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Every business has a story … but not every business knows how best to tell their story in a way that resonates with their customers. Because we know that people buy from people they know like and trust, its vital to build what my guest today – Nicole Rodrigues – calls a platform for continuing storytelling. Nicole is a PR expert who has developed the brand narratives for many big names in business including Hulu, YouTube, Heal and Yahoo! Today she shares a lot of her secrets.

MELINDA

Hi, I’m Melinda Wittstock and welcome to Wings of Inspired Business, where we share the inspiring entrepreneurial journeys, epiphanies, and practical advice from successful female founders … so you have everything you need at your fingertips to build the business and life of your dreams. I’m a 5-time serial entrepreneur who has lived and breathed the ups and downs of starting and growing businesses, currently the game changing social podcast app Podopolo. Wherever you are listening to this, take a moment and download Podopolo. Follow Wings of Inspired Business there and join the Wings community so we can take the conversation further with your questions, perspectives, experiences, and advice for other female founders at whatever stage of the journey you’re at! Because together we’re stronger, and we soar higher when we fly together.

Today we meet an inspiring entrepreneur who says she’s had a lifelong vision to positively elevate the way in which public relations manifests in the modern era. Nicole Rodrigues is the self-funded founder and CEO of her dream agency – NRPR Group – and she has more than 20 years of experience representing and developing key strategies for some of the biggest names in business, including Hulu, Heal, YouTube, Yahoo! and more.

Today Nicole shares the top 3 things that every professional and aspiring entrepreneurial or business leader needs to know in order to be effective in today’s business market. Hint: It comes down to effective storytelling and an intentional long-term build.

Somewhere on every game-changing entrepreneur’s vision board is a magazine cover in Forbes, Business Week or Entrepreneur with a full spread about their company’s success. Of course that is the heady height of recognition – and long before then, mentions and articles in blogs, interviews on podcasts, or appearances on TV can go a long way to building your brand and customer loyalty.

But you need a good story to tell – and at every stage of your business growth.

Nicole Rodrigues describes this as a “build”, a long-term strategy to map out your personal founder and business story. And Nicole helps businesses do just that.

CEO and Founder of NPRP Group and author of Beverly Hills Boss, Nicole is a member of the invitation-only thought leaders known as the Forbes Agency Council, and one of eight hand-selected board members of the Organization of American Women in Public Relations (Women in PR USA). She is also a contributing writer for Entrepreneur, Rolling Stone, and PR News, among others.  Recently she was the recipient of Acquisition International’s 2021 Influential Businesswoman Award for “Most Innovative PR Entrepreneur (USA)”.  A former NFL cheerleader for the Oakland Raiders, Nicole is also passionate about encouraging businesses to adopt more inclusive business models with diverse and multidimensional teams spanning the cultural, religious and gender gamut. She also founded a non-profit, The Young Dreamers Foundation, in 2017, through which she mentors and equips city students with the tools, tactics and role models necessary to thrive throughout their future pursuits, both personally and professionally.

So today let’s dig deep into all things PR, branding, storytelling and what it takes to build a thriving business as a single mom.

Let’s put on our wings with the inspiring Nicole Rodrigues, and be sure to download the podcast app Podopolo so we can keep the conversation going after the episode.

Melinda Wittstock:

Nicole, welcome to Wings.

Nicole Rodrigues:

Thank you so much for having me. I’m happy to be here.

Melinda Wittstock:

I always like talking about PR and earned media and all the things, because it’s so vital to a company’s growth to get that right. You’ve worked for some major companies, YouTube, Yahoo, Hulu, and many more besides. What is the biggest value in your mind of really good PR? What does that actually mean for a business?

