Building a Trusting Relationship with the Media

In this episode, Swire Ho #thepromoguy and Lauren Cockerell discuss the complex elements of establishing a PR strategy to propel your business. From understanding the nuances that make your brand unique to outlying the timeline for PR success, we explore how businesses can enhance their public profile and garner visibility. Learn more about the importance of transparency in an effective PR Strategy and how comprehensive information about your business can make a difference.

Also, understand how personal branding fits within the broader PR landscape. From multi-faceted public personas to your business's unique story, a potent personal brand can serve as a significant extension of your company's identity. The hosts also share valuable insights on building strong media relationships, managing expectations for PR results, and how personal branding can strengthen or confuse your brand's messaging. Finally, delve into ethical considerations in client selection and how a unified core value can advance your business growth.

Social Links for Lauren Cockerell:

hello@kwedarco.com
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https://www.facebook.com/kwedarco
https://www.linkedin.com/company/kwedarco/
https://www.instagram.com/kwedarco
https://www.youtube.com/@KwedarCo/

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Transcript

0:16

And growing a small business. The small business show is the official podcast of Garuda promo and branding solutions. Hello everyone, you're listening to the small business show. My name is Suire Ho. You can also call me the promo guy. Today my guest is Lauren Cockerell from creator and company. Not only she is the president of the company and she's also the host of the Impatient Entrepreneur podcast. She is a public relations communications and marketing executive and story brand certified guide. Lauren is obsessively strategic and dedicated advocate for creator and co's client. In addition to leading, Kay and Coyne is a member of the board of directors for the foundation of the Young Women Leadership Academy of Fort Worth. She's also yield Fort Worth accelerator participant Lauren earned a Bachelor of Art degree in business administration from Row College in Memphis, Tennessee. Welcome to the show Lauren. Hey, thank you. It's nice to be here. It's always fun to listen to your credentials being read to you. I'd love to learn more about your journey, especially you are story brand certified so obviously you love storytelling so love to hear the backstory of how you came to your position today and what do you like about what you do. I love looking backward at our lives and seeing how the road that got us here. Where we are now, is where we were meant to be. It really and truly began as a child, going to the library and checking out the maximum number of books that they would let me have, going home, reading them in a few days, coming back and checking out the maximum number of get again. I mean, even to the point of my pediatrician saying, reading is great, but you should also go outside sometimes, like, well, no, I don't want to. And the entrepreneurial bug was there too. I started a little babysitting company when I was. I couldn't drive yet. I remember that because I was on a bike and I signed myself up for health and safety classes at our local children's Hospital to learn about choking and poison. Help if someone ingests poison or something like that, or some medicines, and cease to ride my bike around the neighborhood with epicx syrup in my backpack, just hoping someone would hire me made up flyers. I was not a great babysitter, so that was not where my talents lay. And then even in a small, like I said, I went to Rhodes College in Memphis, which is a small liberal arts school, and I got a business degree and I was allowed to emphasize on things, so I emphasized in marketing and finance and then I still love those stories. And so I took just a ton of english classes. So I have an emphasis in english literature as well. And I didn't know that there was going to be a world in which those could all live together. When I left school, I really wasn't sure what I was going to do yet. And I kind of stumbled into an internship at a pr firm where I'm from in Fort Worth, Texas. And I was like, oh, my gosh, this is beautiful. It's like art and storytelling and business advisory, and all these things are coalescing in one thing. Like, this is what I meant to do. This is amazing. So that really set me off on the trajectory. That was 20 years ago, and I was with an agency for ten years. I was in house for an it company for five, and then I started my company in late 2017. So six years ago last month, and about a year into it, I was listening to the story brand. It was at the time building a story brand podcast, and I'd read the book and all that, and I thought, I'm really interested in this. I love the way they tell stories. I love the methodology and the framework. I'd love to go to a workshop or something like that with them, but I realized the workshop wasn't necessarily geared toward people who had had at least a decade of experience at that time. But I kept scrolling. Then I saw there was a guide certification. I was like, oh, I'll do that. And so that was April 2019, and that's been really marvelous, adding that into our bag of tricks. I love a good framework, and so being able to do really great brand messaging and strategy and websites and email funnels and all that good stuff. And then on top of that, having a really fantastic worldwide community of other story bearing guides has been really life changing. So if you're on the fence about that certification, I highly recommend you check it out. Thanks for sharing, Lauren. The question will, you know, we're on LinkedIn now. So I hear a lot of people talk about storytelling, right? You have to tell your story. You have to tell a story. But a lot of times I wonder, like, I don't really want to tell my story. Be honest, right? We're entrepreneur. We