist - these are all people, baby. Actual human beings who, in the words of Megan Hanson, "want to connect with actual human beings."

Start ups and bootstrapping small businesses often don't have the budget, or sometimes even the vision, to see how the long game of relationship building can pay off big. It takes time, effort, money and skills that not everyone has or has the bandwidth for. Today's conversation with Megan fills in the gaps about what you need to know to decide if working with a PR person is right for you, and if it's the right time.

Together with Megan, Michelle and Joan explore mission and personal and professional fit, because at the end of the day you need the best ambassador you can have to represent your business. And, that definition of best? Well, that's completely up to you.
 
Representation matters in more ways than one:

• Breaking through the noise takes time
• Building relationships and contacting the right people
• Giving up on a dream to find the best path
• Adjusting thinking from sales calls only
• Evolving as the game changes around you
• Choosing a supporting cast, rather than a starring role

Connect with Megan Hanson:

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/megankhanson/
Email - hanson.meg@gmail.com

Colorado Folks, check out Thunderview CEO Dinners

Toilets & Plunjr's PR Success Stories

Credits:

Theme Music by Thorn Haze

Additional Music by: The_Mountain (via Pixabay)

Podcast Cover Art by Lisa Orye 

Ad written and performed by Joan Kanner

Ad music by: Tech_Oasis (via Pixabay)

Produced by Joan Kanner and Michelle Bond

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Transcript

Joan Kanner (00:00)
I thought about when you were in New York and I thought about Miranda Priestly from Devil Wears Prada. I'm just like, is that why Megan wanted to leave? I think about you being in like Texas with the politicians and I was just like, my God, the constituents, did they drive you crazy? You know, that's where my mind was going.

Megan (00:14)
[laughs]

Yeah, people always ask me if my job was like Devil Wears Prada and I say yes, except there was no sweet gay man to be my like fairy godmother. It was just mean people.

Michelle Bond (00:26)
No! Ugh!


[podcast intro begins]

Michelle Bond
This is Proofing Stage with me, Michelle Bond. 

Joan Kanner
And me, Joan Kanner. We're queer female founders who over a decade ago envisioned and created products and services designed with end users in mind. Go figure.

Michelle Bond
Frustrated in our prior careers, we began to consider what all our energy and passion can do if we use it on our own terms. A company with karma as its driving force, a music app that put users in control, and for the last eight years, a bagel business. 

Joan Kanner
This podcast is about our experiences and the nitty gritty of being an underrepresented small business owner.

Just like we've worked to fill the gap in quality bagels, lox, and schmear, these conversations fill the gap of knowledge, mentorship, and straight talk that are missing from other business pods and success stories. 

Michelle Bond
Together, we have a lot to offer, and we have a lot to learn. 

Joan Kanner
So join us and our brilliant guests in this space between "Atta girl!" and "I told you so."

[podcast intro ends]


Michelle Bond
We've talked a lot on this pod over the years about finding your people

For me, these type of people have always shown up as "solid" presences in my life

I think about BUB's journey, and in many ways it was a search for the solid too - customers... partners... champions...

One of the reasons we've found ourselves here, with Proofing Stage is that we want to help you all find these "solid" figures on your life too. Those hype people who just get it - they take the time to get you. They have your back. But these are more than friends - they're the smart people with skills and tenacity that you pay. They can both hype you, and get you into the rooms you're not in yet. 

That's why today's conversation is such a gem. If you're a small business owner, this is your 101 course for working with a PR professional. But, it's also chock full of some universal truths we can all benefit from like the value of relationship building (different from networking), how playing the long-game almost always pays off and why AI will just help us actual human beings more meaningfully connect.

Oh yeah, and we shine a bright spot on some pretty rad toilets too. So, here's the show!


Joan Kanner (02:57)
Megan Hanson is a professional communicator with more than a decade of work in public relations, publicity, and copywriting. Her clients span a variety of industries, including real estate, travel and hospitality, technology, startups, nonprofits, and beyond. Megan is a storyteller who helps her clients express their vision and mission to customers and partners alike. She has extensive experience developing and executing public relations campaigns, securing placements across a variety of mediums, including print,

digital television, radio and podcasts in local, national, international markets. Doesn't leave out much. She's also worked with clients to develop influencer relationships and ambassador programs, as well as craft, concise and cohesive brand messaging through blog posts and other marketing materials.

Michelle Bond (03:35)
You

Joan Kanner (03:43)
God, that was a lot. How did we even score this person to be a guest on the show, Michelle? Welcome, Megan!

Michelle Bond (03:53)
Yes.

Megan (03:53)
Thank you.

Joan Kanner (03:55)
So I know Megan, we met, can I still say IRL? Is that a thing people say?

Megan (03:55)
you

Yeah, absolutely.

Joan Kanner (04:02)
Is that so? Okay, okay. So we met in real life. So says the Gen Xer. We met in real life at a Thunderview CEO dinner. And you were running the show, this was like last fall. And I remember you were so focused, but yet so professional and so intense. I didn't know that you were in any way gonna be approachable when I had follow-up questions to this.

But you weren't.

Megan (04:27)
Thunderview dinners are great. Love, I love helping out with them and doing all the PR and marketing for them. So yeah, it's a great time and I've met lots of fun people and the whole idea of it right is to be approachable and to

ask follow-up questions of people and to be an involved member of a community that's helping each other. if I wasn't doing that myself, then it would be a little hypocritical of me to even be there at all. So yeah, happy to help. It was really fun talking with you guys.

Michelle Bond (04:56)
the follow-up.

Megan (04:57)
We had a lot of fun.

Joan Kanner (04:59)
And there's also a lot of knowledge. the session I went to at Thunderview was about influencers.

