IAM012 – Founder & Author Helps Businesses Promote Themselves and Increase Their Publicity

Kristin Marquet is the founder and creative director of Femfounder.co and she is releasing her second book “Publicity Jumpstart” with Michelle Lewis of Visibility Vixen.

• CEO Hack: Project Management tool Asana and Lean Startup 
• CEO Nugget: Don't be afraid to take calculated risks, ask for help and delegate, don't quit your full-time job for your side hustle
• CEO Defined: Mentoring, leading and creating something substantial.

Website: https://www.femfounder.co/
Twitter: Twitter.com/kristinmarquet
Instagram: Instagram.com/femfounder

Transcription:

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Intro 0:02

Do you want to learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and grow your business from successful entrepreneurs, startups, and CEOs without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place, Gresham Harkless values your time and is ready to share with you precisely the information you're in search of. This is the I AM CEO podcast.

Gresham Harkless 0:27

Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I AM CEO podcast, and I have a very special guest on the show today, Kristin Marquet, of Femfounder.co. Kristin, it's awesome to have you on the show.

Kristin Marquet 0:38

Thank you so much for having me. I'm so excited to be here today.

Gresham Harkless 0:42

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, the first thing I wanted to do was just read a little bit more about Kristin, so you can learn a little bit more about all the awesome things that she's doing. And Kristin is the Founder and Creative Director of Femfounder.co. And she is releasing her up-and-coming second book The Publicity Jumpstart Manual. So Kristin, are you looking forward to speaking to the I AM CEO community?

Kristin Marquet 1:05

Absolutely. I'm so excited. I can't wait to talk to everything small business, and PR marketing and share all my insight with them.

Gresham Harkless 1:14

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, we're super excited to have you on the show. So what I wanted to do was kind of give you the mic so to speak for the first question and just ask you if you can tell us a little bit more about your CEO story. And what led you to start your business?

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Kristin Marquet 1:27

Yeah, sure. Okay. So right out of college, I worked as a public relations manager for a law firm for about a year because at that point, I was thinking about going to law school, I am glad I didn't because I actually realized the scope of work and the type of work that attorneys do, I was fortunate enough to work across a lot of different disciplines within the legal field. So I just figured out that wasn't for me. And then I was the Head of Communications for a management consulting firm, here in New York for four years. And then during the financial crisis, I was laid off. So at that point, I had to kind of figure out to I wanted to find another job, or do I want to start a business.

So I decided to just kind of take that leap of faith and start a business and I never looked back, the beginning was very, very tough, you know, especially trying to scale up during the financial crisis, you know, for the first six to 12 months. But then after, you know, once, I guess you could say, created a name for myself and start to build credibility and become a thought leader in the industry. That's when I started to get clients and, you know, book, my pipeline out, you know, 6 to 12 to 18 months out, and, you know, scale my business with an amazing team. And the name of that business was Creative Development Agency. And ever since about a year ago, I've had a lot of smaller business owners that can't afford to hire a PR firm, or Digital Marketing agency asked me if I had any resources available that they can utilize, you know, on a smaller scale.

So that's how I created from the founder. And, you know, in the last year, since I launched Femfounder, we've interviewed over 400, female entrepreneurs have over 50,000 email subscribers, and get in between 10 and 15,000 unique visits a month. So and that's just been through organic growth. I haven't done any paid marketing to acquire that audience. And every month, it seems like we're growing and growing. And I'm just really excited to share all my knowledge with the world, anybody who needs help on the PR front, because you know, it kind of is a mystery. A lot of small business owners, and entrepreneurs really don't understand how it works. So yeah, that's kind of my story in a nutshell.

Gresham Harkless 3:50

Awesome, awesome, awesome, man. Yeah, I too, was on the path toward going to law school. And I too, am happy that I didn't actually go because I don't think it would have been a great fit. But it's funny how the world kind of pushes you in the way that you should be going. And it sounds like even though those 6 to 12 months might have been a hard time to kind of get through, it seems like you're definitely in the right place because you're doing some pretty awesome things, helping out the small to medium-sized businesses owners. So what I wanted to do was kind of drill down a little bit more and try to get an idea of what exactly what services do you provide. And if you can give us a little bit of a maybe a snapshot into your upcoming book as well.