are executive. We're a salesperson. Right? We just wanted to sell our stuff and be done, right. I don't really want to share any story. What would you advise what story to tell the people who do not want to share any story at all? That's so interesting. I do work with a fair amount of reluctant sharers, for sure, and it's so difficult to do it on your own, because you're like, well, where do I start? And how do I know what's relevant? And it all feels relevant. It's all a part of me. And then maybe I'm not even thinking of the thing that's really going to connect. And so that is why story brand is helpful, because we think about our audience first. We're not thinking about ourselves first. We're the guides, not the heroes. And so when we're talking to our audience, we're thinking about how can we connect with them and what are they going through, and how can we show them that what we've lived and experience can help them where they are right now and guide them safely to the other side. And so that's really where we like to start, is who's your audience, who are you talking to and what are they experiencing right now, and how are you uniquely served to help them? And so when I interviewed you for my podcast, you shared a lot about your journey, and I think that is what makes you so uniquely special at what you do and helping your clients do these beautiful products that make their risk recipients feel really honored. And so it's all about keeping it human. Actually, my team and I were talking about AI this morning and using Chat GPT to create content. What does that look like? And we went through all these crazy prompts and we're doing these things. It still does not sound like a human wrote that. And I think people will see that and we really just want to connect with each other. Human beings want to feel seen and known and heard and loved. And thinking about sharing your story don't necessarily start with, well, what do I want to share? What will help someone when they hear it? It's interesting too, for LinkedIn, obviously, I do my own product and services that have my prospect, and a lot of times I will post those blog posts on there. The engagement wasn't as great as I wanted to. However, like you said, knowing the audience, knowing people who connect with me, knowing the followers, and maybe for the podcast, when I go to networking, when I go out doing things, going and about, if I take a picture of me in it, even if it's a bad picture, I don't like me in the picture, but people like it. People engage with that when we go off talking about something else. So I think knowing what people want to see, knowing your audience, and then kind of give them a little bit, maybe you don't want to share too much, right? But give them something that you know that they would like, then it creates a lot of engagement and interactions. Oh, for sure. Whenever we're doing month end analytics for our clients, for social accounts or email or things like that, whenever we're able to include actual team imagery, those posts just, there's no comparison. A product shot versus a human. Plus a product and a real human. Not obviously. If it's a stock photo, you got to do what you got to do. But if you can have real imagery, even if it's like you said, just something straight from a camera or your iPhone versus a branded photo shoot is better than nothing. I think it becomes a full time job. Like as a small business professional, I have to balance my time. I know that I've been encouraged to take lifestyle Photoshop for products that we offer to clients, but then I say, I don't really have the time. I have to pose when I'm drinking coffee with a logo mug or wear a t shirt going somewhere. I can't remember all of that sometimes. How would you say, and I wanted to ask you this to lead on to this question, the difference between marketing and PR. So obviously, for PR, we are showcasing our company of marketing. We are trying to convince people to do that. How would you balance that and what are the difference between the two? I'll answer this question first. So one way I really like to think about it and how I share it with clients and things like that is marketing is a function of sales. So we're trying to put butts and seats, we're trying to sell widgets or services. We're trying to affect that bottom line directly. You want to see that return on investment. You want it to correlate. You want to know what the conversion rate is and everything. PR is really more of a function of management and leadership. So we're doing PR activities and making announcements that are around, like mergers and acquisitions, or we're talking about an executive has come on board or things like that. And so that really doesn't necessarily directly affect your sales. It's not necessarily tied to a campaign. Now, you might have a campaign running, okay, we're going to launch this new pair of shoes. Well, PR has to be a part of that. And marketing and PR have to work very well together. I do not advocate for them being separate and siloed at all. I want there to be a very thin membrane between the two. I want everyone sharing assets and content, calendars and goals and visions and all that. But if you're launching a pair of shoes, you'll have your press launch news release about that. You're going to be pitching it to media, and then it's going to tie the ad campaign and so forth. So PR and marketing are working together in that instance, like I said earlier, there's plenty of activities in the PR realm that are casting a vision. They're telling the story of the business and saying, this is where we're going. This is what we believe in, this is what we're doing. Those don't necessarily directly impact the bottom line. It is a rising tide that lifts all boats and they're really important and set you up for exit one day, things like that, they're all good things to do, but when it comes to, oh, I have to have my ROI of X when I do PR. Well, it's not necessarily going to be direct there, but, yeah. So I like to think about it in those