IAM1593 – Public Relations Veteran Helps Client’s Vision to Life through Creative Thinking and Strategies

April White is a public relations veteran, official TEDx speaker, and founder of Trust Relations. April has nearly 20 years of industry experience counseling and implementing campaigns on behalf of clients across numerous industries, from Fortune 100 companies to startups. She has worked at the world's best agencies in New York City, including Weber Shandwick, Edelman, Rubenstein Public Relations, and Spong, before starting her own firm, and has represented an impressive roster of clients and their executives over the course of her career.

Among the clients she has counseled are MasterCard Worldwide, MetLife International, Sotheby's International Realty, Hyatt, Rosetta Stone, Petco, American Standard, The Dannon Company, YellowTail Wines, Sealed Air, and Music. April is an official contributor to Forbes, Entrepreneur, and Newsweek and co-hosts three original podcasts, including The PR Wine Down, Hype Busters, and Trust Relations: The Podcast.

• CEO Story: After working with the biggest agencies in New York, April decided to bounce out and become a freelancer and it started to take off. Wanted to build an agency that has no toxic culture and gives clients the best talent for their account, almost 4 years later, April has pulled it off. April’s vision has come to fruition.
• Business Service: Public relations. Integrated marketing. Point system, monthly retainer.
• Secret Sauce: Industry disruptor. Finding a better way, doing it better to make an impact.
• CEO Hack: Listen to audiobooks and podcasts. Dividing the day in two. Doing a blast of work during the work day then taking a short break then back to work. Changing work location.
• CEO Nugget: You are your brand, and you are your company. And so you have to take care of yourself first. Because if you burn out, and you can no longer do the job, then the company is gone.
• CEO Defined: Being a parent of a company or brand. With lots of work for the child, it comes first.

Website: www.linkedin.com/in/aprilnicollewhite

Twitter: twitter.com/iamaprilwhite

Facebook: aprilnicollewhite

Instagram: iamaprilwhite

Company Website: trustrelations.agency

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Transcription

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00:25 – Intro

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.

00:52- Gresham Harkless

Hello, this is Gresh from the I Am CEO Podcast. I have a very special guest on the show today. I have April White of Trust Relations. April, excited to have you on the show.

01:02- April White

Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here.

01:04 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, you're doing so many phenomenal things and we're going to get a little bit more into that. But before we get into the conversation, I wanted to read a little bit more about April so you can hear about all the awesome things that she's doing April is a public relations veteran, official, TEDx speaker, and founder of Trust Relations. April has nearly 20 years of industry experience counseling and implementing campaigns on behalf of clients across numerous industries, from Fortune 100 companies to startups.

She worked at the world's best agencies in New York City, including Weaver, Shandwick, Edelman, Rubenstein Public Relations, and Spong, before starting her own firm, and has represented an impressive roster of clients and their executives over the course of her career. Among the clients she has counseled are MasterCard Worldwide, MetLife International, Sotheby's International Realty, Hyatt, Rosetta Stone, Petco, American Standard, The Dan & Company, Yellowtail Wines, and Sealed Air in Music.

April is an official contributor to Forbes Entrepreneur and Newsweek and co-hosts three original podcasts, including the PR Wind Down Hype Busters and Trust Relations, the podcast. She also recently won the Gold Stevie Award for Most Innovative Woman of the Year in Advertising, Marketing and Public Relations. April, let me clap it up. You're doing so many awesome things. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

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02:24 – April White

I mean, after that I just want to crawl under the table. I'm so embarrassed. It's so weird hearing all of this stuff about yourself. I just think of myself as like the girl next door.

02:32- Gresham Harkless

Absolutely. I was going to definitely say you could drop the mic, but I think you're doing so many phenomenal things. We should just slam the mic down because you're doing an awesome job. So I appreciate you taking some time out to be on the show.

02:45 – April White

Oh, I appreciate it. No, I just. Just. Just happy to be here.

02:49 – Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. So what I wanted to do to try to kick everything off was hear a little bit more about how you got started, the girl next door that does all this awesome PR work. So can you take us through how you became that and you're doing all these awesome things?

03:01 – April White

Yeah, for sure. So after having worked for a lot of the biggest agencies in New York, as you mentioned, decided to bounce out and become a freelancer for a few reasons. Just wasn't in love with the agency culture, wasn't in love with how it all felt for various reasons, which I'll get into in a polite way. I decided that was the way to go. Then the freelance work started to take off, and I had to make a decision, okay, am I going to turn clients away and we're going to go bigger?

