IAM2886 – Podcast Hosts Focused on Navigating Your Career in PR

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Transcription:

Rachel McGuire 00:00
I would have to say, for me, it's finding a mentor. No matter where you are in your career, you always want to have people in your circle who are at that next phase or a few stages ahead and be able to tap into that and have them there to provide that open, honest feedback on how you're doing or be able to have a conversation with them and and get those nuggets that are going to help you move to the next level.

Gresham Harkless 00:54
Hello, hello, hello, this is Gresh from the I Am CEO Podcast and I have two very special guests on the show today. I have Laselle Degrave and Rachel McGuire of pressing on Public Relations Podcast. Great to have you guys on the show.

Liselle DeGrave 01:06
Thank you, Gresham. Thank you for having us.

Rachel McGuire 01:08
So nice to be here.

Gresham Harkless 01:09
Yeah, super excited to have you guys both on. And what I want to do is just read a little bit more about both of you so people can hear about all the awesome things that you guys are working on in the Pressing on in Public Relations is a new podcast focused on navigating your career in PR through their business adventures. Liselle Degrave and the owner of Degrave Communications Incorporated, and Rachel McGuire, the owner of RMG Communications, show you an unscripted and authentic look at running successful public relations agencies. In October, their first podcast episode aired on Collabitition how to Cooperate or Collaborate with the Competition. Hope that great to have you guys both on the show. Are you ready to speak to the I Am CEO community?

Liselle DeGrave 01:45
We're ready.

Gresham Harkless 01:46
Awesome. Let's do it. So I wanted to hear a little bit more about what I call your guys CEO stories and what led you guys to kind of start your business and start your podcast.

Rachel McGuire 01:54
Well, this is Rachel and I'll go first. And both of us have really unique stories on how we got here that are different, but we do the same kind of work now. I actually spent 15 years working in government, government public relations and wound up at a firm that served 1 million customers out in Southern California. But I always really knew there was something more that I was meant to do when I really wanted to have a little more of the flexibility with my life and design a business that I was really proud of. And late last year, I went out on my own and formed RMG Communications. And it's really great. We've already have one award win under our belt for our great work. Ready. Just happened last week and it was actually in collaboration with Laselle's firm, Degrave. We went in with the client and did some really great, exciting work for them. And so my business continues to flourish and grow, but I'm just at a different place right now than Laselle. She already has about 15 years as a business owner under her belt and she's been really great at offering me advice and expertise in how to grow and scale my business.

Liselle DeGrave 02:58
My journey is a little bit different. I started my. My own business degree of communications when I was in college and had no idea what I was doing and had no PR experience. I was a PR student in college, but I always knew that I wanted to run my own business. And so I started it. Originally it was more of a side hustle and I went. I worked in corporate America. I worked for a large agency, I worked in government. And actually that's where I met Rachel. I was working part time while I was also running my own business till I got to the point where I didn't need to work there anymore. And I was able to sustain myself running, running my business and kind of letting go of that what most would think of a safer, safer job. But that's where I met Rachel. And right off the bat, we just hit it off. And when Rachel went out on her own about a year ago, I realized that this could be versus seeing this as somebody that might threaten my business. I actually saw it as an excellent opportunity because we know that we work well together, we're friends, and we have to really set the guidelines right up front before we work on a project together. But I feel like it is an absolute blessing that Rachel is out on her own. And even though we have the same network and we enjoy the same type of work and we take on the same types of projects, it is. You can, you can, you can compete, not compete with the, with the competition. You can choose to work together. And we like to call that collabitition.

Gresham Harkless 04:20
Yeah, absolutely. Well, I definitely, you know, appreciate that. And I think you always, you know, become, you know, whatever your environment is. And I think one of the. I think the seven have is a highly effective people is being able to kind of sharpen the saw. And there's no better way to do that than somebody. Obviously you connect with, well, you collaboration well with it. That's if I said that correctly, if I use that correctly. But I think it's just so important to be and be able to kind of both, you know, continue to get better, to be able to work together and be able to be better, you know, experts at what it is that you do.

Liselle DeGrave 04:47
Absolutely, I agree. And oftentimes when you're working in a smaller shop, you feel. You can feel isolated, you can feel like you're alone, but when you have somebody, we're texting each other throughout the day, hey, why aren't we doing this this way? Or have you thought about doing this?

Rachel McGuire 05:00
Or.

Liselle DeGrave 05:01
I know this sounds crazy, and it's. It's great to have somebody to be able to bounce off ideas, especially when you're really similar. A lot of times Rachel send me an email or text message and I'm literally texting her the same exact thing back. It's like, well.