Michelle Bond (05:01)
absolutely. Well,

Megan (05:02)
Yeah

That's right. Yeah. you came to the influencer dinner where I led the panel. Okay. I don't typically do that. Normally. Normally I am much more in the background. Eric, definitely Eric Marcoulier, the founder of Thunderview CEO dinners. I'll give him a shout out. He's a great guy. He typically is the one that does all the panels, runs all the shows, but we had some interest in, talking about influencer relations and

Joan Kanner (05:10)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Megan (05:33)
that side of marketing and he was like, well, you know all the right people and you should lead the panel. We did a pretty good job, I think. So, but I was very nervous and have not returned to the stage again. So maybe someday.

Michelle Bond (05:48)
no!

that's hard to believe that with all the hats that you wear and, and, know, all of the different media that you work with, well, clearly you rose to the occasion. I was going to say not rise to the occasion, but yeah, but not enjoy it or not, you know, that wouldn't be part of your flow state.

Megan (05:58)
Not enjoying it

Yeah, yeah, I am more than happy to book anybody else for any stage if they feel comfortable with public speaking. If they want me to do it, then that becomes a problem pretty quickly. But if you want me to do it for you and get you up there and then they can take it from there, that's perfectly fine with me as long as I don't have to get up on stage.

Joan Kanner (06:31)
One of the things that you shepherd one of your areas of expertise was taking your clients and then babysitting them or just being like their transitional Linus blanket when they're doing podcasts. Is that true?

Megan (06:46)
Yes, so definitely on podcasts, especially, and also I would say other like forms of online or taped interviews. So that would include even like TV interviews that aren't, even if they were live or reporter, like conversations with reporters, maybe for magazine articles or newspapers, anything where it's something that I can sit in on or check in on.

Joan Kanner (06:47)
I

Megan (07:16)
I always try to do that just because again, like I am responsible for making this happen, like making it happen all the way through to completion, right? So if I get on a podcast and I'm checking in and my client hasn't shown up yet, like then I'm texting them to make sure that they get there on time or every once in a while I show up and my client shows up and the host doesn't show up. So then I'm emailing the host saying, "Hey, are we still doing this?" So yeah, I always want to make sure that it happens. And also

what, if it's possible for me to sit in, usually I don't sit in on podcasts through the full podcast. I don't want to be, especially if it's like a video recording, I don't want to be just sitting in the background, not saying anything. It starts to look a little weird pretty quick. but if it's a, you know, an interview with a reporter or a TV interview, it's always good to know what is said just in case maybe something needs to be.

Joan Kanner (08:11)
Yeah.

Megan (08:14)
followed up on. And it doesn't have to be that sounds like sinister, like, you know, if they say something wrong, then I have to like, go fix it. Honestly, most of the time, it's like, my client mentions like a report that they're citing, like research or something to back up what they're saying. And they're like, yeah, I don't, I'm not sure I don't have it on me right now. I can't send it to you in this moment. And I just like take the note and make sure that I send it to them afterwards, because my clients are busy people, like they're not gonna

remember to do that once they hang up the phone or once they leave the room or whatever. So, it's like, most of the time it's as simple and easy as just like, yeah, don't forget to send that citation to the reporter or don't forget to send them, you know, a lot of times if you're talking like numbers, they're like, I think it's around XYZ number, but I'm not totally sure. And it's like, okay, I'll just send that to the reporter afterwards or send them like some clarification or something very, very rarely. Is it something like, ooh,

We're going to have to deal with that later. That kind of feedback. So, but yeah, it's important for me at least to be there for as much as is not awkward.

Michelle Bond (09:11)
Right, right, right.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure.

Joan Kanner (09:25)
The looming face in the corner. Again, you could be an attorney.

Megan (09:28)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Right, yeah, if I was an attorney I'd be getting paid a lot more for it, but happy to do it.

Michelle Bond (09:54)
No, I was just going to say that that's good context though for this conversation because, I know Joan has been wanting to have a PR professional on for a long time. And Joan isn't the part of the format for Thunderview that you have, they can ask of the people in the room too. That that's not like money-related. That's about like networking and partnering and stuff.

Megan (09:55)
Oops, sorry.

Michelle Bond (10:17)
And Joan, know that given the topic at hand, didn't you ask about a Susie Myerson?

Joan Kanner (10:25)
I did, knowing that like a lot of the audience would have no idea who the flying fuck I was talking about.

Michelle Bond (10:33)
Yeah, exactly. So why don't you enlighten?

Joan Kanner (10:34)
So, you know, so she is. So Susie Meyerson is a fictional character played by Alex Borstein, who people probably know from any other number of roles as an actress, but she was the Susie Meyerson character in Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, which is a now ended series, in which case, Susie promotes a bunch of different entertainers, including Mrs. Maisel and

She does a hell of a job promoting her people. She shows up at their event. She makes sure she sits through them. She vies to having like higher contracts and whatnot. So unfortunately or fortunately, my lens of what PR folks do is only through fictional television that includes like Jimmy from Hacks. like people just, you you pay them but they really become more like friendly with you. You build a relationship over time. Sometimes the boundaries are a little bit sketchy.

Michelle Bond (11:24)
You

Joan Kanner (11:31)
But basically they're really there to promote you.

Megan (11:33)
You've got it, you've got it, pretty much.

I will be honest, I have never watched The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, so I'm not sure, but I was thinking before this conversation of, like, who in pop culture could I be compared to? it's somewhere in between a mix of, there was a woman on Entourage, I don't know if anybody remembers her or remembers that HBO show from a long time ago. He had a PR person. There's a

Michelle Bond (11:54)
yes.

Megan (12:01)
a little bit maybe of the like Scandal's Olivia Pope, not much, not much, but every once in a while, you know, that's the kind of fun stuff. Yeah, every once in while you get something interesting. And yeah, and then probably honestly, there's just not that many PR people on TV because we stay in the background. Like we don't want to, you know, we don't want to be out front. So we don't really always have the interesting stories. We tell the interesting stories, but we don't really want to be a part of them. So.

