Ep 97 Transcript: How Women Entrepreneurs Get Taken Seriously Without Going Viral with KJ Blattenbauer

This transcript was auto-generated and may contain errors in spelling or inaccuracies in the spoken words.

Shauna Lynn Simon (00:02)

Hello and welcome to the Real Women Real Business podcast. I am your host, Shauna Lynn Simon, and today's guest is KJ Blattenbauer a powerhouse publicist and founder of Hearsay PR. So for nearly 30 years, KJ has been turning overlooked experts into headline news with clear, actionable PR strategies that actually fit real life. Her client stories have been featured everywhere from Forbes to Architectural Digest, and she's the author of How to Be a Media Darling

and the second book recently released called Pitchworthy, which is a modern guide to building lasting visibility and authority. She is known for her bold but approachable style and her belief that women entrepreneurs shouldn't have to burn out to be seen. So she's speaking our language here. Today she's gonna be sharing how you can become your own best publicist, build credibility and attract aligned opportunities without selling your soul to social media. So KJ, welcome. Thank you for having me. It's great to be here.

I am so excited for this conversation. We had a little bit of a pre-interview chat and let me tell you, we are very much aligned in so many ways. And one of things that we were talking about though was just that this is something that comes up time and time again with my clients. And I can keep speaking to them about this until I'm blue in the face, but until somebody else says it, ⁓ sometimes it doesn't quite resonate the same way. So before we start diving into all things visibility,

Let's just take it back a little bit. You said you spent nearly 30 years in PR. How did you get into this line of work? Like what pulled you toward helping women founders specifically? You know, I think I, well, I tried everything else and then I landed in something that fit really. I didn't even know what PR was when I went to college. I had a basic understanding of like, communications. I could do marketing. I thought I wanted to be the next Barbara Walters.

But I got behind the scenes of things and I thought, you know, shaping the stories and helping people get their stories told, that's where I want to shine. I love being every person's hype girl. Like you have something cool. I want to tell the world about it. You just accomplished something awesome. Like, why are you not bragging to the world about it? And so being the funnel that helps get those stories told is just, it lights me up like no other, you know, long before COVID, long before ⁓

you know, the media landscape kind of changed like it did a few years ago. I saw a lot of my girlfriends about 10 or 12 years ago were starting to launch their own Etsy businesses, their own side hustles, their own projects. And it's those zero to six or seven figure earners that have the best stories. They're the ones that need the most eyeballs on their products, their services, their businesses. And they are the ones that can afford, you know, publicity and public relations.

The myth out there is that it costs so much money to use a publicist to do it. It's just one more thing you have to pay for in the scheme of all the marketing and business and every other expense that you have. Everyone trying to have access to PR. And I feel very passionately about it is better for you than social media. It's better for you than digital ads. It's literally what we just said. You can say what you want to your clients till you're blue in the face. But if they hear it from someone else, then it converts for them. That's what publicity is. I can tell you I'm the greatest thing since sliced bread about PR. But if you

read about all my clients in a bunch of magazines. If you read about me and a bunch of business magazines, it's that other person's validation that boosts you forward, that propels the authority, that makes people take action. And that's PR in a nutshell. And so I was drawn to helping women founders because I think they're the least funded. They're driving the most small businesses, but they're also the ones that shy away from being visible, that keep quiet, that don't promote their stuff. know, like any man with one ounce of

any interest in anything has the audacity of 5,000 people. But I think as women, we're taught to play small and keep ourselves in boxes. And I want them to share those stories. I want to be the girl that you meet drunk in the bathroom on a Saturday night, telling you your outfit looks great, your hair is perfect, you go out and get there, he's not good enough for you, conquer the world. I'm that person. I want to be that person. And so just love what I do. And I love helping female founders.

I just love that. love the analogy of the woman in the bathroom because it's so true. We make the best friends. We'll be coming out of the bathroom, we're laughing with this woman that we've just met. And whoever you're there with is like, who the heck's that person? I don't know, we just met. They're amazing. We just have that natural vibe with people. But one thing that you touched on that I was actually planning on getting into this further into the episode, but I think it's a good spot now because I think you've touched on a really good topic. I don't think a lot of people fully understand.