I'm a big believer in life that when you see something that needs to be done better, it's not a plain box for you to put some complaint to the universe and just complain about it endlessly. I think it's actually your assignment to go fix it and do it better if you have the tools to do it. So in this case, I thought, you know what? I'm going to go try to build the agency I wish existed, and I'm going to go try to build one that doesn't have a toxic culture, one that's actually inclusive, and then one that actually is doing right by clients by giving them the best talent that they can possibly have for their accounts, rather than pretending that what we're putting forward is actually sufficient for the budget that they're paying.

I went out and just kind of ripped it all apart and started it all over from the beginning and decided, I mean, it was a little bit of a crazy thing to do to say, I want to build this thing that I, you know, that doesn't exist, and I don't know if it's possible, but let me try. Here we are, and it's almost four years later, and it has actually come to pass, which is amazing. Seeing your vision for something that comes to fruition before your eyes. I don't think there's any greater gift in life. It's been really phenomenal and really difficult to get there. But that's really why I started, was to make it what I thought it needed to be and also to provide sort of a safe haven then for the publicists in the industry who were at otherwise not very kind environments.

There's a lot of toxicity in PR and also advertising, and marketing, especially in the industry and the agency world. This is an opportunity for me to kind of expand on my love of providing homes for, you know, those in need. So I have a lot of animals that I keep rescuing. I have three dogs, three cats, and two goats. This is like a natural extension of my sort of big-hearted approach to life and just wanting everyone to have a safe home.

05:37 – Gresham Harkless

Nice. I love that. Do you feel like that's something that you always maybe even had in you to say? I don't want to use the word defiance, but it feels like that is just saying I want to create this not just for myself, but to be able to make an impact, whether it be for the animals or all the. Do you feel like that's something that's just in your nature to say, hey, we're going to do this better and it might be hard and it might not go exactly the way I want it to go, but I'd rather do it and try than have that regret?

06:04 – April White

So the interesting thing is I'm not a naturally contrarian person and I always shy away from conflict. So that's not where it's coming from. It's really coming from wanting things to be better. Even when I started, I studied journalism in college and the whole reason was I wanted to be the watchdog of society that was protecting people. Right. So there is something in me that I think just wants, to protect other people and care for them. This is a really natural extension of that.

The irony of it is that I actually have become an industry disruptor which is not in my nature, right? To be necessary calling people on the carpet and, you know, trying to say you're doing it wrong. That's not even really where it's coming from, but it is more of a, you know, there's gotta be a better way to do this, right? There's gotta be a. There's gotta be something more beautiful than what we have.

06:58 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. So I know I wanted to Drill down a little bit more, hear how you work with your clients, and how that process goes. Could you take us through a little bit more about that and how you serve the clients you work with?

07:08 – April White

Yeah, absolutely. So when we first started, I was very PR centric. We were just doing public relations. Over time, I realized that we actually would be better serving clients if we were more integrated into the marketing side of things. So we started bringing integrated marketing and a couple of, a couple of reasons for it. One was that I was talking to prospects who sometimes thought they were ready for PR, but who weren't quite. And my option at that point was to take their money and pretend they were or to send them away and tell them to come back when they were further along.

I don't think either is very helpful, depending on the client and where they are. Especially if all they need is a new website or something like that, or they need their social media to look populated or whatever it is that they need before we can actually go to the top-tier press. What I started doing by bringing in a marketing agency that I essentially have folded in as our marketing arm is now if they come to me and they need something and they need a rebranding. Okay, cool, let's start with rebranding. Let's do that.

Then let's move into PR once that's all up and running so that we aren't wasting PR efforts on a brand that's no longer going to be a brand in four months. That's, that's really what we're doing. We tend to work with clients on a retainer basis. But the other thing that we do that's pretty unique is we work on a point system. The point system basically gamifies clients' monthly retainer into a certain number of points that they get to spend per month. Then everything that we do from marketing to pr, has its own point allocation. That's something we do that I think is pretty unique.

Clients tend to really like it because I think, they feel like they know exactly where the budget's going. They can always then report to their higher-ups what's happening. It's just really crystal clear to them that they get to have a hand in what we're doing as well. So it's not, you know, we're still driving, of course, we're still setting the strategy, but we're not expecting them to do that. But we're at least leaning on them to give feedback and approval of the things that we're doing.

09:21 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Love it. So I wanted to switch gears a little bit, and I wanted to ask you for what I call a CEO hack. So this could be like an app, a book, or a habit that you have, but what's something that makes you more effective and efficient?

09:34 – April White

That is a very good question. So one thing that I really like to do is listen to podcasts. So, and I'm not just saying that because I'm on this podcast, but it's very difficult as an owner to find enough time to read books and things like that. So audiobooks and podcasts for me are a really great way of trying to keep up on the latest and greatest leadership tactics, techniques, et cetera, or if there's something that you need to work on. Personally, like, I'm working on boundaries.