Michelle Bond (12:05)
Right. The fixer.

Right.

Megan (12:31)
but yeah, it's, it's definitely, I really enjoy my job. Like you mentioned, like being friendly and showing up to their events and being there for all of the things. Like I really enjoy doing that as well. if I didn't, then this job would be miserable. once we were done recording this podcast, I'm going to a conference for a client of mine that's in Denver.

They've been hosting this three-day conference and I've been helping them promote it for the last two, three months. I really have no reason to go there, but I'm absolutely going to show up and say hi and walk around and make sure everything's going okay. yeah, it's definitely a friendship. Friendship and building relationships is a huge part of it. Not only obviously with my clients, but also with the reporters and the influencers and the podcast hosts and the television.

you know, anchors, it's all about relationships and being, you know, the first person that people think of when they need something is kind of how I do my job well. So.

Michelle Bond (13:31)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, well said, well said. Because in the context of small businesses, which is obviously, you know, what we're doing here is try to shed light on things that are, you know, maybe super small businesses or startups or underrepresented founders don't necessarily have the hook into some of these worlds and some of these resources in the same way that other people do. And I know for us, it's funny, I actually have a PR degree. And so when you're describing your

like your approach, like, maybe that's why I'm so like relation, like everything, like I, I have a kind of PR for community development background. And so I've always seen the, like the, the nature of building relationships as more of the community development side of things. But I wonder if it comes from my PR training, which is funny. but I'm being sort of that like right-hand person, you know, and I think for small businesses sometimes.

You know, oftentimes that's if you're lucky enough to have a co-founder or a GM or, depending on the industry, that's your person. But, when you're trying to, I think like rise above the din or, or like in our case, when we were looking to kind of break out of, you know, Baltimore ecosystem alone and spread to other areas, thinking about how you can, you know, enlist the right kind of help and get the right fit for that.

in a way that is not only affordable, but really matches the values of your brand and can be somebody who does take the time. It sounds like you're really good at taking the time to understand, to get context around your clients, to be able to do your job well and to be able to represent them well. I think that's harder for people who are just starting out to have just the bandwidth to even invest in, much less the money.

Megan (15:28)
Yeah, I mean, I definitely run into that question a lot when I'm talking with founders, especially of like smaller, you know, under five people companies. They're like, we just don't have the budget for PR or like, we're just not doing anything that we really like need PR for. We're still, you know, like stealth mode or whatever. And don't get me wrong, if you're like super stealth mode, if you truly don't even have like a LinkedIn page for your business, you're right. Like you don't need my help. Like call me in a year, whatever.

Joan Kanner (15:50)
Mm-hmm.

Megan (15:56)
fine. Absolutely get that. but if you have a LinkedIn page, if you are, if you have a website, if you have a blog on that website, if you have a recent news, you know, section on that website, you can absolutely benefit from PR. it's, it does kind of come down to

PR skills are very similar to lots of other skills. As you said, like some people might see their right-hand person as like a co-founder. They might see it as like their head of sales. They might see it as their head of marketing. There's definitely a lot of crossover between all of these different, you know, titles. get really hung. I don't really get hung up on titles. I say that I own a PR company, but like half of my time I'm not doing PR. I'm doing other things, right? I'm talking with, you know,

Michelle Bond (16:45)
right of course.

Joan Kanner (16:45)
Hmm.

Megan (16:48)
podcast hosts and all sorts of stuff. Right. and, it's really, I think the like term for it now, what I've really probably grown into over the past five or six years, especially as this idea of content marketing, and PR is a huge help in that, like in order to market content, you have to have content. Right. So some people think that's just like blogs or social media content. But again, like, what are you writing that blog about? Are you writing it about?

Michelle Bond (17:11)
Hmm.

Megan (17:17)
just like your product updates, okay, then like, yeah, maybe your product manager can do that. But wouldn't it be nice if like once a month you had a news article that you could also put up there and then you also put that on LinkedIn. You also put that on your Instagram page. And if you do podcasts, especially, you know, lot of CEOs are like, I don't have time to do podcasts. It's like you don't have an hour a month to talk to somebody on video about your products. Like I guarantee that's all you're doing.

all day long anyways, right? It's just this time you're talking to a podcast host instead of a customer. But when you do it in front of a podcast host, they're going to spread it out to millions, know, thousands, hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions of people, depending on who you're listening to or who you're talking to. And that's essentially just an hour out of your day that you're talking to customers, right? It's just not, it's a little bit less direct.

Michelle Bond (17:45)
Anyway.

Megan (18:08)
and again, once that podcast is live, then you've got social media content. You can put it on your website. you can send it to your customers and an email newsletter to make sure even more that your customers are hearing what you had to say. so it's really kind of just this idea of like how you want to go about it. If you are a founder that like truly thinks sales is the end all be all. And if you're not on a direct sales call, you know, 10 out of 12 hours of the day.

then you're not doing anything then like, okay, PR is probably not for you. But if you're more willing and it is, it's, I will say it is riskier, right? If you are in a direct sales call with someone, you can measure that. can say I sat on five calls today and three people were interested in learning more and one person completely bought in right with PR. It's much more nebulous. Like I can tell you, yeah, I got you on a podcast on average. get a thousand downloads a day.

You know, I asked them about their audience and they said 50 % of them were in the United States, you know, but we don't know for sure. There's no way to know. You know, that episode could have gotten downloaded a hundred times. It could have gotten downloaded 10,000 times. so it's a lot more nebulous, but it can also be, I've seen it in my career payoff time and time again.

Michelle Bond (19:45)
what's the difference in your mind between like a publicist.

a PR person, an agent, is that just because of the industry and the type of person you're representing? Or like, how do you see that?