Kristin Marquet 4:23

Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. So we actually offer anything from branding strategy to PR execution to PR consulting to business planning, marketing plan development, if in entrepreneurs looking to pitch to investors, so it's really launching early stage startups, you know, taking them from zero to 100,000. And then working with businesses that you know have hit that 100,000 and are looking to scale to over that million dollars mark, you know, I would say on the agency side, most of our clients were, you know, in the, I would say in between 500,000 to 10 million range.

But obviously, it takes a lot to get to $10 million. So I find that the clients that need the most amount of help, or those that are trying to hit that first 100,000, or that first million, and that's kind of where our sweet spot is, you know, and the publicity jumpstart, I'm actually co-writing with a Michelle Lewis of Visibility Vixen. She's an amazing branding entrepreneur and comes from a Hollywood background. So she actually has a very interesting background, being an actress and her father being, you know, a very well-known director.

But so she decided to take her branding knowledge and pair it with my publicity knowledge. And we essentially are creating the publicity jumpstart, and it is a 10-step guide, showing entrepreneurs how to brand themselves all the way on through to getting national publicity. You know, we talk a lot about local publicity, but I find that so many entrepreneurs want to know how they can, you know, get mentioned in Forbes and Inc and entrepreneur, or daily newspapers, like the times, the journal.

I pretty much give them all the tools they need, so that they can essentially start doing PR on their own without hiring, a PR firm because most admittedly, most reputable firms,  they start at $5,000 a month in honestly, what small business can afford that. Unless, of course, you know, you've already hit that 500 to a million dollar mark.

Gresham Harkless 6:45

Yeah, that makes perfect sense. And it's important, and it's awesome that you, you know, have given back, you know, to the community so that people that have the desire to eventually, you know, ramp up to that, you know, 500 to a million dollar mark are able to kind of start planting those seeds in the very beginning. So that can go towards there. So I'm one of the next questions I wanted to ask was a little bit more about, like, kind of what makes your organization unique?

Kristin Marquet 7:08

That's a great question. And you know, what, in the beginning, the first year, I always kind of was flopping around trying to define what my value proposition was. So I went through, you know, trying to be everything to everybody offering everything from like website design, to copywriting, to app development, to social media, marketing, PR, branding, and everything in between. And when I did that, it was like, a free for all. And we had so many clients, and I just wasn't able to provide the quality level of service that they needed to grow.

So then I decided to go on, you know, go the opposite way, and really niche down. And once I niche down and really figured out who my core demographic is, that's how I've been able to build a viable agency and brand and that's fashion, beauty, and lifestyle brands, that focus on E-commerce that have an E-commerce component. And also they need help with business intelligence, and analytics, you know, I do a lot of work on the analytic side, consulting wise. And, you know, I use a lot of the knowledge that I acquired at MIT to help businesses really optimize their sales cycle. And that's what our value proposition is,  we essentially help businesses, e-commerce,  if they're getting 10,000, pageviews a month, and they're only selling, to two units a month, we help them convert to above the industry standard.

So 10,000, we tried to get them to sell at least 100 to 200 units a month. And that's essential, you know, by analyzing their business data, because at the end of the day, you know, data, really, it doesn't lie, you know, it tells you everything that you need to do to increase sales and get more people to your website, and fill up your pipeline, or your sales funnel, whatever you want to call it.

Gresham Harkless 9:09

That makes perfect sense. Yeah, you know, data is huge. And you know, make sure you have and are looking at and reading the analytics is insanely important to figure out how you take those next steps so that you can reach whatever goal that you're hoping to reach. So that makes perfect sense. And, you know, that kind of segues me to the next question that I have, which is something that I call a CEO hack, which might be like a resource or book or something that you use on a regular everyday basis that you feel like makes you more effective and efficient as a business owner.

Kristin Marquet 9:35

Yeah, for sure. So I actually have one tool that I rely on, it's my keepsake. I bring it everywhere. I'm able to track all of my To Do lists and all my projects. I'm able to communicate with the team, which is the project management software Asana, it's a little it can be a little overwhelming to learn in the beginning because there are so many bells and whistles, but once you get it down, It's like a godsend, you know, I'm able to keep my life so organized and structure.