One thing that has worked for me at least is dividing my day up in two by basically doing a blast of work during the workday where everyone else is working, working, taking a break, maybe going for a quick walk with the dogs, making myself dinner, maybe watching some Netflix, whatever, for a short amount of time. I mean maybe one, or two hours, right? Then going back to work after that. So at least it feels like you started and if possible. I know this isn't always possible, depending on where people live and their. The amount of space they have. I also like changing my work location for day two.

So day one, like the first half of the day, it usually takes place where I am now with the lighting, et cetera. Part two of the day, which normally doesn't involve video calls, is usually in a different part of the house. So I just feel like I'm not back at this, chained at the same desk and working here until midnight, you know, which. Or sometimes 2 am which can happen. So, again, don't recommend this, but I do know that sometimes it's just not possible to do it in eight or 12 hours. So that's. That's one of my hacks, just breaking it into two work days within one.

11:18 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome.  So what would you consider to be what I like to call a CEO nugget? Little bit more words of wisdom or piece of advice? I like to say it might be something you would tell your favorite client, or if you happen to be a time machine, you might tell your younger business self.

11:32 – April White

Oh, I like this. Okay. So one thing that I have learned over time is that you are your brand and you are your company. Right? You have to take care of yourself first. There are a lot of reasons for this. The obvious one is that if you burn out and you can no longer do the job, then the company is gone. The other reason it's important is that what I have realized is that, everything you do at the top trickles down. So if you have any psychological hangups, if you like my issues with boundaries.

If you have anything that you need to work on as a human, those things will affect your entire company. It will manifest in everything that everyone else does. It'll manifest in how the kind of people you attract, whether that's clients or team members. It's really important. Take the time to and nobody's ever perfect. We're not. It's always a journey. You're. No, you don't arrive. Okay, I'm there now. Like if you think that you have, then you've gone back.

12:34 – Gresham Harkless

Yeah. I appreciate you so much. Sharon, I'm obviously happy that it didn't go a lot worse than it could have because that would have been, could have been awful. Yeah. For so many different way reasons. I think that that's, I heard you mention like too, like, breaking up your day sometimes by doing that self-care and those things like that. I think we sometimes forget that. Especially if you're a giver.

Most entrepreneurs people are usually trying to give, trying to make an impact, trying to, just make the world better. But we so often forget about ourselves, put our oxygen masks on, fill up our cups, and just do all those things that it might seem like it's selfish, but actually, it allows us to give even more when we make sure that we are filled up. So that if we can give any more we so often will just jump past ourselves and kind of not prioritize ourselves in terms of that totem pole of making sure that we're getting.

13:25 – April White

That self-care is 100%. Yeah.

13:29- Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. So what would you consider to be the answer to my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO? Our goal is to have different, quote-unquote CEOs on the show. So April would just be to you to be a CEO.

13:42 – April White

So I think being a CEO is basically like being a parent of a company or brand. I think that it requires the same level of dedication. I think a lot of us that are, you know, founders of things can attest to the fact that I'm sure I don't actually have children, but I've watched other people have children and I imagine it would be like you don't know how much work it's going to be until you do it. You might not have done it if you knew how much work it was going to be.

But you're so glad you didn't know because having what you have now in this child and this being in this company is like, beyond words. I'm so glad that when I started Trust Relations, I did not know how hard this would be because I don't think, I think I would have turned back and never tried it. But I'm very glad nobody actually told me because the effect of what I have built and the effect of what we have today and how it's impacted the lives of the people that work here and clients, completely worth it.

I think being, a great founder and CEO really is just being a parent, like I said, of a company or a brand and making, that child come first. But obviously still, again, you are still the parent of that company. So you have to take care of yourself to be a good parent. I think that it's as simple and as complicated as that.

15:12 – Gresham Harkless

Well, April, truly appreciate that definition and perspective. Of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do now is pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional that you can let our readers and listeners know and of course, how best people can get hold of you to find about all the awesome things you, your team are working on.

15:29 – April White

A good leader needs to see where in the world things are being reflected back to them that they need to fix in themselves and then by extension, the company. The more that you do that as a leader, the more we change the world together. I know that sounds very, very grandiose, but it's a hundred percent true. TrustRelations Agency is the website T R U S T R E L A T I O N S and if you want to find us on Instagram, also trust relations, trust relations on Facebook. If you want to email me, I'm @AprilRustRelations Agency.

16:05 – Gresham Harkless

Awesome. To make it even easier, we'll have the links and information in the show notes too so that everybody can follow up with you. Appreciate your time today and I hope you have a phenomenal day.

16:13 – April White

Likewise, and same to you.

16:15 – Outro

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by Blue 16 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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