Megan (20:00)
Yeah. So the biggest difference between me and I would consider myself a publicist. I think publicity and being a publicist is almost like a subset of PR. Kind of it implies more that you're working like one-on-one with a person versus a company, but even that's kind of changing a little bit. I will say the biggest difference between like a publicist PR person and like an agent or a manager is like, I don't get a 10 % cut.

Michelle Bond (20:12)
Good.

Megan (20:27)
of whatever you guys make, right? Like, I don't, there's no like direct commission or like, you know, there's none of that. Like obviously agents, when you think about like sports agents or managers of like bands or whatever, they're like booking you, they're getting you a contract. They're, it's a much more like quid pro quo type of thing when it comes to like negotiations, like my client is going to do this XYZ thing, he's going to

Michelle Bond (20:52)
Hmm.

Megan (20:57)
play a number of games a year, they're gonna show up and play a show at this time, and you're gonna pay them XYZ amount, and then I'm gonna take my cut of that, right? And that's like a very business sales kind of relationship. My version, like PR's version of that, don't get me wrong, there's definitely still like negotiation and obviously like pitching and you wanna secure coverage, but it's not contractual. There's no contract like.

you know, none of my clients ever signed a contract saying that they're going to show up to the newspaper interview or to the podcast interview. You're certainly not getting, they're not getting paid for it, at least not directly, right? They're hoping that maybe they'll get some interest in some sales, but it's not like then, you know, you guys didn't pay me to be here today. or anything like that. Sometimes it's actually the opposite. Sometimes it's the opposite. Sometimes actually I've had clients pay to be on podcasts, honestly. but, so yeah, there's not as much of a quid pro

Michelle Bond (21:30)
Right.

Joan Kanner (21:43)
Yeah, sorry about that.

Mmm.

Megan (21:55)
relationship there. It's much more organic, I guess, would be the term that we would use in today's world. They used to call it earned media. Nobody really seems to know what that is anymore, but it's essentially like, you know, nobody is getting paid for this, except me. Like, you do have to pay me to do the work, but

It's not like if I get you in a certain number of publications a month, you have to pay me an increased rate or if I only get you into you pay me less. Like I get paid a flat rate for the work that I do. Obviously I hope that I get you in more than less publications or that we get more than less podcast interviews.

But it's not, there's no like percentages. There's no, I don't work on based on my results. I don't know any PR people that do. Whereas obviously agents and managers are much more like, yep, I take 10 % off the top of any contract that you make. so that's the biggest difference at the end of the day though. I mean, I do think we all work really closely together. I've never worked with a client that had an agent or a manager.

Michelle Bond (22:50)
That makes sense. Yeah.

Megan (23:01)
Again, most of my clients are businesses, there's not really, you know, it's not like there's not a person that's being promoted. And that's probably a difference to like, obviously, agents work with more individuals and managers work with more like individual groups or something, not businesses per se, whereas PR people do a lot of work with businesses. But yeah, I've never worked with somebody that had an agent or manager, but I assume it's very similar.

Michelle Bond (23:06)
Mm-hmm.

Megan (23:28)
to, you know, everybody wants the same thing. Like everybody wants to promote and get like, get money for your client one way or another. We're all just approaching it from different ways. So.

Michelle Bond (23:40)
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I'm, it's funny you mentioned earned media because that's where I was going to go with my prior question when Joan was asking about differences since, you know, because that's all about press releases and talking points and getting, getting that reporter to be interested in your event. a lot of crisis PR actually, well, that's what they called it back then. Now it's just like everything, right? But,

Megan (24:04)
Okay.

Michelle Bond (24:08)
But I guess particularly as it gets, talk about influencers and things like that. mean, the landscape is so different. And I think one of the things that got us reconnected with you recently for this interview was even the conversation about AI. think Joan was posting about, you know, people contacting us to have their folks represented on the podcast too. And just like how that works, how you know, like what is a legitimate person versus what is being done out there. So anyway,

I guess a general question about how over the course of your career, you know, things have shifted or, or trends, you know, ways that ways that the industry has changed for you.

Megan (24:50)
Yeah, it's been a ride for sure. I actually, I got a journalism degree. I did not get a PR degree. I wanted to go and work in like, I wanted to work in fashion magazines in New York City. And I actually did it for a year. I worked at Women's Wear Daily and found out. Yeah. I found out probably like three or four days in that I actually did not really want to work in a fashion magazine in New York City. It did not take me very long.

Michelle Bond (25:05)
nice.

And you made it a year. Wow.

Joan Kanner (25:15)
Mmm.

Megan (25:18)
Yeah, it did not take me very long to realize that that was probably not the long-term job for me. You know, we all have like dreams and then you realize them, right? And it's like, ooh, actually. But yeah, it was 2010 and the media landscape was just like probably at one of its lowest points then, right? you know, online advertising was eating into everything. They had quite figured it out how to benefit from it on there.

get. And so everybody was getting laid off and everything was closing and nobody was getting paid to write anything. And so when I finally just like threw in the towel and was like, have to leave, I have to do something else. I actually ended up working in Texas for four years and I did political PR. I worked on a campaign for a year and then I worked in a state senator's office. And that was crazy. that's totally different from anything I've ever done before.

Michelle Bond (25:51)
Hmm.

Megan (26:15)
or anything I had ever done before or since. It was really interesting because obviously the media landscape has changed quite a bit and even was changing at that moment in time, but it was a very traditional job. I worked in the state capital. There was a pool of reporters that worked in the state capital that was responsible every day for writing about what we did. We didn't have to pitch. We weren't

Joan Kanner (26:37)
Mm-hmm.

Megan (26:43)
fighting for coverage really. just like, if we wanted to talk to a reporter, I literally just had to like walk down the hall, knock on the door, find them, bring them back to my office. And there would be like a story in the newspaper the next day, you know, and it was just very traditional and, but also incredibly fast paced and definitely crisis. mean, crisis communication was all that I did every day was something different and something new and like,

Michelle Bond (26:55)
Hmm.