Nicole Rodrigues:

Yeah, that is a really, really great question. I tend to look at PR as being the storytelling arm of a company. When that is being done well, the company’s story, from their origin story, from the founder stories, to the growth stories, to the consumer stories, when those stories are being told often and well, that’s when PR is working for a company. I think too many companies think of PR as a one hit wonder, just get me one hit in Tech Crunch and that’s going to do all the magic I need, get me two stories in Forbes. They don’t realize that it’s a build, they don’t realize that there are other media, trade publications, things like that, that need to constantly see you in order to basically say that you’re a thing, that you’re something worth paying attention to. When PR is being done well, you see stories about a company from all over the place all the time. That’s when it’s-

Melinda Wittstock:

I love the idea that it’s the storytelling arm of the company, that you’re really weaving a narrative. It’s how people come to have an emotional connection with you, is understanding that story. There are different stories, I guess, for different audiences as well. When you work with companies, how do you bring out that narrative and then work to figure out, okay, which places are we going to place this and that and whatever? Talk to me about that build, as you put it.

Nicole Rodrigues:

Yeah, great question. What I like to do is sit down with the key stakeholders of the company, whether it be the CEO, the CTO, the COO, whoever basically has an idea of where the company is going and a solid idea of what the company is in its current state. Just sitting with them, you often get to pick the best of the best out of their brains. They’re going to share stories with you that you likely would’ve never even thought of if you just looked at their website and tried to guess who they were.

Oftentimes, it’s the marketing arm speaking in marketing speak or advertising speak who will write forward the website, and their audience is usually whatever customer and whatever partner they’re trying to attract. We are trying to not only help them better tell their story to those people, but also attract investors, people who need to know at the core of who you are, what you are. Sitting with those stakeholders, you get gems that come out of their brain when it comes to really breaking down, in human, who or what the company is. By human, I mean I tell them, “Cut out the jargon, speak to me like you’re just speaking to a normal human being, because that’s how we’re going to have to talk to the media about you.” The media aren’t going to be impressed with acronyms. The media are going to be impressed when you can explain brass tacks who you are, what you do, who you do it for, why you’re doing it and how you’re growing.

Those meetings really help inspire a lot of the narrative that we then start to build with the company. We start to figure out, from podcasts to TV interviews, to byline stories that we can work with you to write, how are we going to tell your story across all these platforms so that when people are collectively reading all of these things they’re going to understand who you are and what you care about, without always having to just say it, “This is who we are and this is what we care about,” which is usually what marketing does. We’re a little bit more of the ninja group. We go and we sneak into your brain, we pull out all the gems and then we help create a strong narrative using all of that stuff.

Melinda Wittstock:

Of course, really good PR, when you’re getting that earned or paid media, in that sense it really leads to a growth in not only credibility, but the authenticity that can emerge from that ends up attracting the right customers, because people, at the end of the day, do business with other people. When you’re making a decision about which vendor you’re going to work with or what product you’re going to buy or any of these things, you want to buy from someone you know, like, trust. You’re really in the know, like, trust business.

Nicole Rodrigues:

That’s right, absolutely.

Melinda Wittstock:

Give me an idea of your ideal client. Why don’t we start with the different stages? I know you work with some startups or emerging growth companies, where they’re new in a market, they’ve got to educate a market, they maybe have really big competitors they’re taking on, all of that. What’s your approach in that context, for more of the early stage company that’s trying to seize market?

Nicole Rodrigues:

Build, yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

I don’t know, because there’s a lot of companies out there that are the best kept secrets in the world, they’ve really got great products and services but no one knows about them. What’s your [inaudible 00:06:26] there?

Nicole Rodrigues:

I love that question, simply because people have to start somewhere. A lot of founders have this misconception that if you hire the right PR firm they’re just going to get you into Forbes all the time and that’s always going to happen. The answer is no, they might know the right people at Forbes, but it’s more about whether or not you and your company are ready. If it was that easy to get into Forbes, everyone would be in it. That’s why things like Forbes and Tech Crunch are coveted, because they’re waiting for the right elements to come together.

We will work with companies to get those elements, really help the CEO stand out. What are some bylines, some thought leadership articles that we can place under your byline to show that, as a thought leader, you understand where the industry is and where it’s going? You don’t have to talk about your product in general, you’re supposed to be talking about the industry, the problems, the problem solvers, and sharing solutions with people.