What is PR? There's a lot of different, let's call them buzzwords out there surrounding marketing. And people throw around the word PR, which stands for public relations, of course, or publicity in the same language as advertising and social media marketing. And all these things kind of get lumped into one thing. And so can you help our listeners to really understand what it is that you're talking about when you're referencing?

publicity and PR? What exactly does that look like? Sure. So public relations, PR, publicity, all the same thing. It's not about being famous or being a celebrity or being on the covers of everything. It's about being findable for what you're an expert or an authority in. so visibility is a fairness issue more than it's a fame issue for me. The world can't buy from you. It can't refer you. It can't hire you. It can't learn from you if people don't know that you exist.

Public relations and PR, they simply make sure that the right people see you so they can see your work, they can see what you can do, what it was designed to do, and how great you are at it. It's a tenant, you know, it goes hand in hand with marketing, it goes hand in hand with social media, it's another vehicle like your website, like your email list, to get the word out and promote what you're doing. And that's what public relations is.

Okay, so if someone's listening to this, so they're thinking, okay, so you're gonna give me like the messaging that I need to get my voice out there, but then does it just mean that I'm just trying to get a viral reel going or posting on social media three times a day, every day of the week? Like, what is it is, so would you say that public relations is the medium that we're using or is it the strategy? I would say that it's a strategy.

I would say public relations is a strategy. And I think it's a variety of tactics that boil down to something simple. It's having one consistent message that you share all the time across every platform. So whether I'm talking to you on this podcast, or I'm writing an article, or I'm talking to my friends on social media, or I'm writing my book, the same way I describe myself.

over and over and over again to the point of where if you're describing me in a room I'm not in, you use those same words, that is the basic tenet of public relations. And I'm sure we can probably all think of different people that we've seen in the media over the years, whether it is a celebrity or just some sort of public figure where we're like, they're the person that does X or they're the person that's known for Y. And so I don't think it's hard sometimes for women to think of themselves in that same sort of light. Like most of my listeners,

probably didn't even sign up to be the face of their business. They just wanted to do great work. This is the accidental CEOs here, right? Followed more passion than play. And I'm really good at doing this thing. Let's go try to make some money doing this thing. So what sort of mindset shifts do they need to make to even be willing to be visible?

Well, I think you have to take yourself out of it, which sounds weird, right? Like if you're putting yourself on camera, so many of us women in particular, you don't want to go on camera. You don't want to show your face. You don't feel ready. All the insecurities, and then social media creates more insecurities, and then we make up insecurities, and it's just a snowball of a mess, right? We could spiral for days. But the truth is, you're not showing up for you. And no one really is looking at what you look like. Because it's not of our business what other people think about us. Sure.

If you're showing up from a place of service, if you don't put your information out there, no one can get to it. You want to be helpful. And I think that that's the key that most people overlook. I don't believe in social media and going viral. think that you could have a million posts on social media. can put all your eggs in that basket, and you can have a post go viral. And you might gain 100, a couple of thousand followers. Those might not be your target client. They just might.

be people who are watching the roller coaster to see when your rise to the top falls to the bottom. People love those things. But if you're putting yourself out there in a reputable way, if you're in articles, if you're on podcasts, if you're on the local news, the national news, if you're speaking at conferences, you have an air of authority. And public relations creates that air of authority. It goes beyond just you saying something in your email newsletter. It goes beyond just you posting on your social media or even someone else resharing your social media.

It provides that almost good housekeeping seal of approval where you could buy anything at a Best Buy, but you're gonna buy the one that the expert says the top one. Public relations helps make those things the top one. And it can be individual. And you're certainly not the first guest we've had on this podcast who has talked about sort of the vanity metrics that are, you know, that virility to reels or posts or whatever.

We had Emily Rosales on a couple of months ago. She was talking about how she has intentionally built her Instagram account. She had to build a new Instagram account essentially. She's intentionally built it with people she specifically knows. She knows every single person on her feed. So it's not a massive following that she has, but it's a very engaged following because she knows every single person who's on that, who's on her follower list. And she's experienced viral reels. I've experienced viral reels. I got to tell you, my clients aren't coming from the

the reals that are going. And when I say viral, I'm talking micro viral. Like it's not, I'm not going millions of like legit viral, but those micro viral even, know, where I'm getting say five figure followers and views and whatnot. ⁓ It's really not getting me any more business or even any more credibility for the most part. Whereas I'll have a post that will maybe only get say 30 people engaged with it, but those are 30 people where they're like, they're like raising their hand and saying, this is me. I need to know more about this.