Megan (27:12)
Yeah, so it was a great job as far as like my first PR job. But as I said, I've never done anything like that since immediately after leaving that job. It was a totally different world, right? It went from being very easy to get coverage and very easy to find people to talk to, to being very difficult for people, you know, to find people that wanted to talk to me.

You had to get really creative about how you were going to get people interested in what you were doing. And I could not just walk down the room. I was talking to people thousands of miles away from me even. Right. And then yeah, the social media has changed everything. Obviously now like it's much easier to get something written in a newspaper if it can also be put.

on their Instagram page or if it can also be turned into a cool audio story for that newspaper's podcast or any number. It's all about multimedia. I've had newspaper reporters want to do in-person interviews so that they can bring camera with them. I'm like, but you work for a newspaper. They're like, yeah, but we're going to do a video about it. It's like, okay. It's just like a total...

Michelle Bond (28:23)
Yeah.

Megan (28:26)
Yeah, I think it's what's probably been the biggest change is definitely just like everybody does everything now and you have to constantly keep that in mind. Like you're not just talking to a newspaper reporter. You're not just talking to a TV, you know, anchor. You're talking to somebody that's also doing photography. They're also taking video clips. They might even be like, you know, a little bit of an influencer themselves.

Joan Kanner (28:35)
Hmm.

Michelle Bond (28:36)
Yeah.

Megan (28:53)
So they don't want to like promote a product or a business if it doesn't align with their own, know, reporters have these like personal brands alongside their company brands that they have to protect now too. everybody does everything and you have to be interesting in multiple ways to be able to get into any one of those things. So.

Michelle Bond (29:02)
Mm.

Joan Kanner (29:18)
And you still wanna work in this?

Michelle Bond (29:19)
That's a really, I don't know, I think it's exciting, but.

Megan (29:21)
I love it. get bored. I get bored so easily. I, yeah, if things weren't constantly changing, I would have given up a long time ago. The best part about my job is that I'm always into something new.

Joan Kanner (29:53)
I just appreciate like how real you are, Megan, because you would be a perfect person to work with the likes of an asshole like me. I'll try not to get you in too much trouble if we ever like work together truly. But I was thinking about our options when we first started Bottoms Up Bagels in terms of like PR locally. And Michelle touched on this in a very elegant professional way, which I will not.

Megan (30:04)
you

Joan Kanner (30:16)
there were only a few people. They were part of what I would call girl boss nation, in case you're wondering, that's, was like a thing, at the time, you know, at that point, like six, six, seven years ago, we started like learning about these people. And as much as bootstrapping the sort of stuff that you do can be very difficult.

Thank God we had Michelle to do some of that work plus the 80 million other things she was doing. But I remember a couple of people just not being people I want to approach or be friends with. And it turns out, we dodged a bullet, one lady ended up working with other really awful human beings to open up a restaurant. And then in the past couple of years, she ended up not paying staff.

Like all these problematic things were happening. So I'm glad that we kind of avoided paying for all of that. She was also just like extra before we started using the word extra. You know what I mean? Like your fairy godfather that you wanted to have in fashion would have been like, like "Nama-cray. She's nuts." you know I mean? Like whatever that would be.

Michelle Bond (31:20)
You

Joan Kanner (31:24)
So I just wanted to mention that we have thought about it much earlier on, but I always was hoping for this person to come in that we could have given money to, to give money to who would have been like, these are my bitches. These are my bagel bitches. I got them."

Megan (31:37)
Yeah, I mean, you definitely could have given your money to me. I would have been that person.

Joan Kanner (31:44)
I didn't know you. my God.

Michelle Bond (31:45)
Well, the next venture, the next thing.

Megan (31:47)
I know we didn't know each other that I mean, it is definitely interesting though, you know, like, don't get me wrong, there's plenty of clients that I've had, you know, none of which I will name that I would love to like put on blast or do something petty to or, you know, whatever. But again, like PR is all about relationships. And if I do that for one client and another client sees it, or even a potential client sees it, it'll give them some pause and like,

Joan Kanner (31:49)
Next enter.

Mm-hmm.

Megan (32:16)
I don't know, I was never like the popular girl in high school. was never really, you know, I didn't have a ton of friends, but I always prided myself on just being like a pretty chill, cool, like you knew who I was, you know, and like that was cool and that was enough for me. And that's kind of the same approach that I take in my work now is like, I don't need to be the most popular person. don't want the attention on me, right? I want the attention on my clients. I want the attention on their work, on their businesses, on their products.

Michelle Bond (32:29)
Mm-hmm.

Megan (32:45)
I want to be the cool person that you know. And I think I, you know, I mentioned this before, like the first person that you think of when you're in need of something. mean, that really, I really do mean that like if a reporter is working on a story about a product and they're trying to figure out, know, or the, or a issue or a business type of business or a trend.

Joan Kanner (32:54)
Mm-hmm.

Megan (33:11)
I really want them to think like, yeah, that really cool girl, Megan, she emailed me six months ago about that product or about that business. And now's the time that I'm gonna talk to her about it. Like she'll be perfect for that. And that's how I get a lot of my press hits. Honestly, I think that's another kind of myth that people don't know about PR. They think, well, she's been working for me for a month and she says she's been emailing all these reporters.

or she's been doing all these things, but we haven't gotten any interviews. We haven't gotten anything set up. it's like, PR is a long game. Like I'm emailing, you know, they think, are you emailing the right people? Like we want to see your list. And I'm like, I am emailing the right people. They're just probably working on something else right now. You know, they might be working on a different side of the tech industry at the moment. They're really focused on, know, whatever they're working on right now, give it two or three months. and you know,

Michelle Bond (33:47)
Mm.