ways. We've done certain pr campaigns before where we've had really great assets from the marketing department, like great screen grabs and video and photography, and we've had really beautiful broadcast media results. I mean, it could have been an ad. So lovely running behind the reporter after they've done their story, it's like, okay, when you see it work really well together like that, that's when the magic is really happening. Yeah, I think you brought up really good point. For a company who are thinking about hiring an agency to do PR, what type of information can you provide to PR firm? You can't just ask them to represent me. And that's it. Information. The more detail going back to the storytelling. Right. I have to let you know, I'm six foot tall, and it's so kind of business. I design my hobbies. I think that you could let them have or access to support your effort, the better that they can do their job. Would you agree? Is it true for the storytelling and to really do a full blown pr effort? Yeah. The more information, the better. Someone once said, our desire for information will vastly exceed your desire to share it. And I've been parroting that ever since. You cannot give us enough. We'll take it all. And then it's our job to discern what makes sense to share. What do we need to hold back? Or is this relevant now? We help you decide which darlings to kill. And how does this fit in? Because we don't want to confuse anybody. We want to keep it super, crystal clear, very relevant. People are busy. Everyone's busy. We're all very distracted. We want to just be like, okay, what do I need to pay attention to? And then we want to draw them into a really well told story and excite them. What are your thinking process? Let's say someone gives you something that really ordinary. How do you uncover? How do you put on your writing cap? Now, I'm sure that you will think about millions of other ideas and interesting spin right onto what would normally be an ordinary story. How do you uncover to create newsworthy, to create shareable pr pieces for a company? There's always something. I really don't think I've ever interacted with a brand that had nothing going on beyond the ordinary. And I would imagine that if you're just competing on the absolute low cost and you don't really care like people are going to buy because they don't give a hoot, then you're probably not hiring me anyway. But most of the founders and teams we work with are so deeply passionate about what they do, and they may have direct competition, but there's something going on and we love to tell those stories. What do you love? What problems do you love solving? What do you love about your clients? Why did you start this in the first place? Very rarely do we have clients who are like, well, I just was trying to figure out a way to make some money, and that is certainly a wonderful way to live as well. But, yeah, we really work with passionate entrepreneurs and team members, and they have an idea of their vision, and we help them clarify that and crystallize that. Here's what's really possible. And then we help them tell that both internally and externally, and give them some great storytelling tools and language to use and help them move forward. I think one question, and let me know if you agree that the most frequently asked question, other than the price, is how long does it take? How long does it take to be pr, to be worthwhile? When can I go on to the Oprah show? Yeah. Boy, if I had that crystal ball. I think those are great dreams. And for some people, that's totally appropriate for a lot of people. Actually, for almost everyone. I want us to start local. How can we build a really strong foundation in your headquarters city and use that as a launch pad as you cast your vision further and further out, as you grow beyond that, there's local markets everywhere. So really thinking locally, even though it's a very digital world now, how long does it take? It depends. It really depends on the story. It depends on if you've ever done pr before. And by that I mean, have you ever told a story on purpose in a strategic way before? We've certainly had clients about whom stories have been told just because they're doing interesting things that people want to write about you or tell stories about you. A lot of times we have to kind of build some momentum for them. So we've had plenty of clients who, they come to us because they have a big news item to share, but they've never really done pr before, so we like to build that momentum. So what stories can we tell to prime that pump to start to create relationships with the media on their behalf and nurture them over a period of time so that by the time we're really ready to tell that big story, folks are familiar with their name in their inbox and they're actually ready to receive it. So it can take a few months. We try to work in at least three month sprints after we begin with the strategy and content phase to really set the stage for what we're doing. And then we implement in two to three month sprints, at least just so that we can set that expectation and it takes some time. We've had plenty of instances where the three month sprint is ending and we're like, well, oh, well. And then all of a sudden when someone's like, yes, I want to write this story about this flyer pitch you just sent me, like the Hail Mary at the end of the contract. And they're like, yes, this, this is what I want to do. And you're like, sounds good, let's go. If you're able to build the relationship with the media and then with your clients. So I think it's not a sprint, right? It's a marathon. Very much. If they expect some useful information from you, if the media are receiving good intel, right. You're helping the reporter by feeding them the right information so they know that next time they see an email from you, they know it's good stuff. So I'm sure that they have tons of emails every day, and also for your customer and client, they have tons of emails every day. Why would they want to