We’ll build a lot of it around the pedigree of some of the founders, because oftentimes when you’re a founder of a company, you have deep experience from other places that allows you to share. You can just be known as a smart thought leader to others. The building blocks start to get there and people are like, “Oh wow, what is this?” Then when you’re you’re writing bylines or maybe you’re on really smart podcasts, you can start pitching these executives to panels at industry events, where other people are going to be then exposed to them. Maybe there’s a writer at Forbes sitting in the audience that says, “Wow, what you just said was brilliant.”

People don’t understand that the building blocks that need to be in place are there to create longevity and power. By power, I mean staying power. You’re not going to be a one hit wonder, you’re not just going to have one article and it’s going to solve all your problems. You have to start somewhere, and the best place to start is through captivating people through the building blocks, thought leadership, using the pedigree of your executives so that people start to see that company’s name in life, like, “Oh yeah, I think I saw the name of that. I think I read about you guys here,” or, “I think I read about you here.”

Then you start figuring out what announcements about the company and milestones can you make so that you can slowly build so that media want to follow that storyline. “Wow, okay, you just announced your first 100,000 users. That’s incredible. How’d you get there?” Great, then you make another announcement around when you hit the one million user mark. “Wow, well, what’s the difference between a hundred thousand and a million? What did you have to do that was different to get you here? People want to learn about that.”

Really putting that in place creates … It’s stepping stones, it’s narrative building, so that you have staying power and people do look at you and your company as an authority. That’s what you need to do when you’re early. Don’t be disappointed if Forbes doesn’t want to talk to you right now, they’ll want to talk to you later when you’ve already proven that you are a leader in the space.

Melinda Wittstock:

This is really, really smart advice. I think what you’re describing, Nicole, in a way, is a flywheel, because it takes a little bit of time to get all the component parts going, of your marketing, of your sales, of this and that. Then there’s so many different marketing strategies and you’ve got all these social media posts going, maybe paid spend, you’re on podcasts, you’re doing all these sorts of things. Tying that all together, where they start to fit, like a flywheel, where each constituent part helps the other part. That’s not an overnight thing. It might make companies look like an overnight success, but no one ever is.

Nicole Rodrigues:

No, you’re exactly right, no one ever is. That’s why when clients are like, “Hey, how come these guys did this?” I’m like, “Do you really want me to break it down for you? Because I can go into the history and show you all of the little breadcrumbs that they were basically spilling along their path to get them to this place. You need to do that.” Everyone is looking for that get rich quick scheme. It’s like the fit, famous, fast scheme, let people know about who we are right away, we’re go from zero to a hundred overnight. No, and no great home was built on sand either. You do want to make sure that you have a foundation of great storytelling within your organization, starting early, so that you have a platform for continuous storytelling. Look at companies like Microsoft, companies like Amazon, they didn’t go from zero to Microsoft and Amazon, it just did not happen. It’s the same thing with your narrative. Your story continues as you, as an organization, grow and continue to prove yourself.

Melinda Wittstock:

Mm-hmm, yeah. You mentioned start early, and that was my next question. What is the optimum time? When is a company ready to really start engaging with a PR agency?

Nicole Rodrigues:

Great question. You’re full of good, good questions, I’m loving this. It really depends on the industry. I want to say, most companies, from the beginning, will have the founder’s story to tell. Even before your product is live, you can start talking about the vision and where it came from by helping tell the founder or founders’ stories early. What that’ll do is build anticipation for what’s to come and what’s to be launched. It’s like laying a little bit of that narrative, like, “Oh, and when we launch here, this is what you’re going to be able to look for, because this is what we’re building, this is the vision.”