Rachel McGuire 05:15
But I think to that point, we also balance ourselves out really well. Liselle has different business strengths than I do. So as much as we're. Which also lends to working well together, we also have enough that's different that we can come together and form more strengths of what. What we have deficiencies in.

Gresham Harkless 05:31
Yeah, absolutely. And I think anytime you kind of, you know, want to work together, work on different projects, and even as you guys, you know, kind of talk about and sounds like you talk about as well, too, it's just improving yourselves as. As public relations professionals as well too. You want to be able to do that. So. And I know obviously one of those things that you guys been able to work on together is the podcast. I wanted to hear a little bit more about the podcast, things that you're covering, of course, about, you know, your first episode and all the awesome things we can find on the show.

Rachel McGuire 05:55
Yes. So we launched our first episode in October of 2019, and that focused on specifically the collabition and how to work together with other agencies and giving other people, especially, tips on how to leverage and scale their business with partnering with others. But we're also trying to just do an overall public relations podcast with different tips, tricks to help to help those PR folks, whether they're in an agency, whether they're working still in house somewhere to give them that information and those tools and tips they need to help grow their careers.

Liselle DeGrave 06:30
And we really want the podcast to be raw and authentic. There's a lot of public relations may sound glamorous. It doesn't mean that it always is. Our first episode on Collabitition, I think was it Was great because people kept asking us, okay, wait, why am I hiring a sales agency? Am I hiring Rachel's agency? So we kind of go into some of that detail on how we decide what project might go under which agency. Our November podcast is actually going to be on how to start your own business. And as we mentioned before, Rachel and I have two very different stories of how we got to where we are today. But that is probably the number one question that we get asked. Rachel left a really, what would most consider safe, safe job with benefits, government retirement. And now she's on her own and she's thriving. And so people are, I think a lot of people want that as well, and they want to know how, how it can be possible. And we think it is.

Rachel McGuire 07:26
It is possible. And I think that's going to be the exciting part about that show and just exploring how, you know, sometimes you do have to sacrifice and sometimes there are things that you're really grateful for. I know Liselle has a family and a husband and has those benefits and has kind of a stable paycheck through her, through her husband. But I don't. I'm a single cat mom and I've really had to go back and I started doing that in 2016. I kind of woke up and I literally realized that I had everything I never wanted and I was fighting to keep it. I had that fancy home, I had the big mortgage, I had the fun car, the great job and the travel and, and I just woke up one day and was really like, what am I doing? This, this is not what I signed up for. And I thought achieving all those things, I would feel really excited and I would have made it. But in looking back, I just realized that I was so out of alignment with what I really wanted to do and following my passions and following what would bring me joy, that, that I wasn't happy and I didn't feel fulfilled no matter how much I was making, no matter how perfect my house was or how perfect my life looks. So I've had to scale back a little to start up again, and I'm already a profitable business. But, you know, my, my situation is just a little different. So together, though, I think it kind of is going to show that balance of no matter where you're coming from, you can make it work.

Liselle DeGrave 08:41
Yeah. And if the funny thing is, Rachel and I are almost the same exact age and we, we're just get, we're getting close to that 40 year mark. And when she was still working in house, we would joke when we're 40. We're going to go out on our own. We're going to go out on our own. And you know, it may not look exactly like we had originally thought, but we're kind of already doing it. And this podcast is sort of, I say, the culmination of that. It's a fun project. A lot of times when you work, we do a lot of work with government, public agencies and it's not, sometimes you're dealing with boards and council and you're limited on the level of creativity that you're able to project. And that for me, that's really can, that really is constraining and I have a hard time with that. So I love this podcast because we've set up our website, we get to record it regularly, we're out shooting photos, we're sharing valuable information, which is something we're both really passionate about. We love mentorship. We love actually our December, our December podcast is going to be on I'm. We're calling it Confessions of an Intern, a PR intern because we have some pretty bad self exposing stories of some goofs that we did as interns. But there's always something to learn from that and we're tying that in with tips and tips and tricks or for somebody that's starting their career, I don't think it's just in public relations, but really any industry. And so we want to use the podcast as a gateway to be able to really share what PR is about and navigating your career in public relations.

Gresham Harkless 10:12
Yeah, that makes so much sense. And I was actually going to ask you guys for what I call a CEO hack and that might be it right there. Because I was thinking as you guys were talking about that affluent mindset or having that abundant mindset is actually a better word of understanding that there's more than enough to go around. Do you feel like that is maybe a habit or CEO hack could be like an Apple book or a habit, but do you think that's a habit that helps you run your business and, and approach even your podcast and everything you're doing?