So I agree, I think that we're constantly thinking about these sort of vanity metrics of I'm gonna have this viral thing, but if we can position ourselves as the expert. Now I think where a lot of my clients find themselves challenged is I hear this from my clients often and I think that this is very much, you hit on this a little bit earlier, this is something that women as a culture, as a society, we have been sort of taught this, that most women say to me like, I'm not really anything special.

I'm not a big deal. I'm not, I don't really have an exciting story to tell. And I can tell you if I pair them up with a marketing person like you, you will find the exciting story. I know you will because I know that they are underrating themselves. But what do you say to the woman who's listening to this and thinking, well, my story's not really that exciting. I'm just doing the same thing everybody else is doing. I'm just doing, I'm just like a small piece in this puzzle. What do you say to her to help her see what's actually newsworthy about her?

Well, mean, first of all, we're going to have a real tough love pep talk because just hearing you say that back, it's so true. it breaks my heart. It hurts my feeling. It makes me sad for female founders in general, that any of us feel that way. And we've all felt that way. I feel that way some days too. Of course. Every single one of us has an amazing story. There's a reason why we started our business, whether we want to be the face of it or not. I started my public relations business because

There are so many great stories out there that aren't being told. There are great businesses that aren't being seen. And I was sick of hearing the experts that are six or seven figures and beyond give advice that wasn't sound advice for people who aren't six or seven figures. And so I would sit them down and I would say, everyone thinks newsworthiness needs drama.

It doesn't. Newsworthiness and having your story, sounds like unique insight. It sounds like a lived experience. It's a problem that you've solved. It's a trend you see before other people do it. And I always tell women, if you've overcome something, if you've created something, if you've observed something, congratulations. Those are all media angles. Your every day is someone else's wow moment, like their wow moment. And you just.

You need to name it, you need to own it. And sometimes you need to hire someone else to look at it from a different lens because you're just too close to it. But if you've ever created a business, a product or a service, it's because you saw something missing or you knew a different way to do it. That's your secret sauce. That is your story. There is heart and spirit and power behind that. And you just have to embrace it and own it. And I think you touched on something that's really important, that's worth it.

repeating is that sometimes you need an outside person to kind of reflect some things back to you to help you to be able to see what's really important about what you're doing, what you're saying, what your story is, what your background is. I know I had Deb Mitchell on the podcast last year and she has a phrase that she uses. I don't know if she came up with it or not, but either way it's brilliant. says, it's like trying to read the label from the inside, inside the jar. ⁓

And I think that's such a great way of putting it because we're too close to it. We don't have the same sort of perspective. And I think you're absolutely right. Like it's so sad that so many women don't consider themselves newsworthy. And yet if we all just had a PR person in our corner to help us to identify exactly what our story is, that is it's money. It's practically money in our pocket. I do know though that when I speak to women, it's not that they're unwilling to spend the money.

on a publicist, on the PR aspect of things. It's more just a matter of they don't see how it turns into revenue for them. And I have this conversation with my clients all the time about the difference between visibility for awareness and visibility for lead generation. So when we're talking about visibility here, like what is the path to making money, like going from being seen online, seen in the magazine, seen on television or podcasts, whatever.

to like, is actually making me money as opposed to just kind of shouting into a void. Like, how do you merge those things together so people feel like they're actually getting some sort of return on their investment, whether it's actual time or actual money in a publicist? How do they see that path to revenue? Well, I think a lot of people want to see the numbers right away. Like, social media, again, great. Social media, terrible. Well said.

