IAM2215 – PR Expert Helps Clients Generate Exposure for their Business

Title: Transcript - Tue, 27 Aug 2024 07:29:57 GMT

Date: Tue, 27 Aug 2024 07:29:57 GMT, Duration: [00:16:59.55]

[00:00:00.16] - Christina Daves

And for twelve years I have been helping people, you know, land in the media. What makes them newsworthy. You know, most people like us, we can't afford a pr firm for a sustainable amount of time. It's just, you know, five to ten grand a month, six month minimum, no guarantees. That's a pretty big bite to take. But if you know how to do it, or you can teach your team how to do it, you're much more likely to do it consistently. It's in the part of the marketing.

[00:00:28.89] - Intro

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales and level up your business from awesome CEO's, entrepreneurs and founders without listening to a long, long, long interview? If so, you've come to the right place. Gresh values your time and is ready to share with you the valuable info you're in search of. This is the Imceo podcast.

[00:00:59.43] - Gresham Harkless

Hello, hello. Hello. This is Gretch from the I am CEO podcast and I have a very special guest on the show today. I have Christina Daves. Christina, excited to have you on the show.

[00:01:08.79] - Christina Daves

Hey, it's so great to be here. Great to see you again.

[00:01:11.54] - Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. And Christina has done so many phenomenal things. So super excited to have you on the show. Talk about all the awesome things that you've been able to accomplish. But before we do that, of course, I have to read a little bit more about Christina so you can hear about some of those awesome things. Christina is a publicity strategist. Through her company, PR for anyone, she shows people how to generate exposure for their business. She is the author of two best selling books on PR. Together with her clients, they have over 1 billion views and over 100 million in sales from free publicity. She is also an on air lifestyle expert, QVC guest host and podcast host of Living Ageless and Bold, ranked top five globally. And I was preparing a little bit for this and I thought it was super cool to find out that she was a double major in political science and German, which is absolutely awesome with everything that she's doing now. And she's been featured over 1000 media outlets, including the Steve Harvey show today. And it's really cool to hear about when she had her cast medic designs company. That's where she learned the most about pr and kind of is sharing all the secrets and everything with what she does now. But I always say, as much as you want to know what somebody does, you want to know why they do it. And I was reading that her why is her family. So, Christina, excited to have you on the show. Are you ready to speak to the Imco community?

[00:02:26.46] - Christina Daves

Thank you. I am. I am.

[00:02:28.49] - Gresham Harkless

Awesome. Well, let's get it started, then. So, I know I touched it in a little bit. So let's rewind the clock a little bit. Hear a little bit more on how you got started. What I call your CEO story.

[00:02:37.31] - Christina Daves

Yeah, I call it the accidental entrepreneur. Funny that. You said I majored in political science and German and never did anything with it. Wanted to. I wanted to go Bee be a lawyer. I wanted to go to law school. I never did well on the LSAt. So for all those people who are watching and listening, I speak to a lot of college students about that. Go with the pivot. You know, you never know where life is going to take you. But that kind of led to a life of entrepreneurship. I had an event planning business in my twenties. I owned a retail store. And then I had this freak accident where I broke my foot and ended up in those big, ugly medical boots. And I was looking for something to make it look better, and there was nothing on the market. So I created a fashion line called medifashions to make my boot look better and went on to dress Diana Ross and Carla hall on the chew and, you know, had lots of celebrities wear it and won Steve Harvey's top inventor competition, and the rest was history.

[00:03:39.15] - Gresham Harkless

Nice. I absolutely love that. And I, too, have bombed a lot in the LSAT ticket. It took it three times, I think. So life happens. So we're the same people. Exactly. We're speaking the same way, which, for better or worse. But I love that part about, you know, the word that really stuck with me about pivoting. Cause I think so many times we have plans, and sometimes life goes in a different way, but you have to be able to adjust and change. It sounds like you've really been able to do that tremendously well, right?

[00:04:07.61] - Christina Daves

Yeah, you have to. And I say it. There's been. Many times I've been in a puddle on the floor in tears when it didn't work out the way I thought it should work out. But life has a way of balancing, and this is why I launched my podcast, living ageless and bold for successful women over 50. I mean, if you had told me ten years ago what I would be doing in my fifties, that I'd be on tv every month, that I have an agent for QVC. Are you kidding me? Speaking in front of thousands of people, not in a million years would I have ever imagined that was possible. So you really have to keep your eyes open and even if you're in your twenties or your thirties, even your forties, you're going to have failures. And, and like, yeah, pivot. What is, what do you learn from that that could lead you down another path that if you're so consumed with the quote unquote failure, you might never know what's on the other side?

[00:05:00.92] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. Could you take us through a little bit more on like, what that is how you're making an impact for the clients you work with?