Then, I would say no later than say two to three months from when you’re going to physically launch something, do not call a PR firm two weeks before your big reveal, do it two to three months so that you can make sure that everything is orchestrated and thought through. When it comes to utilizing media as a lever to pull in that little machine that you’re building, you want to pull the lever of the media, you want to make sure you’re doing that well and that it’s timed and orchestrated and looks beautiful, and that it’s timed to the things that you do on social media, which should be timed to the things that you do on your website, and timed to the things that your employees then ignite when you’re launched and you’re out there, so that you don’t have an employee who’s accidentally slipping and saying, “Wow, really excited about tomorrow’s launch,” on Twitter. Oh man, what if somebody’s looking at that? You just spill the beans, brother.

You need someone who can orchestrate internal and external communications beautifully. That’s really when you’re going to want to engage with a PR firm who understands all of the moving parts and all of the elements, so that they can all play together and you can do something really, really well.

Melinda Wittstock:

We’ve been talking about the build. Fast forward to a later stage of your company, where the PR may involve, I don’t know, reputation management or crisis PR. Do you know what I mean? When you go on the life cycle of a company and the different types of PR that they need at different stages, if you’ve built that foundation right and you’re consistent on brand and people get to know you and know your story, that’s really a great defensive move too. If something goes wrong with your company, something unexpected, like the business meteor hits you or you’re struggling suddenly in a recession or you have an unexpected competitor thing or something just goes wrong, a customer complaint, then you have that better defensive foundation. People already know you, in terms of the context in which to judge you in that kind of scenario.

But in the trajectory of, say, working with a company right through its life cycle and its various growth stages, what do you find are the different stages of PR, I guess, if you will, and what you need when?

Nicole Rodrigues:

Yeah, totally. Great, great question as well. The stages, phase one is focusing on the founder, founder stories and origin stories. You want to do that, I would say, as early as you can and as close to a launch as possible. You don’t want to be so early that it just feels like you’re throwing stories out into the ether and it doesn’t make sense. That’s phase one, you really want to do it a couple months or really near your first launch and first foray out into the world.

Phase two is where you start telling your product story, because by then you should have people using it, giving feedback, you should have potential data, whether it be sales, data, user data, whatever that is. You start getting into the nitty gritty of the product story, really helping people understand what it is and how that works. That’s really around a launch or say a phase two, depending on if you’re a company that wants to keep your original launch a little bit quiet because you’re unsure how the market’s going to react. But really, phase two is focusing on really helping people understand, doing demo stories or even product sample stories, things like that, if you’re a consumer product.

Phase three really is when you start digging into your place in the world. Now you’ve been out there, your founder is out there, founders, and people have been interacting with you as a brand and as a company. This is where you start getting more into speaking programs, award programs, getting recognized for what you’ve done, recognized for what you’re doing, and that vision that you have, continuing to share it so that people see you as a thought leader.

Phase four is really looking at where you are as a company, where you want to pivot, where you might want to change now that you’ve already seen what’s been going on with your product out there in the world. Are we still going to stay true to this? Do we want to add anything more to it? Do we want to branch off? Do we want to add something else? You start looking at the additions of your company.

Really, after that, it’s almost like a rinse-repeat cycle. You want to make sure that you’re continuously sharing as many stories about your founders or sharing thought leadership ideas from those founders. You want to continue helping people understand where your product continues to go and the data stories around that. You really just want to continue that snowball effect. What happens is, if you do PR well and with that emotion, it’s like at the core you did it right. At the foundation, it’s not sand. It is a cement, solid core of storytelling that no one will be able to shake from you as long as you don’t stop. That’s really how it’s done well.

Melinda Wittstock:

I love that. What attracted you to PR in the first place, Nicole? How did you become a PR expert?

Nicole Rodrigues:

Yes. I tell people how I became a PR expert really came when I was almost 12 years old. I don’t know how to say it, but it felt natural. They say do what you love, it was really what I loved when I was 12 years old. I was in junior high and considering running for office, student council and things like that, where public perception, meaning who are your public, what is your public, it’s your peers, public perception was everything. I would think about, am I getting good grades, am I a nice person, am I someone that people can rely on, am I good with keeping my word, and then making sure that if ever I am going to write a speech about these things that I’m really highlighting my attributes. I was doing PR for myself very, very early on because I knew how image really impacted the way people looked at you, thought about you and wanted to work with you and things like that. It was almost like my ninja skill. I really knew how to do it from early on.