No one's going to gaslight you even where the meta's going to gaslight you. Public relations is an art. It's not a science. So unlike when you post on Instagram and you immediately see non-followers versus followers and all the techie little things, public relations isn't measured that way. It's measured in no one knows who you are, everyone knows who you are. And it takes a while to get from point A to point B. But I think what

to put actual numbers to it, I had a client that was in the cut the other day, 200 to 400 sales in the first 24 hours from one hour. And that's, you know, if you are in, if you have a service-based business and you're in Forbes, you're going to see a 25 to 34 % jump in your service inquiries, you know, I'm going to be good. No, but that's a huge jump in traffic when you probably haven't seen in a while. So you're going to see metrics like that. But I think it all backs down to

You need to be seen for people to hire you. You need to be seen for people to sell your products. And if you, think some people think you put a website out there, people are just gonna find it. You have an email freebie, people are just gonna sign up for it. Cause it's the greatest freebie ever. And it might be, but like if they can't find it, you know, we used to get told that we had to post every single day on social media and have three stories and just be on there and do lives and do whatever. And we were all these monkeys jumping through hoops.

but you're sharing your sort of the same people and then even your people who follow you aren't seeing you. So you're doing all of these things. Public relations isn't like that. It's you set your message, you put your message out where your audience is, and then you just kind of repeat the same thing. It's not complicated. I think the common visibility mistakes that women founders make when they're trying to put PR into place or when they're overlooking PR.

Because you don't need to hire a fancy publicist. You don't even need to hire a regular non-fancy publicist. You don't have to spend the money on a PR agency or a single person like myself. You can fix visibility mistakes really quickly. And the three big ones are waiting to feel like you're ready. Like I have to get to six or seven figures. I have to be a big deal. I have to have the book deal. No, you don't. Visibility rewards action, not perfection. A quick fix is to ship the story you have now, like your story.

Just put it out there. Put it out there on everything. You'll refine it once it's out there. Once you get, you you tell a story at a dinner party one time, you tell it seven times, the story has evolved. Of course. ⁓ So is your one-liner, your visibility plan, you know? The second is talking about what they do as founders instead of positioning themselves as the experts behind it, right? You need to shift your mindset and your verbiage from here's my product to here's what I know that will help you.

Here's what I know that will help you and here's the solution. And then I think the third thing is just over-complicating it or assigning a huge dollar value to it. PR loves simplicity. You pick one message, you pick one platform, and one pitch angle for the next 30 days, you're gonna see momentum instantly when you start using those things everywhere and it just will snowball. One podcast will lead to two podcasts, one article will lead to four. Like it just keeps going if you're consistent with it.

I love that. And I think where people are getting stuck as often kind of in the get getting started part of it. But like you said, once you get started, you can start building some of that momentum. So we're going to take a really short break when we come back. I'd love to talk about how they can start getting started in getting some of that visibility. So we'll be right back after this short message. All right. Welcome back to the Real Women Real Business podcast. And KJ's been sharing all of her great PR secrets here. So think one of the big things you were just talking about, you don't need a big budget.

You don't need to hire a publicist to get out there and into the media. And I think this is a lot of misconceptions that most women have is that, I need to know someone in order to get featured somewhere. But as you were just saying, you can build some momentum. As you get started, one article leads to two articles, which leads to four articles, and same with the podcast. But if there's someone who's listening to this, they're like, OK, I figured out what my story is. I'm ready to put it out there. But how do I actually pitch an editor or producer?

in today's day and age? What's the best way or how do they even find? I think that's also even like kind of step one is how do even know where I should be pitching? or should they be pitching? Like when you're saying put things out there, are you talking about an article on LinkedIn? Are you talking about doing a blog? Are you talking about a different media source? Well, I think you have to start at the beginning, right? So I feel like ⁓ one of the big things is going to be ⁓

You're going to have to start at the beginning on your website, on your Instagram, on your LinkedIn, all of your bios. Are they going to be the same thing? ⁓ if the message is different across all platforms, you've got a huge problem with visibility because you want people to think of you the same way all the time, whenever it is. ⁓ the second thing, once you have all those ducks in a row, like you can't be promoting holiday sales if you're a clothing boutique, but have all your links pointing to the July sale. Like that's.

You know, but it happens across the board. Like we get so busy focusing one thing, we forget to do the other thing. If you're an expert, my book just came out. If I wasn't promoting my book, how would you know that it came out? So I have to be consistently doing that. If I was promoting something else, you'd be confused. And so how to look for people, you Google. The first thing that you do is you Google. You Google.

