The Power of PR

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Ronica Cleary – Cleary Strategies

 

Podcast Overview:

00:00 Starting Cleary Strategies Unexpectedly
06:09 Covering Trump’s first election campaign
09:09 Media relations and crisis management
11:33 Evolution of media placements
13:59 Pitching to a busy newsroom
18:23 Managing media queries efficiently
22:16 Managing Public Relations Challenges
25:45 Concerns about paid media placements
27:11 Shady PR practices discussion
30:51 Using PR to Boost Visibility
33:50 Developing client content themes
37:20 Building a thought leadership presence
40:08 Importance of a founder’s story
42:59 The value of PR in business
46:37 Podcast audience quality over size
50:26 Reflections on Starting a Business
53:56 Assessing contractor fit and retention

Podcast Transcription:

Ronica Cleary [00:00:00]:
We, we think like producers when we pitch our clients. We don’t. We have to think as a producer would so that when we present the pitch to the newsroom, it’s like we’ve produced the segment for them and not because they aren’t capable, not because they can’t, but because maybe they don’t have the bandwidth to do so. And so if our pitch comes perfectly packaged with the pieces in place, the B roll ready to go, the expert teed up the potential questions all written for you. You know, they’re not going to take it word for word, but it’s like all of the pieces are there.

James Kademan [00:00:36]:
You have found authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. Downloadable audio episodes can be found in the podcast link found@drawincustomers.com we are locally underwritten by the Bank of Sun prairie, Calls On Call Extraordinary Answering Service, as well as Live Switch. And today we’re welcoming, slash, preparing to learn from Ronica with Cleary Strategies. And today we are talking pr. So Ronica, how is it going today?

Ronica Cleary [00:01:07]:
It’s going so well. Just poured myself a fresh cup of coffee, finished the pot.

James Kademan [00:01:12]:
So lucky.

Ronica Cleary [00:01:13]:
We’ve had a caffeinated day, but it’s a good day.

James Kademan [00:01:17]:
Yeah, nice. Tell me, how long have you been in the PR business?

Ronica Cleary [00:01:24]:
So I’m approaching eight years this summer. So we started our agency, I always say we opened our virtual doors before it was cool. Yeah, nearly eight. And so it’s, we’re kind of, I can see in the horizon that 10 year mark, which is exciting.

James Kademan [00:01:42]:
I don’t know what the, what the metrics are, what the data is for. How many businesses make it 10 years? It’s not many. So I feel like you’re doing very well.

Ronica Cleary [00:01:50]:
They talk about that five year mark as a really big turning point and I felt it and I think that’s a very valid marker for, you know, a shift in your business. But I think you maybe hear less about the 10 year mark because people probably throw in the towel by then.

James Kademan [00:02:06]:
They’re like, forget this, I’m done. No more, no more. Oh, it’s funny. How did you end up in the PR business

Ronica Cleary [00:02:14]:
accidentally? You know, it was not on purpose, but that’s been the beautiful part of the journey. So if I’m being more specific than accidentally, I think it was really client request for that type of service. So I’m a former television journalist and when I left TV I did obviously intentionally start a business and open Cleary strategies. But my vision was to do a lot of communicate traditional communications and support with internal communications and writing and, you know, coaching and. But what people were asking for in my network, because when you started business, you know, your first customers are usually in your network, was, you know, you used to be on tv. Can you help me get on tv? And it was, you know, I didn’t call it PR in that moment, but I did have an aha moment a few years into running my business where I said, I think I’m a publicist. Like, how did that happen? And, you know, then we, I mean, we realized that was becoming our identity. I’ve really leaned into it and I love it.

Ronica Cleary [00:03:12]:
And we are now a full service PR agency. And that is very, very much our identity today. And we don’t do any internal comms or anything like that. So a big shift from customer demand and direction, which is a really cool way to grow. And it’s been great.

James Kademan [00:03:27]:
Nice. So what made you get out of tv? I guess that’s an assumption. Maybe you haven’t. What made you get out of being a video journalist?

Ronica Cleary [00:03:35]:
So that is, you know, a lot of reasons. But I’ll make it brief because we only have 52 minutes. So let’s see. I had a really beautiful career in television. I like to say I had a storybook career in tv. And my most recent work in television was as a White House correspondent. I worked in Washington D.C. and I covered the White House as a journalist.

Ronica Cleary [00:03:56]:
And my contract was coming up for renewal and I was pregnant with our second child. And at the time, my husband and I actually lived in different states. I lived in the District, the, the District area. I lived in Maryland, but right outside of D.C. with our daughter on my own. And most of the time and he was up here in Pennsylvania. And, you know, it just seemed like the right time to live under one roof with a. With the birth of our second coming and now we have three, which is really beautiful.

Ronica Cleary [00:04:26]:
And family’s very important. And I always really was entrepreneurial. I always had a passion and an interest. I had a really bad attempt at entrepreneurship in my 20s, and I didn’t have the drive or the focus to really turn it into something. And in my, let’s see, how old was I? I guess my mid-30s. When I started this business, I was a different person and I was ready to really give it an honest try in, in the real sense of the, of making a service business work. And it felt like the right time. And I had done so many wonderful things in tv, it wasn’t that, you know, I certainly hadn’t done everything, but I felt like I had checked that box in my.

Ronica Cleary [00:05:09]:
And that I could really look back on that and feel accomplished and like the ride was extremely meaningful. And it felt like a time when I could close that chapter in a thoughtful way. So that’s. That’s kind of the. The Cliff Notes.

James Kademan [00:05:24]:
All right, this is. I want to go down the White House correspondent journalist a little bit.

Ronica Cleary [00:05:29]:
Sure.

James Kademan [00:05:30]:
Tell me about the contract. Was that with a specific channel or.

Ronica Cleary [00:05:35]:
Oh, yeah, sure. So I worked for the local Fox affiliate in Washington. So my TV contract was with WTTG, and that’s Fox 5. That’s the local station in Washington. And then if you cover the White House, you can become a member of the White House Correspondents association, which I was. But my contract in television was with the local Fox station in Washington. And, you know, I moved down there to become the political reporter for the station. It’s actually, you know, I don’t know if your listeners are super into this, but, you know, it’s really rare for local stations to have White House correspondence.

Ronica Cleary [00:06:09]:
Usually that’s a network thing or a print and print reporter thing or some radio stations. But I was down there. I covered the presidential election leading up to the election of Donald Trump for the first time, his first campaign. And, you know, I know he is president today, but that first time that he won, I mean, that the, the media momentum was a frenzy. It was all consuming. And so independent of the politics, I was down there at a really unique time that as a local news reporter, they actually said, we need someone in the briefing room. So that’s kind of where, like, I call it like a bit of a storybook career, because usually to get in that briefing room, you’ve got to follow the journey into working at a national network or, you know, working for, I would argue, maybe a. A bigger news outlet.