open your email versus other hundreds of emails that they have? You have to build trust. Yeah, you make a great point there because our goal is to make our reporters lives as easy as possible because they're doing a bunch of jobs just like everybody else. It's a win for us if they just take the content we provide and share it directly with their readers or viewers because that means we did a good job, and then they can move on to something else that maybe takes a little more effort or sometimes will inspire them with great content. They're like, this story is so exciting. I really want to take my own crack at it, but yeah, just like I was sharing a minute ago about the story brand framework, the reporters are our heroes. What problems are they facing? How can we make their lives easier so that they can show up for their audiences and they can win the day, too. So really building a relationship of trust with them, being responsive to deadlines, making sure that they get exactly what they need when they need it, so they're not ever having to work really hard. We just want to be like, you barely have to lift a finger. We've got you. Let's help tell a great story. Yeah, thanks for sharing that. Let's talk about building a personal brand. Okay, so first of all, do you consider this as part of PR, or is it marketing or is it both? Probably a little bit of both. I would say it probably lends itself more to PR depending on what you're trying to do with that personal brand. But kind of like what we're doing right now. This is very much a part of PR. Podcasting is huge in the PR world right now, and I'm sure it will continue to be. Being known for something is very much a part of PR. And being able to say, you're the promo guy. That is your personal brand, and you've built up this body of work both with client relationships within your business and in the podcasting community as well. You are known for that. And then how you deliver on it makes sure that that brand is solid. So again, that's why we really like to work closely with the leadership, the marketing, so that anything we're putting out there that the company can actually deliver upon. Once someone has been like, oh, that sounds good, I want to try that. Who do you think should develop a personal brand? Is it just for the leadership team or is it just for the owner? And then what type of personal brand would you consider, and how far should one stay true to its own brand? Well, we should always stay true to our brand unless we're trying to know, upset the apple cart and go a different, you know, I feel like everybody has a personal brand. I once heard about the actor Jenna Fisher's book. I think it's something like the actor's life or something like that. And she talks about building a body of work for which you're known. And that's what we're all doing. We're all showing up every day. We're doing what we're saying we're going to do, and that's the basis of the personal brand. And then what we do beyond that, as far as promoting ourselves, even if that's just it, within your own company, as a team member on the rise, being known for something, whether you're the TikTok person or you're the accounts payable person or whatever, that's your personal brand. And so deciding where you're trying to take your life and your career and then working toward that with your actions and your words and your content, whether that's great written emails or presentations or LinkedIn posts or whatever it is, everyone has a personal brand, whether they are working at it or not. Do you think we should have multiple personal brands? The reason I want to ask this question is, love him or hate him, Arnold Schwarzenegger came over a new book, right? So you know him as the bodybuilder. He's also an actor, like or hate him, whatever, and he's also a politician. But when he steps onto different podcasts, different conversation, he will dive on to three different or sometimes more. He's also an entrepreneur with different personal brands. So do you think that for entrepreneur who, people like to say, I wear multiple hats to develop different personal brand and there are different strategy for distributing the method for each brand? Well, if you take Arnold Schwarzenegger as an example, those were sequential brands. They did not all come to be at the exact same time. He solidified his brand as, I guess, a bodybuilder, then an actor, and then I guess, a politician and entrepreneur. Those were all things that happened. And so I think if you try to be too many things at the same time without building one strength, then that can be extremely confusing. But we're all multidimensional human beings. In some circles, I'm known for being a book lover. In some circles I'm known for being, well, I used to be a competitive golfer. I love being a multidimensional person. We have to clarify for our audience who we are and then we can build upon it from there. But, yeah, you can have multiple brands. You want to be really secure in one before you go after another. I would say if people come to you in multi hobbies and expertise and you probably help them condense it to clarify, and maybe you are a golf loving entrepreneur who likes to read a lot of books, you will probably help them combine it together where it's more clear. And then when people listen to their story, okay, I can relate to this person, or I don't want to deal with this person. Do you think that's right or wrong for the story? Because I feel in this day of age that we want to try to include everything, and we don't want it to go into the niche. Right. We wanted to try to include everyone. Is there right or wrong? How would you say, should we just own a niche and be happy with it? Oh, man. This is my roman empire. I think a lot about this. You cannot be everything to everyone. You just can't. There's no amount of you that has enough for everyone. Be willing to focus somehow. You might be three things, but it's hard to communicate three things right away. If we're talking about top of the funnel type things, you