Building Your Growth Strategy w/ Margaret McNab | Ep. 137

In this episode of the Biz/Dev podcast David and Gary team up with Margaret McNab, Principal at McNab & Company, and chat about all things PR, communications, and the most prolific question of all time is answered…name tag or no name tag…stay tuned.

Links: 

LinkedIn: Margaret McNab

LinkedIn: McNab & Company

___________________________________

Submit Your Questions to:

hello@thebigpixel.net

OR comment on our YouTube videos! - Big Pixel, LLC - YouTube

Our Hosts

David Baxter - CEO of Big Pixel

Gary Voigt - Creative Director at Big Pixel

The Podcast

David Baxter has been designing, building, and advising startups and businesses for over ten years. His passion, knowledge, and brutal honesty have helped dozens of companies get their start.

In Biz/Dev, David and award-winning Creative Director Gary Voigt talk about current events and how they affect the world of startups, entrepreneurship, software development, and culture.

Contact Us

hello@thebigpixel.net

919-275-0646

www.thebigpixel.net

FB | IG | LI | TW | TT : @bigpixelNC

Big Pixel

1772 Heritage Center Dr

Suite 201

Wake Forest, NC 27587

Music by: BLXRR

Transcript

[00:00:00] David: In my head, I don't know if it was that show Scandal. Maybe it was where the PR person became their fixer, right? Something bad happened at a party and you know, you sat on the copy machine and made 500 copies of your butt and you need to spin it and make the world not know it or bad news came up.

That's how I think of a PR person.

[00:00:25] David: Hi everyone. Welcome to the BizDev podcast, a podcast about developing your business. I'm David Baxter, your host. Joined today by Gary Voigt per usual. You know, I thought I was flying solo today. So I was really excited because I thought Gary was out of town. And so it was just going to be me.

And then this is all going to be me. And I don't have to talk to this dork, but he's here. Hi, Gary.

[00:00:45] Gary: Don't worry. I'll just, you know, be in the background as usual. Won't say much

[00:00:50] David: More importantly, we are joined by Margaret McNabb, the principal of McNabb and Company, which is a strategic communications firm. Does that sound right? Is that a good way of describing y'all?

[00:01:01] Margaret: Sure is.

[00:01:03] David: Welcome to the show. Thank you so much

[00:01:05] Margaret: Thank you.

[00:01:05] David: us.

[00:01:06] Margaret: to be here.

[00:01:07] David: have been doing this a little while. This, you've been doing this for 20 years.

Is that ish, give or take?

[00:01:13] Margaret: Yes. Yes. I have been been in business for 20 years basically on and off as a freelancer and or with a few stints in the traditional workforce as well, but all in the field of PR and communications. 

[00:01:27] David: So PR and communication. Okay. So I am ignorant. So don't say anything, Gary. I am, I get confused between marketing, PR and communications. What is the difference?

[00:01:43] Margaret: Well, you know what? There was a time when I stopped referring to myself as PR communications, marketing, anything like that, and just called myself a growth strategist. And in fact, that was probably the most you know, The umbrella that I, uh, flew under for the longest time. And mainly it was because it kind of captures all of that, right?

There is a little bit of marketing when you're doing communications, you are basically helping companies figure out how to talk about the. Business that they're operating, how to talk about you know, their goals, their positioning, what makes them different, what they want their community, their customers to understand.

And basically once you get into that, I mean, you are talking about marketing, you're talking about, you're already in sales, you're in You know, you're developing business. PR is specifically when you are doing outreach to media. That's what I would say on that one. It's who specifically the audience is for, but generally I would say that all of that is kind of a it's all pretty well tied together, but I do a lot of writing.

I do a lot of writing. I do a lot of speaking. Yeah. Uh huh.

[00:02:52] David: Okay, fair enough. So it's funny. 

In my head, I don't know if it was that show Scandal. Maybe it was where the PR person became their fixer, right? Something bad happened at a party and you know, you sat on the copy machine and made 500 copies of your butt and you need to spin it and make the world not know it or bad news came up.

That's how I think of a PR person. 

Like this super sleuth kind of Britain. Now, maybe that's TV. Maybe I'm wrong here, but it's funny that's in my head. That's what I think of

[00:03:25] Margaret: I mean, there's a lot of different use cases or opportunities when a communications person comes in and uh, extra handy. Some of it is when you cut yourself into a pickle and don't know how to talk yourself out of it. PR people are usually pretty, we're trained to figure out okay, you know, let's everybody take a deep breath here and figure out what we're going to do.