The topics people are looking for in your industry, questions people are asking you. And then across Google where it says shopping images, there's going to be a news tab and it's going to pull up outlets that are covering your area of expertise. And when you click on that, it's going to tell you who's writing about your areas of expertise. Then you find that person's contact information you pitch on or shocking. You leave your house and you go to a Barnes and Noble. You go to the magazine section. I know outside world scary. You go to the magazine section, you open up a magazine. The front part is called a masthead and in that masthead.

you're going to look at who's writing about what, and then you reach out to that person. It's really, truly that simple. I think it's so funny. It's almost as though we've made it this inaccessible thing, ⁓ this mystic kind of thing. And meanwhile, everything you're explaining, we've all Googled things. We see the news articles that come up. We just haven't used them for the same way of like, let's just see who's writing about this particular topic and see if I can actually get in touch with them.

And I know that I've talked to my clients about this numerous times that, you reporters, media outlets, they're always looking for someone to cover something that they're interested in. So how do we get them to actually like cover us? So... ⁓

Okay, yeah, I'll just. ⁓ Give me two seconds. Yeah.

Okay, Elena, this is gonna be a pause. I'm gonna go back to the part on this where the misconception about trying to get this media coverage, just make it a nice and clean transition.

Yeah, I I love what you're saying about this. Like we're making it harder than it needs to be. I mean, the reality is that it really is that simple. I mean, we've all Googled things before. We see the news tab and we've used it to find actual news, but never occurred to us to actually use it to, you know, find who's writing about the things that we're talking about and find their contact information. I mean, it's almost ridiculously easy when you think about it. But I know I've talked to my clients about this before, just the fact that media sources, they're always like, they got to put out.

stories every day basically. They're always looking for someone who can talk about what they want to talk about. Now here's the biggest catch to this is that you can't always just like do a heart sell in these things. Like if you're going to be featured on your local television news or something, they want you to tell the story. Like maybe it's updating backyard ideas or whatever. They're not going to be looking for you to plug. And if you call me it only costs this much for my services. Like you're not plugging yourself, but you are positioning yourself as the expert.

I've been brand ambassador for numerous brands over the years. I've spoken on my local TV. I don't even know how many times and people go, how do you get on? And once you get on once you can get on again. You just have to have a topic that they actually want to hear about. And I think you spoke about this earlier and I kind of want to circle back to it because I think it's so incredibly important. You talked about the three different mistakes that a lot of people are making. And one of them, talked about how they talk so much about what they do.

not about how they're actually helping people and what their actual results are. I think that's the thing that even as simple as our bio, our about page, we're constantly talking about ourselves as opposed to how we help other people, like the actual results that we get. And I think this is such a big mistake that so many people are making in their visibility. It really is, it really is. Because if...

If you're feeling invisible in your industry and you want to be known for something, mean, the best place to start is with clarity, not the output, right? Like before you post, before you pitch, before you promote anything, you need to answer the question, like, what do I want to be known for and set that aside? But then you have to answer the second most important question, even more important question, who needs to hear this? And then the third one is, why do they need to hear this now, right? like, you're, if it's, you know,

If it's January and you're talking about landscaping, not everyone is thinking about like the greenest lawn they're going to have for summer. But this could be where you were doing all the prep work to make sure you have the greenest lawn come summer. So it's pitching the prep work stuff. And by the way, you just happen to be an expert with X number of things in the lawn industry. And then once you get on one time and you do a good job, you show up on time, you provide helpful information.

you're going to become their go-to resource for anything in that field. But it's tying yourself into, it doesn't have to be like, oh, my book just came out last week. Here's my book, my book, my book, my book, my book. No, it's here's easy tips for small businesses that need to promote themselves around the holidays, around the new year, around Mother's Day gift guides. What are you doing in the close summer months to get your name out there? It's those helpful things that are evergreen, same things come around all year long.

Find yours in your industry, figure out how you're the expert in that space, pitch things like that.