[00:05:06.44] - Christina Daves

Yeah, and again, that was a fluke too. I went to an event, you know, somebody had an extra ticket and I went, you know, people were talking about, you know, what do you do? And I'm telling them about the boot, but then I'm telling them all the pr success I've been having and they're like, forget the boot, start a company to teach us how to do that. And literally we were in the audience and I'm on Godaddy doing and I wanted it to be PR for everyone, but that domain was taken. So I did PR for anyone and people mix it up all the time. And the good news is now, years and years later, I actually own pride for everyone. So if you mix it up, it will forward. But literally with that, a new company was born and my husband was in vistage and his vistage chair sat me down. He's like, christina, systematize it. What are you doing? Create your own system. And I did have a system, so it really wasn't that hard and I ended up calling it the get PR famous formula. But it works and by having that, and that's what I do. And for twelve years I have been helping people, you know, land in the media, what makes them newsworthy. You know, most people like us, we can't afford a PR firm for a sustainable amount of time. It's just, you know, five to ten grand a month, six month minimum, no guarantees. That's a pretty big bite to take. But if you know how to do it or you can teach your team how to do it, you're much more likely to do it consistently. It's in the part of the marketing, you know, plan that you have and you just know, oh, boom, this is going on in the news. Let me pitch this. Or this is, you know, it's this time of year, I should pitch this. And once you get into the cycle, it works and it's easy. And that's where we get the numbers of a billion views and $100 million in sales because people just keep doing it.

[00:06:53.01] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that makes so much sense. And so I want to drill down a little bit more and ask you for what I like to call your secret sauce. This could be for yourself, the business, or a combination of both. But what do you feel kind of sets you apart and makes you unique?

[00:07:04.00] - Christina Daves

So I have just a mantra that. That I've used my whole life, and my kids know this. It's just ask. Ask for what you want. Ask for help. Ask to be in the media. Don't be afraid, because if you don't ask, you're never gonna get a yes. And my kids pushed it quite a bit in high school. They're like, well, you always said, just ask. So, okay, within reason, don't ask to have somebody help you rob a bank. But if there's a mentor that you just want to ask a couple questions to, most people are not going to say no again. Ask, you know, if you're in corporate, ask for the raise, ask for the promotion. You know, if you don't do it, sometimes, it's never going to happen.

[00:07:48.66] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And that's such a huge thing. 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 even a habit that you have, but what's something you lean on that makes you more effective and efficient?

[00:08:02.64] - Christina Daves

I. Oh, my goodness. CEO hack. I couldn't live without Google Docs, Google folders. That's. I'm not. I'm not good at apps and tech and anything like that. So for people like me, who. I'm starting to get a little bit better with my apps. But keeping everything organized in Google is definitely a must for me. If I. If I didn't have that, I would be lost. And I'm still a little disorganized. Like, I'm still like, where did I put that? But. But for the non techie people, that's a great place to start and get organized and stay organized.

[00:08:38.28] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And I think that one of the really big things is that when you start to have, you may not know exactly where it is, but at least you know where this section of where it could be is always a great thing, but I think it allows you to probably, I imagine, being more present because you don't have to worry about where those things are. And you use brain power and energy trying to find that. Once you start to have that consistent kind of flow, you know where they are, then it allows you to kind of be more present.

[00:09:00.07] - Christina Daves

Yeah. And sharing with my clients, like, we all know, everything's there. You know, I keep telling them as long as Google's there, your folder will be there forever. So it's, yeah, it's just even, you know, people that I've worked with years ago, I actually, an old client come back today who needs some refresher stuff, and I'm like, oh, I have her folder. I can go right in and see what we've done and what I need to update so that, that makes it, again, it seems so simple, but it, it really has been a game changer for me.

[00:09:28.27] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. And I love that because that's the beauty of the CEO hacks, because we think they're the big, huge, hugest, newest, latest apps sometimes. But sometimes it's the tried and true things, being able to kind of allow you to be more in your superpower that it really is the true gift of a hack.

[00:09:44.00] - Christina Daves

Yeah. And if you all haven't embraced AI yet or chat sheet PT, I can't stress that enough. It has changed the way I do business. I don't. And I'm very, you know, serious about this. It can't be your publicist, it can't write pitches for you, but it can give you ideas and it can help with social media and it can create video, you know, what you need to have in your videos. And so learning how to prompt chat GPT and learning how to get it to speak in your voice, you can train chat GPT. And I have enough content online now, too. I just told my assistant, I said, I can tell you're using chat GPT. Just say you want it to sound like pr strategist and lifestyle expert Christina Daves. There's enough content that it will then start to sound like me. She's like, oh, my gosh, that's great. But a lot of people don't know that. So if you write a lot of content yourself or you have in the past, pre AI, where you have a tone and a style, I would jump on board with jet GPT or those AI type products and see what you can do because it really has helped my productivity.

[00:10:47.33] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that makes more sense because it allows you just to amplify all the things that you do and you get to, again, serve people on a bigger level. But I love that kind of, you know, hack within a hack as well, too, of being able to say, like, do you want to train it to write like how you write or think of how you think, but even sometimes getting that different perspective at the back and forth, I imagine is really good as well.

[00:11:07.75] - Christina Daves

Yeah. Yeah. Have you, I gave two hacks today.