Ronica Cleary [00:06:58]:
And while WTTG, Fox 5 is one a top 10 news station in America, a top 10 market in America, it normally wouldn’t afford that opportunity. And so I was very lucky that I was the political reporter, that the, the moment, the media moment was politics through and through, and that I was the one that got that opportunity. So it was very fortuitous. And so my contract was with the station.

James Kademan [00:07:24]:
Okay. And are they. I guess I’ve never heard of contracts like that. So.

Ronica Cleary [00:07:28]:
But that’s how old works.

James Kademan [00:07:30]:
So that’s how it works.

Ronica Cleary [00:07:32]:
Yeah, that’s how all low. I mean, at least that’s how a Lot of local news works. I mean, I shouldn’t say all TV because of course there’s like people who work on a day rate and there’s people, you know, but most people in tv, you know, there are daily contractors, if you will. But most people, the goal is to get a contract with the station and they’re anywhere usually from two to three years and they renew. And so when my contract was up for renewal with the station, I decided not to renew the contract. I had just had my second and I decided to leave the business. So that, that’s usually how, how local news works at least, but not everywhere. I can’t speak for all, but that’s kind of the general, the vibe.

James Kademan [00:08:13]:
So that seems almost like a professional sports player.

Ronica Cleary [00:08:17]:
Yeah, they are personalities. Like I was a member of SAG Aftra at the TV station. So yes, in many ways I think there are similarities to other professional figure, like figures, if you will, or people in industries like that. And the fact that we were a member of the SAG Aftra union as a TV reporter, some people might not realize that. And so that’s just, that’s not true in every market. It changes from market to market whether or not you’re in the. In SAG Aftra, but it is. I was never a professional athlete, but it’s.

Ronica Cleary [00:08:53]:
I think it’s similar. I don’t know.

James Kademan [00:08:55]:
Sounds good to me. Sounds good to me also.

Ronica Cleary [00:08:58]:
I was just like a big professional athlete.

James Kademan [00:09:01]:
So you’re covering the White House, which essentially just the people trying to get PR constantly. So I imagine that helped you with your business that you have going on now. Right.

Ronica Cleary [00:09:09]:
You know, I like to say, I mean, we also offer crisis management and planning. So like our, in our business, we’re very focused on media and media attention, whether or not you’re trying to get as little media attention as possible in a crisis or as much media attention as possible when you’re promoting something or doing great things. And so I do think that coming from the White House Correspondents association, coming from news and coming from political journalism, I really understand how journalists approach covering stories where they want to generate a headline. Right. And so I think that helps us. And a lot of the people we hire at Cleary Strategies are former journalists. And I think that really helps us better serve our clients, especially in crisis. So of course it helps us serve them when they want to get positive press.

Ronica Cleary [00:10:00]:
But when they are anticipating a crisis or potentially going into a situation with a maybe a more competitive journalist, we’ve been those journalists. We understand the Mindset of trying to create a headline in the news cycle. Because that is a lot of times what journalists are trying to do. They’re trying to get the sound bite or the clickable moment or the question that generates news. We want to make news. Right. And so I think that allows us to do a better job of preparing our clients for those situations, because we know exactly what’s going into them, versus a PR or publicist that maybe just comes from a big agency or a classroom setting. You know, like, you majored in pr.

Ronica Cleary [00:10:40]:
I think there’s really a tremendous amount of value from being a former journalist. When you work in the industry that I’m in today, I think it really makes sense to start in journalism before you go into public relations, if you want to totally understand what your clients are in for.

James Kademan [00:10:55]:
I bet. Because it basically means you worked on both ends of the bars, you know, totally what people are looking for, what journalists are looking for, to place those headlines.

Ronica Cleary [00:11:04]:
Exactly.

James Kademan [00:11:04]:
It’s interesting because I just read the book. Trust me, I’m lying.

Ronica Cleary [00:11:10]:
Oh, tell me about that.

James Kademan [00:11:12]:
So it was a book. It’s got some age to it. Because this guy is talking more about blogging than he is about podcasting and stuff like that. But it’s essentially talking about, from the PR end, getting people to click and to drive traffic to your website.

Ronica Cleary [00:11:30]:
That’s interesting.

James Kademan [00:11:31]:
Based on stuff like that.

Ronica Cleary [00:11:33]:
I didn’t read the book, so I can’t endorse it. But when you said, well, it’s aging a little, it’s from blogging, but we are actually kind of navigating the fact that the media landscape is changing. Right. And what I say is, sure, maybe the medium is changing. Right? So now podcasting is so big, of course, we still put our clients on tv, but a lot of clients come to us and they say, we want to be on podcasts. Right. You know, they wouldn’t have even known what that word was 15 years ago, right. So I remember when we started the agency, like, getting on a podcast was this, like, little fun extra thing.

Ronica Cleary [00:12:04]:
And now it is a specific part of our strategy on behalf of our clients. Right. And so what I say, though, is that while the medium is changing, like the major concepts of news and being a part of the conversation and what it takes and who you need to be and what you need to offer, those are the same, right? They are fundamentally the same, right. You need to have something compelling to offer. You need to be maybe able to connect yourself to the news cycle. You need to be interesting. You need to be dynamic, telegenic. Right.

Ronica Cleary [00:12:36]:
Like all of these things that make you a more compelling guest. So whether I’m watching this program on YouTube or watching it on my TV. Right. Like a lot of the core tenants still matter and they just make for a robust, more robust pitching strategy for our clients. But like media is not going away, is my point. Like, maybe we don’t blogs, but like media is still here and we still love to get news and information. It’s just like a new way.

James Kademan [00:13:03]:
Fair. Fair. You know, it’s, it’s interesting. I want to go down so much of this journalism role, but I want to talk also about your business with pr.

Ronica Cleary [00:13:10]:
It’s all part of the same story. Yeah, yeah.

James Kademan [00:13:13]:
It’s so interesting to me. Just even the. What people are willing to pay for to get news. Like, these journalists don’t work for free. They got to do really hard work.

Ronica Cleary [00:13:23]:
They do.

James Kademan [00:13:24]:
Most people in the world aren’t willing to do. Yeah. From a pay point of view, they’re not exactly getting rich.

Ronica Cleary [00:13:30]:
The journalists are not getting rich or journalists.

James Kademan [00:13:33]:
I feel maybe, maybe I’m wrong, but I feel like they’re not.

Ronica Cleary [00:13:36]:
It’s a hard industry to make a lot of money in for sure. A lot of journalists don’t work for a lot of money. I say, like a lot of newsrooms are, are understaffed. A lot of news. A lot of journalists and producers and bookers are underpaid. And that’s another thing that I think we really understand fundamentally. So I, I say like, we, we think like producers. When we pitch our clients, we don’t.