Cause this is a situation. More often than not, right? But yeah, I mean, that's part of it. Spin, I, yeah, I'm never crazy about that as a, you know, as a word or a term. We're thinking about that and the uh, In the, you know, as part of my work, but I think it is more just understanding what is going on, who all the, you know, the different audiences are, how they're receiving whatever event has occurred.

And then what do you do to either kind of protect your reputation or take advantage of an opportunity when you put yourself out there, right? But usually I would say you're more doing like announcements, helping, you know, companies take everything, all the work that they've done, right. To build a product or to you know, launch a gear or to develop a company or whatever.

And then you're finally the person who has the perspective and one step, you know, outside of that whole process, you can say, okay, so here's how we can communicate. This to the outside world. So they're going to get excited about your product or about the new feature you're rolling out or about the company that you're announcing.

Cause sometimes when we, you know, when we have been, you know, spent a year and a half developing something and just thinking so specifically about it, you lose perspective on, you know, what your audience actually needs to hear. And you want to just overwhelm them with everything, right. This, I, you know, I've been thinking about this for 18 months and now I'm going to tell you everything.

And so a PR person is the one who's going to be like, okay, hold up. Let's do this, you know, in a systematic way so that people can hear you and get as excited as you are. And also follow the story and build it and stay engaged. 

[00:05:35] David: When should a company, and I'm thinking of a startup or new company or fledgling, however you want to look at it, what stage in company should you be doing PR? Not marketing, that's a whole different thing. But just PR. I've got a new product, a new feature. I don't, my company never does PR. We launch a new client, they go live, we might do a LinkedIn post, right?

Maybe. We will eventually do a case study. But that's, it's like, it's not in our lexicon to go PR. When should a company start thinking about that?

[00:06:13] Margaret: well, of course, I would say the earlier the better, uh, and I don't know, I guess it would just, to me, that would depend on how, uh, strong the channels that you have, uh, that you're working with right now how strong those are and where your audience is. And you know, who you want to reach PR is a great way to reach a wide audience or even a more niche audience.

So you're, so part of the, you know, where the marketing versus communications thing comes up for me is with marketing, you're building your audience, right? All that effort goes into to building that with PR and communications. You are uh, positioning your message. With a publication or an outlet or a or another could even be like another uh, influential social media group or something like that or, you know, a networking group, uh, to do a talk, whatever you're positioning your message in front of an audience that somebody else has built. Right. For

[00:07:13] David: How do you build up that audience?

[00:07:16] Margaret: Well, so that's the marketing

[00:07:17] David: saying, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt. I.

[00:07:19] Margaret: Yeah.

[00:07:20] David: Okay. Cause I'm thinking to myself, it's like when I launch a product, I've got a new gizmo that I'm wanting to get out and let's say I'm an established business, let's take the new company out for a second.

I don't have media relations. I don't have a press core. That's, you know, Microsoft says, Hey, we're creating a new computer. Let's call the verge. Let's call CNET. Let's call New York times and send them review units and do their thing. Right. That's a big boy company, but you're small. How do you start that process?

[00:07:49] Margaret: I mean, you can do it. You can do, anybody can do it on their own. I mean, it just takes, uh, just kind of takes an understanding of the process and who are the writers that you want to get in front of, like you said. So if you want to get in front of CNET, or if you want to get in the New York Times, then it starts with just doing the research of who are the writers that that cover the subject matter or would be interested in your story.

Thank you. And then you know, crafting a message to them, reaching out, saying, here's, you know, something that we've been working on that we're really excited about, here's why it might be interesting to you and to your audience. And would you be interested in covering? And if you don't hear from them then you're in the PR business.

And if you do, then you gotta win, you know, I say I love when it comes to, you know, getting coverage or really just anything in sales and anything like that. I love a yes. My second favorite is a no. And just dead silence or no response is all is kind of the, or a maybe is what I'm, you know,

[00:08:51] David: That's the standard.

[00:08:53] Margaret: right. That's the

[00:08:54] David: Does it make sense? Does it make sense to hire a company like yours? Because you know, the writers, you have a relationship with the writers and you sending that email saying, Hey, this cool thing has just been made. You should write about it. Do they listen to someone like you more, or is it not in today's world is so different, which I'll ask about in a minute, but what would

[00:09:16] Margaret: If you were.

[00:09:17] David: that big of an advantage for hiring?

I'll.

[00:09:19] Margaret: Yeah, I mean, if you were to hire somebody to do to help you with a big announcement, or to if you're rolling out, uh, a major product, something that you have really high expectations for, and you want to reach a lot of people and get some, uh, some serious buzz going, then hiring a PR person who has the relationships with the, uh, publications that you want to get in.