Yeah, mean, again, we keep going back to it is actually more simple, I think, than we think that it is. But I think because there's so much hype around post on social media all the time that we misinterpret that as being our visibility source. And that's what's going to get us business. But the more you can position yourself as the expert, my gosh, like that just plays to everything. Because now you can have.

as seen on whatever television or media outlet or whatever, and how much credibility when you see someone, if I, as a business coach, am telling you, you want to work with me, and if you want to learn a little bit more about me, well, you can see the episode I did on this, or here's a clip from the conference I spoke at in Las Vegas or Texas or New Jersey or whatever. And when you see that I've been on these big stages, well, now all of a sudden I've got a little bit more credibility than just that person who you happen to find on LinkedIn or whatever. So I think that, you

really leaning into this strategy makes so much sense, but I know I can almost hear the thoughts of my audience right now. And again, these are accidental CEOs who are likely already feeling that they're stretched too thin. So they're probably thinking, I don't want to add one more thing to my to-do list because we feel like we need to do all the things. So how do we help them to prioritize their visibility activities that actually support their business model and their profit goals instead of just doing all the things?

Right. Well, mean, your visibility thing shouldn't be one more thing that you're doing. It's already things you're doing it. It's just documenting it and positioning it a different way. Like one simple thing that people could implement today that they're probably already doing in a different way that would be meaningful difference for visibility is what I like to call the weekly brag. So like every Friday, I write down one win, one insight, one story from my week. That becomes my next reel, my next LinkedIn post.

might be my next pitch in an email or to future clients. It's also the perfect anchor for an email newsletter, but it keeps ideas flowing. makes content creation feel like documenting, not performing, but it also reminds you of like, here's how far I've come. Here's the cool thing that I did this week. And it takes the bragging out of things. Like I think so many people don't want to make themselves be visible, especially if you're an accidental CEO, because you don't want to feel like you're boasting or bragging or putting yourself out there.

But again, you're not. You're coming from a place of service. And if you don't tell people that you want to serve what you do, they can't hire you. You can't help them. So you have to make it easy for them. I don't think PR should be one more thing in the list of things. I don't think you should be doing PR as much as if you're posting on social media every day. I'm sorry. Why are you doing that? also, you're really busy with that. PR is taking things you're doing already.

your bios, your website, if you want to be a speaker. And it's just making sure that the messaging is there and then sharing it with your media friends because you want other people's endorsement. PR is literally people speaking about you in rooms you're not in. It's the easiest, greatest referral source that costs literally nothing. I couldn't have said it better. That is.

I'm listening to this, I'm like, yes, yes, yes to all of the things that you're saying. And even, of course, I'm also thinking in my own head about, oh, what are some things that I haven't been doing lately that I should be doing? But one of the things that you talked about that I do already do is I have a story bank. So you were talking about your weekly brag. I have a story bank where stories hit me. We've all had those analogies hit us while we're driving. like, oh my gosh, what I do is like,

making your morning coffee or whatever. You relate it to just like an everyday type of thing. And you can say how you came up with the idea of like, I was making my morning coffee and it made me think about this and this is why I want to share this. Or I was working with this client this week and she was saying this and that and I want to share that with you guys. So ⁓ I have a bit of a bank of these things because I can't always just like as soon as they the idea like, my gosh, I need to tell my entire audience right this second, this amazing story that just came up. So I create a story bank and what's great about that story bank as well is I don't

do all of my own marketing. I do have a PR person that I work with. And it doesn't mean that it's not my voice and it's not my stories. It just means that I'm not the one putting all the strategy behind it and figuring out exactly who's going to see what. So that said, she still needs the content. I still need to make sure that she has my voice, my stories, my ideas in her bank. So that's where my story bank comes from. So she can pull from that. And of course, most of the time, my story bank is like,

one line that makes sense only to me. So I do have to expand on it for it to make sense to her. But I think that if everyone is doing a bit of a story bank or whatever it is that you want to call it, but those are gold. that's again, and like you said, it's all centered around the same messaging. You're just finding different ways to introduce it to your audience in ways that they're going to want to listen to. And I don't know about you, but I love hearing stories. When you hear a story, you tend to remember things. Well, I think that's where we're moving. I think people are moving away from

the quick hitting, fancy videos, doing whatever, you know, faceless AI is what faceless AI is, but I think there's a return to storytelling. We wanna be entertained. We wanna feel the emotion. We wanna feel the tug. We wanna know how it applies to us. And I feel like storytelling is what authority building looks like in 2026 and beyond. I think authority is shifting away from curated perfection and it's heading more towards content like storytelling, you know? People wanna know what you believe in. They want...

to know why you do what you do. And they want to know how you think about certain things. And yes, AI can generate information. So you don't have to have a person. You can have a story link, and AI can make it perfect. But what AI can't do is replicate your living experience. It can't replicate your pattern recognition. It can't replicate your credibility. it also can't. AI takes the human aspect out of things. And I think in this day and age, we are all craving the return to humanity. We have to feel something in our soul.

before it's going to move us to a purchase on some level. I'm not saying that ⁓ people have to think PR is the gospel before they're going to sign up for my services. No, but you have to feel so invisible in your industry before you're ready to step in the spotlight. If you're an introvert or if you're just an accident on CEO, it might take a little bit of a push.