Ronica Cleary [00:13:59]:
We have to think as a producer would, so that when we present the pitch to the newsroom, it’s like we’ve produced the segment for them and not because they aren’t capable, not because they can’t, but because maybe they don’t have the bandwidth to do so. And so if our pitch comes perfectly packaged with the pieces in place, the B roll ready to go, the expert teed up the potential questions all written for you. You know, they’re not going to take it word for word, but it’s like all of the pieces are there. We’ve done their job for them. Again, not because they can’t, but be. Not because they, they, they are not capable, but because maybe the bandwidth isn’t there. So you’re right, it’s not. The industry is struggling in many ways, but that.

Ronica Cleary [00:14:42]:
I don’t know about that. I mean, I don’t have a big thought on that in itself, but I do think it helps us serve our clients better because we understand that deeply. We come from it so that we can do a better job of presenting them to the decision makers. It’s like, oh, the work is done. Thank you. We trust these people. We know an email from Cleary Strategies is going to be a well vetted, well thought out pitch. Doesn’t always land, but we know if we click on it, it’s not going to be a waste of time.

James Kademan [00:15:10]:
Gotcha. That’s huge. I mean, you built up the reputation as someone worth listening to.

Ronica Cleary [00:15:15]:
I hope so. And that’s what, you know, we tell the clients that we have. We say, you know, we have to choose you as much as you choose us, because when we take you on the client roster, we know the people who read our emails, sort of, they trust us to have vetted you for them. Right. They trust that we’ve done the homework, that we know you can handle television, that we know you can handle live tv, that we know you’re reliable, that you’ll show up, that you’ll be, you know, all of these things, not even about maybe how, quote, like, good you are, but the details of just being a good part of the team. Right. Like a team player, if you will. So, so all of that’s very important.

Ronica Cleary [00:15:52]:
So, yes, I think that when you sign up to work with a PR agency, part of the benefit, because some people, there’s these, like DIYers, which I don’t think is a great idea. I think you have better uses of your time, like running whatever your business is, but on top of it, you get the benefit of being the reputation, the institutional reputation that an agency has hopefully built up for itself so that you’re now part of that. And that elevates you as a potential guest on the programming to be a trusted source for these newsrooms versus, like, hi, I’m here. Will you, will you take our pitch?

James Kademan [00:16:29]:
Right on. I want to ask you about some things you mentioned the DIY thing. Yeah. And I went down that road years ago and didn’t have any success, but I’m curious enough to ask.

Ronica Cleary [00:16:41]:
Yeah, please.

James Kademan [00:16:42]:
So I interviewed the founder of Help a Reporter Out a while ago. So is that something you guys use or recommend or even things. Even if it’s not that website specifically, just something like that where the journalists are saying, hey, we want information on this rather than vice versa.

Ronica Cleary [00:16:59]:
So Haro is a really fascinating case study. And you know, Haro was acquired by a bigger industry name, like a bigger company. There’s, there’s all of These very incredible tools and tech tools out there to help publicists do their jobs. But HARO was a notoriously free service. So help a reporter out, Haro for your listeners who might not be familiar. And it like inundates you with like so much chaos. Like you could get like a hundred potential journalist queries a day, right? To set the stage for anybody who does it isn’t familiar. And so if that is your DIY strategy, so.

Ronica Cleary [00:17:33]:
Oh, so then the company that acquired them, they wanted to make it a paid for service and like the PR industry revolted. Like really, you can’t take hair away from us. So then they, they then opened a new thing called sos and so now HARO is kind of back as sos. It’s free, it’s back in your inbox like the whole pro. There is a little case study in there on how to transition a brand that’s kind of institutional in an industry and you can’t change it too much or people are like, what happens? But that’s a different point. So SOS is now a thing and it’s basically the former Harrow. And okay, you can’t have a, a database like SOS or formerly HARO be your only PR strategy. It’s too chaotic, it’s changing constantly.

Ronica Cleary [00:18:23]:
There are, there are some queries in there that are not worth your time, right. So you need to have some institutional knowledge of what’s worth pursuing and exploring in them and you have to be extremely quick. So one of the, I mean, we have someone on our team their whole job. There’s other tools like sos, there’s like a handful of tools, some are paid, some are unpaid. It’s not their whole job, but one of their job descriptions is literally to log in twice a day and read all of those queries on behalf of our client roster and see what is there so that we can respond to it quickly. Right. So, so, and, and that’s just one little piece of our strategy on behalf of our clients. So if, if you, you know, James, you say, I’m going to DIY my pr, I can sign up for haro, I can sign up for sos, I’m going to get the emails and I’m going to read them and I’m going to pitch myself.

Ronica Cleary [00:19:11]:
The reason why it doesn’t work is not because in principle it can’t work, it’s because in practice you’re doing everything else. It’s very fast moving. There’s so much content to sort through and it’s not your priority. It’s not your primary focus. But we do use, so we do use tools where journalists will post queries for sources to place our clients is just one little piece of, of a puzzle. Because if that was our own, maybe that works for us. For, for, let’s say, for each of our clients, maybe once every 90 days a query like that will land some less, some more. That can’t be your whole PR strategy, you know, so when you’re doing it for yourself though, and then you’re like fitting that into your day where you’re running your business, you’re like, this is awful, like this doesn’t work.

Ronica Cleary [00:20:02]:
And you’re like, well it can, but it’s way more hands on than people realize.

James Kademan [00:20:08]:
I remember it’s, it’s so interesting you say that because you’re totally correct.

Ronica Cleary [00:20:12]:
Thank you.

James Kademan [00:20:13]:
I remember I was introduced to it and I’m like, oh, this is amazing. Right. We’re going to get published everywhere. And I’ll get these emails I think twice a day.

Ronica Cleary [00:20:20]:
Yep. Or three.

James Kademan [00:20:21]:
And at first I was looking through them twice a day to see if there’s anything that’s worthwhile for that. I feel like I have some content that I could send there.

Ronica Cleary [00:20:30]:
Yeah. Yeah.

James Kademan [00:20:30]:
And you’d find one and be like, ah, I gotta send them stuff later when I have time to actually do that.

Ronica Cleary [00:20:34]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:20:35]:
And I probably had that in my inbox. I don’t know, probably a few years. And I finally sent one and I don’t know if I ever got a response and whatever end up not getting published. I’m like, well that was a waste of time. I’ve been looking at these emails for years, not doing anything with them. They’ve been absorbing all of my bandwidth. For what? So you just stop getting the emails? Leave that to the PR pros. That’s not my jam.

Ronica Cleary [00:20:59]:
Well, who, yeah, there’s really something to be said for efficiencies of scale. And so having one person assigned to the task. And those emails actually came into your inbox three times a day they come like that’s it.

James Kademan [00:21:12]:
Okay.

Ronica Cleary [00:21:12]:
5:00 clock in the morning, noon and like 5:00 clock at night, give or, you know, give or take. And there. So there’s two points to that. So the efficiency of one person’s task on behalf of, of a client roster to read that they know who, what people can talk about. They’re also reading other journalist databases like it. The other part of it is that this is a, this is a. I don’t know if risky is too strong of A word. But this is something I’ll say that can’t be taken out of.

