IAM2218 – Founder and Author Shares Ideas on Strategies for Effective Book Launch PR and Media Training

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Ashley Bernardi Teaser 00:00

So authors will come to us, our publishers will come to us, and we develop a book launch pr strategy.

We will advise on the types of book events, but we also do a media strategy. So we'll pitch our author clients to the media, TV, radio, print, online, podcast.

So like some authors are getting on the Today Show or Good Morning America or CNN or, you name it, local TV. And I'm an author myself.

Intro 00:25

Are you ready to hear business stories and learn effective ways to build relationships, generate sales, and level up your business from awesome CEOs, 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 I AM CEO Podcast.

Gresham Harkless 00:54

Hello, hello, hello. This is Gresh from the I AM CEO Podcast and I have a very special guest back on the show today. I have Ashley Bernardi. Ashley, excited to have you back on.

Ashley Bernardi 01:01

Thank you, Gresh. I'm so happy to be here today. I always love joining you.

Gresham Harkless 01:05

Yes, it's been so many awesome times that we've had in being able to be on your podcast and you be on ours. And so I'm super excited to have Ashley back on.

But of course, before I jump in and us have that great conversation, I want to read a little bit more about Ashley so you can hear about some awesome things she's been working on.

And Ashley is an award-winning podcaster and author, media relations expert and trainer, and the founder and CEO of Nardi Media Academy and Nardi Media LLC, a full service media relations firm that specializes in media placements and training for authors, thought leaders, entrepreneurs, companies, and many more.

Ashley served as a network television news producer for nearly a decade with credits including CB's news Energy, now a nationally syndicated energy and environmental show on Bloomberg TV and Washington Post Live.

She has a passion for helping authors grow from zero exposure to household names on the New York Times best seller list.

Her clients have been placed in top tier publications and media outlets including the Washington Post, the New York Times Today, Good Morning America, CB's this Morning, NPR, Fortune, Business Insider, USA Today, People Time, CNBC, Bloomberg, Real simple, and hundreds and hundreds more.

She is regularly featured expert in the media including Forbes, the Washington Times, Bloom TV, Tiny Beans, and the Emmy Award winning series the Mother side, airing on ABC in Washington, DC.

She is an author of the award-winning book as well, authentic give yourself permission to feel.

Ashley was a former guest on the show episode 162 and I love everything about what she does, and I think she got her start when she was eight years old, if I remember correctly, interviewing people at that time.

So I love that there was so much synergy between the both of us, but she has such an inspirational story.

And one of the things I read when I was looking and preparing for this is that in her book, it was said that Ashley's superpower is connection.

She's a connector of people and ideas, and her book is the ultimate resource that shows that. So, Ashley, excited to have you back on. Are you ready to speak to the I AM CEO community?

Ashley Bernardi 03:05

I am so ready. Gresh. Thank you so much. It's such a pleasure to be back with you today.

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Gresham Harkless 03:09

Yes, absolutely. So, I love all the awesome things you're doing. So I wanted to kick everything off by rewinding the clock a little bit here, a little bit more on how you got started, what you've been working on since we last spoke.

Ashley Bernardi 03:18

Yeah. Well. So, next year, 2025, I'm celebrating ten years of Nardi Media, which is so cool, because I remember launching my business in my kids basement playroom, surrounded, literally by babies, and it's just now where I am.

You're nine. Nine and a half, and celebrating ten. We've grown to a company of over 20 people, which is so exciting. And I have. It's just. It's running like a business.

And when I started, it was just me, and I honestly didn't know or I didn't plan to take it to the level that it is now.

But I think I wanted to prove to myself that I can do it. And there's that risk taking, but also that confidence building.

Once I was like, oh, wow, I'm actually really good at this. I'm gonna keep doing it and doing it and doing it.

And then I've just brought on and trained people who share my values. And here we are today, working with some of the brightest minds in the world, both on my team, but also those that we represent at Nardi Media.

Whether it's an author or a company, a thought leader, a nonprofit, people are coming to us now to help elevate their message to the masses, using our experience and our expertise. It's pretty. It's been an amazing journey.

Gresham Harkless 04:43

Yeah. I absolutely love that. It's so funny preparing for this. I was reading on your site, said, we uplift the voices of those who uplift the world.

And I thought that was so powerful that you help amplify people that are doing so many awesome things.

Ashley Bernardi 04:55

Yeah, it's that is. That's, like, our mission and our value is working with the world's greatest luminaries and change makers, the brightest minds.

And as you said in the beginning, like, I am a connector. That is my superpower. I believe all of us have a superpower. Mine is the power of connection.