really have to focus a little bit because people can only latch on to so much at a time because, again, we're scrolling and we're busy and blah, blah, blah. So if someone came to me and said, I'm a book loving, golf playing pr executive, brand me. It's like, okay, well, who are you trying to talk to? Because if you're talking to tennis loving cat people who, whatever, they don't care. So we have to make sure that what you're saying is connecting to your audience so you can certainly build that Persona and build that mystique and have it be uniquely yours. But again, we have to think about that audience, who we're talking to. It's not going to resonate with them. Then we have to start pulling out those red herons. We have to start pulling out those darlings and killing them. I like that. Have you done speed networking before, like chamber of commerce? I have, yeah. Not recently, but sure. It is short, right? So I think the last time that I've been to is like two minutes for each side. So for those of us who have not done before. So basically, it's kind of speed dating, but in business standpoint. So first, the other part is going to tell you what they do, and then when your turn, you tell them what you do and listening to your story. I have met a guy. He is a bookkeeper in the business world. He's also very fit. So he's also a personal trainer, and he also is handsome. He's also done some part time acting, and then he's trying to cram that all in, in two minutes. I was so overwhelmed at the end of the meeting, when we talk, I say, maybe you want to focus on one. Or like you said, lauren, he can relate more, maybe to the acting community. We all need bookkeeping somehow that he is focused on. Gyms need bookkeeping and then an actor who is also a bookkeeper. So I think it's finding the audience, knowing who you are. I think if you're going to people that you in first glance cannot relate to, you're going to have a hard time. But if you go to groups that you like to belong to and then somehow you could develop friendship and people are more in the same wavelength as you are. Because if trying to go to a community that you don't care or don't like, and it's hard. Yeah. If anybody's listening to this, I would love you to just like what you like and to go all in on that for us when it comes to niching down and, boy, we have beaten this horse. Actually, one of our core values is delightfully curious. And we are all deeply curious people on my team, and we all love stories. We love these passionate business owners. And to focus on one industry would be problematic for two reasons. One, we'd all die of boredom. We just couldn't do it. And then b, especially when it comes to PR. Well, who do we know when it comes time to say we picked accountants, for instance? Well, when it comes time to send sign to CPA today or what have you, which client do we then? Or if they call us and they need to. We need to talk to a CPA today, do I just pick my favorite know? And so for doesn't, that doesn't pass the ethic smell test. So I don't know if I'm just digging my head in the sand, but we have narrowed it down. It's more like a psychographic and demographic niche. So kind of where they are in their business journey and things like that and revenue wise and what they're looking to accomplish. That's how we've been able to narrow things down, to find a great fit for us as a service provider and make sure that the client is getting what they need. But, yeah, if you want to just focus on accountants and you love that, you should definitely do that. But if the idea of it is not working for you, then don't feel like you have to do something just because somebody said you did. I don't know why I'm still stuck at the acting. See, while you're talking, Lauren, you're like a casting agent in the acting world, so you know who you have, like your clients, and then you know who's looking for this type of talent. And then you do your job to know why this person is good for romantic movie and why this person is good for a martial art epic movie. I see that correlation. Right. You know, they're good. What they're capable of doing. And then you make the right pitch, you find the right fit for them. 100%. Yeah. When we get more generalist outlets calling, say like, hey, we've got an opening in the next edition. We need a column by an executive. And this is kind of what we're looking for. And I'm like, okay, well, here's who I've got. Here's kind of some things they could talk about. And they're like, oh yeah, I want to pick that one. But yeah, it's very much matching people with the right opportunity, whether it's a print piece or a podcast or what have you. Yeah, we're kind of thinking through, okay, is this a fit or not? And yeah, casting agents, a great correlation. Thank you, Lauren. So let's bring it all together. We talk about personal branding, we touch on PR, we talk about marketing a little bit. Obviously knowing who your target audience is a must if you want to start this journey for getting the right results, especially for a small business professional, because we have limited time, we obviously have limited resources. What would you suggest to get at least us moving forward and get some results that we want? You've got to have some stuff going on, having a great business, having things to talk about. I'm being kind of vague at the moment. I'll bring it home, I promise. But having a business that's really trucking along is helpful if you really want to get maximal results for when you're talking about PR. When we're really like, kind of your question earlier. If we're really sort of having to scrape the bottom of the barrel, trying to come up with something to talk about and you're new to the game and you haven't done something super big for the community or for your employees or your product or service isn't all that innovative, it's tough, and you're probably not going to get what you're looking for. You're better off really investing in your marketing tactics and strategies so that your business can grow