Ronica Cleary [00:21:38]:
It should not be taken out of context. PR in many ways is a numbers game. Now that doesn’t mean you’re just pitching a thousand people a day. Right? That’s where it could be misleading. Right? That’s where I’m like, it’s not a numbers game that you’re just, you know, indiscriminately pitching a thousand people a day. However, there is something to be said for the fact that you need to send a lot of pitches to be successful because there are so many variables that affect whether or not a pitch is taken. So, like your story, your personal anecdote and experience, you’re like, I read this for two years. I found one, I waited a little while, I responded and I didn’t get it.

Ronica Cleary [00:22:16]:
And you’re like, screw this, like, that’s totally valid. But like, if your PR publicist did that, I mean, they’re doing that like every day for like, you know, like they’re doing that so often and maybe sometimes it doesn’t land because it’s just wrong, but it doesn’t land because you waited too long or someone else got there first or the editor changed the focus or the story got canceled or whatever and you just have to just not even think about it. You can’t even get caught up in the know because you got to be onto the next thing. And then on top of, can’t be randomly sending pitches. They all have to be like thoughtful names and emails and lists that you built on behalf of the cl. So it’s a very time consuming industry that I think you can be, you can make more efficient with economies of scale and systems in place and thoughtfulness, which we really pride ourselves on as an agency. And that’s why we think there’s like a value added, like paying us versus doing this yourself is so chaotic and inefficient, it doesn’t make sense, but.

James Kademan [00:23:15]:
Totally agree, totally agree. Yeah, I didn’t even, I didn’t know the format to reply to or how I didn’t. It was just one of those emails like, hey, I got this information. You don’t pick me. So I can completely understand not being chosen. It was just one of those, like, what am I getting?

Ronica Cleary [00:23:31]:
I love that you share the experience because so many people have that experience and then they also kind of write off pr, right?

James Kademan [00:23:37]:
Oh, I didn’t go that far.

Ronica Cleary [00:23:39]:
This is too much trouble. Or like, it would be the same for them. Like, I didn’t get picked when I, you know, and they kind of don’t understand the complexity of the industry, I think. So I don’t think you did that. But I’m just saying that can be the result of an experience like yours where you’re just like never going to get picked. I didn’t get picked the one time. And you’re like, no, that’s not it at all.

James Kademan [00:23:56]:
Fair. The next thing I want to ask you about is these things on Fiverr or what’s Fiverr’s competitor, Work something upwork. Or you see these PR things, they’re just like, we’ll get you on NBC, Fox, cbs, all these affiliates that you can slap those logos on your website and give you some form of something that shows that you’re super important and super smart and all this kind of stuff. And it seems shady. I’m not a PR person, so I don’t know if it is shady or not.

Ronica Cleary [00:24:28]:
Are you trying to hurt my feelings?

James Kademan [00:24:30]:
I’m not trying to.

Ronica Cleary [00:24:34]:
So. Okay, so let’s talk about those. So. All right. A couple of things. I think that public relations, traditional, the definitive meaning of public relations. You’re earning media opportunities. You’re.

Ronica Cleary [00:24:48]:
You’re communicating. Communicating with the public, right? You’re relating to the public. Public relations primarily through media. Okay. And you’re not paying for that. Otherwise you’re in the advertising space, right? You’re advertising. Okay. Now, of course, there are these gray areas.

Ronica Cleary [00:25:04]:
I do not know what those companies are doing. I know that sometimes they’re doing paid public, public. They’re doing paid press releases that can go on what are called the wires. Those automatically get picked up by outlets across the country. And the press release that you wrote is then distributed on the news wires. And then you can arguably say you’ve had coverage on those outlets, but you didn’t, right? I mean, you paid for it. Sometimes there are paid placement opportunities on news outlets that are very, very well sort of presented as if it’s not a paid placement. They can be a little misleading.

Ronica Cleary [00:25:45]:
So sometimes it’s a paid placement. I just think, look, I’ve never worked with those companies. I come, they come across my desk, I see them, people ask me about them. There is something inherently and fundamentally concerning about anybody making guarantees in an industry where we can’t, where we’re not supposed to be paying for the placement. And if we’re not paying for it, how can we, how can we guarantee it? Everything that we do is dependent on a third party decision maker. The third party decision maker is the media. Now, I like to think you pay a great PR agency who understands how to navigate that system. They understand how to present you in the best light.

Ronica Cleary [00:26:25]:
They have relationships, but relationships are not the most important thing. They have creativity. They know how to navigate the new set. They have all these things. So hopefully that investment you make increases the likelihood that the third party decision maker will pick up your story and give you news coverage. But really, I don’t. You cannot guarantee it unless you are lying and you’re just like, knowing you’ll be successful, right? Like, arguably, like, I guess if I’m. Have you ever had a client not get a placement? Like, no.

Ronica Cleary [00:26:52]:
So, okay, we guarantee placements. You know, like, it’s like. But you’re really not being honest or genuine in some way that I think, I think. I don’t know. But it seems very shady to me and it does pain me a little bit.

James Kademan [00:27:06]:
I’m like, I would agree, I would agree. I just, it’s good to get a professional’s opinion on it.

Ronica Cleary [00:27:11]:
Well, maybe. Come on. I mean, I’ve had people, I mean, I have had a conversation or two and one person literally sent me a spreadsheet and on the spreadsheet had a fee for like every digital publication you can imagine, right? Like, and it was like, oh, you want to be in this, it’ll be five grand. You want to be in this, it’ll be 500. Like, there, like, that was one experience. I not saying the name, none of that, but like, there is definitely some shady stuff that goes on in the background of at least what seems to be some of those places where they’re like making super guaranteed promises. But I can’t say it’s all of them. And I did actually have a friend who signed who was like looking into a place with guarantees and he said, like, you know, here’s a contract.

Ronica Cleary [00:27:53]:
Like, tell me what you think. And I realized what they’re saying, what they offer is, they say, look, if we don’t make a placement for you, you won’t pay for that month. So. So they’re making basically a guarantee to be effective. And then they’re like, okay, well, you don’t have to pay for us if we’re not. So there was like a little, you know, fine print that made it make more sense, but I just think it’s just not a place that makes sense to go. And I don’t, I don’t know, I don’t have succinct answer for you there, but hopefully context to the, the information that You’ve seen, promised.

James Kademan [00:28:27]:
Totally. It’s enough for me that when I see a website and it’s got the little gray things that shows all the logos of all the major networks, I’m like, were you really?

Ronica Cleary [00:28:38]:
We get our clients all those logo. That’s the thing though. It can be real because the whole is you pay us and you’re gonna get those placements and they’re all earned, of course. I mean, the logos on the website is half the thing that people want from working your agency. So it’s not to write off a company that’s presenting them the logos. It’s maybe clicking on them and seeing if there’s like an actual placement behind it or like, you know, so I, I don’t. I thought you meant like, maybe you don’t necessarily trust the company. That’s promising.