Megan (34:08)
they're going to pop up, like something's going to come up and we're going to be the first person that they want to come talk to because I have done the groundwork. have sent the emails when they do a search in their inbox for what they need to talk to somebody about, we're going to pop up. We're going to be there first. and like, mean, even clients that I have, you know, let go of, or they let go of me. Like you'd be surprised, like I still get emails sometimes years later from reporters saying like, Hey,

You sent me this email a really long time ago. I wasn't able to do anything with it at the time. I really like to talk to them now. And I mean, even if you're not paying me, I'll at least forward the email along to you. Like I won't do anything more than that if you're not paying me, but I'll at least forward the email along. PR is a long, long game and it's not, you know, not to be taken lightly that when you send an email, it can definitely come back to you for good or bad years later. So.

Michelle Bond (34:47)
Mm-hmm.

Megan (35:05)
Keep that in mind when you're emailing reporters or influencers or anybody, like, just because they don't respond to you in a week doesn't mean that they're not planning on getting back to you a month from now when they've got more time to work on it.

Joan Kanner (35:19)
You are not bullshitting because I remember you saying this, I forgot what context, but once someone's in your network, they're always in your network. And I thought about the example of, was it Plunger? Was that the name of the company?

Megan (35:30)
Yeah, good old Plunjr. actually, the plumbing, the plumbing helping app, they're actually a great example of that. I worked with them for a year, like in 2020 to 2021 and helped them out for did a lot of got them some press also did some podcasts with them. Also did some copywriting with them, I believe and also did a fair bit of social media. and then influencer work. That was mainly what I did with them was I

set them up with like DIY house repair, reno, influencers that would use this app. It was a video chat app where you could chat with a plumber and for a very cost effective rate, they would walk you through the repairs or the, you know, installation of whatever your plumbing needs were. Like my favorite thing that we did together was there was this super amazing gay man...

Michelle Bond (36:04)
Mmm.

Megan (36:28)
... who lived in upstate New York and had bought this like 300 year old house and was renovating it completely. And he had found this hundred or 200 year old toilet at an estate sale. Like it was like a vintage antique toilet and he bought it and he was like, I have to put this in my house but I have no idea how to do it. And I emailed him and he literally emailed me back within like two minutes and was like, I

like you are exactly what I have been looking for. Like we have to do this project together. And so we had this wonderful like man in upstate New York renovating this old vintage house. And then Aaron, who's like a very blue collar plumber for his whole life worker in, he actually lived in San Francisco.

and they worked together on this project and they filmed it all and they put it all on this guy's Instagram and it was just like the most amazing, I'll have to find it and like send you a link, you can put it in your show notes, but it was an amazing collaboration. Yes, I loved it so much.

Joan Kanner (37:28)
Please, please.

[fauxmerical begins; it's performed by Joan Kanner; the lamest of 90's rock plays in the background]

What up, Home Skillet?
Stephanie - and that's a nee not a nay... m'kay? - Lipshitz here. 
But your parents would know me as "Little Big Big".
Go ahead and ask them who was influencing before there was influencing.
That's when vanity sizing meant a petite woman wearing a 2XL
Thanks to my short-lived MTV series, Oversize is Our Size, all the fly honeys knew what wuz up.
Back in the day, we kept 'em guessing; what was under that figgity phat hoodie?
Aw yeah, keep it baggie, dawg.
That's right. Back in the 90's, I put the "flu" in influence. Uh, so best get yer shot!
Before there was digital I was digitally penetrating... consensually
     - Wait, did I go too far?
     - Okay, hold up! Please don't backspace or correction tape me!
- [furtive plea] hashtag I'm still relevant
- [hyperventilating] perimenopause is the new menopause; it's like edgy... and, and dangerous - I don't even know when my period will come next!


This has been a Proofing Stage fauxmercial.

[fauxmercial ends]

Michelle Bond (38:50)
And one of the things you said earlier that I was going to comment on was this idea that like everybody does everything now. And that's, that's just, that's what makes it harder. That's the whole idea of like, how do you break through the noise and whatever, but like, what you're talking about is how you do it. And it's still old school in terms of that's important. Like you can't, you know, relationships take time to build and they also take time to find the right opportunity at which they can like.

reactivate, you know, and I think that's the hardest part for small businesses and startups is that, you know, well, first of all, right, like PR, that kind of that kind of publicity is like conflated with marketing and, and how many likes you have in social engagement. And it's not, they're not totally separate, but they're not the same thing. And so when you're first getting started and you need to feel like you're building traction and you need to have what you think are the

Megan (39:18)
.

Michelle Bond (39:45)
the more impactful ways of getting yourself out there, something like a, you know, a campaign or a longer strategy or those relationships that just take time to get built, you know, that have a longer payoff period. think people just don't, you know, you're very short-sighted at the beginning because you're just trying to like build your customer base, get traction, get your name out there, test your product. But, you know, I think you, make really good points as to ways to.

kind of set yourself up for a longer, slower burn, you know.