[00:11:11.04] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I might ask you a little bit more about that hack because I'm so curious. Do you have you also like, heard about thinking about like how you can get or what things like Washington Post might be looking for something like those lines? Does sometimes that exercise help out for people thinking outside the box for AI, for like pr? Yeah. And using AI to do it?

[00:11:33.12] - Christina Daves

Yeah. I mean, you, yes, you could probably, and that's interesting. I haven't, I just did something for a client for a national television station and said, you know, here's the topic. Give us, you know, give us some ideas related to this. But yeah, you could certainly say, you know, I, this is what I, you know, I'm a wealth management person. I'm in the financial industry. You know, here's some ideas that I have. What type of story would be interesting to the Washington Post? You know, what do they usually look for in these types of stories? And you can ask it to give you hooks like, okay, this is the story I'm going to do. Give me, and give me five great hooks that are going to get the journalist to open the email.

[00:12:16.00] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah.

[00:12:16.64] - Christina Daves

So you can, you can do things like that, prompt those kinds of things that just, just speeds up your creativity, that's all. And then a lot of times I'll see something. I won't use what chat GPT did, but it sparks my creativity. I'm like, oh, that's good, but I'm going to say this.

[00:12:31.69] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, so what would you consider to be a little bit more of what I like to call a CEO nugget? So this could be a word of wisdom or piece of advice. I like to say it might be something you would tell your younger business self if you hopped into a time machine, or you might tell your absolute.

[00:12:44.55] - Christina Daves

Favorite client, believe in yourself. Believe in your gift. So important, because if you don't come across confidently, nobody else is going to believe you, nobody's going to want to hire you. And again, it's like I said with the press piece, I'm never going to ask you to talk about something you don't know about. So it's really important. And mindset is a big part of this, that you embrace you and your gift and what you bring to the world. You know, there can be a thousand attorneys. They all bring something different to the table, to their audience. And I work with competitors all the time. And people are like, oh my gosh, that's crazy. I'm like, no, because I might not resonate with everybody or what I'm offering at that time might not resonate, but this person might have something that works. So why wouldn't I benefit as a referral partner to send them that way? And then, you know, in the same way people send, you know, their. Their potential clients that aren't an exact fit to me. So, again, knowing what you're good at, knowing your gift and. And sharing that and then not being afraid to, you know, we don't need to take every single client. We don't need to be great at everything, really know your gifts, what is your niche, and focus on that, and you'll be so much more successful.

[00:14:04.64] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, that's. That's such a huge thing. So, now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And our goal is to have different, quote unquote, CEO's on the show. So, Christina, what does being a CEO mean to you?

[00:14:16.82] - Christina Daves

Freedom. That. That, to me, was the most important thing when I had kids still at home. I'm an empty nester now, but to be able to go to sporting events, go to things at school, you know, sometimes I had to stay up till 02:00 in the morning to get things done, you know, for clients. But for me, for me, being a CEO, freedom, I would say, is number one.

[00:14:39.36] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah. That's such a huge thing in it.

[00:14:41.24] - Christina Daves

Yeah, exactly. And, you know, I get. I get to travel when I want to travel. And, you know, we moved, and it's like, oh, I want to spend time getting the house ready. So I didn't take any new clients for a month, and, you know, that's, that's my choice. And then I needed to load up a little bit for a couple of months to make up for that. But that's. That is the freedom of being a CEO.

[00:15:00.61] - Gresham Harkless

Yes, absolutely. And ends up being a really phenomenal thing when you can have it match who you are and what you have your superpower to be. So, Christina, truly appreciate that definition. Of course, I appreciate your time even more. So what I want 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 get a hold of you, find about all the awesome things you're working on.

[00:15:22.16] - Christina Daves

Yeah, I would say if you can't find me online, we're all in big trouble. Then I'm not doing my job. But, yeah. Christinadaves.com and, you know, just, just start. If you have any inkling or desire to be in the media, just do it, because it's not going to happen if you don't do something about it. But it's a game changer. It is such a game changer for your business. It establishes you as such an authority and you have so much credibility. And I will tell you, people love to work with the famous people. So if you are that person, you will attract more and more clients. So if you have any desire at all, I want you to dive in. You can check out what I do. I've got tons of free content out there, but, you know, look through it and then if you want more help, I'm always here.

[00:16:07.91] - Gresham Harkless

Yeah, absolutely. And I truly appreciate that. Of course, we're going to have the links and information in the show notes as well, too, so that everybody can follow up with you. And I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

[00:16:17.42] - Christina Daves

Thanks, Chris. Thanks for having me.

[00:16:19.25] - Intro

Thank you for listening to the Imceo podcast powered by CB Nation and Blue 16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at Imceo Co. Imceo is not just a phrase, it's a community. Be sure to follow us on social media and subscribe to our podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and everywhere you listen to podcasts. Subscribe and leave us a five star rating. This has been the Imceo podcast with Gresham Harkness Junior. Thank you for listening.