Ronica Cleary [00:29:07]:
Making big promises, saying you Good Morning America next week. That’s hard to believe. But if somebody’s got the logos on their website, I mean, that’s the whole point of paying a pr. That’s one of the many reasons to pay a PR agency is like, I want logos on my website to say that I’m really great. So clients get those placements so that they can do that.

James Kademan [00:29:28]:
Gotcha. Tell me. Let’s shift gears to your business and the types of businesses that you work with where PR as I’m going to try to connect this to the marketing piece, you tell me if that’s reasonable or not, where it makes sense to be part of their strategy. It’s one of the challenges that I found with the businesses that I’ve had and have. I feel like there’s not necessarily a compelling story where I feel like someone’s going to be reading the newspaper and they’re in the C section or something like that, and they’re like, oh, this is a very interesting story. We’re just moving along with our business, doing well, like nothing exploded. Nobody died. Tell me about the compelling stories that you like.

James Kademan [00:30:10]:
Businesses just run of the mill businesses to have to actually get that PR placement.

Ronica Cleary [00:30:15]:
That’s a great question. You know, good publicists are storytellers, just like good journalists are storytellers. Okay, so. And that’s where the synergy is that we know journalists have to tell great stories and a good publicist will know how to figure out what is the story inside of the business or what is the compelling angle that would generate the interest of a news outlet to talk to this person. Now, there’s different types of placements. Okay. So that feature story, when you’re like, what’s the story of my business? That feature story featuring the business. I would say those are the most challenging types of placements to get.

Ronica Cleary [00:30:51]:
You have to have some really, a really compelling story, right? Or something pretty incredible like that makes your business alone enough to feature. But along the way there’s other ways that a PR can come in and help you find ways to generate news and get the attention of an outlet. So maybe the story behind your business, like you said, we’re just chugging along, we’re making money, we’re doing our thing. Well, hopefully a good PR will scratch beneath the surface and help you find what the story is. But on the path of doing that, they’re also going to say, James, you know, you’re also an expert in X, Y and Z and maybe the journalist isn’t going to do a front page, above the fold feature of your business yet, but they need expert sources all the time and we know how to present you for that. And what that does though is that elevates you and your business over time to maybe work towards that feature because you become more interesting and compelling as a potential feature placement. If you’ve been quoted a lot and cited a lot and referenced a lot as an expert in your field, so you don’t really. It’s very rare to just have a feature type of piece to fall on your lap.

Ronica Cleary [00:32:01]:
But the process along the way gets you there. And the creativity and the storytelling of a great publicist are what help us get you to that place. That’s why I regularly say relationships are not a long term PR strategy. They’re not. And so the long term pr, of course we have relationships and friends, of course it’s helpful to know people in the business, but the long term PR strategy to keep you in the news consistently, regularly providing commentary, being a compelling guest and expert source and resource is creativity. That is what you need to stay in the news for the long haul. And the relationships, they help and they, they keep you busy along the way. But it is, again, it’s not a long term PR strategy.

James Kademan [00:32:46]:
Interesting. Love that.

Ronica Cleary [00:32:48]:
Thank you.

James Kademan [00:32:48]:
I love that. It’s interesting because I’ve talked to PR people before where they’re like, use my services. I’m like, I don’t know what story we’d say. Well, we try, I guess from there what the conversation would go to is they would have me try to come up with something creative about the business. And I’m so far into it, I don’t know anything creative about the business. But having The PR person that’s like, hey, I’m a storyteller. Let’s dig a little bit and we’ll come up with something or discover something.

Ronica Cleary [00:33:17]:
So we do a period of discovery up to 30 days with all of our clients who we onboard. And in that period of discovery, what we’re trying to do with you, through our meetings and our strategy sessions and then our internal team discussions and work on behalf of the client, we are of course, figuring out what the story is, but we’re also building the visual. That comparison that I use is pillars on a house. We want anywhere from four to six pillars for a client. We really don’t want a client who says to us we can talk about everything. That’s not super helpful. And it’s also not super helpful for when a client says, like, this is the one thing I can talk about. Like, right.

Ronica Cleary [00:33:50]:
So when we have four to six content themes to work with on behalf of the client, which we develop and sort of work together with the client to finalize and get approval and make sure you are on board with them through our creative onboarding process. When we have those themes, then when we dive into the pitching and we’re looking at the news cycle and we’re reading the headlines and we’re seeing what’s going on in the news, we can more quickly and efficiently attach our client to those headlines and to those newsmaking opportunities on their behalf. So that we’re not just one depending on the client to be the creative. Because that’s really not your job. Your job is to run your business. You don’t know what makes you newsworthy. You don’t know what lands. You don’t know what’s a really good pitch and what’s not.

Ronica Cleary [00:34:33]:
And also, again, that’s like not your job right now. That’s our job. So that’s where I sort of formalize the period of discovery process. I used to think, you know, I used to really be. Of course we’re very results driven. Of course we want our clients on tv, we want them on podcasts, we want them to get wins regularly, often. We want them to feel great about the investment. And I used to feel this tremendous amount of pressure when I opened the business that that had to happen like on day one.

Ronica Cleary [00:34:57]:
And what I realized that that creates a lot of chaos. My clients are executives or CEOs. They’re business leaders. Some of them are running major national corporations, and some of them are authors running their own individual solopreneur life. Both sets of the spectrum. They don’t want more chaos from us. Right. And so when I formalize that period of discovery and also through that period of discovery, we’re then sharing with the client, this is our vision.

Ronica Cleary [00:35:25]:
These are the pillars we envision you fitting nicely into. What do you think of these ideas and what do you think of these potential questions that we would share with journalists? Now, of course, we adjust them and like personalize them based on the news cycle and time of year and all that stuff. But we have a foundational kind of agreement with the client that they can get behind and get excited about. So then, you know, three or four weeks in, we’re like, okay, we’re pitching like we’re ready to go. Everybody is aligned, everyone is on the same pace. And then what I like to say to them is, you’re a piece of the pie of your life. You’re busy. You have one little piece of your pie that is for pr, right.

Ronica Cleary [00:36:02]:
Or for media. I want to be the smallest little sliver of that being conversations with me and that piece of the pie you have for media, I want the majority of it to be for media. Opportunities for you to sit down and podcast and do these cool things. And I can only get you there if you give me that period of discovery to really understand who you are and let us kind of build a foundation for what we’re going to do on this account.

James Kademan [00:36:24]:
That makes sense. I love that.

Ronica Cleary [00:36:26]:
Thank you.

James Kademan [00:36:27]:
I love that. Tell me a story as far as the size of the businesses you mentioned. Huge businesses as well as the little ones.