But it's seeing for a lot of my clients, it's seeing someone else in their industry who doesn't have the experience, doesn't have the receipts, doesn't know what they're talking about. Seeing them get one or two media recognitions, lights a fire under my client faster than anything I could ever say or do or whatever. it's, and it's not a jealous jealousy thing. It's a wait, that's not the right information. Wait, that's not how you properly serve people. Wait, that's not X, Y, Z fill in the blank. And I think that's why storytelling matters so much.

moving forward, you know? So the women who are going to win in 2026 and beyond, they're not going to be the loudest, but they're going to be the clearest, most well-spoken because they're going to know what they're talking about. It's going to be uniform across their platforms. It's going to come from a place of service in the form of storytelling. And they're the ones that are going to show their perspective consistently and confidently. They're going to own their categories.

absolutely. Last year we had Stacey Brown Randall on the podcast and she talks about her whole strategy is all around referrals. So she helps clients to build a referral strategy, use it as a good main revenue generating machine basically. And this is what she talks about. She's got, ⁓ I think it's called Roadmap to Referral, if I'm not mistaken, is name of her podcast. So she's got a podcast on this topic. It is what she is known for. So anytime someone talks to me about like, I really need to get more referrals. Here you go. Here's Stacey's information. You're to go contact her.

Because she I don't want to call her one trick pony, but she's always talking about the same thing. There are multiple facets to what is that she does like the strategy is not just its referrals. There's so many different elements to it, but she's constantly got the same messaging out there. And so she has made herself absolutely known for this thing. Now, I know a lot of my clients feel like, that's really niching things down.

to a point where maybe they're not comfortable. But I serve everyone, you know that whole thing of I serve everyone. So how do I focus on one story? I have numerous great stories, but I love what you're saying though, because I can already hear the pushback that I'm going to be getting from some of my audience on this one in their own head. They're like, but I want to talk about all of these things. How do I decide on just one thing? Because most of my audience is also creatives and we are known for shiny object syndrome. Right. But I like what you're saying though about like what is who needs to hear my message? What is my message? Who needs to hear it?

and why do they need to hear it? And it doesn't mean that you don't find different ways to approach it and different things to say, but ultimately, you're trying to guide your clients towards the same sort of goal time and time again. And that's that commonality, that's that common factor that's gonna make it easier for you to come up with your messaging. I think that's really important that that one lands with the audience today. ⁓ You've actually got a workbook that can help them with figuring all this stuff out, right? Tell us a little bit about this workbook that you've got for them.

Right, I have a workbook on my website, it's hearsaypr.com/freebie and it's gonna take you to the visibility workbook. And that literally is a step-by-step exercise. It's gonna take you less than 10 minutes to go through, here's what I do. Here's what I'm an expert in. Here's how I say it to people. Here's the way that I phrase that. And it's not gonna stress you out. It's not gonna be overly complicated. I'm not gonna have you search for adjectives you wouldn't normally use. It's your voice.

And it's how you develop your one strong message you can repeat everywhere. And it just walks you through a step-by-step process. It's a framework that I've used with all of my clients for 28 years. And it's literally the repetition that just helps make things interesting. Because when you walk into a room, the first thing people are like, oh, what do you do? And some people are like, oh, this and that. Or like, it's very diminishing. No, you have to step into your position. You have to own what you do.