and you're not relying on a pretty often squishy strategy. But once you do have business trucking along and you're really ready to get to that next level and boost things up, then yeah, having great assets, having some great photography, having some great video, because even if it's the newspaper, obviously they have an online version and social media and all that. So we want to give them some great visuals because we're visual creatures. You want to have a great story and told in a concise way that doesn't have all the kitchen sink. You don't want to have all the irrelevant details thrown at it. And you want to be able to pinpoint who's the right audience for that. So who'd be a great recipient for that? And then you need to figure out who is the reporter or editor or journalist that can convey the story to them. So you don't want to send business news to the crime reporter. You don't want to send entertainment news to the business desk. You laugh, but people just cast and blast. Like, well, I see you work for the paper, so I'm just going to send it to you. It's like, no, now I'm never going to read anything from you again because you're wasting my time. You clearly don't care about me at all. I mean, like I said earlier, all humans want to be seen, known, heard and loved. And so that feels like an act of disrespect. Like, you clearly don't care about me at all. You sent me this pitch that has nothing to do with me. Forget it. And then you need to follow up gently. You don't want to just be a bee in their bonnet, but like, hey, I sent this. Can I provide more information? Are you interested? Can I connect you with an interview? If you are successful, you need to make sure that you amplify those results. So don't just count on the podcast happening. Don't just count on the story being written. You need to then share it on your channels, on your website and your blog and your email and your social media. Like, a, that builds authority for you as the business that the third party entity wrote a story about you or shared a story about you, and then b, you help the content creator gain some more authority and relevance. And it's, it's click or die. They need all the clicks they can get to continue to create this content. So that's kind of the cycle of a PR arc there. Yeah, I think, Laurie, you touched on a lot of good points. And I think I asked this question kind of as a joke. Like, all of us want to go to Oprah or, I don't know, maybe go on the prime news, but start small. You mentioned local. I would even focus down if you have a particular industry that you're in, right. So maybe industry trade magazine, there's a ton of them. What I've done for my industry and promotional product is actually invite the editor from two different magazines to be on the show. Not to talk about me, to talk about them. So I'm building the goodwill and obviously they now know who I am and I make them look good. I prep for the question in the show. So maybe to build that relation, what can you do for them and not when you do the pitch and you do this for me and you do this for me with the greatest. They get thousands, if not hundreds of thousands pitch like that every year. Yeah. Even just if you read a story or see a story that someone has created, just saying like, this is a great story. I can tell you worked really hard on it. Congratulations. Thank you for sharing this. Do that a few times. Like, oh, yeah, swire is a great guy. He's just talking. He loves my stuff. They're putting their hearts and souls in this. And then one day, if you're like, hey, it's me. Got a story for you, they're like, absolutely. Yeah, that's actually funny you said that, Lauren. That's how I got connected with them. And they wrote a few blog posts. I comment on them. We got connected. They actually wrote a piece about me after we built the wish. And so I think it took me a good nine months to a year just to build the trust. And once they know us, they send me email and sometimes they want a quote, they will reach out to me. So it's not a one day sprint like you were mentioning. It's a long game. That's why it takes however long. It depends on your industry. Right. So there are industry that need quotes every single day, so you might get lucky. But maybe when we talk about the finance industry, it takes years for you to build that credibility. Sure, yeah. And I don't give that advice as someone to take that and be machiavellian about it. And just like I'm being very insincere, like, you want to be authentic. They can tell if you're not being authentic, obviously. So try to create a real relationship. You're not just doing it so that, hey, I'm telling you, you did a good job. So you'll write about me one day. I find you interesting, a person. I would like to connect with you and have a real relationship with you. Really? That's what we're doing at the end of the day. Yes, there's a result that we're looking for at the end of the rainbow, but we're not doing it just for the sake of that. We're really trying to create something that's meaningful for all of us. Lauren, I think it gets to the point that listeners will probably want to ask their specific question in their own industry. So for those of them who want to reach out to you, what would be the best way? Sure. Yes. You can check us out online. You can find us across all the channels and social media outlets at Queer Co. So Kwed as in David A-R-C o.com or at wherever you are. And then we've got some contact forms everywhere. Or you can send a note to hello@queedarco.com. I'll put all the show notes to connect with Lauren. And thank you so much for coming on to the show today. Thanks for having me. This is a lot of fun. Thank you for listening to the show. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to the podcast and share with your friends or colleagues who might benefit from the conversation. Any questions or feedback, feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn. I'd love to connect with you.

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