Ronica Cleary [00:36:36]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:36:37]:
So tell me about that because that’s a wide variety.

Ronica Cleary [00:36:39]:
It is.

James Kademan [00:36:40]:
I want to talk more about expectations of the of business owner. Let’s just say what they should expect when working with a PR firm.

Ronica Cleary [00:36:48]:
Sure.

James Kademan [00:36:49]:
For someone like me, like, I don’t even know, what does success look like? I don’t know. I don’t. We get more business, I guess. I don’t know. But help me understand what you would like them to know.

Ronica Cleary [00:36:59]:
I see. That’s interesting. What is success in pr? It’s a hard. It’s a hard question to answer because in so many investments you make for your business, you want to be able to draw a quick and direct line to sales. And I think pr. One of the challenges of running a PR agency and being an honest broker in it. Right. Which I like to think we are, is saying that that’s not necessarily the result you’ll get.

Ronica Cleary [00:37:20]:
Okay. So what we’re doing is we are building a long term thought leadership presence on behalf of you, which will elevate you and ultimately elevate your business over time, make you a more trusted resource in your industry with your potential clients, with your current clients. And all of that comes from a long term PR strategy and earned media. It is proven that viewers and listeners trust placements where there is a earned element of it versus a paid ad. Like just think about it. Do you want to get your advice from the person on the newscast or from the commercial? Right. So you need to be out there regularly, you need to be out there often to be build that like no trust and credibility. And over time, of course we believe that will elevate your brand and your business and your bottom line.

Ronica Cleary [00:38:07]:
But the challenge is, is it’s like sometimes we’ll have a client that doesn’t really understand that and they say, okay, we did a TV placement. We want to look at the number of clicks on our website in that moment and then see how many units we sold. It just doesn’t work like that. And so that I think is the biggest, you know, fundamental challenge. But it doesn’t mean that it’s not a worthy, worthwhile investment. But I think it wouldn’t be authentic or fair to suggest anything else to a potential client because if the client gets it, they get it, right? They. I believe in pr, right? I’m sitting here because I believe in it, right? And so I think PR is extremely valuable and important. But it’s something that you do have to fundamentally understand as a long term investment of time.

Ronica Cleary [00:38:48]:
And when you said like the size of the companies vary, the same goes for the CEO of, you know, Apple as it does for the CEO of your business down the street, right? They all want to elevate the thought leadership and the person behind the brand to elevate the brand overall. So that’s why we can provide our services to businesses of different sizes. Of course, maybe the scope and depth of the contract might change, but a New York Times bestselling author needs a publicist just like the CEO of a Fortune 500 company does. And they’re both in many ways similar processes with a period of discovery and like a strategy and a plan and pillars and themes and, and all of that.

James Kademan [00:39:32]:
Nice. You’re helping me with segues here because I want to ask about something that you mentioned at the tail end of that. Okay, the. It was about the. Oh, I forget how you said it. It was specifically about the person behind the brand, so to speak. So not PR necessarily for the brand, but the person behind the brand. Is it recommended or would you recommend that there be a person, so to speak, the Steve Jobs, Tim Cook, whatever.

James Kademan [00:39:56]:
Or just like this is, I don’t know, Crest or Scope or something where it’s more. I don’t know who the person is behind that, but I know there’s, there’s a brand there. What do you find more success with?

Ronica Cleary [00:40:08]:
So we have certainly represented products and we have certainly represented consumer products in our client roster for us and for our strategy and the expertise that we have, we are only successful when we do that on behalf of a product that has a founder or spokesperson on behalf of it. So we kind of need that. And you also can hit a certain place where, you know, I mean, I’m sure Crest obviously has pr, but like, I mean, it’s just so different and massive and they’re going to be part of a much bigger system and they’re going to be doing a lot of paid advertising as well in that. Because there is something to be said for it being a little bit harder to earn press if you’re so omnipresent. Right. That you’re everywhere where you have to be, you have to be newsworthy or have a compelling founder story to get the press. And so if, if Crest is just out there being Crest for decades and decades and decades, like they’re. That’s again, where the creativity comes in.

Ronica Cleary [00:41:10]:
So I’m sure they have a super creative PR team. But for us and what we do, you know, we’re looking, we can get the brand placement and we get the brands in or the product in gift guides and, you know, mentions. But we’re also really looking for that founder story behind the brand that we can use to pitch them so that the founder can get placements as well.

James Kademan [00:41:30]:
Gotcha. Next thing I wanna ask about is niches or verticals that are specific to certain industries. So for example, we have answering service that’s for the veterinary side. So if we get a front page article on New York Times, well, actually, maybe that’d be really cool, but let’s just say something less likely to happen. Some article somewhere where it’s. Maybe it’s general public that’s seeing it, not necessarily the focus of the clients that we’d aim at.

Ronica Cleary [00:41:59]:
I see.

James Kademan [00:42:00]:
How do you work with that? Or can you work with something like

Ronica Cleary [00:42:03]:
that, like searching for opportunities in trade publications?

James Kademan [00:42:06]:
Sure, sure.

Ronica Cleary [00:42:07]:
I mean, so when we build out our lists on behalf of our clients, we’re building lists of potential podcasts that are a fit, that align with the content, themes and pillars. We’re Also building trade publications that we think would want to cover the, the client or the area of expertise. And so, you know, podcasting has really opened the door for us to give our clients opportunities. Not exactly like a trade publication, but the idea that there are sort of trade focused or industry focused focused podcasts that allow the client to speak at length and specifically about the industry where they’re an expertise, which you often can’t find in tv, right? So in TV in particular, if you’re getting booked on tv, you’re rarely talking about, like your service. You’re usually adding commentary to a big headline that’s beyond and bigger than you. It’s still super valuable. I call, you know, TV is the sexiest medium. Everybody wants to be on tv.

Ronica Cleary [00:42:59]:
There’s, it’s still tremendously valuable to have video and cool clips of yourself doing tv, but the, the, the piece that comes in with it, that’s really important part of the puzzle. Especially when it comes to using PR to close clients down the line and using PR to elevate your brand and your industry and become a more trusted resource. All those things that of course we want you to make sales from the investment. Trade publications and podcast conversations can really help because those are the places where you actually get a chance to talk specifically, specifically about what it is that you do and why you are so good at it and what makes you special and so. Sure, like getting quoted in the New York Times is amazing, but maybe that’s not the thing. That’s for the New York Times logo on your website. You know, we’re talking about the like. Of course you want the logo there.

Ronica Cleary [00:43:48]:
And then maybe that trade publication people might not recognize that logo as much, but maybe that sound bite or that quote or the readers are people who would maybe then make the sale and hire, you know, be the one to hire you. So that’s where it all comes together. It’s all super valuable, right? They all have a place and a purpose, and that’s why it’s so when you have a PR building a strategy for you across these different types of platforms and mediums, it’s not like, oh, well, I only want national tv. Well, national TV might not be the best thing for sales, but it might be the best thing for elevating your thought, like for elevating your reputation. And you’re like, no trust factor. So they’re all very important pieces of the puzzle and they should all be explored.