And I've always been like that since I was a kid interviewing people from my dad's camcorder. And now it's using the power of connection to use the media as a platform to elevate their voices, build their credibility, build aware, brand awareness, thought leadership, awareness, and exposure for what they want to be speaking about.

And many of our clients are academics. They're doctors, they're psychiatrists, they're psychologists. They really are some of the brightest minds in the world.

And they come to us because they say, I've got this great message. I know that I'm going to help people. How do I do it? And it's like we're that telephone line.

We're the line on the telephone. Like, let us connect you, and we will connect them with our contacts and our journalists to get them in front of big audiences and stages.

And it's just. It's. I had to pitch myself. It's a freaking dream. I'm not gonna lie. It's the who we've worked with. It's beyond my wildest comprehension. It's. I've definitely hit my goals, and I'm living, like, the entrepreneurial dream where I am now. If I sit back to reflect.

Gresham Harkless 06:23

Yeah, I appreciate you sharing that. And I want to drill down a little bit more here, a little bit more on how you work with your clients.

Could you take us through, like, what that process looks like and how you're making that impact?

Ashley Bernardi 06:33

Yes. So, majority of our clients are nonfiction book authors. So for those who are watching and looking behind me, I have a wall of books. I'm also an author myself.

And we love working with authors, publishers, literary agents, to help them take their book and market it to the masses using the power of the media.

So, authors will come to us, our publishers will come to us, and we develop a book launch PR strategy.

We will advise on the types of book events, but we also do a media strategy. So we'll pitch our author clients to the media, TV, radio, print, online, podcast.

So, like some authors are getting on the Today Show or Good Morning America or CNN or, you name it, local TV.

And I'm an author myself, so happy knowing that we gave our best effort to promote the book and give it the attention it deserves, because I'm a reader and lover of books, and I believe every book deserves to have an opportunity to have its story told.

And that's where we come in. Like our. Our mission is to help tell that story and amplify it to a larger platform.

So that's how I work with people. It's not just authors, though. We work with nonprofits who are mission driven, doing good, whether it's focusing on health or we love working with military nonprofits.

That is a special spot in my heart. And what I tend, what tends to happen here at Nardi is that if it's a personal interest to me and my team were like, yay, we'll take it on. We also offer media training.

So I trained. I've trained countless number of executives on media training, which basically is teaching them how to communicate on camera or off camera, using powerful language, positive language.

We develop simple communication statements, and then we'll even come in with all the bells and whistles, with the TV camera and lights and the anchor, and do mock interviews.

So that's been something that's been picking up big time in the past couple of years since we spoke. Is our media training offering?

Gresham Harkless 08:31

Yeah, absolutely. So, do you feel like that's part of what I would call, like, your secret sauce could be for yourself, the business, our combination of both. But you feel like that's the thing. Sets your part and makes you unique.

Ashley Bernardi 08:39

Oh, my gosh. I think a couple things are like our secret sauce. One is just. Yeah. Our energy and our passion for the clients we work with, being selective. Right.

So anyone out there who's an entrepreneur, not everyone is your client. Like, and it shouldn't be like that. It shouldn't be like, okay, who's my client? Well, it's everyone. No. Who are they?

And do they share your values? So, one piece. Something else that I got aligned on since we last spoke are my.

Our company values kindness. We treat ourselves with kindness and compassion for ourselves and others.

I want to work with people who uphold our values. And I say this on my new business calls now, that if we are not sharing similar values or you can't uphold our values, we are not in integrity as a PR firm to represent you.

And so collaboration, communication, honoring, being enthusiastic about our work. So getting really clear on our values and truly living those has been a secret sauce and driving force behind our success.

I also think from a PR perspective, our experience working in newsrooms is another piece of secret sauce.

So for anyone's an entrepreneur, find your differentiating factor. Not all PR firms have had experience working in newsrooms. Ours has. Many of my team members, not just me, have worked at national TV networks, print, online outlets and magazines.

So having that, nose in the newsroom is another secret sauce to our success. And then I will say this resilience, like, I'm in near ten in business, and there has been, like I said, tough business decisions and things that have happened that have been in my control and out of my control and lessons that I've learned from that and you just gotta pick yourself up and keep swimming.

And I, there have been days where, like, early on I was like, oh, I'm crying. I made this big mistake. And now I'm like, I made a mistake. What can I learn from that? And let's move on.

And so there is this resilience factor. And then the other piece of it, now that I'm like, doing this reflecting with you is just risk taking some ideas people want for.

People come to Nardi Media for full service PR, they come for strategy consultation, they come for broadcast PR, and they come for media training. That's it.

And so it does, it needs, it can, it doesn't need to be complicated, it can be simple. But you do also need to test the market for different services to see what's working and what isn't.