Yes, that would be, uh, your. That would be a great bet, right? You're probably going to pay a pretty penny to work with that person. However, if they have the, you know, access and the relationships with those kinds of folks, it may be worth it to you. Uh, does it so that's, that is to say that not every PR company is going to have every relationship with you want, right?

So if you are if you've got a hardcore tech product. You don't want to hire somebody who's got you know, a Rolodex of tourism PR that they've done, right? So you want to pay attention to, it's not just I have relationships with the media, right? It's which ones, right? So that's important.

Second to that, I mean, yeah, you should ask

[00:10:29] David: questions that I should ask when I'm hiring a company.

[00:10:32] Margaret: yes, yes. Or I think that you can also, it's helpful to have somebody dedicated to this task. In that case. You don't, it doesn't necessarily need to be somebody who has all the relationships that you need out of the gate, right? If you don't have the budget to pay for a big PR firm, who's, you know, got the phone just, uh, ready and the calls to make.

But it is helpful to have somebody who is dedicated. To, uh, to working your project and to doing the research, building the relationships, following up there's, you know, there's quite a bit of work that goes into it. It doesn't mean that you can't do it for yourself. There is an art to it. Then, and a lot of it has to do with when we started out not telling everybody everything and all one, you know, all in your first message, overwhelming folks with content, right?

It's about getting the right message that. Gets people excited and then building from there. So founders, uh, and marketing teams, you can do that internally. Earned media is a great way to get a lot of eyes on your product if it's ready. You don't want to start, you know, pushing too hard. If you're, uh, You know, before your product is ready.

But I mean, there's a few different ways to go about it. And a lot of it just has to do with what are your goals and where do you want to build build relationships and what kind of audience do you want to get in front of? I was just going to launch off to, to where my career started, which was in the music industry. And So that's really where I learned how to, it's not, you know, at that point I wasn't working with tech CEOs or you know, business leaders. I was working with musicians, uh, independent musicians and record labels and helping them get in front of the.

The you know, the writers that they wanted to cover their albums or to promote their upcoming shows in a town. Right. And in that case, I'm speaking on behalf of the musicians on behalf of the writers and who appreciate having somebody else to pick up the phone for them, because it is hard to.

Promote yourself, right?

[00:12:49] David: So I'm sure you, you didn't have to make any PR things about musicians doing something weird or having to get them out of the fire. That

[00:12:57] Margaret: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. No way. No way. They're very reliable.

[00:13:00] David: No wrecked hotel rooms.

[00:13:02] Margaret: No, nothing. Nothing. They, yes,

[00:13:05] David: I know that band members

top tier, high quality, very relate relatable and easy to deal with people.

Yeah. We've had some clients that were in the music world and that's a tough group, man. That they're artists, right? Just in their very nature. They're artists. And they are busy or they just don't want to talk to you. It doesn't, it could be either. You don't know.

We had the toughest time. What are one of our clients focused on musicians and getting them to respond to you was took an act of God.

So yeah,

[00:13:40] Margaret: Yeah, but you know what that made for? That made for the transition to working with tech CEOs. I mean, that was pretty seamless in a way for me because it's okay, I'm used to speaking. You know, for somebody's baby, I'm used to taking the reins and saying, okay, here, I'm like, I hear all that.

I'm excited about this too. Let me just, let me pick up the phone. Let me do the talking here for a minute. Let me figure out what is, uh, the best way to, you know, to get you top of mind With the publications, let me help you figure out how to get, uh, promote your show. And Lord knows where, uh, Utah, you know?

But then when it came to working with, uh, with tech CEOs, and really just, you know, everybody from that point on, it's okay, this is somebody who is really passionate, cares a lot, big personalities usually. And I can.

[00:14:35] David: All right, Gary, you're supposed to be talking now. She

[00:14:38] Gary: Yeah. My question was, it seems like companies now, a lot of startups and small companies, if they're selling a product, their goal for marketing NPR is just, they want to either go viral and get as many people as possible interested in their product, or they want some stepping stone, something like shark tank, but maybe, you know, not everybody's going to get on shark tank, but they want a stepping stone into that.

Big audience. And they want it as soon as possible. So the other part of this question is a lot of smaller companies like that don't have the foresight to think of hiring a marketing team and then an add on of a PR person that has kind of experience in that, where the marketing team and PR person can work together and try to make that happen.

Although. You know, going viral, so to speak nowadays is just, it's way too random to be predictable, but at least there's a formula up to a point that you could try to get the most traction for them. So what type of companies do you feel deserve to have a PR person on top of the marketing team, working with the marketing team to help promote their products? Is it mainly people selling products or is it companies offering services?