I was able to, from junior high to high school, not only become class president and student body president by my senior year, I was president of marketing, I was homecoming queen, I was everything that you would basically hope would happen by accident for people. I’m like, “Oh no, we’re not making this happen by accident. I’m doing solid PR for myself.” I didn’t even know that’s what PR was, I really had no idea, I just knew how to basically control what people thought of my image by being what I wanted them to see. It was very natural to me. I am a nice person, as long as you don’t cross me, because then you’re going to see a different side, but in junior high it was, “Hey, let’s work in a group together. I’m a reliable classmate.” All of the things that came very natural to me was what I noticed that people really wanted in a leader.

When I got to college and I was considering picking a major, I picked broadcast journalism at first. Then my broadcast journalism teacher was like, “Nicole, have you ever considered PR?” I looked at him and I was like, “What do you mean? I don’t even know what that is.” He was like, “Everything that you basically say you want to do in life is PR. Maybe take PR 101 before you officially choose your major,” you know how you have to go through the formal process of recording what your major is. I took PR 101, fell in love, and here I am, 22 plus years later, really doing what I think I was sincerely born to do.

Melinda Wittstock:

I love that. You’ve done so many things in your life. I mean, you were a cheerleader too.

Nicole Rodrigues:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

Talk to me about that. I’m curious about what that was like.

Nicole Rodrigues:

Yeah. Starting in elementary school, my mom saw that I had a knack for just performing and I really enjoyed dancing. I was a cheerleader from elementary school through high school. I was the very first varsity cheerleader all the way through in my high school, which was really awesome. I really enjoy expression through dancing and really just performing and firing people up, so cheerleading was also a very natural sport for me, a good outlet.

Then after college I got into the NFL as a cheerleader for the then Oakland Raiders, now Las Vegas Raiders. It was such a dream come true, not only because I do love football, but because I found a way in my adult life to be able to go back to what I loved so much when I was younger. Now, I just tell people I’m my clients’ cheerleader. Really, what PR is, a big part of that, is you’re the hype man or that you’re the hype woman. You’re trying to build it up in a really positive way, to get people excited about learning more about the company through the storytelling. Now, I get to be a cheerleader for my clients.

Melinda Wittstock:

Oh, that’s just so beautiful. I love that, a cheerleader for your clients. That’s probably the headline of the episode, thank you for that. It’s interesting though, along the journey, what have been some of your biggest challenges in terms of growing your company? What were some of the biggest challenges, setbacks, learnings, things like that along the way, because we all have them.

Nicole Rodrigues:

Oh yeah. I’ll tell you right now, still to this day, it’s hiring people, and actually hiring people who don’t just interview and say they want to work, but actually do and actually have passion and care about doing a good job. That’s been the hardest part. I think if I was just hiring bots, I would be massive right now in terms of a company, but you have people who say they want to get in PR, don’t actually understand what it is, they don’t understand that it is really hard work when you want to do it well, and then they’re like, “Oh wow, I didn’t realize this was going to be such hard work. I don’t think I want to do this anymore.”

Oh, it just baffles me, because I think, back in the day, I’m a Gen Xer, and I just think that many Gen Xers are really hard core workers. Many Gen Xers now, who have been through the ringer, aren’t as excited about work. They’re like, “Hey, give me a VP position that’s a little bit more cush. I’ve already paid my dues.” It’s even hard to hire people in my generation because they’re like, “Dude, I put in the time, I put in the work and now I’m good.” Oh, it’s so frustrating. I think just hiring people who also have no understanding of what it takes to build something from the ground up. They’re just like, “What is it that you’re going to do for me,” rather than, “What can I come to the company and do for you and do for the company and for my teammates?”