I'm a powerhouse publicist. I help people get attention for the awesome things that they do. I did not wake up one day and decide, you know what I'm going to be today? A powerhouse publicist. No, I've researched that. I've thought through it. That's how I want to put myself out there. That's how I want to be presentable. If you had asked me 10 years ago, hey, KJ, would you be on podcast telling people you're a powerhouse publicist? No, probably would have ran and hit under a bed somewhere. I would have been so embarrassed or like so worried about stepping in the spotlight. But I think

It's what you have to do. If you want to have a business, if you want to be successful, accidental CEO or CEO that wants to be out there in the spotlight aside, you have to put yourself out there and you have to position yourself in a way that registers with your target audience. One of the things that I really love about the way that you were just describing yourself to you is that you were using all everyday language type words that anyone would like. This is the thing. If you try to come up with.

a message that's using all of these adjectives as you were saying that you would never actually use. First of all, you're never going to remember that when you actually meet someone. Second of all, it's not you're not going to be able to have it naturally flow into the conversation. And for myself, I know I attend a lot of different networking things, mostly online networking these days. And different people have their elevator pitches. And I have heard some phenomenal elevator pitches. And there's other ones that I hear. I'm like, I don't understand what you do, but you used a lot of really big words. And I'm impressed by that. But I mean,

Like, and I don't know how many other women are going through what I'm going through right now, but with my perimenopausal brain, I don't know how to use big words anymore. I have days where I'm literally tripping over words because the brain fog is so real that I'm afraid to even try to use big words. So I don't want to use them. I don't want to hear them. I just want it to be in clear, simple language where I'm not like, do I have to look up any of the words that you just said in order to understand what it is that you do? It's super simple. Here's who I am. Here's what I do.

Here's who I do it for, and here's the why. Very clearly lead them down the path of what I do, who I do it for, here's the why. Tell them a quick story in one sentence. Make them want to work with you that way. It's brilliant. It's almost stupid in how simple it is. That's exactly how we like it. Amazing. OK, so this has been fantastic. But we've kind of run a little bit. ⁓

into our time here. So I want to make sure that we start wrapping things up a little bit. So if someone's listening to this and she's saying, okay, I'm ready to be seen. I'm a little bit scared, but I know that I need to get started. Like what is something that you can tell someone who's listening to this a great way for them to be able to get started today, tomorrow, and start putting themselves out there? What's kind of a quick and easy way after they've of course grabbed your free visibility workbook.

They're going to use that free visibility workbook and they're remember that visibility without burnout looks like intentionality over intensity, right? We're not going to try and be everywhere. We're going to be findable where it manners. So we're not scrambling to post. We're not trying to keep up with trends. We're not feeling guilty for not doing enough. We're done with all that. We're going to have our visibility workbook. We're going to have our one strong message we repeat everywhere across every platform. We're going to develop our one signature story that we can tell in our sleep that takes from our strong message.

And we're going to develop a simple weekly habit, like pitching one story or posting one strategic piece of content to position ourselves as a thought leader. And there's going to be zero pressure on anyone to be on 24 seven, right? Because when you get those things right, there's one strong message, the one signature story, pitching or posting once a week to put yourself out there, the presence is going to compound even when you're living your life, whether it's carpool, clients, the Costco run, simple.

And my favorite thing that you said there is intention over intensity. I love that. Just the phrasing of that is so easy to remember. But intention over intensity, because we don't need to be doing all the things. We don't need to be in all the places. I mean, you practice what you preach. I've seen everything that you're doing online. I can't wait to read your book myself. I haven't read it yet. But I'm going to be grabbing it. It's called Pitchworthy, I believe is what it's called.

It is. And you know what? matches your theme. It is very pink. I feel like it leaves a lot of it. ⁓ I can't wait to check it out. So for anyone who doesn't have a copy, we'll have a link for it, of course, in the show notes, as well as a link to your freebie. KJ, I can't thank you enough for joining us today. This has been just so phenomenal. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for having me. And listen, if you're listening to this today and what we're seeing here is resonating with you, I hope that you will continue to tune in. Each week, we drop new episodes every Tuesday morning at 7 AM. ⁓

Eastern Time, don't forget to subscribe to us on your favorite podcast platform and leave us a review wherever you get your podcast. really, really does help us to be found and seen by other women just like you. And as always, if you really want to support the women in your community, the best way you can do it is take this episode and share it with someone that you know needs to hear this message today. And I know you all know someone who could use help with their visibility. So send this message over to them. They're going to thank you for it. It's going to help them out. It's going to help us out. And until next time.

Keep thriving.