[00:15:54] Margaret: Boy, that's a really good question. I think, you know, to me, it just comes down to the overall Marketing mix, you know.

If if going viral. Yeah. I mean, that's not something that necessarily happens overnight. And I can't say that's, you know, designing campaigns like that, it's really anything that I have a whole lot of experience with.

I have usually worked with, uh,

[00:16:18] Gary: No, but I'm just saying that's for instance, that's just what companies think of when they think of like great marketing.

[00:16:32] AD: BigPixel builds world class custom software and amazing apps. Our team of pros puts passion into every one of our projects. Our design infused development leans heavily on delivering a great experience for our clients and their clients. From startups to enterprises, we can help craft your ideas into real world products that help your business do better business. 

[00:17:01] Gary: I feel like the PR approach on top of a marketing team can also benefit a small company that has A story to tell rather than just a product to sell, like the storytelling part of marketing it's hit or miss on social media and LinkedIn and stuff. You know, you can't. You can put it out there, but you don't know if everybody's going to read it.

It seems like a PR person kind of has a better approach to segmenting that story into something that evolves into gaining more interest. And especially by putting it in the right channels at the right time to help grab an audience and gain interest. In that company's story, is that something that you do often for these tech companies?

Try

[00:17:41] Margaret: Yeah.

[00:17:41] Gary: story around the company itself, rather than just promote their services.

[00:17:45] Margaret: Yes. I think that's a really good, uh, way to put it. Is that it's, you know, it's not a one off thing that, that PR is, uh, you know, it's a long play. Right. It's is story building. And also the real benefit of it is getting your message into somebody else's feed. So there's only so much that you can tell people that I'm great, you know, but having other, uh, reputable sources say these guys are great.

They're really doing something interesting. They've got an interesting story that we've picked up and we are developing. They've got something that you're going to want to pay attention to. That's like the real value.

[00:18:27] David: I am fascinated. You have been doing this for almost 20 years. That is a very nice, long period of time. And I want to know what has changed the most in those 20 years in your world.

[00:18:42] Margaret: Um, gosh, uh, the whole world has changed in that time, I would say. 

[00:18:48] David: Said, you can't say everything that's cheating.

[00:18:50] Margaret: yeah I would say that In those early days working in music, the thing that was kind of, that was interesting and some big lessons that, that came with that was I started that work at a time when the music industry was evolving and changing quite drastically.

Right. So at that point, we were transitioning from physical to digital distribution for one thing. Right. So I was in college when we're all, you know, Napster had its heyday. And then after that, and we were all, you know,

[00:19:25] Gary: and iTunes.

[00:19:26] Margaret: all that stuff. Yikes. Right. But that's when there was a big change, big disruption in the industry.

And then, you know, you fall into the, my space. I've done some time on my space. I had some fun on my space. I'm not gonna lie. And so it was very, it was when, you know, I felt like the pie was shrinking. You know, there was a lot of fear. There was a lot of You know, competition for just a lot of it, just a lot of disruption, like I said so that was on the music side.

And then likewise on the media side, the same thing was happening. So we're going from physical distribution of newspapers and magazines. To digital distribution. So everything is going, you know, online. So it would be you know, an average week at that point. I would be doing tour press for a band and they're like, Oh, they're going to LA and, uh, you know, hit up the, you know, work those channels.

And we'd be getting emails, just droves of layoffs. So there were fewer and fewer writers who were you know, we're covering music and just everything was changing. 

My real point is that that when people, you never know who somebody is or what they've done just because of whatever, you know, company or title they're flying under at some moment, you might, somebody may be, uh, self employed and usually those are the ones where it's like, Oh, I don't need to.

I don't need to know them. Or you know, at some, you just, you're like, I'm here to meet the decision makers but you never.

[00:21:08] David: But if you

[00:21:09] Margaret: No, it gets in the way of curiosity,

[00:21:11] David: you deserve it.

[00:21:12] Margaret: but I mean, I just disagree.

[00:21:14] David: Put, put the name of your company. I don't just

[00:21:18] Margaret: What if you don't have a

[00:21:18] David: but you got a name that you go but then it's your name LLC or whatever. Right. I don't know.

[00:21:25] Margaret: if, even if it is

[00:21:26] Gary: with the name tags.

[00:21:28] David: Oh, okay, fine.

[00:21:30] Margaret: It gets in the way of curiosity.

[00:21:32] David: Gary, see he wins. And that's fair. All right, Gary, I'm going to hijack you here for a second.

[00:21:38] Gary: Yes.

[00:21:39] David: hijack.

Instead of our normal final question, I have a different one.