I would say I’m very blessed that we’ve been able to retain incredible, hardworking, passionate people, but in between there have just been people who don’t want to do the work, or graduate and just do not have the skill set. It’s really sad, it’s a sad state in our education system where people can be spit out of the education system and still not be able to write a proper paragraph. So much of what we do is writing and it’s sad because it’s like, look, I can’t go back and teach you the writing and grammar that you should have learned in high school and college. It’s just not going to work because we’re moving it too fast of a pace.

I encourage anyone who wants to get into PR, take journalism classes, take English classes, to force your hand in improving your writing, because if you think you’re going to get in PR and not have to write, you are dead wrong. That is really where I’ve lost so much time and energy and resources and money, bringing on the wrong people who just don’t have that skill and also just don’t have the passion to I’m going to go do this for myself, I’m going to go learn and make myself better. It’s almost like, “Nope, let me just find some place easier to work.” It really is a sad state.

I’ll tell you, that’s probably the only issue. Getting clients is not difficult when you know exactly what they need and you know how to deliver, it’s getting the people to physically come in and help do the work.

Melinda Wittstock:

A hundred percent. What is your ideal company to work with? If you could say, “Oh, my ideal client is this type of client,” who are they?

Nicole Rodrigues:

Yeah, my ideal client has enough runway and money in the bank to actually be able to do PR for six months to a year if they need it. Oftentimes, people will try to attract a PR firm as a Hail Mary, like, “Oh, if I just get this one story, it’s going to make us famous and we’re going to be great.” No, you definitely don’t want to do that. You want to employ PR, but you also need to know that it’s consistency that wins this game. So looking for a client that has funding or is very close to closing funding, or at least is bootstrapped enough to be able to afford PR.

They also are doing marketing well. They have social media down, they have a great website, they understand that social media and digital marketing amplify what PR is doing. It’s almost like having a campfire and throwing, how do I say it, gasoline on top of it and making it huge. It’s the social media component that amplifies it, but you’ve got to have both. The yin to the yang is digital marketing and owned content as well as earned. Then you’re looking at a really solid situation. Companies sometimes come and they’re like, “Well, we don’t have any social media, we don’t have any whatever,” and it’s fine, we can help build that, but they have to have an understanding that both are going to be necessary.

Then you have to have a CEO willing to put the time into the PR, and able as well, because when a media person wants you on the spot, like, “Hey, can you be on this TV station? We just pitched them and they’re ready to talk to you tomorrow.” “Oh no, tell them next week,” by then they’re going to be like, “Nope, forget it. We’re going to work with people who can talk to us right now.” People have to be dedicated and willing to make the time to do PR.

Melinda Wittstock:

Mm-hmm.

Nicole Rodrigues:

Yeah.

Melinda Wittstock:

Yeah, that’s super important. Yeah, a hundred percent. You have to participate, you can’t just sit back and have it done for you, because you’ve got to participate in, oh, I don’t know, working with you on just understanding the company, your story, all of these things.

What’s the best way, Nicole, for people to find you and work with you?

Nicole Rodrigues:

Yeah, the easiest is if they just shoot us an email, info@nrprgroup. Our team, we monitor that very closely and someone will make sure that I absolutely get that. If you also want to engage with us, the company is @nrprgroup across all social handles, or me personally, @nicolerpr across all social channels. I’m happy to connect, happy to connect on LinkedIn and whatever the case may be, but yeah, please find us there. Then obviously our website too is just www.nrprgroup.com.

Melinda Wittstock:

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for putting on your wings and flying with us.

Nicole Rodrigues:

Yes, happy, happy to. Thank you for having me.

 

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Listen to learn the secrets, strategies, practical tips and epiphanies of women entrepreneurs who’ve “been there, built that” so you too can manifest the confidence, capital and connections to soar to success!
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Review on iTunes and win the chance for a VIP Day with Melinda