Megan (40:21)
Yeah, yeah. And I mean, that's why I really recommend and like also why I offer more than just PR in my business, right? Like I offer copywriting services, I offer marketing materials, like I will help you write white papers, I will help you write blog posts, I will help you do social media posts. And I think that for me is important because yeah, I know I realized that I work with a lot of small business owners that need to see

something pay off quickly. Like they can't justify paying me for a news article that's not going to come out for six months or a year. That's just not like they can't justify that to themselves, for their investors, to anybody. Right. And so, but again, that's kind of where it gets back to everything is content and it's all this idea of content marketing. So if you work with me, like let's write a couple of blogs a month about a topic that you like.

or a topic that you're interested in or the new product that you're putting out or the latest deal that you did. Okay, well that blog post also should maybe be a press release. Maybe not every blog post, but maybe every third blog post should be a press release. And then we can put that out and then I can also pitch that to reporters and we can also put that on your social media. Podcasts are honestly one of my favorite ways to get media coverage, whatever that means in this damn world.

but like podcasts are a great way to get quick coverage from an outside third party source, because there are a lot of people that do a lot of podcasts and they need guests and they are very interested in having most of their work done for them by emailing them and saying, Hey, I think you would be interested in talking with this person. they're more than happy to be like, cool, put them on the schedule. Let's go. Like, let's get it done. You know, they don't have to find somebody for that week. And, and,

So yeah, podcasts can be a great way to get like, as I said, quick, like more immediate coverage. But again, like if you're doing this correctly, if your strategy is a complete strategy, then over time it should all kind of start to fall into a rhythm where like we're doing a blog post every month. We're doing a couple of social media posts every week. We're getting you on a podcast or two every month. And then, know, yeah, every like quarter or

you know, maybe even a couple of times a quarter, there's a news article that gets written about you, or there's a, you know, magazine article that gets written, or there's something, an influencer that you work with that gives you some attention. It should, over time, start to fall into a rhythm, but it can definitely, I fully understand small business owners that are scared of waiting the like six months to a year for that to happen. It is a long game, it is a long game, but it can be.

If you can do it, if you have the bandwidth, if you have the runway, if it's something that you're interested in, and if you can feel comfortable making that commitment and letting it play out, the payoffs can be huge. I've seen one of my oldest clients right now, I've been booking him on podcasts. We try to do at least one a month for, gosh, going on five years now. He's got a lot of content out there. Let me put it that way. He's done a lot of podcasts.

Michelle Bond (43:28)
Mm.

Megan (43:45)
And every single time almost that he gets on a sales call, he, one of the first things that the people that he's talking to say is, yeah, we listened to your podcast last week. we, they know he doesn't have to explain a lot to them. half of their sales process is already done. They're like, we know, we listen to you. know about your product. You answered, you already answered a lot of our questions. That's why we're on this call with you now, because we know that you have what we're looking for. And he didn't have to do any work.

Michelle Bond (43:57)
Mm-hmm. Right. Right.

Yeah.

Joan Kanner (44:10)
Mm.

Megan (44:14)
I mean, he had to do the podcast. But again, that was an hour of his time a month. And then every call that he has, he gets to jump straight into like the pricing and why they would work well together. And he doesn't have to spend any time talking about his product or what, you know, what the features are or why they should work with him. They already know that they want to work with them. You know, it's just the details at that point. It took a while to get there. Like that didn't happen the first year. But

Michelle Bond (44:40)
Yeah, of course, yeah.

Megan (44:44)
Yeah, it pays off. It definitely pays off.

Michelle Bond (44:48)
I think that's one of the great things about podcasting too. mean, you know, know there are different theories on whether it's, you know, going up or going down or whatever, but from the point that you just made, even more so than a news article, you know, you're hearing from, you know, it's in your own voice. That inflection is demonstrated, personality is on display.

there's some trust you can admit it immediately build because you're talking to the audience. So yeah, I can totally see that. I think you're right. It, shortcuts a lot. I mean, it's frankly, one of the reasons we're doing this too, is to, is to help, over time, demonstrate the bridge between, you know, what we did before bottoms up bagels, what we did with bottoms up bagels, what we're trying to do now with small business owners and other food businesses. And so,

Megan (45:26)
.

Michelle Bond (45:40)
you know, rather than just, of course you need your elevator pitch or whatever, but you know, people get to know you, people get to know what you stand for. People get to understand what you've done, you know, and then to your point, maybe each time it gets a little bit easier. So, yeah, I think that that's really smart. And from a, from, you know, a founder standpoint, think, there is that risk and reward, but

If you can find the right person. And I think that that was kind of where my next question was going to go because clearly, you know, not only building relationships with the reporters and things that you, that you build to serve your clients, it's building those relationships with your clients and getting to know them and getting to understand their products or their brand or their values. Like for me, that was the biggest lift was like, that was the barrier to being able to say, I mean,

know, resources, but you can to your point, like if you know they're going to pay off, you can invest, but it's like, how do you get that fit? Right. You know, how do you make sure that the person that you are kind of trusting to be the ambassador of, the thing that you've built, I don't know if you have any thoughts on that.

Megan (46:55)
Yeah, I mean, it's, I do think it's an important decision. Don't get me wrong. Like it's a very important decision, especially again, if you're limited on funds. mean, I always say like a lot of times I end up losing clients because eventually they get big enough that they can go pay like a giant agency to do what they were paying me. Not quite as much money to do, right? And so like, you know, if you have unlimited funds, like there's plenty of

giant PR firms that would be happy to take your money. They'll put a team of people on it. Those people will spend, you know, they've already got tons of relationships. They'll, you know, immediately get you into many publications just based off of those relationships. Although I'll be honest, I've also definitely had clients that have made that move. And I've like kept Google alerts on them. And I've never seen anything actually happen. Like, I'm like, they're like, you know, we have

Michelle Bond (47:49)
Right, yeah, I was gonna say, I don't know if...

Megan (47:52)
We're going to go. Yeah, we're going to go move to this thing because they told us they could get us and like all these top tier publications. I'm like, cool, great. Like, you know, absolutely go for it. And then like, nothing, never, never see the news articles. So I mean, it definitely can happen that way too.