[00:21:43] David: Normally we ask the three things you would say. I'm going to, I'm going to throw you on your toes. If I am a new company, PR and communications. Early on

[00:21:55] Margaret: Hmm. Gosh. Early on. Yeah. I think it is always good to get a, an. You know, an outside, uh, uh, fresh perspective on what it is that you think is the most brilliant, for example I'll give you a, again, back in the music days I would, you come in at very tail end and somebody's got their album artwork and it's just Ooh, cringe, but they're just totally, you know, they're dead set, love it, you know, their Cousin made it and they love it.

And You know, it's the kind of thing that just gets lost in the pile or the name of the band has a swear word in it. And that just makes it harder. So getting a, getting an outside voice, getting some fresh perspective to say, okay, here's all the stuff. This is what I'm in love with. I love my ideas. It is good to have somebody who can just say, all right, yeah, let's, we can work with this, but I'm going to have to push back a little bit and say I don't know so much that this is the That this is the headline of your story, that this is what you lead with.

This angle is really what's got me interested. I think that's your first step, is just to get somebody in who's outside of your bubble to give you some feedback and a real honest opinion. About all the, you know, ideas that you're in love with, doesn't mean that you have to change them, but that it is very good to get that perspective.

After that, I would say, okay, I've got a launch, a big announcement coming up where do I want this? To appear who's writing about, you know, similar technologies, who's, who cares about this trend? Who cares about uh, the, you know, the tech field or whatever it is that I'm in who has the audience that I want to get in front of, build that list, you know, start writing down oh man, I read this great article, write the author's name down, write the writer's name down, follow them on, on.

X, uh, follow them on Instagram, wherever it is. Read the rest of their articles. That's another good place to start. You could even reach out and say, Hey, I love that article that you wrote. It's kind of similar to something that I've got cooking up, and I'd love to, You know, let you know about it when we're closer to to, uh, to launching it with two things, right?

So start building and figuring out, uh, who you want to get in front of. And then, yeah, finally, I think the other pitfall that I see folks, you know, uh, stumble into It was back in the beginning, right? It's I'm in love with my whole story, we've got all this stuff, and here's the whole thing, and everybody that's worked on this, and there's this thing that's interesting, and this thing that's interesting, and this thing that's interesting, and I'm gonna jam it all into one press release, and then get it out there, and then you blew every single one of your stories. Right. This is about building your story, not just getting all the information out at one time, because you have that's one moment in time. And you got the next, you know, year and a half to continue developing this project, uh, your product or your company, or however much longer you want to keep pushing it out.

And so then after that point, you say the first thing that's exciting is, Hey, we exist and here's what we do. And here's, what's unique about us. And here's why you should care. Great. So you get some, you know, a handful of articles written. And then the next one you sent to just one publication and you're like, here's what's really cool about this one particular thing, this feature that we built with, you know, so and so who's really a big name in the field.

And that's its own story. So the other where I'm getting to is then just map out. Okay. You know, what is the story that you're building? Not just what is, you know, what are we all going to blow in the first? Press release right out of the gates because building momentum is what you want to try to do. Not just was great.

Now, what PR can help keep that, you know, in front of a whole lot of audiences. And then your marketing team is going to be, you know, baseline building that. And then you can engineer with PR. Some big moments to, uh, to draw in some outside audiences and have somebody else say how awesome you are, aside from your awesome marketing people.

[00:26:26] Gary: Yeah. I think that third point is super important. It's like the everything, everywhere, all at once. The moment in time analogy, and then the building is definitely something I think more companies need to think about. Some companies do it extremely well. And then there's other companies that are just trying to give you a hundred bullet points, how awesome they are. And repeating that same a hundred bullet points just over and over to the point where it's so monotonous. You're just, you even forgot the company. You just know when you see that you scroll past where you see that you just delete email. So

[00:26:58] Margaret: Yeah. I mean, yeah. If I see just like a big monster email in my, you know, I'm not even gonna read it. You know, that's just going to overwhelm me. I'm like, I love these guys. And I don't know what they want, or what the point is, or what the deal is.

[00:27:14] Gary: now if anybody wants to reach out, learn more about you, your business where can they get a hold of you?

[00:27:19] Margaret: LinkedIn. LinkedIn. Find me. Marginab at on LinkedIn. I think I'm, like, the only one. And then also my company is on LinkedIn. McNab and Company.

[00:27:30] OUTRO: Hi, I'm Christy Pronto, Content Marketing Director here at BigPixel. Thank you for listening to this episode of the BizDev Podcast. We'd love to hear from you. Shoot us an email, hello at thebigpixel. net. The BizDev Podcast is produced and presented by BigPixel. See you next week. Until then, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, Threads, YouTube, and LinkedIn.