James Kademan [00:44:33]:
Gotcha. That makes sense. That makes sense. Has it ever been challenging to find trade publications on a Given topic.

Ronica Cleary [00:44:42]:
Yeah, I mean there’s a lot out there.

James Kademan [00:44:44]:
It’s not really seems to be a ton.

Ronica Cleary [00:44:46]:
We pay for services that help like really sophisticated databases. We pay for access to those we where they can help us. We have someone on my team that build who’s an expert in building lists for us. And same with podcasts. There’s really great database for podcasts and that allows us to build pretty sophisticated lists across. I mean it’s National Bike Month. I don’t know when this is going to come out, but May is National Bike Month and we built a list of podcasts that would talk about National Bike Month on behalf of a client. I mean there’s like, that’s not a trade publication, but it’s the idea that there’s a lot of cool and that was aligned with our clients expertise.

Ronica Cleary [00:45:19]:
Like not, you know, we were able to make that theme work for them. And, and so there are so many cool opportunities. And I’ll say this, you know, you’re in podcasting, okay, so of course we understand that the number of views for national daytime television will be millions of people. But. And podcasting, I don’t know how many people listen, but it’s not going to be those numbers.

James Kademan [00:45:43]:
Okay, but we have tens of listeners.

Ronica Cleary [00:45:45]:
Right? But I make the argument and I believe this deeply and this is what we talk to our clients about. A strategy that is multi purpose. Right? Multi. I don’t know what the word I’m trying to say is, but the idea is that you want to try to get all types of placements because the TV is on at the airport on mute and you can only read the words on the bottom of the screen and like it’s it. It’s still a great win. But the people who are listening and tuning into this podcast are deliberately choosing to listen. Right? And they want to hear this listener. Maybe they don’t even listen to every episode.

Ronica Cleary [00:46:18]:
Maybe they look at their feed and they go, oh, that’s an interesting guess. I want to listen to this episode. Right. So we make reports for our clients at the end of each month that include like potential audience and potential monetary value of the placement. And of course that matters. But I really. Education is a big part of our work. Of course.

Ronica Cleary [00:46:37]:
I really try to help my clients understand that. Do not get wrapped up in the audience size being the most important thing. Because it is. There is a quality aspect to it that is undeniable with a podcast listener who chooses to spend 52 minutes with James and Ronica. Right. Versus the person that turned on the TV in the morning to get the weather. And then I saw a segment, and it was cool and was interesting. And then I went to take my kids to school.

Ronica Cleary [00:47:03]:
Right. So all of them matter. I’m not saying one is more important than the other, but there is a tremendous value that I think on the surface you could overlook if you’re just so focused on, like, numbers, numbers, numbers.

James Kademan [00:47:16]:
That is a huge point, Veronica. I never. I guess I never really thought about that.

Ronica Cleary [00:47:20]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:47:20]:
Even though there could be millions of views, it’s millions of essentially uninterested or half something else.

Ronica Cleary [00:47:27]:
Maybe it’s an accidental view. Right. Or it’s, you know, there. It’s at the dentist office. Right. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t matter. It does matter. Right.

Ronica Cleary [00:47:35]:
Because you want your face everywhere, you know? Of course. But I just think, like, as. As media changes and transforms, those are the conversations we have with our clients. And I love to say that on podcasts because the podcast host is always like, you just did a. An ad for us. But I. But I mean it deeply, or I wouldn’t, you know, I wouldn’t bring it up or say it, but I really fundamentally believe that.

James Kademan [00:47:56]:
Yeah, I get it. That’s. That’s amazing. You know, you remind me of every time you go to a bar or almost every time you go to a bar, they have all the TVs that have all the sportsy things on there.

Ronica Cleary [00:48:05]:
Exactly. That’s a great example.

James Kademan [00:48:07]:
And I’m like, why does every bar feel that they need to play these people babbling about some game somewhere? Do people, like, is there anybody at home that’s watching whatever this gibberish is? I hope not. But is there?

Ronica Cleary [00:48:19]:
I don’t know. I hope so, because we want them to watch our clients when they’re on. But I just. I think your point, though, makes the difference in sort of like, the numbers are not the only piece of the. They don’t tell the whole story. And so we just did a report year over year for a client that we support. And like, this year, they happen to get picked up on one website, and it. The.

Ronica Cleary [00:48:39]:
The reach is like 5 million. And in a way, I said, do you want to pull that out of the report? Because it totally screws up your numbers. Right. And then next year, if you don’t get that pickup, you’re going to look like you did a horrible job and you didn’t, you know, so. So it’s. It’s really interesting. And that’s why strategy and a partner in PR can really help you navigate the process and understand it, because media is complicated and changing often.

James Kademan [00:49:03]:
No doubt, no doubt. Ronica, we don’t have a ton of time left, but I want to talk about your actual business. Oh, yeah, that would be cool, right?

Ronica Cleary [00:49:11]:
Thank you.

James Kademan [00:49:11]:
So you mentioned that you’re pregnant with your third child when you decided to start your business.

Ronica Cleary [00:49:17]:
No, no, I have my third. He’s five. We’re good. We’re done. No more babies.

James Kademan [00:49:21]:
Well, that means you started your business when.

Ronica Cleary [00:49:24]:
1. I started when I was pregnant with my second. Or just had. I had just had my second when I started the business.

James Kademan [00:49:28]:
Perfect time to start a business, right? You just had a kid, you got this newborn at home.

Ronica Cleary [00:49:31]:
Third in July of 2020. So just after the pandemic, I was pregnant through the pandemic. So, you know, our business, we’ve survived, like, new babies, A global pandemic. Media’s changes. You know, we’re just. We’re hanging on and we’re having fun. But, yes, I have three beautiful children and a husband, and we’re. We’re.

Ronica Cleary [00:49:50]:
It’s awesome, but it’s fun.

James Kademan [00:49:52]:
It is so interesting. One of the things that I’ve learned from interviewing many people on the podcast is the number of people that have started businesses that were going through some major life event, whether that’s divorce, moving across the country, having a kid, getting fired from their major job, Some bizarre thing where you’re just like, you decided to start a business at this crazy time in your life. And even I had a business partner. I think she got a divorce, had a kid, moved, and started a business all within six months. And I’m like, good for you. I think you’re crazy.

Ronica Cleary [00:50:26]:
I don’t know what the reason behind that is, but in some ways, I think it makes sense. You know, starting a business is like a kind of like a birth or a rebirth. And you kind of have to not know what you’re getting into to do it, or you would never do it, right? If I knew what I knew. It’s funny, if I knew what I knew today, maybe I’d never start my business. But then I’m like, oh, my gosh, Starting my business was the best decision I ever made, you know? But the years of going through it, you have to be a little bit naive, I think, to dive in. And maybe those life transitions feel like the time where change is like you’re just doing it all at once. You have momentum in the change of other facts of your life. But you’re right.