Rachel McGuire 10:39
I think so. And I think another thing we both definitely are into is neurohacking and listening to how you can reset your mind from a lot of those places where you're coming from that lack mindset into that of abundance. And it's nothing that you would describe as woo, but it's really using those manifestation techniques that have been proven by science to help retrain your brain to think successfully. And that's, I think, where I Never have a worry that there's not going to be work coming or that someone's going to get the client that I wanted. While that might happen, I also know there's enough hap. There's enough going around, and there's going to be probably something bigger and better around the corner.

Liselle DeGrave 11:20
Agree. You do need to have that abundance mindset. I know a lot of people struggle with the idea of scarcity, and if I don't get this client, my business isn't going to grow. And you end up taking on projects that you really. You regret. You don't enjoy them. Um, they're wrong right from the beginning. You don't trust your gut instinct. And you have to remind yourself that saying no to one thing opens you up to be able to say yes to something else. And that yes may be something that you would have never dreamt could even be possible. So saying no is really saying yes.

Gresham Harkless 11:52
I appreciate you guys for reminding us of that. So. And I wanted to ask you now for what I call a CEO nugget. And this could be like a word of wisdom, be something PR related, that you guys might touch on in your podcast. But what is something that we can take and learn as entrepreneurs and business honors to be more successful?

Rachel McGuire 12:08
I would have to say, for me, it's finding a mentor. No matter where you are in your career, you always want to have people in your circle who are at that next phase or a few stages ahead and. And be able to tap into that and have them there to provide that open, honest feedback on how you're doing or be able to have a conversation with them and. And get those nuggets that are going to help you move to the next level.

Gresham Harkless 12:34
I appreciate that in those nuggets. And now I want to ask you my absolute favorite question, which is the definition of what it means to be a CEO. And we're hoping to have different, quote, unquote, CEOs on this show. So, La Salle and Rachel, what does being a CEO means? You?

Liselle DeGrave 12:47
I'm not sure what. Gosh. For me, one of the reasons that I started my business was to be able to control my schedule and the flexibility of time. So as a CEO, I value that. The time that I spend with my family, the time that I'm invested in my projects, that's. That's what it's all about for me. But as a CEO, I also have a responsibility to care for the people that are on my team. And that's. That's a big responsibility to care for your. Your people. To care for the projects that you work on. People are investing money in your business, and that's a, that's a big undertaking.

Rachel McGuire 13:22
I would agree with what LaSelle said. And I think for both of us also, just being able to do good with our businesses and be able to give back, one of the things we're both looking at doing on our own are setting up nonprofits next year to continue to help and to continue to help others thrive. And I think for both of us, it's pretty special to see that you can start your own business and that also help support others in small businesses and whether it's your employees or contractors. And that's something really special and something

Liselle DeGrave 13:54
we're both really proud of, too. And as a CEO of a thriving business, I know a lot of times when people are getting started in business, they, they have, they, they feel guilty or they feel bad about asking for, you know, you're not asking for money. You're trading a service or a product in exchange for. For money. But people have a hard time with that. But I always like to be remembered, and so I always like to be reminded that if you aren't making. I like to remind people that if you aren't making money, you can't give money. And I think as a CEO, that also ties back into the flexibility of time. If I don't have time available, which I can create that time being a CEO, I can't give that time, so I can't serve other organizations. I can't work at the food pantry on a Monday if I'm in a 9 to 5 job. So to me, as a CEO of my company, that that's something that I really value.

Gresham Harkless 14:46
Yeah, that makes so much sense and kind of sometimes we forget why we do exactly what we do. But as you talked about the nonprofits being able to give back and to be and have that freedom in order to do that is definite, you know, something that's important. So I definitely, you know, appreciate those definitions, appreciate those perspectives, and I appreciate your time even more. So what I wanted to do was pass you the mic, so to speak, just to see if there's anything additional you wanted to let our readers and listeners know, and then, of course, how best they can get a hold of you and subscribe to the podcast.

Liselle DeGrave 15:10
Of course.

Rachel McGuire 15:11
Yes. So thank you so much for having us on. We've really enjoyed our time together. And for your listeners, if they're interested in learning more about us, they can check us out on pressingonpodcast.com or follow us on insta@pressingonnpr and our podcast is

Liselle DeGrave 15:27
available anywhere that you can hear a podcast that Apple Podcast, Google Podcasts, Spotify Anchor and many more.

Gresham Harkless 15:35
Awesome awesome awesome. Well thank you so much and we will have the links and information in the show notes so that everybody can follow up with you and of course subscribe to the podcast. But I appreciate you appreciate your time and I hope you have a phenomenal rest of the day.

Gresham Harkless 15:46
Thank you for listening to The I Am CEO podcast powered by Blue16 Media. Tune in next time and visit us at imceo 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.com CEO. This has been the I Am CEO podcast with Gresham Harkless. Thank you for listening.