Michelle Bond (48:23)
right? Like any good bootstrapper, we think we can do everything ourselves. And then we're like, I'm trying so hard and I'm doing all of these things. And how come I can't, you know, and it's like, because there are people who can do that for you. And, you know, and, and, but this is also the thing about keeping, keeping people like quote unquote small. We've been on like, I've been on sessions with, you know, PR folks give, you know, just.

kind of giving tips and stuff to small businesses, a lot of women-owned businesses and stuff. And I get that like the finance, you know, the financial piece of it can be a concern, but we were actually at the point where we were kind of like ready to bring on outside help. And the tenor was very much like, do as much as you can. It's a balance, right? But the tenor was very much of like, do as much as you can. you can do all this yourself. You can just don't, you know, just dedicate like five hours a week to

like following up and you know what mean? it's, I get it. It's this balance of like, you don't need the big flashy firm, right? You don't need to throw money at something that you can bootstrap. But then I think, and this is especially true of, of, businesses run by underrepresented founders, because it's like, you're wearing all the hats anyway, you are bootstrapping, you are, you know, you're finding your way out of every problem. I mean, it's the case for most founders anyway, but I think there is a tipping point at which you could go so much

farther, faster with a little bit of investment with the right kind of support. And so I really appreciate the points that you just made, because it's a good reminder. It's like, well, no, even the CEO of Chase is not prolific with his state of the economy every year.

Megan (49:58)
you

you

Don't I mean, I'll give more credit to Jamie Dimon. I'm sure he has lots of conversations about what he wants to say. I'm sure he reads it. I'm sure you know, he gets the final send up. But yeah, no, mean, he's not sitting there pulling the numbers on like the state of the economy. Somebody else is doing that for him.

Joan Kanner (50:17)
Mm-hmm, yeah.

Megan (50:25)
And I mean, yeah, don't get me wrong. Like I tell lots of clients to do like, there's really nothing that I do that you can't do. It's a lot of sending emails, like there's no like, license.

to be a PR person, right? It's not like if a reporter gets an email from you, they're like, Ooh, she doesn't have a PR at the end of her name. So I can't, I can't reply to her. know, that's not, there's nothing that I do that you can't do. but like some, some founders have more discipline about that sort of stuff than others. Some founders really can be like, yep, I'm going to devote five hours a week to PR and I'm going to email influencers and reporters. I'm going to follow up with them and I'm going to pitch myself to be on podcasts and I'm going to do it.

and they do it and that's great for them. And I'm sure for maybe some of them it works, maybe for a lot of them it works. Then there's the type of founder that says that they're going to do it. And if they only get 30 minutes in that they consider that a success, right? And that's probably not going to pay off as well for them. And I think too, like truly, if you are spending, if it is important to you to get PR and you do really want to start getting more attention for what you're doing and you do maybe start

Joan Kanner (51:19)
No.

Megan (51:33)
devoting some time to it, but you're just not really getting any feedback for it, you're not getting anything, then it might be worth contracting a PR person to do it for even just a short amount of time. know, like my minimums are like three months contracts, right? So like, if you want to work with me for just three months, we'll see what happens. Because if you are spending the time on it,

Joan Kanner (51:48)
Mmm.

Megan (51:57)
you should be getting something for it. And if you're not, then to me that might indicate maybe you're not talking to the right people. Maybe your pitches are just a little off, you know, maybe they're just not. So then that's when like an expert who can be like, okay, no, actually the really interesting thing about this is this and actually like emailing that tech crunch reporter when you're like a brand new business in, you know, Iowa.

Michelle Bond (52:15)
Mmm.

Megan (52:25)
is probably not gonna pay off for you, right? Like we might need to start a little bit smaller and work our way up.

Michelle Bond (52:40)
So Megan, my God, I feel like we could chat all day. Cause as Joan said, I think we have more questions, which is good. It's a sign of a good conversation. so we'll have to have you back, but, in the meantime, is there anything that you're proofing on?

as it relates to industry or next steps on your career journey.

Megan (52:59)
Yeah, AI is definitely something that we are thinking a lot about in the PR world right now There's definitely aspects of our job that maybe maybe definitely not right now I've used a lot of AI tools and I'm like, nope, that's not that's not cutting it. That's not good enough But there's definitely aspects of my job, especially the copywriting

like the blogging, some of the social media posts, I've had a couple of people ask me like, well, why can't I just use chat GPT to create 75 LinkedIn posts for me in an hour? And I'm like, you can, like you absolutely can go for it. see how it works out for you when it doesn't work out for you, call me back, you know, because yeah, at this point, I just think it's still.

very inauthentic and fake, like arguably that will get better. And maybe there will be a point at which AI can write 75 LinkedIn posts for you in an hour and that can be done. So yeah, I'm definitely thinking about that. I really do feel comfortable though in the fact that especially PR, especially when you're working with other human beings, I think human beings want to work with human beings, right? So like a human reporter at a magazine

Joan Kanner (54:12)
Hmm.

Megan (54:15)
does not want to get a pitch from an AI bot. do not want to get a, you know, they don't want to have a conversation with somebody's AI assistant. They want to talk to a real person who's going to help them, you know, answer their questions in a real way. So I think that is, think human beings will always want to work with other human beings. But yeah, I do think that there's some things that AI will probably start to handle more of.

Michelle Bond (54:18)
Hmm.

Megan (54:43)
At the same time though, like especially when it comes to social media, like I think human beings want to read content from other human beings. In some ways, I think it'll make what I do maybe even at more of a premium than at a lower level, right? Like if you just want cheap content, you want a lot of it, you want it really quick, then there will be tools that will provide that for you. But if you are a person who finds value in a real, like unique...

authentic, nothing that's just mass produced. it's a custom, you really want a custom social media post that sounds like you, that doesn't seem just kind of mass blah, AI written, then I think you're going to have to be willing to pay for it and it will cost you more if anything. But I think there will always be people out there that value it, but it's definitely going to change things. There's going to have to be some kind of balance.

between the two, because it's definitely going to change things. So that's definitely what me and a lot of my colleagues are thinking about and talking about is like, how do we change our business model and show our value in light of these like kind of PR was never something that you could mass produce, but now it potentially definitely in the next five to 10 years could be. So

I don't think there's any industry that AI won't make more interesting in the next decade or so, but we'll see.