And as a result, I'm here today very, very clear on our service offerings, what we offer and what the market is demanding from us.

Gresham Harkless 11:11

Nice. So what would you consider to be a little bit more. You might have already shared this, 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 were to hop into a time machine or your favorite client.

Ashley Bernardi 11:24

Yeah. Oh, my gosh, there's so many business nuggets. So one is hire people that excel in their like and don't do all the things. I understand if you're in like, your early years of your business, I get it, I did this.

You do the invoicing, you do the accounting, you do everything. But once you start growing, it is worth it to take your time to hire someone.

Do your reference checks, do your research, make ensure they're an energetic match, even, maybe even bring them on, like in a limited role, just to start to ensure that your energy matches, you enjoy working together.

And then when, and then try it out for like, have a 30, 60, 90 day plan of like, here. Where are we going?

And then once you do that, you're going to find that your time is freed up to go and do the visionary work, the creative work, the business development, the relationships, the networking.

And that's really what the CEO should be doing. And that's something that's my nugget that I've learned, especially this past year by consulting with business experts and now having brilliant business minds on my team.

Like I said, my marketing coordinator, who worked at a fortune three company for 16 years, has her MBA.

She came in and was like, why are you doing it this way, this way, this way, this way. Hire people that have that business sense. It's worth the spend.

I would say also it would have been like if I could tell my younger business self, it would have been worth that spend even in like year two or three of business.

So you can start developing those processes earlier rather than where I'm at in year nine, which, look, I did it. I'm grateful I did it. Am I late to the boat? No, this is my own journey.

But for other business owners that if you don't have a business background and you want your business to be successful, lean into the people who literally know how to run a business.

And it's a lot of times what I'm finding is like it's those MBAs and people who have gone to business school.

You don't need to go to business school to start a business, but you can consult with people who have gone to business school.

So that's something that I have learned this year. It's been so empowering and as a result, I am a like free visionary CEO that loves what I do.

I have so much joy every day knowing that I have an amazing team behind me, systems and processes in place that we follow, including me.

Like I everyone, I'm going on vacation. Ashley has to do her vacation handoff because I'm the CEO. I don't get off the hook.

But having those processes in place to ensure that all the trainings are running, even if me or a team manager or a publicist steps away, that is what makes a successful company and that's the direction that we're going for 2025 in our ten year anniversary.

Gresham Harkless 14:10

Nice. I absolutely love that. 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 this show. So Ashley, what, what does being a CEO mean to you?

Ashley Bernardi 14:21

Being a CEO means being a visionary and living your ultimate dream. Of freedom. Being a CEO equals freedom.

And especially a founder CEO, an entrepreneur CEO. It does equal freedom. It equals freedom in creativity, freedom in your vision, freedom to take risks, freedom to learn from your mistakes and to pick yourself right back up again.

That's what it means to me. It's so freeing. And how I see it is that the sky is the limit. There's no politics within a corporation. It's you experiment, go.

If it doesn't work out, say, okay, thank you, and keep going. And that's what being a CEO means to me. It is so joyful now. And I would not, like I said, I wouldn't trade it for anything else.

Gresham Harkless 15:16

Nice. Ashley, truly appreciate all the awesomeness that you provided today and are doing. And 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 can get hold of you.

Get a copy of your book, find about all the awesome things that you and your team are working on.

Ashley Bernardi 15:33

Amazing. Well, thank you, Gresh. You can just visit us at nardimedia.com it's nardimedia.com. we have plenty of services.

We'd love to hear from you. We have a contact page. We also have a monthly membership. If you're like, I'm not, I can't afford PR, or I'm not sure about PR.

Our monthly membership is called our media master society, where we bring in guest speakers. I come in, I teach people how to pitch themselves to the media.

That's usually a first step for folks to get into our world and our energy and get exposed to the world of media.

And of course, there's media training. And find us on social media. We're on social, on Instagram and on LinkedIn. I would love, love, love to hear from you.

Gresham Harkless 16:12

Awesome, awesome, awesome. Well, thank you so much again, Ashley. Of course, to make it even easier, we'll have the links and information in the show notes so that everybody can get a hold of you, find out about all the awesome things you and your team are working on.

Thank you so much for being on the show. Looking forward to seeing you again and again and again, 1520 and so on and so forth. Thank you so much.

Ashley Bernardi 16:27

Thank you, Gresh.

Outro 16:28

Thank you for listening to the I AM CEO Podcast powered by CBNation and Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at iamceo.co., I AM CEO is not just a phrase. It's a community.

Don't forget to schedule your complimentary digital marketing consultation at blue16media.com. This has been the I AM CEO Podcast with Gresham Harkless Jr. Thank you for listening.

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