Ronica Cleary [00:51:06]:
I mean, I started it right after I had my second, and then, you know, I did have my. I knew I wanted to have a big family. For me, that’s big three. So. Yeah, I think you’re right, though. It’s an interesting observation.

James Kademan [00:51:20]:
That’s awesome. Tell me you have employees now, I imagine, right?

Ronica Cleary [00:51:24]:
So we have a team of contractors we have, all right, across the country who work for Cleary Strategies, and we support clients from coast to coast with their earned media strategy and crisis planning.

James Kademan [00:51:35]:
So tell me about the first contractor you hired.

Ronica Cleary [00:51:39]:
Oh, my gosh, I hired two, like, the same day. I thought I only needed one, and I didn’t know what I needed them for, but I knew I needed something, and I just was like, how about both of you work for us? Because I just didn’t know what I was doing. I. I will say this. We have a lot of working parents and former journalists who work for Cleary Strategies. I run. Culture is a very important part of my business. Even though we are a virtual agency of contractors, I like to think that we have a really great culture at my agency where we really value balance and team building and support and trust.

Ronica Cleary [00:52:20]:
And if I can be so bold, a little bit of love. And, you know, I really hate it when people say, like, your work is your family, because, like, I understand there it’s different than family. But I care for my team deeply. We’ve had on from my team, in my team, there’s been some major losses, of course, some births and wins, and hiring a team has been the best decision I’ve ever made. And it’s transformative to our ability to deliver for our clients. But also, it is amazing to me that we are virtual. I have people who work for me who I have never met in real life, who I care for deeply and who I would, you know, like to think that I would. Would do a lot for.

Ronica Cleary [00:53:04]:
To help them out. And I think the feeling is mutual. And that’s a remarkable state of just industry and business today that you can do that in this world that is so virtual and through Covid kind of seeing how the industry changed. So I don’t know if that exactly answers your question, but we. A wonderful. A wonderful group.

James Kademan [00:53:22]:
Yeah, that’s awesome. No, culture of the business is huge. Contractor, employee, whatever. Yeah, that’s.

Ronica Cleary [00:53:27]:
Yeah, it’s very. And you know, I’m looking for people who have lives where, you know, they’re their purpose. They’re not looking to, like, work 60 hours a week. Right. So I really am very thoughtful so that those first Hires, right. I was like kind of haphazard and like, okay, let’s go. I don’t know what I’m doing. But you know, now when we bring somebody on or offer them an opportunity to work for us or contract for us, I really want look for fit.

Ronica Cleary [00:53:56]:
Right? And the fit is like, does what we can offer fit with what your goals are and what your life needs right now. Because I, I think we have very little turnover. I know there are contractors, I don’t know if you call it turnover with contractors, but usually when people come into the fold, they’re sticking around. And I think that’s because I really do try my best to talk about like culture and fit from the get go and feel if, see if it’s aligned for everybody. Of course it’s low risk for me to bring them on because they’re contractors, but it’s still time and I still want them to, you know, feel like the decision matters. And so it’s been really great to kind of, you know, expand what we look for in the support that we get from our contractors and kind of shift and change over time, but have people stick around.

James Kademan [00:54:44]:
Oh, that’s huge. That’s definitely huge. Yeah. It’s interesting from the employees that I’ve worked with and hired to get them to understand the investment that we’re making when we hire them, whether contractor or employee.

Ronica Cleary [00:54:55]:
Yeah, it’s a lot.

James Kademan [00:54:56]:
It’s not free time is very valuable. So yeah, it’s a big deal.

Ronica Cleary [00:55:01]:
It’s a very big deal. And that’s one of those things maybe you can’t really understand until you hire. But that’s been one of the best, the biggest joys of running a business, you know, and I used to joke about that. I would say like, gosh, I know how to do media relations, but I don’t know how to run a business. Right. That was like the biggest hurdle when I opened this thing. You know, just figuring out the answers to all of those questions. And I think that is probably why that five year mark is so pivotal, pivotal for business owners.

Ronica Cleary [00:55:29]:
Because that’s really where I think, you know, you, you, you’re gonna, at that point you, you gotta figure out how to not just do the job, but run the business. Right. Like the business has to that skill set. You better develop it by that point or you’re probably getting, you’re not gonna make it. I think that’s probably the distinguishing factor not whether or not you can do the service that you promise to deliver. And then sales, of course, like pipeline Management is like every business owner’s nightmare, I think. I mean that’s so, so challenging. But that’s probably why that five year mark is so pivotal.

James Kademan [00:56:01]:
Gotcha. I would totally agree with that.

Ronica Cleary [00:56:03]:
Yeah.

James Kademan [00:56:04]:
Yes. Make it. You learn a lot. School of hard knocks, so to speak. And now scale it. So that makes sense.

Ronica Cleary [00:56:10]:
Oh, I love it.

James Kademan [00:56:12]:
Veronica, where can people find you?

Ronica Cleary [00:56:14]:
Well, of course they can come to our website, Cleary Strategies and then I’m on all social platforms. Ronica Cleary. LinkedIn’s probably the best way, but feel free to reach out anyway. And Cleary Strategies is on all social platforms. We love to connect. We’re always here to also just take an informational call if you got some questions. We want to be a resource for you. It’s not always about making the sale.

James Kademan [00:56:37]:
Oh my God. This is awesome. You shared so much. Ronica. I love it.

Ronica Cleary [00:56:41]:
Thank you.

James Kademan [00:56:42]:
I love it. This has been Authentic Business Adventures, the business program that brings you the struggle stories and triumphant successes of business owners across the land. My name is James Kademan and Authentic Business Adventures is brought to you by Calls On Call, offering call answering and receptionist services for service businesses across the country on the web at calls on call.com and of course, the Bold Business Book, a book for the entrepreneur and all of us. Available wherever fine books are sold, as well as Live Switch. With Live Switch, you can take videos with your clients to save you time and money, which is cool. Check them out liveswitch.com if you’re listening or watching this on the web. If you could do us a huge favor, give us a big old thumbs up. Subscribe, share with your entrepreneurial friends, especially those friends that probably need some pr, which I guess realistically that’s every business.

James Kademan [00:57:29]:
I think that’s safe to say. Ronica, we’d like to thank your wonderful listeners as well as our guest, Ronica Cleary of Cleary Strategies. Ronica, can you tell us that website one more time?

Ronica Cleary [00:57:39]:
Clearystrategies.com Perfect.

James Kademan [00:57:42]:
Easy enough. Past episodes can be found morning, noon and night at the Podcast Link found at https://drawincustomers.com thank you for joining us. We will see you next week. I want you to stay awesome and if you do nothing else, enjoy your business.