So that's one, I guess you would call productivity/efficiency tool that I use, you know, it's interesting, the one book that I love, and that I read all the time is actually The Lean Startup. And it always reminds me that, you know, to be thankful for what I have, and for the knowledge that I do have, and just continually try to improve my business one step at a time, you know, take small, incremental steps towards progress, because there is no such thing as perfection at the end of the day. And it's really important to keep your life in perspective, and just really focus on the things that you do have, and essentially how you can improve your overall, your overall business.

Gresham Harkless 11:00

Yeah, that makes whether those are true, awesome hacks. For one, you know, Asana is an amazing way to kind of organize your different projects and everything. So definitely will say the same with that. And then the Lean Startup does it kind of remind you of, you know, being up scaling up and taking it to step by step by step and seeing, you know, how much the market actually likes or whatever product or service you have, and then you scale up from there. So I think those are awesome hacks that you provided. The next question I had was like a CEO, nugget. So do you have like a word of wisdom? Or a piece of advice you can give us?

Kristin Marquet 11:33

Yes, I do. Well, I have many. But I think you know, the one that would resonate here the most with your listeners would be, you know, don't be afraid to take calculated risks. But always don't put all your eggs in one basket, either make sure that you're strategic and how you spend your funds, and your resources, and don't be afraid to ask for help. Because you know, there's only so much that one person can do, really, and, you know, you can't do it all by yourself, you know, I mean, you can't, I mean, you can run a very profitable and successful business yourself. But if you want to hit a certain benchmark, let's say 10 million in revenue, it's very, very difficult to do that alone. So don't be afraid to ask for help. And delegate, when you need to trust, you gotta trust those around you.

Gresham Harkless 12:25

Makes perfect sense to be able to leverage and use your team to their strengths. So the kind of the next thing that I want to ask you was the definition of being a CEO because we get to have a lot of different, quote, unquote, CEOs on this podcast. So I wanted to ask you very specifically, what does being a CEO means to you?

Kristin Marquet 12:44

You know, it means essentially overseeing the operations of the organization. And it means leading a team to do excellent work and help our clients build their businesses, so that they can essentially, you know, have the financial freedom that they need to spend time with their family or create a legacy for their family, whatever it is. But yeah, it's really about it is about financial independence. But it's more about mentoring and leading people and creating something that's substantial, and just overall, just helping people get to where they need to be.

Gresham Harkless 13:29

I love it. I love it. I love it. Yeah, definitely leadership and being able to help people get to their goals so that you can also reach your goals is an awesome way to kind of look at it. So Kristin, I truly appreciate you taking some time out of your schedule to kind of speak with us. I wanted to give you the mic, so to speak one more time to see if there's anything additional, you wanted to tell our readers and our listeners.

Kristin Marquet 13:49

Ah, yeah, absolutely. So don't be afraid to go after your dreams. Another piece of advice is don't quit your full-time job until you know that you have a product that's going to be successful. So don't quit your full-time job for your side hustle unless you know that you actually have something that's viable and substantial. You know, I think that I've heard from so many of my friends.

Do that and, and just bomb flat. So be strategic, be smart. If you guys have any questions you can or if you need a resource for publicity and digital marketing check out Femfounder.co. We have resources. We have books, we have downloaded, we have you know blog posts that are 3000 4000 words in length that are kind of like mini ebooks giving you really a short or an abbreviated MBA.

And don't be afraid to reach out and say hello on Twitter. You know my Twitter is Twitter and the handle is just my name Kristin Marquet and, you know, I look forward to connecting with you guys. You know in the near future, you can pick up a copy of our book on thepublicityjumpstart.com. That website will actually be up this week. So you can sign up for a free download, and you can sign up to find out when we release it.

Gresham Harkless 15:15

Awesome, awesome. I was super excited. And we're definitely gonna have those links in the show notes. So just in case, anybody wants to click through to follow you on Twitter or to get a copy of the free download and get notified when the book goes live. You'll definitely be able to do that. But Kristin, thank you so much, again, truly appreciative of all the great information you provide and all the great things you're doing in the world.

Kristin Marquet 15:34

Thank you so much for having me. This was so much fun.

Outro 15:37

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO podcast powered by Blue16 Media tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co I AM CEO is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on iTunes Google Play and everywhere you listen to podcasts. SUBSCRIBE And leave us a five-star rating grab CEO gear at www.ceogear.co This has been the I AM CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless Thank you for listening

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